Ukiyo-E

This is one is a unique, ethereal green tea rendition that focuses on the genmaicha variety. It's a very green (obviously) scent which has a lightweight and airy nature, that is lifted up with an aldehyde puff of powdered sweetness. It never ends up going too green or bitter, too dry and powdery or too sweet and sickly. I find it very well balanced altogether and it seems to work well with my skin chemistry and lastson me then some other people who have reviewed it have experienced. It's by no means a a weak scent, it isn't watery and skinny, but it isn't super solid or strong either. It feels just as it should be and I like this softer and lighter approach with this one , It works well for the notes it utilises that way. It opens with a powdery matcha and the toasted rice scent you get in genmaicha, which it captures perfectly, along with a bright citrus note. It then turns floral with the cherry blossom, whilst keeping this very fresh and powdery tone to it. It feels clean, like you've just indulged in a bubble bath whilst drinking green tea. The skin scent it leaves is extremely beautiful and feminine, sweetly powdered and just a little bit green and soapy. I love this one!

Fragrance in three words: Bitter green tea This is a good fragrance, but it's not what I expected. I was hoping for an uplifting summer green tea, this one is really melancholy. Imagine drinking bitter green tea on a pagoda while buildings are being demolished around you. Starts with a really strong naturally bitter green tea leaf, almost pine needles. Has slightly pissy Yuzu notes and a cooked stagnant rice which is almost like unsweetened popcorn. I've noticed heather is in the base. I thought it was violet. It is a dominant note and runs through it taking the bitterness off slightly by adding a purple flower note. I would class this as unisex leaning towards the feminine side. The sillage is quite big due to Iso-e, but it's not a shouty scent. It's experimental and weird, but we need perfumers to take risks or we just end up with opponox office fragrances. 7.5 out of 10

Ukiyo-e is so effortlessly beautiful ! I expected it to be a bitter, green genmaicha scent, but instead I was greeted with a very sweet, buttery popcorn with a tinge of caramel. After a few minutes, the tea comes in, accompanied by the clean, fresh cherry blossom. It’s so feminine, so well rounded, so beautiful that I am surprised some think it’s more of a masculine scent. It’s on the very edge of gourmand territory, and imo is perfect for any season and any setting, as it is not an overwhelming scent, more of a soft cloud around you.

All of Gri Gri perfumes are inspired by some tattoo technique. In Ukiyo-E it’s colorful outlaw Yakuza carps and dragons (originally dating back to absolutely legitimate Samurai tattoo patterns). The perfume is a woody herbaceous formula with lots of olfactory references to Japan: from genmaicha (green tea with caramel smelling popped-rice) to colorful blossom of the exotic dalphne and ashibi trees. In a way Ukiyo-E is a wabi-sabi fougere.

Hints of reeds from the tatami you sit on. The trees outside in full spring bloom perfume the breeze with clean, light florals. In front of you steams a cup of tea, roasted and green along with a bowl of rice seasoned with ponzu. You meditate on the meaning of spring as you prepare to eat. Complex and foodie but not cloying. Different from most citrus scents being warm and cozy rather than sharp and acidic. Decent longevity and sillage.

I like the aldehydic nature of this one. It is an utterly pleasant skin scent, yet with very weak performance on my skin, unfortunately - after literally an hour there's no trace of it.

Completely mad and weirdly compelling. Opening burst is literally hot cereal grain - rice, wheat or barley being toasted in a pan, though that could smell to some people more like old popcorn - with a delicious caramelized sugar aroma humming away underneath. Ok, I am a plebeian rather than a gourmet, but to me this phase also strangely conjured the smell of wet Rice Krispies (no milk), rather than of some high-end Japanese dish. There's the tiniest tinge of tea, but it's slightly elbowed aside by that rich, starchy grain. This enigmatic stage torments you for about an hour. Then some even stranger things start to happen as you detour through a brief dunking in zingy citrus juice, sniff some whiffs of gentler and minimal but rather soapy flower arrangements, and get your nose rubbed in some slightly dirty sappy grass. Overall: that sugary-toasty-nutty-rice note is wonderful and original, but to me it doesn't mesh too well with the more dominant 'smellscape' of the aromatic, astringent, cooler citrus+flowers later on. It's really a bit of a riddle in scent. This is definitely unisex, longevity not bad at all (though the later hours are just the fresh-citrus-floral end, which is the less interesting side for me). It's well-priced for something so niche, and crazily intriguing: even for a gourmand-hater, this sort of un-sweet approach to the main ingredients makes it worth trying. Liked it so much more than I thought I ever would or could. But for still more of an interesting, wacky, intelligent experiment than something I really want to settle down with long-term.

Very pretty and fresh. Unfortunately performance is weak. Longevity is not too bad, but sillage is so weak that even with my nose to the wrist, I kept struggling to percieve it at all. That's with two sprays to my wrist. The notes of green tea, when I did percieve them, were realistic and beautiful. But the performance really needs to be stronger.

Japan in a bottle 🍵❤️ Yes, it sits quite close to the skin, but that is also typical in Japan. Update: I loved the calming tea vibe but sadly the starchy rice note became stronger and stronger so this is not for me after all but if you want a rice scent that is reasonably priced I think you can give this a try.

This is a 'yes, but' genmaicha scent, I feel... Genmaicha was probably one of the only teas I did NOT mind when living in Japan, the roasted rice offered a 'popped corn' kinda gourmand-umami element to the usually bitter-green nature of o-cha, and at my workplace I would have some whenever it was offered around. Having said that, as nice as this genmaicha accord is in this scent (and it's pretty good), it is RUINED by the horrid screechy cherry blossom note which drowns out the subtle, nuanced tea elements. This is the second scent (I forget the other one, it's by J-Scent, though) that blends a unique tea note with cherry blossom. I get the connection, I really do, but I just wish perfumers could fight the urge to pair the two elements, as they genuinely do NOT fit. As such, this feels like a good genmaicha note ruined by a screechy, synth cherry blossom note that really should be in air freshener and nowhere else...

Top notes disappear from my skin almost immediately and take me directly to a territory I'm not sure I should enter. What I imagine is a good looking man drinking bitter green tea in front of a panoramic view at his place before starting the day or even taking a shower- I'd rather be the woman in his company than smell like him but I definitely appreciate the scent and how open it is to my interpretation.

This smells exactly as if a sweaty (and hot, obviously) lumberjack went picking flowers in a green lush field in the sun. It's fresh and a bit dirty at the same time. It's not really for my skin, but I do appreciate the scent.

I don't get the weirdness on my skin. I don't get rice or grain. I don't get masculinity. On my skin, this is super unisex, soapy clean scent. And not even a specific soap -- just a generic greenish soap of undetectable quality. Nothing to write home about, albeit rather pleasant.

Ukiyo-E is soapy dirty with hint of lemon and greeny note on a human flesh. I can sense a slight sweat of a man's skin but some sort of clean as well. I didn't like this one.

A lot like ponzu, or maybe just a simple mixture of soy sauce and lemon juice with rice. Quite pleasant as a scent but makes me crave Japanese food... I wouldn't wear this.

Ukiyo-E refers to Fils de dieu de "Etat Libre d'Orange".