Gardener's Glove

My appetite for green is satiated and then some with Gardener's Glove. A larger than life tomato leaf and accompanying galbanum immediately greet my nose, with a pithy citrus not too far behind. This is glorious and ferocious! I can almost taste the bitterness—and I delight in it. The floral heart, with linden blossom most dominant, is rendered bright, tart, and punchy with a blackcurrant. It is here where the garden is truly manifested, redolent in the aromas of all manner of leafy foliage, not just green, but juicy, sappy, nettle-like, sort of the olfactory texture of fuzzy trichomes that cover the surface of leaves. The dry down reveals a saffron-forward leather, vetiver and overall woodiness. It's a perfect coda for this almost hallucinatory beauty.

I love this so much... I couldn’t resist getting a fb once my sample ran out. It has such pungency from the tomato leaf and yet such sophistication from the leather. The florals dance around giving way to broader imagery... which truly does reflect a gardeners glove. It’s so classic but so new, and I don’t recall anything like it. I can see myself wearing this for any occasion, any time of year. It’s joy, passion, hard work, style and sophistication bottled into one. I see this quickly becoming a signature for me.

Being from Vermont, my husband got me a sampler from this house a couple years ago. Hate to say, I didn't like it at the time. My asthetic is clean, soapy, floral - you know...mall scents. And these perfumes are dank. The more I've gotten into perfumery, though, the more I appreciate them - this one in particular. It is a bold and artful portrait of leather gardening gloves after a long spring day preparing the beds. I don't know if this will be considered an insult to the art - I mean it as a compliment - but the remnants of the scent are really quite pretty - an herbal, woody, leather whisper that I've grown to enjoy. It is truly special.

I get a persistent and dominant honey note from this. It has good sillage. Thought I liked it at first, but now just reminds me of herbal teas my mom used to make whenever I got sick as a kid. A little overwhelming and not too groundbreaking.

I love this fragrance very much. It opens with a bright, sunny, green burst of citrus (including bergamot, which smells green to me), tomato leaf, and galbanum. It smells like the sun on a vegetable garden, verdant with tomato plants and herbs. As it evolves, the floral notes emerge — linden, rose, lily, jasmine — but also more greenery, in the form of blackcurrant bud, and fruit via apricot. So this vegetable garden includes flowers; it also has some flowering fruit trees, bushes, and vines, like a true French “potager”. If you’ve ever smelled a fresh, ripe apricot, warmed by the sun and just plucked, you will recognize the note, as light as it is here. A hint of roses in sunlight, a waft of jasmine, perhaps twining its way up a fence or a post, a breath of lilies, round out the heart. Those floral notes together with the linden also leave a strong impression of sweet honeysuckle. The greenness continues into the drydown, with vetiver, patchouli, and fir needle, now mixing with the warmth lent by saffron and amber notes, but on my skin the dominant theme of the base is the soft, fragrant leather of a well-worn gardener’s glove. Diane St. Clair is a true artisan; her other fragrances are equally evocative and lovely. Try them!

I don’t give praise to just any new house, not that my opinion matters much but I’ve been collecting and smelling for decades, belonged to the first online community POL and participated in the first Sniffapalooza here in Los Angeles. I’m saying this not to brag but simply to give the reader an idea of where I’m coming from and how many perfumes I have smelled. One of my all time favorite houses is the now defunct Gobin Daudé, she made scents that renewed my interest in this hobby way back when....but sadly financial hurdles and distribution issues were its downfall. St Clair carries the Daudé torch, innovation and fearlessness are two things that are missing from contemporary perfumery, Vero Kern also was a bright light but her passing sadly was a blow to the community. I really hope this house keeps it up, because from what I’ve smelled I am extremely impressed. This is wearable art, beautiful and quirky without being odd just for shock value, well done St Clair!

This stuff is magical. The tomato leaf opens loud, the way I like it, jolly green with a nice hit of citrus peel– And then leather eases in, holding crushed herbs, bruised fruit and flower prunings, a pretty chaotic mess that gets super sweet with black currants and jasmine for several nice hours within personal space. There’s a dust-up of saffron and vetiver as it settles, then some pleasant animalics and benzoin linger with apricots for the evening, subtle on skin and all night on the cuffs. Somehow this all adds up to a fairy-tale–a Folavril pixie wearing Land of Warriors armor–but not about royalty, this eau is about the groundskeeper who trained the thorny rose forest, pruned the poisoned apple trees, cultivated the giant beanstalk seeds. I feel like I could grow moth orchids that flew and ferns that actually fiddled, while wearing it.

So much beauty here, it's no wonder it's an Art & Olfaction Award finalist. I love it. But I think I'd love it twice as much with about half as much castoreum. (I don't know if it's the real deal, and I don't want to know.) If you're indole-averse like me, proceed with caution, but do proceed. There's a moment about 10 seconds into wearing where I feel as though my nose is far too close to my cat's butt (has happened, wasn't pleasant). But wait for it... The swirl of black currant bud, rose absolute (rose de mai?), jasmine sambac, and linden blossom soon merge with and all but overwhelm the fecal. And then there's just the right amount of leather to make it interesting and tomato leaf and fir needle to keep it garden fresh from opening through dry down. Masterfully complex and beautifully evocative.

چرمی کلاسیک و اولداسکول با ترکیب بسیار تند و تیز برنده بوته گوجه فرنگی که برای من دیوانه رایحه بوته گوجه، دلخراش و آزاردهنده بود بسیاااار منتظر تست این عطر بودم و بسیاااار ناامید شدم در عین کیفیت و قدرت، عطر من نبود ----------- Scent & Quality: 9/10 Longevity: 9/10 Sillage: 8/10 Creativity & Uniqueness: 7/10 Affordability: 2/10 ----------- Overall: 7/10