Salt

I've never been to a salt mine,.but this is how I'd imagine it smells. Very provocative scent that kept drawing me back because it's so strange yet familiar. It smells like something I can't quite place. Slightly similar to the salt accord opening of Salt and Pepper by Precious liquid but it doesn't change into a vegetal Sauvage like that one does. It keeps that intersting salt accord throughout on my skin. More of an atmosphere than a perfume. Odd but intriguing. I need to visit the retailer again to test it some more.

Salt is naturalistic and outdoorsy, conjuring wide spaces and open skies. Inspired by the salt flats of Brittany it has a coastal freshness without resorting to typical “marine” notes. White sage, musky angelica, coriander and cardamom keep things aromatic and very airy, with creamy cedar and transparent patchouli. It also works well for me in heat and high humidity. A personal scent, this would suit the French Lieutenant's Woman stalking her grey, windswept pier alone.

Bracing and intelligent. A wearable salt air fragrance with a warm, skin-like base.

No cumin listed but on skin it has big fat sweaty BO cumin, I love it.

Both briny and beautiful! A clever, exhilarating, quirky breath of salty sea air over marshy flats - only these ones are scented with sprightly flowers and zingy herbs rather than rotting sea creatures or industrial waste you might find on the average stretch of northern French beach these days. It's truer to idealised dreams than to real life - it's more of a fictional dip in the water than a photo-realistic essay like Heeley Sel Marin. While it's high-priced and doesn't last that long, it's a trip; subtle enough to go anywhere with you, even as it whisks you off to the seaside in your imagination. I can't fathom how it paints this picture so faithfully without actual salt notes because it certainly *seems* marine as anything. Maybe it's the craft and guile of the hand on the tiller. Lynne Harris can do special, special things with the herbal/aromatic palette, and here the real nose-opening, sense-thrilling zing of really fresh gusts of wind off the waves and the hills along that imaginary coast is ALL THERE. The herbal blend is amazingly carefully done and well-thought-out. Lavender can make me run away from a scent shrieking - but this is one powerfully un-sweet, un-sickly version, kept as a whisper not a scream, just playing ensemble with the angelica, thyme and moss to sing in absolutely natural harmony. The lavender and thyme notes might hint at herbes de Provence, so there's another possible snag : those sense associations did make me keep fretting : "is this Salt making actually me smell like a small goat cheese, or a lamb chop or a red mullet about to get thrown on a grill?" - but the worry didn't last - Salt edges away from the savoury kitchen array, and definitely doesn't have the hotter-weather marjoram-oregano notes of herbes de Provence, so whatever happens - this is NOT a gourmand and you're not going to end up reeking of pizza. Instead, this really does smell like walking to a blustery beach on a not-too-warm (maybe even chilly) day and crushing all those salt-tolerant herbs and shoots under your feet. Also shows off great poise in balancing the huge blasts of freshness from brisk, cool bergamot, against a much warmer and mellower sweeter side. I didn't even detect or suspect the rose (which means Ms Harris was doing it right) but could really feel some clever, well-engineered, warmer counterbalance to the bottom end. I even wondered if there could be any of her favoured frankincense in there - there's a tinge of real sophisticated spiciness to it. It's not all just running through the dunes in your billowing summer linens - this could work in urban or office settings too. Also a weird note about how you wear it: the tiny dabber 5ml bottles which Perfumer H supplies samples in are cute as little buttons but don't IMHO provide the best showcase for the house's often airy, open-work style. Salt seems to play a weird trick of liquid physics: dabbed on (even very generously) to skin from the bottle, it comes across as a cold, herbal dunk in really low temperatures, but it only lives for a really short while - maybe up to 2h. Sprayed, it's magically warmer, almost incensey, and being misted seems to make it get its act together: in this aerosolised form presents as more of a 'built scent' than 'just a sense of place', and lasts a little longer. Great stuff to make you feel alive. Does not smell remotely like them, but gives the same zing of the great outdoors and sense of adventure as Olympic Orchids Tucson/Arizona or DS & Durga's Freetrapper. It just gets you closer to the shoreline than those, but the rush - of running free in the natural world - is the same. Longevity is sadly poor (only 3h tops on skin on me) and it's expensive. I can live without it in my store cupboard - but was truly glad to get a taste of its charms. Very highly recommended if you have a nicely-padded budget but like to smell of rugged landscapes all the same. Utterly gender neutral and so naturally charming you could wear it anywhere. Likely to do better in fresh-to-hot weather than midwinter - real hard, deep cold might freeze out some of its more interesting whiffs and tangs even if you lacquered it on. Still lovely. Let's go wading, I dare you!