Vent Vert

Any perfume lover on the journey has heard of Vent Vert at some point, usually referenced as THE Galbanum Fragrance. Galbanum is not exactly an ideal note to put solitarily forward, a brutish punch of green with some strange woody-oily aspects, it's like the interesting misfit kid that is obsessed with nature and hugs the trees but punches you in the face if you carve them. Poison Ivy just before she became the mean, green, killing machine. I particularly love galbanum, give me a pretty green nose bleed, I don't mind, but Vent Vert is much more than a galbanum fragrance. It is masterfully abstract green and a tigerish, rude green. But in a good french way. It is feral galbanum as the queen of a barbaric grassy tribe doing a victory pow-wow dance over The Hulk overdosed in clorophyll. Leafy, breezy skirts swaddled by wind and floral crown headbands of the daintiest florals to celebrate her - frail lily-of-the-valley, a super gauzy iris, probably hyacinth- softens her image almost enough to romanticize her into an art noveau dryad, a lithograph of a pastoral goddess, fair hair gusted by the wind and that sort, a maiden form with a lot of movement to remind you that nature is an unstopabble living being but ironically pictured trapped in a spiderweb of vines, leaves and flower-spangled meadows --no one can escape nature, especially their own; nymphs in anarchy but contained by art form. The complexity scores high as with most of Cellier fragrances, I try to imagine her original composition with the legendary minibases inside the base, this is peeking at it with with its drapes of mesh-like green gauze intershaded with darker tonalities of spiky chunky wool. Sitting in one of those franchised coffee houses wearing Vent Vert in a bustling city makes me query of the urban life, I fall into a bucolicism extreme enough to question even the charming ones. No wonder some citadines have a fame for being grumpy when they have people like Germaine Cellier to remind them of Arcadia.

Some weeks ago I visited a little store which had plenty of perfumes from the past. They were gems unruined by the IFRA and among the others I bought a very vintage and perfectly preserved Vent Vert. Germaine Cellier is a perfumer whose talent has no equal in the perfume world. Far from being a monument like Jacques Guerlain or Edmond Roudnitska, she shares the same genius of both without enjoying the same status. If you look at her - certainly not many - creations you can see how her talent is multifaceted. Take Bandit and Fracas, at the opposite poles one from the other. Take Vent Vert, opening green and closing another hue that I would define dark saturated pink. Vent Vert opens taking you in a meadow full of grass, some cut, some full of those fantastic "herbes folles" as the French say, whose smell is a voyage in my childhood when I used to live in a happy countryside. Little by little you are transported to a town where the smell of grass is mixed with friendship, love, human warmth symbolized by the flowers that take the scene after the green. Here you are in the yellow phase. Then you are taken to someplace which is the city of your maturity, your work, your stable relationships, husband, sons, long life friends who have travelled all the way with you. And here you are in the final, deep pink phase, when your life is accomplished with every success, goals achieved, duties done. And Vent Vert has developed with you, step after step. More than a scent for me Vent Vert is a metaphor of life. A masterpiece.

Vintage Vent Vert by Balmain is as close to iconoclastic feminism as fragrance gets. On its release this searing, adventurous and uncompromising scent must have cut a swathe through not only smoked filled rooms but preconceptions of what a woman should smell like. It is a bracing bolt from the green. An amorphous, abstract yet geometric gesture in shamrock. To describe and dissect the principle notes or accord seems almost pointlessly reductive. It contains grasses, nettles, citrus leaf and moss but is not solely defined by any of them. Beyond this there is fruity acidity set off by softer florals that appear and then disappear repeatedly in the heart. Like the summer wind the name suggests. Chief amongst these floral elements is a hyacinth that retains a degree of hauter, the slight detachment of that note smudged by a friendlier lighter muguet. The base is another convergence of not only notes but tone, galbanum against amber, sandalwood and cedar, oakmoss and herbaceous border. The effect is entrancing yet at the same time a little alarming. Indeed, this is not a perfume with which the word comfortable can easily be associated. It is too urgent, too agitated, has a point to make even to the point of a certain cold aggression. I can’t help but adore it for its restless boundary-testing taut beauty. If Vent Vert were a painting it would be a cubist Picasso from his lost green period. ************ This is a concise version of the review, to read my full thoughts check out my blog theperfumeddandy.com

I fell for VENT VERT from the first moment I inhaled this incredible and gorgeous green spring scent. This is one of the best green scents I’ve ever tried. It smells just like a spring day after the rain. The scent captures the abundance of greenery, raindrops on a grass and fresh spring air. I am wearing it today on such a spring day and it is in complete harmony with the nature around me. It smells so natural but it is also complex and interesting. Unbelievable experience! The opening is green but not sharp or harsh. It is so harmonious that it is hard to discern the notes. I think I smell a bit of lime, a bit of herbs and orange blossom. I also thought that I smell galbanum but it is not listed, so perhaps it is asafoetida that adds this earthy touch. The symphony of spring continues with the gentle floral heart notes. They are still green but not sharp at all. I catch whiffs of lily of the valley, freesia and later on violets. The scent continues to be in a perfect harmony. The notes are so flawlessly weaved together that I cannot really say which one takes a lead but together they create this beautiful light and refreshing floral scent. The dry down is also a bit green. I mostly smell vetiver and sandalwood. This scent is beautiful from the beginning till the end. In my humble opinion it is a masterpiece among green scents and an absolute delight to wear. I am sure it could be worn anytime of the year but I think its true magic comes alive when it is worn in spring. Definitely recommend.

A review for both the present day version of Vent Vert (as of 2014) and the 1990 Calice Becker reformulation of the original 1947 vintage: I simultaneously bought both versions for a comparison, becoming recently enamored of vintage perfumes. The modern Vent Vert is completely incongruous to its name. It is no more of a green breeze than an old bag of potpourri. It is relentlessly floral, cheery, bland, overly sweet to my taste, and wouldn't you know, it has sillage and longevity for miles. Any initial green notes are at the very beginning and last for about 30 seconds. It's obvious Balmain continues to call this fragrance Vent Vert as mere name recognition marketing strategy. A real shame. I guess cheap floral aromachemicals are just too easy to use in perfume in these days of perfume quality downgrades. The 1990 vintage reformulation still has a really pretty green element to it. It does drift off into floraldom after about half an hour, but the initial burst of it is really nice, and it's something I enjoy wearing. Better than a lot of the modern day dreck out there. I did get a teeny sample of what might have been an original 1947 EDT version of this, but it faded so quickly on me. Tried to buy the actual perfume, but the vintage seller ran out of it before my purchase went through during a sale (or so they said!) One day it would be my dream to own a vintage bottle of the original perfume, sour and spicy and bitter, like biting into a fresh lime. I'll keep looking...sigh.