Elektra

The first few moments of Elektra are a bit psychedelic: we are presented a fig so preposterously magnified it's as if we are the wasp swallowed up inside of it! This kaleidoscopic juiciness quickly mellows into a manageable but still intense green fruitiness- it is the sharp exhilaration of getting too high and eating cold fruit straight from the fridge. Quite an exciting opening that has me yapping every time I show the scent to someone if I'm being honest. This is not a typical jammy, cartoon fig note. This is a pile of bisected green figs resting on your counter; pieces of diced parsley are still stuck to the kitchen knife. As the scent dries down (about 20 minutes in) we exit the kitchen- that acute garden greenery becomes but a sparkling ornament to a beautiful, warm base amber. Sounds strange on paper but Covey knows what's she doing. This is a divine experience from start to finish! In the privacy of home, Elektra is complex and hyper-evocative. But being beautiful in both the personal and the universal, she performs as a compliment-getting gourmand in the day to day. As specific as this sounds, it also occurs to me this would work lovely as a room scent for a farmhouse style house. Overall, I love Elektra and consider her an underrated Olympic Orchid scent.

I think the initial green note was unexpected quite forceful in fact but that doesn't last too long and it does provide a direct contrast to the sweetness that starts to unfold. The depth of the ripe black current and slight coolness of the mint is quite beautiful. The fig is amazing and the soft rounded amber notes meld everything together creating a soft, rich and voluptuous fragrance. Quick up date: I have now purchased a bottle and love it! For anyone that likes sweet fruity perfumes this one will be a winner. It has the most amazing sillage and longevity. Great buy!!

This ranks among my favorite green scents, and I'm tempted to describe it as a fruit for fruit-haters. The jammy fig is a presence but takes its place in the elegant order of things and never seems cloying or overly pronounced. The amber serves to balance nicely the greens and the fig/cassis. This is a gorgeous scent and is in the running for my favorite amongst the Olympic Orchids stable. Very nice.

This frag almost repelled me, but I'm glad I persisted. I don't normally go for green scents, they remind me that I have allergies. This one stirred memories of a fig tree in the backyard of a childhood home. In the middle notes I get a blast of mint, and it is cold. The drydown then gets slowly juicier with fig and black currant, but the green notes never disappear. A well balanced fragrance.

I love this. Crisp, the smell of green flowing sap, amber and most of all... FIGS! the real kind, not powdery or dried; but these are still on the tree kind! I love this... I need a FB of this.. it may become my signature scent... Vie Cafe nailed the review, i couldn't have put it any better myself. although i will add in that it is not waxy like some figs can be.

A deliciously fruity amber with just a touch of green. I find Midsummer Day's Dream to be as relaxing as the name implies, but in no way lethargic. A comfortable scent with an edge of fig. I wear it anytime I feel the need to "mellow out".

This is one of my all time favorite indie perfumes. I love the strong opening of black current and fig, the cedar/leafy forest background and the amber dry down. The sillage is not overpowering. A lovely scent for any time of the year.

Lovely. Very green. Sharp grassy notes. Nothing at all what I expected. It really is wonderful and does in fact take you to a summer time sunny day memory of laying in a grassy shade beneath a fruiting tree. Wonderful. 8.5/10

This is profoundly relaxing, and incredibly unique. As it opens I get kitchen savories and crisp vegetal notes. I'm not sure, but it's like celery, marjoram, parsley and maybe even a bite of cucumber, but all very natural - unconventional greenness. As it dries the greens remain, but I catch the fig blended with black currant. They combine into a fruitiness that remains warm and comforting, not quite jammy, but authentic and far from cloying. If you dislike fruit generally, I'd recommend this even so, it's never a huge blast and is unlike many designer fragrances in it's approach. An indistinct warm undertone carries this along and rounds out the fruit&greens; and we're it not so I'd think this was unbalanced and too thin. As it is, it's still not a "thick" fragrance and there's an understated grace about it all. So much is done with only 4 notes. As I've mentioned, it's warm. It reflects summer, but think I'd prefer in spring when things are still a little cool. Maybe 55-60 degrees and mild. I'd bet it would sing in April-May, and I'll try it then. It's nicer indoors so far than it is outside, the winter air is unkind to sweet Elektra. Also, longevity is insane.

Elektra, Elektra. What can I say about you? You are a bit strange aren't you? Complex and very eclectic smelling. It's an interesting perfume, I like it, but it's not a great love. The opening is all about milky green figs. The fig smell quickly goes away and this lovely, smooth and inviting fruity sweetness comes through. I can't really say what kind of fruit it smells like, it's more of a general fruity smell with the same kind of sweetness you find in ripe mangoes - if that makes any sense. The sweetness lingers towards the drydown, which is very warm, earthy and ambery. The amber base of this scent is actually very arabian perfume oil-ish. Which is a surprise after the green opening and the fruity heart of this scent. Elektra is a green fruity oriental - such a strange mix of smells, olfactory groups and sensations. It deserves to be experienced. Sillage is soft to medium, and longevity is about 8 hours on my skin.

A beautiful green fig, huge amount of natural extract so the opening can be overwhelming and often people tend to define intense natural extract as rubbery (rubber is a sap) and "chemical" as opposed to the true intense aromachemical notes that are create to remain consistent in their rendering, easily identifiable by the customer who thinks smelling something "natural". So there you have a lot of real fig, it's absolutely not the easy-to-love coconut and fruity version of Diptype or Artisan Parfumeur, it's a forest of fig leaves in your face...a soar of slightly minty green sap and a little sweetness provided by blackcurrant and amber. A concentrate of air from the American Northeast between Vancouver Island and Olympic Park. I really like... when I want to be an Atlas lifting a lush rainforest on my shoulders.

On me this one is almost purely black currant! At first it's sharp and green like the scent of black currant leaves and then it gets more and more fruity and juicy, like black currant berries! For me this is not a scent I associate with Midsummer but rather with the later parts of summer when the black currant berried are ready. The drydown smells just like the big buckets of berries we pick every August/September! There are still some black currant leaves present in the drydown and that keeps the scent from becoming too fruity! All in all this is a gorgeous scent and perfect for summer!

I was really let down having read the reviews and being a huge fig fan. It opened really nicely and strongly, with what I would call dark green notes, very earthy. I did get a rich fig and black currant feel to it as well and thought that this was going to be a great one. For some reason, that opening was just that, an opening. after half an hour, all I got was a powdery amber skin scent, with just a few remnants of the green notes. I would love to get a chance to try this again, and am hoping it was just an old sample

The opening of Elektra is very strange, with a rubber, powder and chemical smell emanating. I much prefer the dry down when the scent relaxes. I’m going to admit that I had no clue what this scent contained, and even after reading the notes I’m not convinced. If fig and black currant are in this bottle, they are indeed the strangest representation of those notes. Intriguing, but not something I feel compelled to wear. I do like it simply for being genre defying, and for stumping me on what the hell I am wearing.

When I first put it on, I got "GREEN!" It reminded me of a grassy field with some kind of flowers mixed in-- not mint or cat urine as a couple others had indicated. Not being a big fan of green, my first thought was that this one was a "pass" for me. After about an hour, however, it morphed into the most interesting fresh fig scent. I went from thinking "no way" to "mmmm.... that's kinda nice." I'm still not sure if its a perfume I'd wear, but I would LOVE to have this scent in a candle.

Midsummer Day's Dream opens extremely green. In a few seconds the fig comes to the forefront. Not a sweet, sugary fig but an earthy one. The black currant in this is quite bitter, but not sharp and the amber provides a warm base for all other notes. If you are a "fresh" green lover you will probably not enjoy this fragrance. If you are a fan of dirtier greens like Crushed by Tokyo Milk, this will be right up your alley.

Being more familiar with black current scent than fig, I predominantly smell black current here. It is lovely, but not quite as natural as in Enchanted Forest which strongly reminds me of our summer house surrounded by multiple black current bushes. Perhaps, it is just my memories and someone else will be more connected to Elektra than EF. However, I cannot help but compare these two and definitely prefer EF.

I smell a lot of juicy cassis, the real thing! There is also some figgy sweetness. The green notes and the amber are there in the background but the fruits are the stars here. This is warm enough to be worn all year around!

With Elektra, I smell eucalyptus, mint, fig, and black currant. It's green, fruity, damp. Fresh and musty at the same time!

this starts out very very green and bitter. i also get a hint of black currant but more like the leaves than the fruit. after a bit more time on the skin some amber comes through to warm it up a bit, and about an hour later i get the fig. by this point it's much less bitter. it's a really interesting perfume, and very evocative. not like something i would usually wear but this is unique and i am kind of intrigued by it.

The opening is a mercaptan fever dream. Mercaptans, some of which are toxic, are odorants of which a few are used in perfumery. They are terrifyingly acrid—one is in fact added to natural gas to make leaks detectable, as they are detectable by the human nose at concentrations as small as 10 parts per billion. One such mercaptan, Ribes mercaptan, is often used to construct a blackcurrant (cassis) accord, and here, Ellen Covey seems to dare to use maybe just a bit more than what is advisable in constructing her accord. That, combined with stemmy, sappy, thorny, nettle-like green materials, makes the opening quite a shock (Elektra, indeed). I actually wonder if buchu leaf is used here. It begins to settle into a more discernible aroma of tomato leaf, while stemone gives the impression of figs somewhere in the middle of the development. I absolutely love green scents: the more starkly green, the better. However, Elektra has such sour, musty and unpalatable facets that it makes vintage Vent Vert seem absolutely effortless in comparison. Its dry down has an interesting dissonance to resonance green-amber pendulum going on, but I just couldn't bear to endure the preceding stages to appreciate this later stage.

My least favorite by Olympic Orchids (of those I tried). This opens up in a typical homemade-smelling, overwhelming indie perfume fashion. I tend to like fruity greens, but this is such a chaotic mix of loud notes: Freshly mown grass, pine needles, underripe figs with their leaves, a hint of cassis and a weird sweetness. I just can't stand it. It smells like a bad roomspray to me and it stays like that for several hours. The final drydown is much more palatable though. At this point the juicy blackcurrant becomes more dominant, which I always like, and I can also sense a nice warm amber. It's almost a little syrupy at this stage, quite sweet and lush. There's still a hint of sharp greenery in it, but I think this wouldn't bother me if it didn't remind me of the assault on my senses that is the opening. I have to say admit Elektra is original, I'm just not a fan. It's not only skin chemistry, I also find it very harsh when I sniff it straight from my sample. I guess you really have to love grassy, sharply green scents to make this work.

The description for this sounded so lovely, and I didn’t mind the overwhelming greenness of it at the beginning (reminded me most of a tomato leaf essential oil I have, which suffers from not enough sun-warm scent and too much juicy green sap scent) because I thought it would chill out and gain some sweetness and depth - but instead it just becomes exclusively amber on me. My skin does tend to amplify amber notes, which historically give me headaches so I have an immediate dislike of them. I could see this being lovely on someone who does better with amber, which is the only note I’m still getting after an hour, but on me it sort of smells like the incense section of a grocery store, vegetables the next aisle over and the boxes of amber sticks that inevitably seem to get bent out of shape and gap open to spill their scent everywhere.

My first experience of this house and also my first experience of fig in a perfume....hhhmmm i tested blindly without referring to notes and my initial impression was that i was smelling something vegetal like celery....so i definately got the green loud and strong. For me i think the fruit and the fig meshed to give this high pitched bitter quality....into the dry down the amber base was thick and resinous. These are very high quality,they are so obviously deep, voluptuous and potent. I can appreciate the creativity in this perfume but i wouldnt want to wear this, its just to radical for me!

I see where they were going with this but I don't really like it. There is a very musty note in there somewhere that overpowers everything. It's not the nostalgic "old books in grandma's attic" type of musty that can be enjoyable when used correctly. It kind of reminds me of damp, decomposing leaves mixed with overripe fruit. On the right person and for the right event, I think it could work? But it doesn't smell good on me.

Green and figgy for sure, but on my skin the current comes out far too much. Fresh figs are one of my very favorite fruits, and while they have a green, sweet, milkiness about them, they don't smell like cassis. I don't like fig perfumes that contain coconut, so I'm glad this one doesn't. My favorite fig perfume is still Fig Tree by Sonoma Scent Studio.

I certainly wouldn't describe it as a green fragrance. The amber makes it dark, and mixed with the fruits becomes sickly with a powdery dry-down. It smells very cheap and old fashioned, like the type of drug-store fragrance an out-of-touch old grannie would give a undelighted little girl as a disappointing gift.

343 Musty closet and black currant leaves when you rub them between your fingers. It’s stemy green and not sweet. I was hoping for a deep and strong black currant note with sourness and sweetness. 2/10 didn’t like this, smells like green leaves

Smells too much like a clean truck stop bathroom.

I think it could be a problem with my skin chemistry, but for me it opens like dying flowers, that sat on a table for too long. Which would not be a bad thing in itself, but then it dries down to a smell of powdery pills taken out of a package years ago. It’s a smell of a pharmacy from decades ago, filled with old people waiting in line to pick up a prescription. I absolutely hated it, it’s sickly and overwhelming when I wear it. But I gave my sample to a friend and on him it was much more pleasant, so it’s just a cautionary tale that Elektra could perform like this on unlucky person.

Generally, the Olympic Orchid fragrances I have attempted to wear are far too pungent and resinous for my taste and chemistry. I do admire their originality and longevity but despite possessing the notes that I normally would love, I find them to be just too harsh. Having said this, I was pleasantly surprised at Elektra (my sample bottle was of a Midsummer's Day Dream from several years ago) and its fresh green, sweet and charming fig melange which persisted for hours and hours. I actually felt that it was far lovelier than Diptyque's iconic version until all the verdant fruitiness fell away and I was left with a lingering amber that reminded me far too much of hippie oils. In Elektra's defense, amber and I have chemical issues that cause it to dominate all other notes and once it accomplishes this, becomes so cloying all the prior loveliness of a fragrance is easily forgotten. Still, this is a beautifully crafted fig and I will give it another chance perhaps when the weather is cooler.

First of all , i want to thank Ellen Covey for her talent and perspective. I've obtained after some misadventures the deluxe sampler package, and i'm still speechless. Out of her 17 scents i'm in love with 14. I'm also surprised by the sheer diversity, the creativity, the lasting power and the sillage. All and all Elen Covey is the new hero of American perfumery. As for Midsummer Day's Dream it's a ambery tart fig more fruit than tree in my opinion, with a hidden animalic note for all the warmth of the creatures of the nature. A wholesome happy poem.

This is not really a review, just an experience, trying to convey how good this perfume is. I was on a perfume smelling binge yesterday in London. I smelled dozens of things in Blooms, Harrods and Lush. From time to time, a fragrance wafted in my nostrils, making me think: "oooooh, now what is THIS loveliness? This beats everything I've been smelling today!" Then I realised: it is my very own Elektra, that I sprayed on in the morning! A stunner! Real review will follow.

Sweet mint bubblegum tuberose, galbanum, eucalyptus with a dewy grassiness and a musky, astringency that together makes this incredibly enjoyable. Really feels like a rainy spring day in a pine forest with wafts from freshly bloomed flowers and territorial markings. Beautiful! Edit: This becomes a minty fig BOMB about 15 minutes in, something I couldn't even sense in the first few minutes. Must be one of the best fig scents I've felt, artisanal or otherwise.

I must concur with Scorpiosheep on this one. This is heavy on the mint and overwhelmingly green. Given the notes and structure, not at all what I was expecting. This is somewhat similar to Andy Tauers Pentachord Verdant to my nose.

Harsh opening. Dry down is lush, pissy, verdant, floral ripe fruits. I think of unsweetened pollen dust coating my fingertips. I want to try this in the springtime. Very unique and worth a sniff.

Wine spilled while napping during a picnic lunch midday in summer under an orange sun and green tree. Wavers between interesting, pleasant, to not so pleasant.

This is not my thought of a midsummer day's dream. To me it smells like rotting fruit and 3 day's old sour sweat. And the worst part is I couln't wash it off

The juices of freshly bitten dark purple fruit dripping over tomato leaves after a midafternoon rain. Absolutely divine!

Minty, pine green smell. Remindes me on musty pine wood. Just unpleasant. Scrubbed it off.

Beautiful! Juicy in the best way.