Bergamoss

This is the one that taught me to better understand and love chypre. As a young fan of vintage classics such as Ma Griffe and No.19, chypres had always intrigued but confused me. My child nose welcomed such Orientals as Tabu and Shalimar but didn't quite get what chypres were trying to do. In addition to Schopenhauer's well-phrased description (especially about Bergamoss as a pocket imp), the quality that most impressed was the almost buttery smoothness. Something about the refined, easy ride helped me get the appeal of this fragrance group. (Though this one may be mislabeled as a floral. Fruit yes, flowers no.) The only place I differ with the previous reviewer is in finding Bergamoss to be a quite refreshingly modern take on chypre, even a reinvention. Tangy, but not sweet, it would be lovely on any gender. Like several others of Aftelier's collection, this isn't a bland forgettable scent. At the time I reviewed, the votes were almost split between those who loved and hated it, advantage to "love," but almost no one neutral. Unlike quite a few other perfume collections, her work has real variety, so hating one doesn't mean you won't love another. And you will learn here. (Secret Garden, the first I've bought fb, was quite a unique perfume experience, especially in spray form.) Bergamoss is a sunshiny scent, dappled glades, cool shadows under the green. Really, smelling it just makes me smile.

When I received these samples, Mandy asked me if I would like to try a solid. I told her that I’d only tried the solid perfumes from Lush, but that I would gladly review anything she wanted to graciously send me. When I saw that she sent me one of her solid perfumes, I was interested to see how it performed, and how it compares to regular spray perfumes. The top notes in Bergamoss are: bergamot and wild sweet orange. The middle notes are peach, citronellol, and nutmeg absolute. The base notes are oakmoss, flouve absolute, coumarin, and antique civet. As you might expect from its name, on first application, Bergamoss gives you a heady dose of bergamot, like putting your nose straight into a bag of fresh Earl Grey tea. As it dries down, it becomes greener and more earthy, hinting at a chypre cologne from the early twentieth-century. The green moss in the middle and base sustains the smell through the end. This is a lovely marriage of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed bergamot, always sure to awaken and invigorate, the warm depth of oakmoss and the ultra-subtle hay-like herbaceousness of flouve absolute. I think scents like this perform at their best in warmer weather, as much like the classical cologne, they tend to wear closer to the body. I’ve found that solids tend to be worn for the wearer alone. Whenever the wind blows just the right way, you’ll catch it coming off your skin, but not even those close to you will usually notice it. In a world full of perfume “beasts,” some of us occasionally minding our own scented selves from time to time. This is that little green wood sylph of a perfume that you can keep in your purse or pocket and discreetly apply whenever you’re feeling appropriately impish.

Sweet grass crushed beneath wriggling toes burrowing into honeyed earth, the loamy green must of spring's waking breath, Neko Case singing "maybe sparrow" plaintive at dawn in a golden grain of light-fall, wildflower valleys thrumming with moss, burnished dew pearling, sun-soaked syrup suspended, on unfurling ferns.