Vetiverissimo

I've been testing this one for a few days. It's a simple and very pleasant vetiver that bears Bruno's inimitable stylistic signature. It's relaxed, comfortable, and could easily be worn for either casual or formal occasions. I also think this is wearable in any season. The vetiver here is recognizable from Lampblack, but without all the other ingredients that make that fragrance so inky and sooty. (And no grapefruit, either.) This is comparatively stripped down, but since the odor profile of quality vetiver is so nuanced and complex, it's still intriguing and satisfying, not simplistic. On my first wear, the opening immediately reminded me strongly of Lampblack; it struck me as a dirty, earthy, and rooty vetiver. On my second wear I experienced a gestalt flip, and it struck me as wet, dark green and a bit grassy. There are other notes in a supporting accord here -- the vaguely listed "spices, woods and resins" -- but to my unsophisticated nose nothing specific is identifiable other than perhaps a bit of clove. I do not detect any cedar, honestly. At any rate, the supporting accord fades away somewhat more rapidly than the vetiver. Overall longevity has been maybe 6-8 hours. This is not a loud fragrance, but it projects decently for a couple of hours. On my test wearings so far, there has been no smoke a la Sycomore or Encre Noire. OTOH, when I washed my hands with a rose-scented soap, the combination of Vetiverissimo on my wrist with the rose on my hand somehow seemed to generate some smoky hints, and it reminded me strongly of Le Labo Rose 31. Vetiverissimo is a great candidate for layering with other fragrances, for those who are into that. FIVE remains my favorite Fazzolari fragrance, but Vetiverissimo is excellent. It doesn't try to do anything wild or groundbreakingly avant garde; it is just simple, comfortable, and satisfying to wear.

I don't know why I'm even doing this. For those of you who don't know, I have spinal muscle atrophy. It is in advanced stage, so I cannot move my arms. I use voice control for all of my reviews and essentially everything else. But for some reason, it is not working very well today! It's going to take me an incredibly long time to write this review. However, my dilemma is this: I have nothing else to do. Lol I think I'm ready to say it. This is my favorite Vetiver. Nice job! It was the intention of the perfumer to create what he considers the best overall vetiver around. I think he achieved that. There is nothing overly complicated going on here. There is only a small amount of cedar and some other resins and spices. Nothing to name specifically. This is all to let the vetiver shine. And shine it does! I don't see the source, but to me it smells like vetiver from Bourbon. Haitian perhaps. It is clean, fresh and almost citrusy. It is not dry or smoky, so that lets me know it is not a japanese origin or something similar. I'm sure there is a mixture throughout the overall composition, but on skin, it sits clean, bright and aromatic. And it does last all day! That's my favorite thing about it. It does not require a re-spray. It's very high-quality. A little goes a long way. Yes it does only come in 30 mL, but that is more than enough to last you a long time. Remember, that also makes the price rather fair. It may not be the most intellectually stimulating fragrance, but it is enough for someone like me to be satisfied. This fragrance is not one of those mass market pieces of trash. This does have a spirit to it. That comes from the creator himself. I think anything Bruno does has something special about it. And I think that special is him.

It took five wears before Vetiverissimo clicked. I came to it with a preconceived set of expectations, unfairly using Universal Flowering's Daddy - a damp, shroomy, decaying vetiver - as my primary frame of reference. My nose didn't quite know what to make of it at first. But then I heard Emma Vernon mention a clay note on Perfume Room, and suddenly it all fell into place. This isn't a damp forest-floor vetiver. It's a dry desert vetiver, like the scent of sun-baked earth in the long buildup to monsoon season. On the surface it seems simple, maybe even one-note, but there's a lot going on underneath. Flashes of subtle spice and resin add texture and dimension without ever pulling focus from the vetiver itself. The composition feels carefully considered. I'd wear this year-round, but feel like it will shine it summer heat. It's so weightless, almost effervescent (if a wood can be effervescent) and it feels perfectly suited to - really native to - my new home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. In fact, this is the scent I've chosen to commemorate that move! Smells like: Bruno Fazzolari's Tucson studio Looks like: Desert clay spinning on a potter's wheel Sounds like: Praying for rain

Over the course of about a year now I’ve really started to branch out and explore new perfume houses. I’ve bought up a ton of discovery kits and inevitably they always have a vetiver focused scent. Every single time I am left either unimpressed or scrunching my nose at the paper stick but I try them on my skin regardless in the hopes that maybe they’ll impress later on. So when I blasted my wrist with Vetiverissimo and the other with Memo’s Irish Leather I fully expected to just ignore this and enjoy what Irish Leather had to offer. After about five minutes from leaving my house into the grey cold overcast day I am repeatedly sniffing Vetiverissimo. Irish who? I am absolutely HOOKED on this. As many have stated it smells like clean dirt, and it reminds me of wandering around a greenhouse nursery. There’s dirt, there’s woods, there’s a beautiful green and an ever so subtle sweetness. I had no absolutely zero faith that I would ever like vetiver but this is so gorgeous. I am so glad I gave this a chance because it’s a complete reversal from what I initially wrote off as just another vetiver.

I’d echo a lot of what’s being said here: a nice clean, woody Vetiver. Very reminiscent of the lovely Vetiver original from Guerlain, were they to scrape out the citrus and replace the tobacco with clean white woods(cedar, sandal). The ingredients here are much higher quality than the current iteration of Guerlain’s Vetiver and it is a bit darker, though not as funereal and scratchy as Encre Noir(another favorite), even if there is a BIT of ISO-e type synth wood in here, and even so it is incredibly subtle, lending only a shear lift to the woody aspects of the scent. Overall it is neck and neck between this and Heeley’s excellent Vetiver Veritas... I find the Heeley slightly more true to the material of Vetiver, though as such, it cycles through some less pleasant phases (menthol, smoky and earthy, respectively) on its journey around the nice soft grass note that anchors both of these fragrances. Overall, I’d say this is the most wearable, gentle Vetiver reference of the current niche.