Larrea

This truly is an amazing fragrance. It captures the smell of the high desert southwest with uncanny accuracy. The opening is one of cold, rain charged skies. The smell of earth and electricity mix with one of the most accurate saddle leathers I've ever smelled in perfumery. This fades within half an hour to the wafting, acrid semi-sweetness of desert creosote, and chaparral. The storm cloud smell of water that was strong in the opening has subsided, giving way to the scent of cold desert air. And just like being in the actual desert, comes and goes with varying intensity throughout the life of the fragrance. This gives the feeling of being out in a wide open, scrub brush filled plain that narrowly avoided a fall downpour. Magical. Longevity is very good. I easily get 10 + hours on my skin, with elbow length projection for the first 4 to 5. After about 7-8 it is essentially a skin scent but pleasant and detectable. This absolutely shines in Autumn, and early spring. I have worn this in summer a couple of times but realized that the creosote becomes too sweet and strong (during daytime wear). This is a cooler weather scent. Niche quality, hands down. I suggest buying a sample before committing to a full bottle as this may not be for everyone. This is an experience and a journey - not a statement being made. But for those familiar with, or wanting to smell the actual desert southwest of the United States - It doesn't get any better than Larrea..

La Curie Larrea Description per site: Ghosts of a desert monsoon. Dust encounters rain, chaparral, musk, petrichor, ozone, leather Inspired by the southwest rainstorms. Unisex - Eau de Parfum. You will NEVER hear me say a fragrance is exactly as described!!! However, this one is just that! I've been in the middle of the desert right before and during a heavy yet brief storm. This it it in a bottle! The dust is in the air sometimes thick, the approaching rain you smell, the ozonic note...yep, its there. The rain pours down from the sky, heavy and fast. You literally see the rain move in and out. You are left with wet dirt, dust still floating around yet the air feels cleansed. A small fire smolders in the distance. Leather from a worn saddle drenched by the rain wafting. It's good....REALLY good! It's a bit nostalgic and memory inducing which is a gift I think with a fragrance. So many are so similar to each other that you cant really define or remember exactly what you were doing. This IS a memory! I absolutely LOVE this! The perfumer created a beauty here!!!!!

very much a snapshot fragrance, which is something that I think this house does very very well. I feel like it transports me to the place it describes. Leathery, earthy, and oh so complex. It has good staying power but the sillage isn't very far, which I personally like for a fragrance that I would say lean more 'interesting' rather than 'universally accepted'. I'd rate this a year round fragrance, including the spring and summer months. I think too often any fragrance that isn't citris or bright florals gets shoved into the fall and winter categories. But personally a dry desert makes me think summer and I love leather as a summer scent. I found this fragrance on reddit looking for 'cowboy' scents and I dont think the recommender was wrong for listing this one. Overall a beautiful complex unisex scent that leaves me chasing each note and dreaming of cracked earth and praying for rain. VERY subtle on me, though

Holy my gosh! My hubby & I grew up in the Mojave Desert, surrounded by Creosote bushes (which we called Greasewood) and this perfume just blew us away! It smells like home, especially after a rainstorm. I have looked long & hard for something that smelled remotely close to our beloved Greasewood and this is it. After trying a sample (I ordered the sample set), I went right to her Etsy site and bough a full bottle. Anyone who is from the desert should certainly try this lovely, amazing scent. Thank you Lesli Wood. Can't wait to try all your other scents. Follow up: wore this again yesterday. It it lasted much longer than I remembered, with my skin well lotioned. And on long dry down, hubby and I noticed that it took on a lovely subtle maple syrup scent. A perfect finish for this amazing fav of ours.

It's rare that a fragrance perfectly captures an ephemeral scent from nature, and Larrea succeeds in invoking the feel of charged summer air right before a heavy downpour. I feel like I'm repeating what other reviewers have said, but the perfume is THAT precise in its connotations. It's a pretty remarkable feat to so clearly capture an atmospheric scent so viscerally. I really don't have much to add - it's just impeccably executed. Believe the hype.

Very nice fragrance, quite unique, even if it shares some noticeable similarities with Costume National Cyber Garden, which has been issued a year before. Hard to describe, but starting from CNCG, I would say that they ditched the sweetness to replace it with a hint of smoke. The result is way more interesting than CNCG, even if a bit linear and underperforming. A great fragrance by La Curie. Fall days, 25+

Petrichor, thy scent awaits. Seriously, this is such a well-done scent. It is the smell after an Arizonan monsoon storm in August....but idealized. I love it for what it is, and each time I wear it, I love it. But I keep asking myself: Do I want a full bottle? Do I want this on my body often? I'm not sure yet. In the meantime, I'll enjoy my sample from the set purchased from La Curie (highly recommended).

It is probably difficult for me to pinpoint this scent because I have never been in a desert, smelled creosote, or known either of them in the rain. That said, I get spicy woodiness and a bed of leather, all tempered by sweet strange florals and evaporating atmosphere from the petrichor. It lasts, but with little projection. Inoffensive but unique. Total arid androgyny.

A brilliant depiction of the high desert. Sun on stones after a light rain. Dust. Spicy sap and resin. Not many perfumes recreate a place this well. Long lasting but stays close to you.

I am from Tucson, where this small perfume house lives. We know the smell of desert rain and, if you’re really from the desert, you know it’s quite a sacred thing. Larrea smells like chaparral/creosote. It goes on quite sharp, but rounds out on the dry down. To me, it goes on like dry creosote rubbed between the fingers and smelled up close and raw - a bit harsh and astringent, dry, with no real suggestion of rain... But the dry down is creosote after a misting, wet, softer, and releasing its fragrance naturally in the distance. I wonder how someone unfamiliar with the plant would interpretar the scent? To me it is comforting and spiritual. I would have liked a little more complexity, maybe with some more aquatic note to enhance the rain, or a resin to warm it up. I think if you’re not from the desert and not as familiar with this specific plant, it may smell more complex to you. Despite my gripes, I love the smell of this special plant so much I may go in for a full bottle.

Larrea by La Curie starts out pretty boastfully sharp and animalic but quickly dries down into an agreeable masculine leather/vetiver pairing with some hints of herbal notes. Surely more apt for cold weather than warm, this hints as similar spots as other vetiver fragrances but I confess the leather/vetiver pairing is smoother than vetiver alone, with some exceptions (i.e. very fresh vetiver fragrances). I could easily see Larrea being a man's fall/winter signature scent Performance is decent but doesn't quite approach that of Incendo. An interesting offering overall but to me not quite unique enough to merit collecting it. I get something similar enough out of the smokier Lalique Encre Noire a l'Extreme that I wore last night. Certainly a recommended try, though, especially for men. 7 out of 10

Larrea makes me think of a campfire outside of a cozy adobe home in the desert. Although I find this scent unwearable for me, because it becomes straight up mesquite bbq sauce on my skin, I still can't help but smell it out of the bottle for the experience. I get a lot of gentle smoky woods with creosote and a hint of leather. A true portrait of the American desert aesthetic.

I'm echoing some of the other reviews in that I'm not familiar with desert smells, so I don't have a strong reference for this scent, but I'm enjoying working my way through all of the samples in La Curie's set. This dried down to a pleasant smell that for me read as molasses-y, slightly aromatic, and woody. This must be the creosote. Linear, enjoyable.

Big huge open sky—ozonic blue, clean and cold, almost frozen. It’s balanced with tanned leather and slightly smoky creosote; the parched bare landscape below. This sky and earth combination seems to be La Curie’s signature, but it is at its most pure here—rightfully austere and stunning in its simplicity. A scent of melancholic emptiness.

This is quite nice and very reminiscent of the petrichor of rainstorms. It's what I think of as a gothic fragrance, though perhaps a bit more cuddly than Incendo from the same line. It has a sharp, cold, incense like aspect to it and the herbal bite of vetiver. In style, I find this fragrance similar to the CdG incense line.

I’m quite sure that La Curie excels at capturing the scent of wood. I absolutely grab the smell of creosote bush most of the time I wear the perfume. It’s a kind of sour woody scent. If you’ve ever been to a wooden furniture market, you’ll figure out that the start of the perfume is what you can get from such a market. I’m impressed by the scent, but I’m not into woody things. This one is just not my type. And the end note is not as gentle as Ossuary of the brand.

I had very high hopes for this but it was kind of a let down. Creosote solinote but not refined. Not the kind that excites me to wear it repeatedly at least. El Cosmico does so much of a better job to encapsulate a similar concept in my opinion.

On me, this is mostly a tangy creosote bush scent, with vetiver earthiness and a sort of expansive (nose tickling) ozonic air and dryer sheet musk accord. I get a quiet leather on the far drydown of this scent, but I wish there was more. My boyfriend grew up in an arid area in Mexico where creosote grows - I had him smell this (without telling him what it was) and he said it reminded him of the plant gobernadora that his grandmother would burn or make medicine out of (creosote). So the creosote scent is definitely there. Unfortunately the ozonic / petrichor aspect is a bit too synthetic on me. But it's an interesting scent and I enjoy its stark earthiness. Spray lightly, as it can cause a headache with its sharpness.

this smelled like something CDG would put out smoky camp fire, woods, sagebrush... specifically reminded me of Black EDT the interesting part is that i smelled a variety of wood notes which i appreciated by the late dry down it finishes with savory spices since i already own cdg black edt this would be a little redundant for me but its still a really nice scent

If you want a scent that captures the rugged low desert of the southwest, this is it. Creosote is very strongly present, accompanied by greasy leather, honey, and a vague "woodiness". Quite nice.