Grand Canyon

Liz Zorn's inspiration of the majestic Grand Canyon amid colors of burning orange is translated into a beautiful scent. Spiritual grandeur symbolized by myrrh, the richness of the terrain embodied by lush ylang-ylang. Lithic chimeras rendered in vetyver and sandalwood. With the glowing panorama of sunlit canyon walls an amber/sweet orange/orange blossom spectacle. The opening blew me away! Colorful banded rock cliffs portrayed in nose tingling, multi-hued blazing orange. Intense and volatile, the aroma has an initial camphorous kick that gradually subsides. As if you were walking the trails, leaving the bright orange sunshine for spice tinted arroyos. Taking you to deeper shades of orange during the drydown of darker resins and spices. Magnetic from start to finish. I've been trying to find scents with a prominent orange note, and this one is extraordinary. Not just for the orange, but for the overall fragrance. Sillage and longevity were both moderate, so I found myself overspraying and reapplying often. This is such a "Wow" perfume, I didn't mind though. Have already used Soivohle's 4ml, and am now ordering the 30ml bottle.

The opening is very abstract, like a Rothko in shades of orange. I could pick out nuances of ylang, citrus, myrrh, jasmine, amber and sandalwood, but only in tiny slivers or aspects of what I expect from those materials. It all comes across as one big amorphic orange entity, something like a fruity/herbal spicy Italian cocktail and not entirely pleasant when my nose is pressed to it That is, until it starts to come together after 10-15 minutes. Then it is pleasantly fruity, floral, warm and sunny with a slowly increasing background of toasty woods and chocolatey resin. Abstract still but completely harmonious and faithful to the image of The Grand Canyon. There is nothing even remotely similar to this in my collection, nor have I sampled anything like this. I am starting to want a bigger bottle of it and a re-up on Soivohle samples to try. Liz Zorn makes really compelling, vivid perfumes that are inspired both by an array of quality materials in her lab and abstract ideas in her head. From experience, her written descriptions are very true to the actual scents and a 1.5 ml sample is quite adequate for such rich, high-performance juice. 3.5 out of 5.