Eau Parfumee au The Vert

I needed to spend more than just a word for this other masterpiece, creation of one of the best Master perfumers in the whole world. When this fragrance was launched, there weren't many tea-centred fragrances around. I cannot recall one to be honest. Needless to say, that summer Bvlgari took the market by storm and in Italy every woman literally showered in it - quite understandably I'd dare say. We have some 40C+ days that roast us in Italy, some years as early as June. For those that have not yet visited Italy, during summer one would think to have landed by mistake in Africa or India: it is that hot. In case you plan to go, know that if you don't like roasting heat and humidity you gotta either go to the seaside to spend the whole vacation in the waters, or visit early May - late September. Not kidding: the heat and humidity will otherwise have your blood pressure fall below the ground. This fantastic number provides a blast of uplifting freshness, the bergamot a punch of energy that well counter matches the scorcing light, and temperatures. It has an incredible balance, with a bitter kick from the tea, definitely green. Fairly, I cannot say I did detect the other notes, other than some ghostly light floral and lemon whiff. My first bottle was purchased therefore during a record hot summer, just right before I took a sailing trip. It marked olfactorily quite possibly my best summer ever. On the boat, we took off from Piombino heading to Isola d'Elba, and from there we intended to reach Ajaccio, passing the "bocche di Bonifacio" on return. What can I say: sailing burns your skin, because the splashes of salty water reach as high as the deck where one would stand, and both wind and sun take part in eroding every inch of uncovered skin, slowly as implacably. After 15 hours with the wind whooshing in your ears and the sun heating your skull under the hat, this eau "parfumee" provided a much desired rest from the suffering, keeping me sane though on the balance of a heat stroke! Its calming and envigorating notes had me and our skipper working happily the whole night shift, whilst everyone else slept :) Worth to note that eau "perfumee" translates in Italian as acqua profumata, which means cologne. So goes by itself that it never had the lasting power of a parfum, but boys, what a kick for a few hours! When I sprayed it, the whole crew, also those very far from me, would smell it despite the wind. And loved it! Back to the olfactive memory this fragrance left me with, it was not just related to the fantastic combo of notes. That night, I saw half the sky as if being pulled down on one side of the horizon, whilst the daylight arose from the other. It was surreal to see stars and a sickle moon on my right, falling over the edge of the horizon, and the sun with golden pink and orange colours coming up on my left. The most incredible thing ever, until hundreds - and I mean it - of dolphins approached very silently our boat, which by now was gliding as silent on calm waters some 1 hour away from the coast. Magical, and in all that magic I had up my nostrils the salt of the air, the heat coming stronger by the minute on my arms, and this magnificent scent emanating gently off my tired skin. I cannot fail Bvlgari for having decided to produce this just as a cologne. Dreams cannot and should not last forever: their ephemeral nature is what makes them more beautiful than reality, and the memory of them and their possile return is what enriches us eternally. This is how I feel about Eau perfumee au The' vert. I seek it to bring back one of the most intense and beautiful day of my whole life. Thanks Monsieur Jean-Claude Ellena for succeeding in bringing to life my perfect Midsummer Night's Dream! For me, worth a blind buy no doubt about it.

Bvlgari Au Thé Vert is the most multifaceted fragrance I own and my favourite by far. It's hard to stop myself waxing lyrical about this fragrance: to me, it's like a bell ringing in a forest clearing, or a ripple of water in a clear pond. The green tea accord, white florals, and powdery notes supply a clean, deep, backdrop (like still air or calm water), then the citrus notes and spices enter with their gentle reverberations. The spices are present but never overwhelm: coriander and cardamom add savouriness and depth, and I can also detect the earthiness of cumin. During the first month of wearing it I did get the mosquito coil / DEET association other reviewers have made, but thankfully this faded – either my nose adjusted or the fragrance developed with time. And if this smells like bathroom products, it's only the ones from the most luxurious 5-star hotel you'd ever hope to stay at. I understand the comparisons to Elizabeth Arden's Green Tea but Au Thé Vert is miles ahead in terms of complexity and overall quality, and less "juicy". Armani's Thé Yulong comes close but substitutes the spices for subtle smokiness. The design of the bottle with its frosted glass and heavy cap shaped like a stopper is also beautiful, and creates a very fine spray, although I wish the label wasn't paper so it didn't wear away. Sillage is minimal even after spritzing myself with it generously. Longevity is weak to moderate, fading within an hour of wear, although I can smell it on my skin when I jump in the shower at the end of the day. I'd love for it to last longer but it also seems fitting for it to linger only a little longer than the time it takes to savour a cup of freshly brewed tea.

I bet someone who hates perfume, would love this. It ́s the least perfume like perfume I have ever smelled, and that is not a bad thing at all, but it ́s the best way to describe it. It reminds me of a very luxurious face mask I used once, cant remember which one though, but it was a very herbal clay mask. It truly smells like a spa, deep in nature full of trees and plants by a hot spring and a waterfall, all natural and very clean (but without the clean girl aesthetic kind of clean, this is not a musky mess). It ́s serene and divine, it takes your mind somewhere else, it ́s meditative without smelling hippie dippie or incense like, and thank god no patchouli or camphor. It ́s not feminine, not masculine, but truly unisex, not warm not cold, just neutral and it just IS. Not anything you ́d wear doing random stuff like work or running errands, this is what you ́d wear after a challenging day, taking a warm shower and then putting this on to comfort yourself before going to bed. It ́s an aroma therapeutic experience you give yourself. It took me a long time to find a vintage bottle secondhand, it didn ́t come cheap, so it ́s a shame it ́s so mild and longevity leaves something to be desired. But maybe that ́s what makes it beautiful, it really is a perfume just for you, and no one else around you, to better your mood, for days where you need comfort and silence. I ́m saving it for those days as it ́s perfect for that. I wonder why they reformulated it to have so little notes in the new version, it ́s a shame, because this is truly beautiful.

This is my first try Bvlgari Eau Parfumee Au The Vert, a 1992 release that I was previously unfamiliar with, a highly pleasant, fresh, well-blended assortment of citruses, florals, woods, and spices. Citruses mix with cardamom and coriander over lily of the valley and a prominent green tea note, drying down to tonka and beeswax to sort of add a powdery, creamy aspect. The green tea (and a greenish vetiver-type experience) are the most significant aspects of the fragrance, but it’s a great example of a blend put together by a master (in this case, Jean-Claude Ellena) of concealing specific notes in favor of a cohesive blend, creating something new out of different parts that doesn’t smell much like any of the constituent parts, with the notable exception of green tea, after which the fragrance is named. Overall, I love it, a classy freshie with a lot of quirks wrapped up into a pleasant unisex experience, and a use of green tea that is not particularly heavy-handed, but rather, restrained in concert with a lovely varied ensemble of citruses, spices, and florals, inoffensive but inarguably quite nice. Its concentration is eau de cologne and fittingly, its performance is decent but not great, yet it still makes an impression after a robust opening into a mellow dry down. Retail pricing is $115 for 75ml, but it can be found for $76 for 75ml on FragranceNet, a very reasonable deal for such a classy perfume. 8 out of 10

This was the first perfume I ever loved. My childhood friend gave me a sample of this when we were 14. I had been living on a boat for 4 years and it just reminds me of this very weird time in my life when I was in between transitioning from living on a boat and traveling and being homeschooled and very feeling very isolated and anxious a lot of the time, to living on land and the culture shock that went with that. I went to visit them (the friend) when we got back to the states but weren't yet living in a house. They showed me so much new music and they did my makeup and we ran around their neighborhood in pretty dresses climbing trees and during that period of time I experienced a feeling of yearning like I'd never felt before or since. I was 14 and I just wanted to be an American girl and fit in, and they had all these things that I wanted but didn't need. I felt at once like I was home and that I was an outsider looking in on a life that I had already missed out on in some way. I know now that the person I wanted to be then doesn't really exist. I know that my friend faced hardships that I can't even imagine in the years to follow. My friend and I have grown apart, we don't really talk anymore. But I cherished the little sample they gave me for years, until this month when I finally got a full bottle. Scent memory is a crazy thing.