Galbanum & Rain

I ́m beginning to have a serious addiction to avant garden collection from clean. They are a bit expensive but definetly worth it. I have tried the other Rain scents from clean...but this one is by far the best. Sweet, earthy, light summer rain. Wet Woody forrest notes. Starts off with water notes and dries down to sweet, woody greens and lovely galbanum. This is very comforting and dreamy. Uplifting an soothing and the same time. Longevity and silage are above average on my skin and clothes. So lovely... wonderful and different in a very plesant way.

Very good, but also kind of familiar. I'm guessing that the "watery effect" in the official note pyramid is, in fact, violet leaf. The first association for me was Narciso Rodriguez for Him EDT. Then I started to get more woody notes with a bit of incense and was therefore reminded of DSquared2 Intense He Wood. Both are heavy on the violet leaf, which gives off this wet and damp, slightly sour impression. But it seems that Galbanum & Rain doesn't have the artificial "chemical" sourness that I got from Intense He Wood.

Love this fragrance, one of my favorites. Definitely something that anyone can wear, truly unisex. A nice alternative for those who don't want the sweet fragrances that seem to be the all the rage lately. Faintly floral, but mostly woody/mossy and clean with a hint of incense. Impressive sillage and longevity.

This is heaven for clean scent lovers. It is literally the smell of a dark, rainy day in a forest. Galbanum is really lovely in this one and makes it unisex. You clearly need to love moss notes to love this one. Very gentle and pleasant, but with excellent sillage and longevity.

Wonderful fresh opening with the patchouli adding just the slightest amount of sweetness to fool my nose into wondering if there is some light fruit hidden somewhere in there. This initial sweetness, however, quickly gives way to a delightful blend of wet green and woody notes. It indeed conjures up images of walking through the countryside, passing green pastures and going by patches of forest right after a heavy rain. It's really really well done. The dry-down is heavy on the moss and vetiver, but kept at a very fresh level via the "water notes" - whatever those are. Btw. is it just me, or does the prominent moss give it a bit of a 70s retro vibe? It just reminds me a bit of some products my mom would use when I was a kid. Sillage is arm length on me. Longevity is very decent. At least inside in the AC it lasts a whole day. Personally I find this to be perfectly unisex, and I'm someone who usually gravitates towards so called 'girly' fragrances. There's nothing too harsh in it to make it smell too male or cologne-y to me. The vetiver in here is very pleasing and mild. I would absolutely wear this. Now, would I spend that kind of money on it? Probably not. But that's just cause at the end of the day it's not completely up my alley. It's very nice alright, it just doesn't knock me off my feet. But that's just me, I can see this being someone's favorite, absolutely. Bottom line, it's a well-blended lovely high-quality fragrance. Maybe not ground-breaking, but definitely quite lovely. At this price tag, however, testing before buying is a must.

As much as I'd like to, I unfortunately do not tend to enjoy Clean Reserve fragrances. Their most famous "Warm Skin" (or something close) smells like fresh warm vomit to me & I found their original "Rain" fragrance to be watery and bland. I went with this one because I assumed it would be a showcase of galbanum & they couldn't miss on creating an inexpensive & non-toxic vegan fragrance I could use for layering purposes. I wasn't completely wrong & like it well enough. However, I could do without all the additional spices & patchouli, which do absolutely nothing to enhance the rain/petrichor aspect & make this overall far less versatile & wearable. I slightly prefer the original Rain for this reason. I'll struggle to use this for light layering. Liking it right now w/ Ormande Woman

I'm sure this is just my funky skin chemistry, which makes many fragrances diverge from their intended notes, but this smells like straight up celery on me. I get that celery is watery and it is definitely the galbanum, not the rain component, that is responsible for this. However, the effect is like taking a deep whiff of celery seeds right out of your spice cupboard. I was hoping it would dry down to something wearable, but the celery seed smell persists. I have Clean's Rain fragrance, and it doesn't do this to me at all, so again perhaps that's just how galbanum works on my skin. Nevertheless, I highly recommend testing before buying just in case you have the same reaction as I did.

I had high hopes for the Avant Garden collection since I've found previous Clean Reserve offerings to be pleasant but overly "clean". This is a bit of a letdown. It's woody-aquatic with some sweet green notes, but it smells like a go-to office scent for a well-groomed man. I gravitate to woody, incensy unisex scents and own quite a few fragrances geared towards men, so it's odd for me to find this too masculine, but maybe what I dislike is the work appropriateness of this particular masculine scent. It's not a bad scent. But for me it's too buttoned up and functional to warrant the luxury price tag or the designation as "avant" anything.

Did a blind buy from a thrift store no less, full bottle - $15.00 ! Good deal. Ironic that it was an overcast day as well. I have nothing more to add but you gotta like oak moss (which I though the IFRA banned a few years ago, no ?) , vetiver and general "greenery". Personally, I would have liked a little "sweetness" in there -- but , I guess that's not the point. In my opinion , the opening smells nicer than the dry down.

I'm not sure if it's because I compare everything to food, or I'm not familiar with galbanum, but this smells like fresh pickling brine on me. This perfume is long lasting and the scent doesn't change much over time, but it only takes a few minutes to make pickles or to eat one, so I'm left wondering how long I want to smell this way.