Frost

This perfume is BEAUTIFUL. I live in roughly the same bioregion as the perfumer, and this scent is so evocative of the late winter, early spring desperation of mud season in northern New England- I wonder if you have to be from this area to really appreciate it. As soon as a smelled it, I had visions of walking outside sometime in the middle of March, when the snow is starting to melt but it's still too cold for anything to grow properly yet. Maybe the forsythia bushes are putting out their first tentative buds, maybe a crocus or two is popping out of the wet earth. There is the fresh smell of spring on the air, but you're still wearing your winter clothes and you still smell the smoke from someone's wood stove in the distance. The florals in this scent are stunning- they remind me not of real flowers, but the optimistic dreams I have of all the flowers I could grow in the garden once spring finally starts in earnest. This scent might not be for everyone, but if it's for you it might be your new favorite.

Inspired by Robert Frost's poem "To Earthward," is sweet heartache. What cinematic beauty—gosh, it's divine. It's smoky geranium and carnation to my nose, and it doesn't get much better than that for me. Mandarin and Bergamot open it all up, while a peaty fertilizer accord (I love this aroma in the springtime) surfaces. It feels like vernal renewal, exactly what is taking place here in New England as I write this. The smoke reminds me of that from wood stove or hearth in the distance; ever present and persistent, but not front and center. For someone who tends to be fastidious about smoke accords in perfume, this is near perfect, it's "over yonder" rather than that of a campfire in your face. In the dry down, I spell what seems to my nose like guaiacol or Valspice (4 Methyl Guaiacol): smoky, creosote-like, deep vanillic and fruity materials that I recall being very difficult to dose. If they are in fact used here (I swear one or the other is!), my regards to the perfumer. This is spectacular.

I get an astringent and sharp clove with some vague vetiver. The top and the mid are an ordeal to wade through. This is potent and unapologetic stuff. I let the sample mature for a year before taking notes. It did not change much after resting. I can't see anybody wearing it for themselves. Maybe something to wear as a weapon to something like a divorce proceeding where you are willing to employ olfactory spite. I couldn't finish the sample. My wife forbids it. Impressions from a House sample bought direct at launch.

Starts uncomfortably fecal, a bit the way Musk Deer does, but after five minutes or so, roses grow out of the fertilizer. They bloom, bright and lemony with petitgrain tea, then get ripe and sweet for a good two hours, a foot of the wrist. The base settles to great smoky vanilla spiked with cloves, that last most of the day on the skin. Elegant, after the earthy opening. I’d wear it to garden parties, if I were extroverted and socially adept.