Mammoth Fragrance Tonic

I was finally able to get my nose on this, and was surprised by the minty-ness of this fragrance. This really smells like fresh mint, wood, and citrus to me, despite this only having notes of sage, hay, cedar, and earth. To me this smells quite similar to Imaginary Authors' Mint Julep, which is a mint fragrance with tangerine, sugar, and musk. Very unexpected but pleasant, and this has much better sillage and longevity than the Imaginary Authors scent. I could imagine this being worn year round, but is ideal for daytime in the spring and summer in my opinion. Fresh, green, herbacious, yet slightly woody and bright; 7.5/10

I like this. Caswell Massey has done a good job capturing the summer scents of Yellowstone. I happen to have lived and worked in YNP for the last 20 years and was delighted to see a major frag company decided to make a perfume/cologne based on this area. I own all 5 and 4/5 of them are good to great. They are all wholly unique and unlike any other scents around. Mammoth really does recreate the great smells of the flora in the parks northern region, sans the buffalo poop, sulfer and car exhaust.

Spare yourself. Save your money. I didn't know what a tonic was, and Caswell Massey certainly doesn't tell you either. Actually that's not so. I have a tonique Parfums Nicolai made in the early 1980's called Cheverny and probably sold only in France, and that tonique lasts at least 6 hours on my skin. I didn't buy the Caswell Massey thinking I'd get 6 hours off it, but I was certainly hoping for at least 3 hours. Alas, no. Here's the text from Caswell Massey's Fall/Winter 2019 catalog, describing all their Yellowstone Forever fragrance tonics: "The Yellowstone Living Floral project was developed over six years, starting under a scientific research permit granted to International Flavors and Fragrances (IFF) in 2013 to study selected plant species unique to Yellowstone National Park. The collection features Living Floral Scents from five separate regions of the Park, each available in a 100ml Fragrance tonic and a 30ml Aroma-therapeutic Moisturizing Oil." These came out in the early fall, and rosequeen waited. I was a technical writer and I know something's up when writers leave out the part that really describes the product, while filling the text space with words that describe some esoteric science project the potential buyer's purchase will be funding. So I knew better, but I'm a sucker for those little bottle gift sets Caswell Massey has historically put together for Christmas and Mother's Day. And Caswell Massey had done so well with their Beatrix/Ros/LX48/Marem offerings of maybe 18 months ago, so I was unduly encouraged. But those were edps, not tonics. So when Caswell Massey put the cute little Yellowstone tonics out in 15ml sets, and gave me a 30% discount, rosequeen threw caution to the forewinds. And they're interesting scents. Each one presents a big blast of complex forest plants, which lasts all of 10 minutes. Honestly. 10 minutes. All 5 of them. I don't know if the "moisturizing oils" they also sell in the same scents would have lasted longer than the tonics, but they didn't come in cute little 15ml bottles; you have to spring for 30ml bottles at $42 each for one of them. Or maybe I should have sprung for the Ultrawild Rose Zephyr Oil Blend for $65; I certainly thought about it. But it too failed to commit itself to being something we recognize as a perfume. Bottom line: huge disappointment. I make fragrance blunders fairly often, but I blind buy a lot of perfume, and most of it turns out decent if not outstanding. I feel sorry for average Caswell Massey customers who buy maybe one bottle of perfume a year. Or don't wear perfume themselves (there are such people), and only buy a bottle occasionally for their Uncle Ralph or Aunt Myrtle at Christmas. Boy will they be ticked off when Uncle Ralph complains that he can't smell it, and all of this person's relatives guffaw around the Christmas tree at what a dumb gift he or she got him, "You blew all that money on a perfume to impress us, and you can't even smell it 10 minutes later." Ha ha ha ha.

Somewhat complex initially, but in the end, it makes me smell like nothing more than a plate of well-buttered french toast with plenty of cinnamon.

I really enjoy this one. It has the clean, simple herbaceous scent character of rain on greenery. It smells classic and modern all at once. It has the minimalist quality of a Escentric Molecules Molecule One. I don’t understand the marketing decision to call it a “fragrance tonic,” which to me connotes something of very low concentration—maybe even less than Eau de cologne. I bought this after I couldn’t stop obsessively sniffing a paper tester strip with it on it for four days solid. It has a clean, soapy, vetiver drydown that lasts many hours on clothes, days even. It’s rare for fragrance marketing to underpromise but overdeliver and it does so here.

I love Casswell-Massey's Living Floral concept, and the method they use for distilling a subset of their fragrance notes. Also adore that the Yellowstone scent lineup supports National Park Services. I believe I tried all of the Yellowstone scents, and this was one of three that I really enjoyed on initial trial (will add detail after another go).