Emerald Green

Bitter digestif In many countries in Europe, we have a tradition of drinking some herbal liqueur served after a meal to aid digestion. Germans have Kräuterlikör, Swedes Brännvin, Poles have Żołądkowa Gorzka. Emerald Green is the olfactory equivalent of drinking a shot of it. It opens green, bitter and herbaceous and then gets substantially drier, woody and mossy. Some of its aspects remind me of the smell of a strong, cold black tea. Very assertive, cold and austere.

After reading the review below I don’t think I can compare! Needless to say that it has been months since I sampled this and I am just reviewing some notes and trying to catch up. I do remember wearing this and, while being unable to aptly break apart the notes, I can say that this is the one fragrance that is so perfectly named. I wasn’t sure if it was the power of suggestion or what, but EG did give me some kind of sense impression of the color green. The two biggest notes I got from this were cloves and artemesia but I am just not talented enough to break it apart any further from a sample. I don’t remember that it had much of a drydown that I could discern, either. It seemed to fade fast (at least with a couple of wearings). The maker of this compiled a set of gothic-like fragrances - seemingly dark and mysterious (or something like that) to which I purchased and tried this. A reluctant thumbs up!

Taste and olfaction are the strangest matters. Some of us like sweet tastes and smells, others – salty and I’m loosing my mind from the bitter ones, go guess why. They simply capture my attention and don’t let go, they call to come end enjoy. Wormwood, bitter almond, galbanum, marzipan, national bitters like Unicum and Jaegermeister, amaretto, gin and dry vermouth,- all herbs, ointments and healing balms. Carefully dosed bitters are benefical, but as with any medicine the effect is strictly dependent on the dose – bitters are wonderful poisons as well. Emerald Green as I see it is an example of perfect balance of healing and poisonous. Look at it as a remedy and you understand it could cure almost anything, seen as a poison – well it is absolutely easy to take. It opens with absinth, galbanum and violet leaves – fresh and bitter. And right after that the magic begins: all the time keeping strong relation with that bitter beginning, the perfume starts to get a bit warmer and sweeter, more resinous. Like wax melting, like pine resin on a hot day slowly flowing down, like honey gliding out of honeycomb. The sweetness is strictly measured, more like sweet resin which is not just plain sweet, seasoned with bitter almond it smells soft and refined. All this, slowly, one step at a time, turns into a drink, thick and strong (it doesn’t smell that strong, mind you, you just understand that drink is mellow and naturally aged – drink a little and you’ll fall asleep immediately), then it turns into resin saturated warm wood. All the time it retains soft glowing somewhere in the deep. Emerald green glowing? Yes, quite... Tiefer, tiefer. Irgendwo in der Tiefe Gibt es ein Licht. © (K.Bush The Ninth Wave)

If I wanted to describe Emerald Green in three words, it will certainly be Green Cold Bitterness. The fragrance focuses on three materials, galbanum, a green bitter material, wormwood, a herbal bitter material, and violet leaf, a cold vegetal material. The opening has prominent galbanum and wormwood notes along with a noticeable spicy touch from the cloves and hints of juniper. In the heart, I notice a fleshy floral accord with orange blossoms and lotus. The base has a prominent violet leaf with its cold crushed leaves-like aroma along with oakmoss and hints of vanilla.