Eshal

Green. Greener than the leaf of a tropical frond. Greener than a granny smith apple or a lime. Greener than the neon light hanging outside of a European pharmacy. Interestingly though, orange has a lot to do with it. The citrus opening is... well... green. Petitgrain does a significant amount of the work, giving us bitter and underripe oranges but also the very green and citrusy woody aroma of the wood of an orange tree. Oily lime zest accents the sort of bendable and piquantly woody presentation. It is energetic and alive, bright and verdant (a perfect adjective from the brand), cool and refreshing, yet a bit standoffish. It might want to be your friend, but from a distance. The travel into the heart is sublime and exquisite, the top notes linking very easily - and in hindsight quite logically - to very green tuberose and rooty, bitter, carrot-like turmeric accords. Never have I ever thought “tuberose and turmeric”, but I’ll be damned if they aren’t perfect pairings! Tuberose is known to have an edge to it, amongst its very heady and sweet white floral characteristics - it’s quite a complex and powerful flower. That edge comes across as a green galbanum type note, like very strong snap peas with a slightly bitter component. This edge is present in spades in Eshal, with the more typical white floral components quiet in the background. Then, there is the turmeric. Wow, what an accord. My experience encountering turmeric in perfumery has been rare I must say, but this is single-handedly the best turmeric accord I have ever smelled. Oily, watery, green earthy like patchouli’s more compost-y/dank characteristics, and with the instantly identifiable bright orange bitter carrot facet. This combination of green pea tuberose, bitter orange carrot turmeric, quiet white florals, and the gentlest touch of heady sweetness from the tuberose in the background, is superb. I cannot stop smelling it on my skin - I keep raising my arms and wrists to my nose for one more hit; I must look like I have a weird OCD tick to any casual observers. The final skin scent is a pleasantly waxy mix of honey and white woods - not NVC’s standard lactone heavy sandalwood, which is a pleasant and welcome change of direction. It is very gently sweet, and aromatic woody, without going in the direction of cedar, sandalwood, birch, or the like; more so it’s something similar to rosewood or oak. Vermeire and Duchaufour do not make a single misstep in giving us something different from the brand. I am completely sold on Eshal. This is one of the best green perfumes - and probably one of the best tuberose perfumes - to have been created this century. Seriously. That stunning opening, the inspired marriage of tuberose and turmeric, the natural link to honey and white balsams at the base, all the while being rich and energetic with exceptional materials as we’ve come to hope for and expect from NVC - there is not a single thing wrong with this perfume, not a single thing I would change, and more to the point I want to wear it and smell it until my wallet is empty. Outstanding.

One of the worthiest, most original scents from Neela Vermeire is also among her most challenging. For anyone who cooks Indian curries from scratch you know when you go too hard on the turmeric - it's not an unpleasant flavour or scent, but it's supremely dry, earthy, it has a sense of tilling sun-baked soil in a distant land. Eshal manages to keep just shy of going too far with it, but it's supremely dry, dusty and, for want of a better word, turmeric-flavoured as far as white florals go. Surprisingly, I find the turmeric manages to blot the more shrill aspects of the tuberose and makes it far more palatable than I'd have really expected - where I find tuberose often has mentholated "knives" in the front, here the golden sand smell manages to frost the edges of the tuberose, like how glass in the sea becomes both rougher and harmless as it's tossed amid the sediment. Here the tuberose has been bound and thrown atop a horse, as turmeric marches forward on its crusade of dessication. In the drydown, the vanilla makes itself gently apparent and the whole experience fades out in powdery sweetness like a classical Guerlain. That sweetness isn't overdone, and perfectly complements and balances out the dry sclerenchyma of the opening.

There is something going on here with the gritty side of this that I just love. Ok so you know how we can smell the difference in florals by color? White vs yellow vs pink vs blue florals. Well the earthiness of petigrain is a dark grey/brown to me (soil/concrete), turmeric is a rich deep yellow earthiness (spice/tuber), and Galbanum a sharp green earthiness. Duchaufour has used all three masterfully. He also did this with the citrus, utilizing the green, orange and red citruses. And then we have what should constitute a rather forward amber - labdanum, Peru balsam, vanilla and cinnamon with a bit of beeswax and patchouli for that razzle dazzle... except it’s a slightly sweet and spiced softest kid leather gloves, content to be underneath it all holding up the bouquet of the most crisp, bright, drenched tuberose that has been sprinkled with that trifecta of earthy notes and citrus. The turmeric, to me, is my favorite part of what sets this one apart. But the grand glorious heart of it is that fiercely beautiful tuberose. I’m in love.

Maybe it’s all in my head, but I love the little games this perfume plays with me. One moment it’s green and sharp, the next it’s honeyed, and then suddenly it becomes a lush gardenia. This is exactly why I love perfumery. Everything smells very natural and beautifully blended. The quality is obvious from the first spray to the drydown. White florals are one of my favorite fragrance categories, and this has easily become the best one in my collection.

Eshal does with its tuberose something similar to what Andy Tauer did with it in Loretta, where he veered off the traditional white floral path and pit the big shouldered floral note against leather, patchouli, and a slew of spices. Thankfully, Eshal is less of a needle scratch. This is a tuberose brought down to earth and back into the garden, where you smell not only the flower itself but also the soil into which it is sunk and even the air around it, a hot sun coaxing all manner of verdant smells from stems and leaves and petals. The flower here is green and waxy, the effect magnified by the addition of turmeric and beeswax—a strong, long lasting Crayola crayon note pops up about halfway through—but then the perfume turns languorous as various spicy elements grow stronger in the dry down. Still, it’s hard to put this baby in a corner and the tuberose does retain its distinct luminosity throughout, even if the ultimate effect is more contemplative than it is gregarious.