Petrichor

From my IG @miscenscene: “They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green was my valley then." It begins with a sharp pang. The grass is a blade. Where I walk, it slices. Through the air. Through inhibition. There’s a power to the field. Overwhelming green, like the Springtime threatening to demolish you. But in time you find it comforting, it calms and settles you. A halo of resurrection descends, not unlike God’s dove. It tells you protection and safety await. Yes, showers come, but they prophesy of things to pass, the ones unseen. Marissa Zappas’s Petrichor has become my signature scent. It didn’t take long for me to take to it. It’s a complex bulb. Bitter at first. (Did you ever unroot an onion bulb from your yard? Smell it? Maybe even bite into it? I have.) It’s stinging like a thorn but soon betrays it’s calming nature: the powdery, dewy, grassy bloom on its other side. Bitter things often teach us patience. I couldn’t not think of John Ford’s masterpiece, How Green Was My Valley, while wearing this fragrance for the whoknowshowmanyeth time. A pastoral familial epic, about the people who mill the earth, stained by its crust. Yet they are surrounded by overwhelming love, that’s the feminine. Gentleness centers the movie; it shows that at the heart of all things hard and hardened is a fluttering, beating heart. Grasping you, calming you, whispering prayers of protection over you. Petrichor is a protector. It envelopes me in the truth of life while giving me a space to soak into its brilliance and beauty. And beauty is not a disruptive force, at least not in the beholder’s eye: it is one of peace and levity. It brings balance and order to the heart. And it denies the world all of its chaos. And I couldn’t think of a better final frame than Lana’s lucid mystic, a meditation on the film and life’s mystery of balance. (Layer with CDG Incense Kyoto for something otherworldly.)

A year and a half ago, my quest to find the perfect petrichor (the smell of rain and storms) fragrance began. I could envision it perfectly in my head and even jotted down some possible note trees to aid me in my search. I tried a few fragrances in this theme, but none of them were right and I stopped actively looking. That is, until I offhandedly decided to try this fragrance. My expectations were low, but what I found was a masterpiece. Sometimes fragrances move me. This one did; it smelled exactly the way I envisioned my fantasy petrichor—a potion capable of transporting one to blissful, profound moments in nature. I was looking for a peculiar scent profile, and what I found in this one is perfect. I couldn’t love it more.

It's yet another rainy day during an unusually wet year and yet I'm in a great mood because it means I get to wear my rainy day perfume. This one is so perfectly balanced on my skin, it almost feels like it was made for me. The opening is sharp, almost industrial with vetiver, ambergris and moss. The top notes quickly permeate forward, with wet lemon and rich orris root sprouting from loamy earth. The immortelle is such a smart choice here, bringing a soft and sweet dryness to an otherwise very "wet" set of notes. I get a demure but unmistakable fresh spiciness in here, almost like pepper, that adds some sparkle to the mix. My first Marissa Zappas sample - eager to see what else I might like.

mysterious, earthy, quietly intense; truly unique and unconcerned with being seductive or sensual. after a very long and elaborate search, i've found a scent that speaks to everything i have been looking for in a "signature" and more... lingers on into the next day, slowly revealing all of its facets over time. i haven't gotten to test it in warmer seasons yet, but i assume it would reach its full potential during spring or fall -- maybe even a cool summer night? i evidently do not have the poetic vocabulary to convey how enchanted i am by this fragrance but i love it... a lot.

If you're looking for an authentic, photorealistic petrichor scent, this is not it. Much to my pleasure, however, because the pungent, piercing nature of petrichor scents like Baie 19 are not for me. This is warm and round, the fresh-green accords dulled down by a powdery orris. It's less like trudging through the dirt after a heavy rain and more like watching the rain stop through an open window while bundled up in a freshly laundered blanket inside a cabin built in the 1970's. Really beautiful for fall and spring and the perfect unisex fragrance.

This is less aquatic and fresh, but more of an earthy floral interpretation of petrichor that seems perfect for winter. Powdery, mineralic, and round with a rich dark soil quality. It feels like you're lying in damp rich soil with orris roots coming up on either side of you while dried iris petals dance in the air. The earth also has a light beetroot quality to it and a hint of herbal grassiness from vetiver. It's quite lovely.

literally my dream scent its so gorgeous, the powdery sweet orris with this very realistic wet dirt/moss scent its sooooo good. its very soft, comforting. laying in clean soft white cotton sheets under a big heavy quilt on a rainy day. reminds me a lot of "o unknown" similar orris powdery note that one is more waxy where this has that earthy tint!

crystal clear reproduction of wet soil in your hand. as it wanes it becomes subtly sweet, sort of floral but hard to place for me. keeps close to the skin so its portal to an early dewy day is totally your own. enamored is an understatement

I'm absolutely in love with this scent and wish I'd picked up more Marissa Zappas samples. It really does smelly like cold wet earth but it's just slightly sweet and lemony. On my skin it dries down to something vaguely floral and woody.

My favorite option for when I want to smell like I've been walking in the rain in a rich part of town of a private garden, vs the earthier petrichor of say, Demeter. Fresh, green, but still gothic and melancholy.

Green, wet, misty, and only a tiny bit floral-citrus-sweet. Light but not bright, like the time right before dawn. Dewdrops and cobwebs. A damp park bench. An all-time favorite for me.

Thoughts on a sampling... * First sniff... * Totally 100% Feminine * The active ingredients must cancel out with my nose because for me it is very light from the get go. * It’s a good scent, for a woman. * Smelling it on a woman. It is definitely for up close and personal. Smells nice (in the “like” not “love” range) but for casual sunny day use. Maybe with a tennis skirt cooling off under a sunbrella with a Daiquiri or similar type beverage or in gardener's overall shorts and sun hat. * For a over 30 smart, mature, crafty, sporty, get it done busy bee kind of woman and not so much for the bubbly or executive types. * Powdery Iris (Orris Root), Vetiver and Mossy Dirt in that order is what I get. * Women seem to detect it from within the room but I can not. For my nose it is a skin scent. ** Final thought. Thou not for me I like what Marissa Zappas the perfumer did here and so I think that I would like to try other creations by her and see if something tickles my fancy.

The clean earth orris smell in this is the first impression you’ll get, along with it’s soft floral quality and also the tang of vegetal mist you expect to smell in the air after a rain shower. There is a strong presence of Vetiver, which adds to the earthiness and gives minerality but also provides a grassy green uplift that makes this ultimately a fragrance of air, not earth. The smell of the air after a rain storm, with all the lovely but ephemeral smells of nature carried in it. The Vetiver in this reminds me of Grey Flannel, it’s a fairly sweet Vetiver. The dry down becomes almost powdery and retains all the sweetness of the earlier stages. This is a very pretty fragrance, perhaps leaning feminine but I would call it unisex. It wears close to skin and lasts about 4 hours before becoming almost undetectable. In it’s early stages it’s a wonderful recreation of the experience of petrichor.

I’m from Georgia, and in late summer it’s unreasonably hot and the sun feels like it’s angry at you, then around 4pm there’s a 20 minute downpour when the sky turns dark gray/orange. It feels like tension released. Right after, the sun comes back out and the tree leaves are dripping and steam is rising off the pavement. This scent is the 3 or so minutes after the rain stops, when the sky is still tornado siren pink and the earth and asphalt are bleeding together. Sprayed on paper, it’s the most evocative petrichor I’ve ever smelled, and that might be largely based on sentimentality, but I think it’s spot on. On my skin there’s a lot more citrus and vetiver but that sharp, warm, organic chemical reaction smell is still there. It’s very moody and what I imagine a roly poly smells like after getting soaked in rain and then baked in the sun a little.

Petrichor is an entire rainy day. It begins smelling of rainwater and iris, then after that it develops into the scent of gray skies and clay. The final stage is a clean, comforting scent of a white bar of soap and stormy ozone. It is big silvery drops falling heavy from the clouds, hitting purple iris petals, shaking flower heads, and soaking the earth. It is wet concrete and puddle vapor. It is taking a shower, climbing under freshly laundered sheets, and opening the window to let in the smell of lightning-charged air. I don't believe in umbrellas.

As someone from the PNW, this fragrance is a little different than the petrichor I'm used to. Of course, petrichor smells different depending on where you are and what the dirt is composed of, so the reaction will be different for everyone. Nonetheless, it is very wearable. The scent evokes the essence of an aged, humid log cabin on a mountain in the very best way. One observation to mention is that my husband said it smelled "like a store," particularly after it had been on my skin for a few hours.

This is a nice unisex primarily vetiver fragrance on me. Touch of the moss and orris there softening it. The progression is like you ripped a clump of vetiver out of the ground in neither dry nor wet earth and scoop out the soil to get deeper slowly over time as the sun gets stronger. Lasts about 2h before turning into a white musk skins scent. Not impressed given the price tag. Not what I was expecting at all given the name.

Pleasantly earthy and floral, but it doesn’t smell at all like petrichor to me. A little peppery and spicy on my skin, which was nice, but not what I expected. The sillage is so small I could barely smell it on myself and it disappeared entirely about 4 hours after application.

Opens like spraying clean dirt over yourself. Then it evolves into a lightly sweet/fresh, soft, comforting scent. It is a warm cat curled around your neck while laying outside near fresh, clean garden dirt. Beautiful.

the (short) life of a carrot, beginning at it's germination underground (first minutes), ending rinsed off in a kitchen sink (next hour).

Earthy orris and soil - my fav petrichor scent but also it is more a mood fragrance than a photo real rain scent

Featherlight orris and virgin earth. Precious, pristine, and properly melancholy. The kind of rainy day that a toy village might experience. Petrichor is just that – a true garden soil scent – but still clean and airy. It’s more earthen than Dream Sequence, which also does a succulent petrichor, but less mulchy than the cold cemetery soil of Heretic’s Nosferatu. A pity that much like genuine petrichor this fragrance evaporates within an hour. The most delicate of the Zappas family to my nose. Mental snapshot: A cobblestone cottage hamlet, nestled amidst velveteen green hills. The residents have it all: picket fences, topiary hedgerows, a steam engine that runs like clockwork – but with no origin, and no destination. Their gardens are never bare, their flowers never wilt. The rain almost feels like rain. Not a bad place to be cursed down to the size of a ladybug and damned to spend eternity. tl;dr: springtime in a figurine village 🏡🌂

at first sniff this wasn't what i was expecting based on my concept of petrichor- definitely more of a mossy, damp cave in the woods than rain hitting pavement in the city streets. regardless, however, this is a very beautiful, subtle scent that is truly unique! the earthy notes play wonderfully with the powdery and mineral aspects of the orris and ambergris. a lovely unisex skin scent that is not like any others. we had a wonderful chat about this frag in Emma Vernon's Perfume Room June Smell Club! <3

i hate to put forth a question as a review, but does anyone else smell stale table syrup? looking at the notes it is hard to figure out what brings that accord to fruition. Petrichor is a bit too dry for my taste and i'm not too fond of the sweetness that is present. what a shame... if you like it i love it tho! edit: my main suspect for the stale table syrup accord is immortelle!

Doesn’t seem like an “earthy” fragrance — the ethereal top notes are floaty and dreamy, akin to entering a magical garden. This would get higher marks if the drydown was more pleasant to my nose. After two hours, the powdery orris faded and all that was left was a lemon echo.

A dirty orris bomb that skipped the rain and dove headfirst into dry soil. It’s called Petrichor, but there’s no storm in sight—just rooty iris tangled in dust and shadows. Update- I love it for what it is. Bought a bottle and wear it often.

when I was little I'd always dig up wet clay-rich earth from beneath the grass, and roll it into big "meatballs" for spaghetti. Petrichor is like if I had instead made a little dirt cake, and it somehow turned out to actually smell sweet.

The earthy note is quite prominent. I wouldn't wear it, but it is interesting and worth a test if this kind of scent is your thing. I can appreciate it for what it is.

Scrubber! This is a waxy, oily, ORRIS BOMB. And nothing else. It maybe had a hint of dew or green wet notes it the initial spray but the dry down is so horrible it gave me a headache. Honestly near identical to Phlur Father Figure for me...realizing I may just hate orris but this was too powdery and waxy to ever be able considered close to a rain “petrichor” scent

Dusty and wet. Smells like a closed room in the upper tower of an old stone castle while it is raining outside. You can't really smell the geosmin/petrichor, more of just dust and dampness. I feel like I am standing in this room when I am wearing this, there is no perfume-y type smell with this, it is just you, damp stone walls in this dusty room with sheets covering artefacts and antiques and the rain outside is running down the lead light glass arched windows (harry potter style). I do love dusty haunted house sorts of smells so I am not surprised that I adore this but i almost didn't sample it because I couldn't understand how that lemon note would work to make this smell wet. I held off on getting a sample for ages because I thought the lemon would make this smell bright or cleaner-like but it definitely does not. It is strangely neutral smelling so it may not be fot everyone but if you like haunting photorealistic scents, this is 100% that. Had my husband smell it and he concurred it smelt like dust and clarified, dust NOT must. He said it smelt like an old dressing room and the door hadn't been open in decades.

blending soil, chilled orris, and creamy, hay-like vetiver, this perfume smells like a rainy day in upstate new york. a raw material that took me quite a long time to truly appreciate, the vetiver here is among my favorite treatments of the fragrant root - given that zappas combines it with a calming, carrot-like, and vegetal orris. i see potential references to something like the simplicity and unisex allure of bruno fazzolari's vetiverissimo, but also james elliott's MY MOST MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIPS - inasmuch as already earthen vetiver is blended with soil tincture to achieve the impression of rain and sheer water upon the ground. that is indeed the picture one gets standing back from this perfume's pointillism. the cool and thick water-like nature of orris root combines with moss, peat, and other earthly trappings to create a general feeling of pastoral calm. i can identify the individual ingredients here, but also can let them combine to form a greater symbolic whole. wear this to find hidden wells below the dirt with a makeshift dousing rod, or just to take a long and well-deserved nap in your cabin bed.

The essence of being born in May. It’s always raining on your birthday, but at least the wild violets surface, tangled in the lawn, soon after. Petrichor smells like reaching into wet soil and crushing it in between your hands and no matter how many times you wash your hands, the earthy aroma remains. This soil isn’t full of rocks and sand, it’s fluffy and abundant with loam. You can’t go wrong with rooty orris and vetiver, but MZ’s compositions are always wonderful and soothe me greatly. I find this to last pretty long on my skin. I get caught in fewer rain storms than I’d like to, this almost makes up for it.

This reminds me of unzipping my yurt in the Oregon coastal range after a night of deep sleep and taking in the fresh misty air and earth around me. There's the smell of fresh rainwater running through the fine filter of mineral rich soil, and the more ethereal coastal mist mixed with incense. There's no incense listed in the notes, but this is reminding me of Lush's Breath of God, but much more light and airy and wearable. The citrus gives this a bright, slightly metallic edge. Lovely first test. Interested to see how this will hold up over the course of the day. On my "like" scale of 1<5, this is a 2.

Blind bought this for pretty cheap and was excited. But sadly it’s just too faint. And leans too heavily orris to really get that petrichor scent. Which is there but not as emphasized. The orris makes it very obviously perfumey and even suede like. I enjoy the scent itself a lot but there are others that have this profile that are louder and richer while still being gentle. It kiiiiinda reminds me of vetiver bourbon by Parfum d’empire which smells like rained on gardens of carrots. I’m probably going to sell this. Unfortunate but if ur super sensitive to scents I’d recommend it

I was really excited to try this and had only read positive reviews. However this is extremely sour on me when sprayed more than once in an area. I know that MZ tends to lean towards vintage profiles, but this reminds me of expired and super old juices. Smells sharp and astringent but also powdery like vintage cleaning chemicals. For me, it's better when sprayed lightly and layered with something with a salt note. It smooths it over and the petrichor element actually comes out to play.

Strong orris root opening then fades into something very similar to morel map by Clue