Virēre

Looking at the notes, I fully expected to be bored by this. But what a surprise. There’s something so comforting and addictive about it that I can’t stop sniffing my arm. If you like tea fragrances but are starting to find them all smelling the same (Thé Yulong, Wulong Cha), you need to try this. It’s a greener, earthier take on tea. The tea and maté smell unsteeped, like pressing dried leaves straight to your nose. Great for citrus lovers who want something different, too. The bergamot gently sweetens the composition, while the maté, hay, and cedar keep it grounded and interesting. The opening is beautifully green, with galbanum giving it a crisp edge. The heart is just as good, though I wish the opening lasted a bit longer. I get why some compare it to a classic men’s cologne, but it doesn’t smell vintage to me at all. This feels like a modern take on that style. Really interesting. I already own too many citrus and tea fragrances, so I wasn’t sure whether to get this. But I’m honestly tempted to let a few bottles go just to make room for it. 8/10 ✨

Tried a tester in store today (kept secretly in the back, as this won’t be released for several more weeks apparently.) It’s such a chill, zen scent. I mostly get the tea, a faint touch of citrus, and hay. (I don’t get any of the supposed fig accord that the lovely salesman mentioned). Subtle and natural and, in my opinion, hard to dislike as it is so smooth and natural. I was expecting the performance to be underwhelming based on the scent profile, but I do keep getting nice wafts of it from just a spitz on my wrist. It’s the kind of scent I’d like to generously splash on, but the price point prohibits that! Funnily enough, after the twenty or thirty minute mark, I’m reminded of Elizabeth Arden Green Tea Lavender (the best Green Tea flanker imo). This one definitely has an aura of luxury about it, but the EA one is £9 for 100ml.

I made an account just to write a review on this, as I don’t agree with what everyone else is saying. To me, this perfume smells like the sexiest man I could conjure up in my brain. It’s green, masculine, peppery, and there’s some sort of masculine musk to it that smells like a very tall man with good hygiene that just finished working out. There’s also just a tiny hint of a cigarette note, which I haven’t seen anyone mention yet, which brings the fresh and green notes down to just the right amount of sluttiness to pull me in. This is by far the sexiest perfume I’ve ever enjoyed, and I think the best way to describe it would be that it smells like what I imagine Derek Hale would smell like. This perfume is Derek Hale.

The breeze off a 'green-glacier'! Bright, very fresh (like when you breathe in through your mouth whilst eating a mentholated lolly/candy), almost invigorating, but definitely green! When I first sprayed it on, I was instantly transported back in time 30 years ago to a holiday I had in New Zealand. Visiting the glaciers that come all the way down the mountains and into the thick, aromatic, verdant, lush, sub-tropical rainforest. The icy air swirling around glacier and forest, green and bracingly fresh. One sniff, and you're there.

Despite a number of less than flattering reviews I really like this one. I gave it a number of tries on my skin from different shops before buying. What really does it for me is the lush fig, green scent, so vegetal. I wanted a daily fig frag and I just love the idiosyncracies of Aesop's range.

Update: it came today! The opening smells a bit like weeds and grass to me, but then it dries down to a very pleasant tea/citrus blend. Exactly what i'd expect from Aesop in how high quality it smells. However, that also comes with a moderate sillage and moderate longevity.

A good addition to the Aesop collection with a new take of freshness and elegance. I think it reminds me of the Tacit fragrance, which is a green, fresh fragrance from Aesop. It also has a similar scent to MEMO's Eau de Memo, but is fresher and has more emphasis on tea.

Quiet, grassy, green tea, reminiscent of ELDO's You or Someone Like You.. Different approach from the house.. Skin fragrance with little silage, but you'll smell fresh and sophisticated. One of the better Aesop releases

I bought this on impulse, and damn does it smell good! but damn, the performance is pretty bad :(. still a good pick me up but i’m never paying $160USD for a 50 mL bottle for anything from Aesop again :3...

Just bought this one from a dude on ebay who somehow already has a box full of them intended for an Aesop store? Not even released yet so i'm pretty confused. Anyway review coming soon

mom's gift, thinking it'd be too floral for me, but it's just right peppery woody savoury smell that is simultaneously extremely light and airy angel of the north-facing cliffside

my forever go to scent clean, quiet and fresh. goes really well with every occasion. performace is poor but i love the drydown of this anyway lol

unique and unfor gettable for those who love zingy herbal and tea aromas.

Close enough, welcome back Drakkar Noir 😤🚨🚨!!️!!️

Virere is like stepping inside a painting of Monet's haystacks -- the ones tinged with twilight in the heat of late summer. Imagine bales of hay drying out and the rinds of citrus fruit curing in the sun. Wears very close to the skin, unisex but slightly masculine. Although Aesop describes this as an evocation of "a fragrant fig tree", I do not pick up the fig. This is not a fig fragrance like Diptyque's Philosykos or Le Labo's The Matcha. Instead, I get a heady rush of hay and clean citrus. Like with most Aesop fragrances, there is a "ceremonial" quality in the base notes.

Despite being branded as a "Woody Aromatic", there's a fecund, juniper-like quality to the top note which won't be for everyone. Could very well be the bergamot, but it's more reminiscent of rotting fruit. Green tea, pettigrain, and mate notes play well together, and I appreciate how the "green" accord here is more sharp and bitter which makes the fragrance more suitable for cooler evenings. Like most Aesop fragrances, projection is on the lower side and the juice fades into smoother, more generically aromatic skin scent after 2 hours or so.

Oh this is lovely! A clean tea scent that can be worn year round. At first I thought it reminded me of The Yulong by Armani and then it morphed to something that could be from Floraiku's tea catalog. Is it a run, you have to try this now fragrance? No. But definitely check it out at some point. Very appealing and I'm sure it'll get it's spotlight on the socials. 😉

Oooh this one is beautiful, fresh and rejuvenating. Brightly lit bergamot and calming green tea it's herbaceous and slightly grassy. Sitting under the tree with a cup of iced tea in your hands, simple, enjoyable, good to have every once in a while

it’s pleasant but really boring and forgettable, can’t imagine ever having the urge to buy a full bottle

Sort of if you captured the Green Knight and distilled his essence...

This smells like straight up TAJIN seasoning...

Reminds me of Ferre's Fougere Italiano.

sweet and simple. first and immediate reaction: citrus and fresh cut spring grass! then into something commercial, and generic, it gets sweet and mediocre. after the first impression has calmed down, it's not nearly as herbaceous as described by others. its profile communicates to be considerably cheaper and more commercial than what it is. i have yet to be positively surprised by any of the newest fragrances by aesop, they either smell like the sweat of an unwashed north african or so sweet and commercial it's like trying on some adidas-cologne. virēre is the latter. to me it's not a bad profile, it's just disappointing for what it is supposed to be. cute spring smell for teenagers – but i'm a man in my mid 30s and wearing this feels like i just forced on a crop top

Overall a pleasant, light tea scent with a bitter green note that comes and goes. It could do with some of the rich base notes of the rest of the collection, in my opinion. However, there's something really strange about this perfume. I currently have a blotter inside a paper bag, inside my backpack, and I can still smell it, even outdoors, on a windy day! At first I thought I was going crazy, but I just went back to the Aesop store and had an employee spray it on a blotter, and it's the same! It's not a strong scent, nor does it smell bad, but it's a little overwhelming. I can't wear a fragrance that has a note that I'm this sensitive to. So, just based on that, I would advise you to try it on first and wear it for a day, before buying it.

Virēre opens the very kind of green tea I was hoping for. Fresh, light, delicately bitter in that way that makes you feel like you’re about to have a great day. But then, barely a minute in, something creeps in, unexpected. Heat. Heat, like someone snuck sweet thai chilli into my cup. It’s tangy, sharp, a little too assertive, throwing off the whole balance. Pink pepper, maybe? Some rogue resinous note giving the illusion of spice? Whatever it is, I’m not a fan. That meditative sort of green in the opening lingers, but instead, relentlessly interrupted by something restless, fidgeting at the edges. This one is just not for me.

The Aesop sales lady painted a lovely picture (sitting under the orange tree on a summer evening sipping green tea) for me in the shop, but the with the first spray I immediately recognised a strong similarity to the original D&G Light Blue pour Homme (2007), and that's all I've smelt ever since. Pleasant enough for warmer weather, but not unique like most of other Aesop numbers.

I really enjoy the initial spray, deep green tea with a touch of citrus. However, I wasn't a fan of the drydown; it was very heavy on the hay.

Virēre ✽✽ To my nose, it smells exactly like Frederic Malle's French Lover layered with Bigarade Concentree.

All I get is "green boy cologne." Very commercial to my nose, as if I found myself in an American Eagle or Aeropostale in the 2010s and haphazardly stumbled onto their small collection of eau de toilettes. Other Aesop fragrances have a certain peculiarity to them that, at the very least, is enticing or unique in some capacity. There is nothing new or daring about this scent. Similar to the scent and story, the performance lacks. The scent is gone within no more than two hours, and doesn't really develop. Short and one-note. There are far, far more interesting scents at Aesop, and far, far more interesting scents in the world than this one.

The bitter hay + tea opening is nice. The pink pepper is detectable for a few minutes too. After this disappears at around 45 minutes, all that persists is a singular shower-gel cedar note which projects for a while, at least 3 hours or more. Strange and out of place release for Aesop. Rather disappointing.

Intense alcoholic smell. This smells like a cheap axe deodorant on me and immediately transforms me into a 15 year old boy in the 2000s on his way to hang out with his equally strongly smelling bros, ready to mingle with the strawberry-vanilla-coconut scented girls. Hard no :(

Initial spray was zingy citrusy green tea to me. Didn't pick up the fig notes as I hoped. As it dried down the bergamot came in with mellow peppery. It's a pleasant fragrance but it soon became the scent of Crowne Plaza and I'm like in the hotel lobby now.

I find this to be very traditional and mature. Smells like an older gentleman in a tweed blazer going to an old theater with dark red velvet and wood seats, to see a performance. A little department store cologne-esque.

I stopped by Aesop to try this on, and the sales associate was telling me all the notes and the whole spiel about sitting outside under an orange tree or something. Listen, I am all about the evocative imagery that scent can conjure up for you, but Mediterranean/orange tree/whatever they’re going for was so far away from my experience. I liked it alright on the blotter. But then he spritzed it on my wrists...and I was instantly transported back to the mall of my early 20’s, in the late ‘00’s...I was on break from my manager job at a Fierce-soaked Abercrombie, doing my regular break escape routine. Walk past the escalator, the Aldo, the accutane kiosk to enter Victoria’s Secret. Maybe browse the polyester teddys and push up bras. Definitely hit up the fragrances, my bright spot of every shift and the primary draw to the lacy, racy fluorescent pit that was VS. As I took in this new Aesop scent, I was not smelling whatever Mediterranean daydream Aesop was trying to convey. What I was smelling: Victoria’s Secret Very Sexy Now 2006, which I “tested” several times a week for the three months I worked at the worst job I’ve ever had. I can’t explain it. The notes are completely unaligned. The missions of these scents also, unaligned. But this is an uncanny memory bomb of my blood orange/tonka/nutmeg/vanilla/etc 21-year-old dreams. Thank you for the memories, Aesop. Love.

initial spray is quite heavy on the green tea, but equally sports a soft bergamot note. i can be a bit iffy on bergamot at times especially if it is employed in a overbearingly citrus-forward way. i think this is the perfect dosage. the fig takes a little while to come through and is quite subdued—but in typical fig fashion—adds a wonderful roundness to this scent. it's definitely more of the green variety rather than a creamy fig, however !! i was a little worried at first spray that this was too bright and green to be a fall (quickly approaching!!) scent, but after this settles on the skin it has a sort of every-season versatility to it that i think is true of the lion's share of aesop fragrances!! though i do think virere would perform particularly well in the transition periods between summer + fall, and spring + summer!! sillage is moderate for the first hour; in the dry-down it stays close to the skin and could probably be labeled as a skin scent for the remaining ~6 hours until it fades almost completely

A bright green perfume from Aēsop to rival their competitors' bestsellers like Thé Noir and Philosykos. Certainly a number of very trendy ingredients here, but the overall composition is actually surprisingly delicious and inviting - a complete 180 from the standard woody incense DNA that makes up 90% of their current fragrance line. I can imagine this will become quite popular, as its tart citrus cologne opening yields to an approachable and almost gourmand milky fig-forward heart (why is that not listed in the notes?) with accents of grassy matcha and traces of wet florals. Average performance, extremely easy to wear. When you see a zoomer on the streets of San Francisco fitted in head to toe earth-toned Ekkhaus Latta, this is what they will smell like.

This confused me. On paper I got a smooth, spa-like green tea with green notes and some citrus. On skin this turned into a bitter citrus (rind more than juice) with a bit of a sharp, sour quality. I really thought I’d like it based on the tester strip, and it was described as a “bergamot, fig, green tea” scent which is right up my alley. Unfortunately I mostly got dry, bitter green tea on the dry down instead of that spa-like watery green tea. It was still a really nice scent but doesn’t quite fit what I usually reach for. I liked it but not enough to buy a full bottle! I loved Tacit, Karst and Eidesis on the tester strips too so definitely will try those next time and hope for a better dry down!

I loved this scent when I first sampled it, immediately bought 2 bottles (one to gift). Similar to MasonReed's experience, after about a month it started smelling very commercial and unprovocative. It's not a bad scent by any means but as others have mentioned it does have a mall-like nostalgia to it, almost like the first time I smelled Dolce & Gabbana pour Homme passing through the Macys perfume section in 2012. The scent is somehow vaguely similar to LV Lovers, likely due to the galbanum and bergamot, but introduces a thick smokiness to the accord from the mate and hay notes. Overall a decent, masculine leaning scent that I think may be too earthy for some due to prominent hay note.

7/10 my first initial spray of this fragrance is that it is slightly masculine leaning with notes that can be found in a lot of men's colognes. Immediately found that this scent would be perfect for my boyfriend, brother or dad instead of me or my mom. the dry down is green, almost citrusy and fresh but nothing i would invest in. if you want to smell like a field full of grass with a hit of lime - this is for you.

Extremely similar to Thé Yulong from Armani Privé and Agua de Loewe. Feels like one of Aesop's most straightforward scents (no wildcard notes), but it has the same problem as most of their fresh fragrances which is poor longevity and performance. This becomes a very intimate skin scent after about 1-2 hours. All that being said, very pleasant citrus tea scent.

This is a beautiful green and slightly spicy fragrance. It has a lushness to it that makes me sniff my wrist all day. It certainly evokes visions of a leafy garden, and the petit grain smoothes it out. It's very unique, herbaceous, I love it. I'd say it lasts for about 4 hours then fades, wish it lasted just a bit longer.

A better version of Thé Yulong Giorgio Armani. Actually i'm happy because i liked The Yulong but something about it was slightly off, like the notes felt a little too unrealistic and become slightly chemical to me. This is like Yulong but with that, smells more natural and lasts longer.

This is intoxicating. I find myself constantly raising my wrist to sniff it throughout the day. It opens very fresh and green and throughout the day it gets warmer and that resin note gets sweeter and sweeter. Truly an underrated gem.

Do not be fooled by the first ten minutes when a green, figgy, tea-like blend of top notes lure you in. As this fragrance wears over time, it gets only less satisfying. The dry down is very mediocre and designer-like. What a shame.

This smells like a scent a rich, hip, wellness queen would wear while she’s in the dry sauna at her luxury gym wearing all alo and then driving home in her g-wagon. While there’s soft trance music playing in the background.

SA sold this one to me as fresh fig tea; alas, that made me disappointed as I got zero fruitiness and got smoky bitter galbanum-mate herbal drink instead.. Oh well..

This is super green, which I usually love, but it lacks balance. The fig come across as a little screechy and synthetic. Still quite nice, but just almost there.

I really loved it at first but after a month I realized it smells like the mall. I feel like this was an attempt at being mass appealing and it’s a flop for me

This is my go-to work cologne for spring/summer. It's clean, refreshing, zingy, and sophisticated. It could perhaps last longer but I honestly don't mind.

Lowkey wish I didn’t sell my employee comp, all the people comparing it to ambecrombie clouded my vision