Folkestone Green

The opening was heavy on the bitter/sour Cassis notes, then after fully drying down, it’s VERY mossy – definitely reminiscent of a fictional, forest-y scent. Something in this formula does perform very powdery (maybe the sandalwood) but when paired with the oakmoss it just reinforces the forest vibes. I’d say the first few hours had me picturing a dark forest from a fantasy novel where the trees block out most of the sun and lichen just hangs down from the branches. It’s not a realistic forest scent but it evokes that picture. About half a day in, I started getting more and more jasmine notes, but I’m not sure if they work well with the powdery leaning moss and sandalwood. The white floral brings the smell closer to ‘scented cat litter’ rather than anything earthy or woody (specifically it smells exactly like Fresh Step with Gain). I never got any hint of ylang-ylang which is unfortunate because I think the brighter citrus would have made the jasmine addition more palpable. Not the worst a perfume could smell, but not anything I would wear again personally. Projection isn’t insane but it’s also not faint, and you can easily get a full 8-10 hours of wear out of this perfume without needing to re-spray.

This perfume was a wild ride that I was not expecting. When I first smelled it, all I could think was “green”. Then after a few minutes, I sniffed again and had flashes of a very old memory of visiting my great grandmother in the nursing home. There was something very medicinal, I’m not sure if it was the fennel or the ylang ylang, but it was almost moth ball-y as well. The longer I wore this, the more it started to smell like BO. I don’t say that as a negative thing though, it was the type of body odor smell that you’d have from working outside in a garden, like if you had on cucumber melon deodorant but some of the body odor came through, still fresh but a little salty. I actually preferred this to how it smells when you first wear it. After wearing this for a while, it kind of swings back and forth between a soft, clean woodsy smell with that hint of BO, and just straight grass and BO. This is a beautiful fragrance as an art piece (to me) but definitely not something I would wear out.

Folkestone Green isn’t particularly a perfume I’d wear, but it conjures up the scent of the English countryside wonderfully. This really smells like you’re going for a walk through fields and forestry. The grass note is very pronounced. I actually think this perfume would blend well with a very simple floral scent, to evoke any flowers you’d come across on a springtime walk. This is well worth sampling, and I’m keen to check out what else Foras has to offer.