Digitalis

Digitalis is the smell of Mother Nature, with all her different green facets. It opens very bright, slightly moist and green, like the scent of spring leaves just after rain. Or like dewy grass and wet woodland soil. A sharp pepperiness appears and gives this cheerful hymn to spring a darker feeling. And not far behind the pepper lurks a lovely dry incense note, that removes some of the dewy, wet notes and takes the fragrance deeper into the woods. To a place where moss and ferns cover the forest floor and mischievous nymphs play amongst the shadows. Digitalis has a rapid development the first 30 minutes or so, then it just softens slightly. It becomes dark mossy and somewhat earthy, and shifts between feeling dewy and dry. It's a lovely, very naturalistic smell of woods and the more wild and untouched parts of nature. I think I get a tiny hint of something slightly coniferous in here as well. It doesn't smell like a coniferous forest, but it's like there is one close by, and the wind carries its smell to you. This airy, fresh, somewhat piney scent lifts the mossy darkness a little, and adds a few bright spots to those deep green shadows. This is very much a scent of three elements: Earth, air and water. And I guess the incense even brings in the fourth: Fire. It's a scent that feels very new and fresh, and slightly ancient at the same time. Ageless even. A gorgeous creation, perfect for spring and summer. And that says something, because I don't usually like prominent cucumer in perfumes. But here it works, and it's really beautiful and refreshing. Longevity is great, as usual with this brand. It lasts over 8 hours on my skin. Sillage is quite strong right away, but becomes a soft, mossy skin scent within an hour or so.

Digitalis is perhaps the most aquatic, ozonic, and green of the Les Potions Fatales collection from Parfums Quartana. Usually "ozonic" is a descriptor that renders me inclined to think that a fragrance is cheap and only ephemerally interesting or tolerable, as that's been my experience with most fragrances described as such, but in Digitalis, that mold is broken. Apart from the Digitalis (or Foxglove) flowers, a genus with which I'm not all that familiar, this perfume entails moss, ozone, violet, resins, cucumber, coriander, and rose. It's quite fresh, surely green, and comfortably blended. It has vegetable and herbal hints but is not akin to wearing a vegetable (like the first incarnation of Zoologist Panda, for instance). Performance is quite great for the type of fragrance it is, with projection roughly average, and longevity above average. Overall not as quite as robust as LOTV or other offerings in the line, but certainly satisfactory for the usage occasions, generally daytime during warm weather, in my estimation, though it's a versatile-enough offering for men and women alike throughout the year. It just plays better to the day or casual (than the night or formal) occasions. The pricing for Digitalis is on the lower end of the collection, at $145 for 50ml, sold at Perfumology, Twisted Lily, Fumerie, etc. in the US. 8 out of 10

As a certified herbalist, I am very familiar with digitalis in the wild. Not the taste, because it would kill you! So I was incredibly intrigued by this offering from Quartana. In the beginning, it smelled like all the times I would set out for a hike. I get to the trailhead, and it smells just like plants. Not trees, flowers or anything else. Just the green scent of wild plants. The cucumber quickly appears and remains the whole time. I like cucumber in general, from good ol' Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon to En Passant. It's more along the lines of the Malle fragrance. It smells just like the fresh slices of cucumber they put on my eyes at the spa. Clean, crisp, pure, refreshing and naturally a bit sweet. I definitely notice incense in the drydown. It drifts up to my nose and smells a bit woody and very faintly smoky. Digitalis never smells stale, dull, nor synthetic. It maintained its integrity for a solid 6 hours, until I accidentally washed it off. Even then, it remained quite present on my skin for a few more hours, to the point where I could not put on a different perfume. I wore it in 88F, no problem. Held up beautifully. Highly recommended for spring and summer. I would wear this year-round. I seem to crave petrichor in winter.

Sigh... I can’t pick a favorite from this collection. This would be in my top 3 though. Amazingly full of nature, imagine hiking all day while staying fresh and coming home before the sun sets. You know when parents say you smell like outside? That’s what sits in the base of this fragrance. There’s this sunny vitamin D glow scent that radiates throughout the other notes. I smell everything. The plants, the light florals, the sky.. I smell the blue skies in this but can also imagine a cloudy day where the sun is trying to peep through. Very pleasing and not overbearing. The cucumber is very prominent in this.. especially as it dries down on me. I love it.. never smelled anything like these fragrances as a whole..

To my nose, the cucumber, coriander and black pepper notes are STRONG, and this smells exactly like a salad. While I like Digitalis a lot, I don't get any of the florals other people are smelling at all. It's a bit flat and vegetal on me, but not in an unpleasant way. I can imagine this as a good layering fragrance.