Current Culture

Opening is banger status. Bright, citrus, fruity, and a little sugary. Kind of like preserves. But surprisingly very fresh and zesty. Effervescent like sparkling soda. Very slightly soapy in an aldehydic way. Clean. A little rosey and a little aquatic. After about 10 minutes, it gets a little more rosey and fuzzy. The aldehydic backdrop becomes more apparent. Still good, fresh, zesty, and a little sweet. But not as good as the top. After about an hour it starts getting a little fuzzy and a little powdery. Very slightly woody, somewhat smokey. And generally lower odor. Still sweetish. At this stage it's fine. Above average.

This perfume doesn’t smell “crazy,” yet in my mind it remains an anomaly. In a market oversaturated with both lackluster matcha lattes and uninspired matcha perfumes, this one offers something truly unique. It leans more toward a matcha tonic, letting the tea’s zesty facets shine alongside ginger and lemon. The real magic, though, is in the seaweed note. I hate aquatics, but this perfume avoids that entirely. Instead of veering fishy, the seaweed feels like opening a window near the ocean. A clean, salty breeze, a breath of fresh sea air. Not overly citrusy, not overwhelming. Just the perfect matcha tea to cool you down.

Totally underappreciated fragrance. Very bright and clean. Ginger, sea notes, pepper, soap, macha on the open. It develops nice on the skin, dries down to a tea-lovers dream with moss and musk complementing as the day goes on. Roan has done a great job creating four different and unique fragrances using tea as the inspiration. This is the one I bring out for really hot days.

This perfume became an instant full-bottle upgrade (the discount from So Avant Garde helped :)) This has the most beautiful seaweed note I've ever smelled. The opening is bright and citrusy, but the clean matcha (?! Yeah, they did that) and marine notes are the ones that linger. This is a contemplative adult summer scent.

Absolutely fantastic! All opinions agreee!!!

Zingy, ooh. And bright. Invigorating and refreshing. Not at all sour or heavy or sweet. I love the snappy salt at the top, and tart neroli. Reminds me vaguely of Lake; without the vanilla, a touch less powdery and more rounded. Ginger enlivens with its spiciness and bergamot shimmers. The tea is soft and calming, but there's such a vibrancy. Definitely my favorite from the house. On my skin, the matcha is more apparent, lingering softly. I was concerned the moss or seawood would offend, but this isn't nearly as marine or green as I thought it might be. Gently aquatic, but far from a true freshie. Instead, the tartness is juicy; that beautiful ginger and neroli. When it's balanced like this I adore ginger in fragrance, and it's my favorite facet here. The red seaweed isn't obvious, but it creates a naturalness that I'm jiving with. It's an intriguing and impressive balance that's slightly floral, vaguely green, distantly damp and a whisper of woods. This is a gentle reflection of the waves; a dip into a warm tide pool, playing with starfish and exploring the gorgeous coral as the rich sunset begins to paint the sky. Perfect sillage for the quiet wearer, it resonates comfortably and cozily with veiled powder. An ideal contrast of warm and refreshing. The ingredients list on ROAN's website showcases an impressive array of natural oils including bergamot, guaiac wood, bitter orange, cardamom and ginger root.

Two words comes to mind when smelling Current Culture, "easy" and "breezy." I am reminded of sipping on a Moscow Mule on the seaside deck of a swank bar. It does smell quite specific, meant for warmer weather and more casual affairs intended for linen and light colors, lānai life, if you will, which wouldn't really be my scene but I could certainly fake it until I make it if I had to. It's sort of the way I feel about actual current culture. The names does feel metaphorical. There is a certain blasé to this scent that matches a vibe that is so far beyond anything I would ever desire, yet it's done really well. Thumbs up, but I'd rather fill my copper cup with something else.

*matcha note is missing This is a fresh take on a matcha fragrance. It has some clean and almost soapy florals like gingerly and peonies. I get hints of some powdery, citrusy matcha, but this ultimately dries down to a woody musk, with hints of a salty algae and clean musks. This feels like a cold day at the beach with hints of that fresh, clean, matcha.

Lemon, orange blossom, ginger, floral notes, and pink pepper. It’s okay—quite fresh—but a bit ordinary, and not very related to tea. If you really had to stretch it, it’s closer to green tea, like the green-tea feel of Elizabeth Arden Green Tea. This one would be much better with a touch of milkiness added.

Current Culture disappoints me in a way that a lot of citrusy clean fragrances do which is not evoking any sort of person, place, or memory. It's incredibly soapy and boarders on a lemony-hand sanitizer foam. Some people like that though and I'm thrilled for them. Everything from the citrus to the salty aquatic note reads synthetic to me. Not getting any sort of greenness or anything distinctly matcha. It has a "clean linen" softness to it and sits pretty close to the skin without much of a trail. Not the best introduction to Roan. Though this fragrance was bottom of my list for expectations. This is only my, biased against citrus heavy perfumes, opinion. Edit: While it does smooth out and sweeten quite a bit near the end it remains so so soapy. Genuinely like soap residue left unwashed from where I sprayed it. Not loving that.

disappointing; generic green citrus. kind of reminiscent of a citronella candle, but somehow less enjoyable and also without the added benefit of deterring mosquitoes. I may be biased bc I loved porcelain pulse so much.

Looking at the notes, I was so excited to smell this. I was hoping for a soft and clean summer fragrance, and while it is clean, it's almost TOO clean. As in it almost smells like a cleaning product. It's just so sharp and strong that smelling it for more than ten seconds gives me a headache. The scent itself isn't bad, but it's intensity is just too much for me. It does have good performance though, I sprayed this on a note card in my bathroom and hours later the scent still fills the room and spills into the hallway.

Gwooby may be right with the bug spray reference. It is giving skin-so-soft's powdery bigger stronger brother. I'm getting lemon cleaning products, skin so soft and some aired laundry, aquatic clean diaper. A lot of people like this but on my skin it's too citric punchy and powdery at the same time. The two are fighting each other and not really meshing on me. It is a fragrance journey and my senses keep hopping around the different notes. This IS NOT a blind buy.

I bought this hoping it’d be my white whale—and I was not wrong. It immediately transports me back home. Imagine yourself in a small coastal town in Southern Oregon. It’s in the high 50s, the sun is shining oh so bright, and you’re taking a morning walk along the coastline during low tide. You’ve brought a cup of steaming hot green tea with lemon to warm your bones as you brace against the chilly morning. The air is salty and wet—you can feel it on your skin. You can smell the seaweed and feel the crisp ocean air in your lungs. You feel so refreshed and grounded. Besides the waves crashing against the rocks, it’s completely silent. You can feel the salt in your hair and the bold gusts of wind against your cheeks. Carried on the wind are the scents of newly bloomed florals from the hillside behind you, leading down to the coast. You feel the only bit of warmth on that beach between your toes: the sun-warmed sand. You sit in awe as you watch the torrential seas of the Pacific Northwest. That is what this smells like to me. There’s no coincidence that this fragrance was inspired by the California coast—there’s no mistaking it. I wanted coastal, not beachy, and that’s exactly what I got. This house continues to amaze me. Their other two fragrances are just as beautiful, and so very different from one another. This will be a permanent addition to my collection for the rest of my life. It’s the only fragrance I have ever smelled that has truly made me homesick. Well done, Roan.

This is a safe option for lovers of citrus and lightly aquatic notes. I will admit though that I might have been expecting a little more than what I got. I like the focus of ROAN's limited product offerings and the emphasis on tea notes. In "Current Culture," the use of bergamot nearly cheapens the overall blend. The upfront is really peppery and spiced, which is nice, but the citrus projects as a soapy and sort of generic component. As for the matcha tea note - I wonder if we are all chasing a scent that doesn't even exist super prominently in its natural form? Matcha (as a powder) is earthy, neutral, and slightly bitter to my nose and taste. I don't know many perfumers who have successfully captured this. In ROAN's case, the citric and floral elements completely obscure any chance it has to appear in this fragrance. I'll be happy to carry this sample around in the warmer months, as it is a solid and refreshing perfume. I don't have plans to purchase though. Edit: this is kind of like an aquatic take on Nishane's Wulong Cha, if you'd be into something like that.

It opens like a nice bar of soap, and then gets aquatic and mossy. Really clean-smelling, this is a good scent for warm weather. I'd have liked if the matcha note was more prominent as it seems overtaken by the musk/citrus.

Another bright citrus, great for spring. Not impressed in December and it bothers my sinuses a bit.

Like a cold sea breeze. Clean and zingy citrus.