Mito Voile d'Extrait

As I reach for green and floral compositions more often, with temperatures rising and daylight broadening, Mito sits very high on that pedestal. It is an incredibly vivid and textured green-floral-chypre. Mito is all about textures. From the incredibly juicy green opening to the dewy, creamy floral heart, and finally, the velvety moss and creamy woods. Vero was inspired to create Mito after visiting Villa d'Este gardens in Tivoli. The perfume smells like walking through a dense, well-kept garden—almost a greenhouse, thanks to its humid and wet facets (perhaps the champaca). Mito opens with a strong, bracing galbanum and juicy citrus accords. I wish there were some basil in there (like in Onda). I feel it would have worked well. Alas, I don’t detect any herbs or spices. This introduction is so vibrant. It reminds me of grabbing a handful of stems and cutting through them, releasing their juice and unmistakable green aroma. Soon, the florals join in. Mito shifts to a rich floral bouquet, where champaca and magnolia are the main players. There is a distinctive wet, creamy nuance with hints of citrus-green. The citrus element from the opening supports this effect. There are no indoles, so the florals smell clean and fresh—somehow exotic. This Mediterranean garden is anchored by a base of oakmoss, patchouli, woods, and light resins. There are no animalics, none of the dirtiness found in Onda, Rozy, or Rubj. I came to expect a touch of explicit connotation with Vero’s perfumes. Here, Mito uses other means to surprise. It abandons the bedroom sheets and moves the action to the heart of nature. I believe animalics would have detracted from the perfume. Still, I would have loved a touch of indoles. However, I cannot complain. There are so many things I love about Mito that I can overlook these small, subjective flaws. The greens and florals smell so natural and tangible. The base complements everything so well that it is hard to fault the perfume for such whimsical nonsense. Mito is difficult to dismiss if you like green chypres and natural-smelling florals. It draws inspiration from the classics without ever feeling repetitive. My preference is for the Voile D’Extrait, which is richer in the base and florals. The EDP leans more top-heavy, dominated by greens and citruses, with only a light floral touch and ethereal base. IG:@memory.of.scents

What is salient about the work of Vero Kern is that she was skilled in adding flesh to the bones of her work, a certain fattiness even, that makes each perfume so dimensional, as you're living in their fantasy as you wear them. The one that most struck me is that of Mito, in the Voile d'Extrait. The immediate blast of galbanum, pollen, and vegetation is far from convention, but undeniably awesome. There is a luminous sparkle that hovers over it all, like foxfire and starlight on some abandoned garden, where all the flowers and foliage run rampant. There is then a startling creaminess of a champaca accord that bursts through the surface among the crisper florals and greens, unctuous, potent, with tea-like undertones. My olfactory receptors are massaged by this heart, and there is this unmistakable balminess, as if Kern was able to give humidity a smell. The jasmine is round and succulent, with the slightest suggestion of dirty nether regions. There is even the impression of something like strawberry, but not the sweet, candied concept, the raw fruit as they are picked from a patch, still covered in earth. The subtle impressions of ripeness and decay only make this more haunting and utterly beautiful. What underlines it all is really striking: the scent of cypress and juniper twigs, their sappy oils fusing everything together, weaving in and out, flowers and conifers, forbidden garden and forest undergrowth. With each wear there is something new that seems to be revealed, a new detail to the story that I hadn't noticed before, a hidden motif. Kern had a rare alchemy that is seldom seen in modern perfumery. Vero Kern (1940-2018)

If you're fed-up with roses and amber, aoud and leather and high-powered perfumes that wear you instead of you wearing them, try something GREEN. "Mito" is a mossy, cool fragrance which reminds me of "Cristalle" by Chanel, but which, of course, does not only symbolize a return to the classic chypre, but represents a wonderfully modern extension of the genre. Vero Kern loves her fragrances to smell slightly "dirty", and you can feel this aspect in the drydown, where the mossy base as a central note persists for hours and hours. "Mito" is gorgeous from top to toe: The galbanum in the topnotes gives a sharp dryness to the fragrance, it is a perfect counterpoint to the white flowers used in the middle and the moss, cedar and labdanum notes of the base. Here's a new green floral chypre that I consider perfect. Funnily enough, there are other Vero Kern perfumes I really struggle with, particularly "Onda" and "Kiko". I remember writing some rather unfavourable reviews about them, but now Vero Kern has created a perfume I really can connect to. The "Voile d'extrait" is very tenacious and once it settles on the skin, it exudes its atmospherics of wood and green nature. "Mito" is probably a fragrance which will not appeal to people who like "pretty" scents, neither do I picture it on a typical Hollywood beauty like Marylin Monroe. It's not a fragrance for frills and fuss, but probably something Marlene Dietrich would have worn in her heydays. Anyway, a masterpiece by a fantastic contemporary lady perfumer (born in 1940). Btw, "Mito Voile" only recently won a perfume award called "Prix d'enthousiasme".

Gorgeous and sparkly and green and fleshy. The top does remind me of Eau de Rochas for women, with Mito's top notes sparkling with something mossy and dewy, but the added depth of the floral component takes it to another level. Subdued in its floral stage, it reads like the texture of petals on tuberose instead of the actual scent.

This one is pure elegance and beauty to me, with sparkling attitude. A power fragarance that manages to be both delicate and forceful at the same time. Vero Kerns work was no less than masterpieces.

MITO opens harsh and loud, but soon transforms and transports you to most delicate places. Some hour in when wearing MITO I imagine myself in a sun soaked forest where I can feel the warm grass beneath my feet and the dry, sharp green moss. Oh and I can feel the almost bittersweet dirtyness of the trees and the little flowers everywhere. MITO is peaceful, elegant and very pretty. The first hour could be difficult for some who are not used to galbanum, but if you get trough it - such a reward! And MITO lasts and lasts!

Mito’s topnotes are pure Spring. It's all white dresses, espadrilles and birds singing. Yeah, right. Don't let the green breeze fool you. Look closely and Spring's annual rebirth gets messy. The birth and life bit isn't placid, it's explosive. Green is to plants what blood is to us: vitality. And like blood, green can connote both life and violence. Mito Voile d’Extrait reads like a dramatic production. Think of Mito as Kern's Right of Spring. The acceleration of the perfume's opening is almost overwhelming but the topnotes settle into a legible green that ranges from sharp citrus to peppery grassiness. A world of green grows up around you and becomes the mise en scène for the unfolding of the rest of the perfume. The brightness of the topnotes is balanced by mossiness and the white flowers of the heart complete the picture. Creamy magnolia, breathy jasmine. Where green connotes vitality and growth, the white flower's allure is its decadence, its hint of decay. From the moment a flower opens, it moves slowly toward its death. The threshold between ripeness and rot is a fine one and Mito teeters on the line. Over the course of the heartnotes Mito keeps the green backdrop but shifts the focus to the white flowers, magnolia in particular. Moss connects the top and heartnotes and lends a bit of saltiness to balance the floral sweetness. It gives the heart a rich, slightly rough texture and magnifies magnolia's inherent sultriness. The heartnotes are intricate but hardy and seem to rise up from my wrists almost unpredictably. I've made the point before that perfumer Vero Kern is more a classicist than a traditionalist and I'll stick by that. But in the case of Mito she manages to be both. Here she works in the tradition of perfumers such as Edmond Roudnitska and Germaine Cellier referring to both Dior Diorella and Balmain Vent Vert. Like Diorella, Mito has a decadent heart and a louche tone but it also plays with a chilled floral contrast as Cellier did in Vent Vert. Roudnitska and Cellier shook the perfumery of their times by the shoulders. Their works were as subversive as they were sublime. Cellier put the coded language of butch/femme lesbianism into her perfumes. Roudnitska re-created the scent of a delicate little flower in his seminal Diorissimo and in doing so defied convention and rewrote the rules for composition. So, Cellier was profane and Roudnitska was radical. Where does that leave Kern? It's too early in her career as a perfumer to characterize her body of work, but Mito is a hybrid pinnacle of the green and floral chypre sub-genres, a field that includes works such as YSL Y, Guerlain Parure, Chanel 19 & Cristalle, Estée Lauder Private Collection and Parfum de Nicolai Odalisque. It is both meaningful and delectable and just as in Cellier's Vent Vert and Roudnitska's Diorissimo, art and desire go hand in hand. The most satisfying artistic traditions step outside of their forms and their genres and Mito reaches outside perfumery. Kern has said that the inspiration for Mito was the sumptuous gardens at Villa d'Este, a 16-17th century fountain and garden extravaganza in Tivoli, Italy. Like the gardens, Mito is the result botany and artifice and feels like rococo drag next to the 'just the topnotes, ma'am’ perfumery you’d find in fashion mag inserts. As Kern also demonstrates in Rubj and Rozy sumptuousness is not a sin ... Mito is a perfume that I could wear forever and still be surprised by. Disposability is built into most contemporary perfumery by design. Even the idea of a signature fragrance means the perfume you might wear for a spell before you flush it in lieu of the next one. Mito reminds me why many people in the early and mid-20th-century had one perfume that they bonded to for life. I've said that I could wear Diorella forever, but reformulation has nixed that prospect. Thank god I've found Mito. Now I know which bottle to grab if the house is on fire. from scenthurdle.com

this seems to be a grandiose botanical perfume. a celebration of the Realm of Botany with its ethereal oils, fragrant corpuscules, liaison with water in Fountains, as it is imagined by Vero Kern in the Villa d'Este near the Eternal City of Roma, Italy. I must have bought it straight away and remember having from Rubj, Mito, Onda & Rozy (also Naja the first 'Edition') often the Edp and Voile d'Extraits. from Rubj twice the Extrait. but especially MITO and ONDA are concipiated with a love of the 'Kingdom' of Plants, Roots, Flowers, Stems, their feature to wilt, age and finally, rot. but predominantly the Plants in all their Majesty smelling of Gardens, Guirlandes, Ponds, Parks, Jardins Clôs et cetera. here the addition of Galbanum, Cypress and Moss lend this perfume a certain 'Italianitá'. I remember Vero Kern worded it as all these etherial oils, moved through warmth and sun, hover in the air and the Classisist Garden Villa d'Este with all the Marble and Plaster Deities and Déèsses, help to evaporate fragrant droplets of this Fête de la Nature. it is obvious Galbanum is used, the bitter opening. but while it is circumsurrounded by all the other Ingredients it fulfills its function well. I even smell the sourness of the Citruses where I NEVER smell fruit in any perfume save: Plum, Abricot, Peach and Melon (the last not always to my likening). but Vero Kerns Passionfruit I can also easily detect in her other perfumes. the astringency of (also Galbanum) Moss, Cypress and then the Citruses provide a truly experience of being in Italy again... Jasmine, Magnolia, Champaca and Hyacinth all amount to a more floralistic Theater. like Onda, this perfume is as delicat as presentist yet I immediately loved all perfumes from the sadly too early demised Vero Kern. while wearing the perfumes of Vero Kern these last days, I still spended some thought to ONDA and MITO. of course here we have two Chypre Perfumes, and there is a feature, a characteristic I would not soon think about with my fix of 'Flower, Heady, Intoxicating, Narcotic, Lush-Louche', and it is 'Greenness, Greenery'. but thát is what characterizes these (two) perfumes in Ultimo: Vero Kern accellerated a Crisp Greenness hovering around at the Ville d'Este, giving the perfumes chlorophyll and piquancy. of course she was as well trained as perfumer as also an Aromatherapiste. which is of course a neighbouring, relatively likewise domain. she was Highly inspired by the Classic perfumes so that the use of for instance Herbs, Rhizomes and Resins kept fizzing in an enervating perfumial athmosphere. and then I came to the insight that Vero Kern had the Gift to Electrisize her perfumes from within with enormous Intensity. when I started with ONDA after ca. 10 years (a couple of days ago) I almost duck away. such was the strength of this potion. the same with MITO and now, since last night, ROZY. I am glad to rediscover her unique style again and having the opportunity bc the perfumes are in my Collection. I even have the boxes moved in a far corner of a cabot (cabinet). all Black, Chic with a Peeping Hole to see the veritable Names. as such it is a whole experience and again, all emotional. (Vero Kern was still of the generation to have seen Yoko Ono's 'Hole to see the sky through', in an Artwork as well as in Cards, to send.)

Octavian Coifan is right: perfumery is an art and all one has to do to completely understand that is to experience any one of Vero Kern's compositions. I'm finally experiencing MITO for the first time after ordering a sample of the extrait from Lucky Scent and now she's created a new scent called "Rozy" (sigh). I found myself sniffing my wrist over and over again this morning before I could even write this. It has been that way for me with each scent Vero creates. I won't even launch into notes in MITO as everyone else has pretty much articulated that in their impressions of the composition. And while many have compared it to Chanel's Cristalle ( I can see that, kind of), what I'm getting is the same deeply haunting beauty that brings Le Parfum de Therese to mind as to my nose, MITO has that melancholy slightly decayed melon/flowers thing going on and I love it. Currently, I'm reading a book that's a series of vignettes by the writer Andrei Codrescu called "New Orleans Mon Amour", all done in the 20 years he lived in New Orleans (My favorite city in the U.S.). One of my favorite passages from the book: "A scent of strawberries, verbena and warm chicken feathers lingers throughout the port. In the early afternoon on your very own balcony hugged by the generous magnolia, Tony Green's Gypsy Trio sets up to play. Tony gives the world just what you've been too lazy to provide: rhythm, shape, energy, melancholy and longing." This is what all of Vero's compositions do for me as they have the ability to evoke a strange state of reverie and moments of longing that leave me melancholy in my inability to put my finger on just what exactly it is that I'm longing for. But I'm okay with that because this is when I feel the most alive. Even though Onda is still my favorite, I will wear MITO the next time I visit New Orleans. Vero Kern continues to amaze me. UPDATE: This review was actually for Mito Voile D'Extrait. Jun 12 2014

Opens up harshly with that dusty dirt of a storing cartoon full of dusty books at the attic which was left for many years to fry up from the sun that peaks from the window throughout the year's seasons. As it calms down it turns slightly into soil, & mostly into a floral greenhouse where you can smell the greenish rare plants with that wet atmosphere that covers the protected environment. Quite greeny and naturalized. The base goes quite charming as the citrus notes rises combined with doses of magnolia and Syrian jasmine as the Syrian jasmines is known for it's soft tenderness rathar than the Thai & Indian ones. A very soft touch it turns into.

Cracked open an old sample of this, which is gone from our ken. It is exquisite. Creamy and sweet yet green and fresh. You have (perhaps sampling from others' impressions) the freshness of Chamade with the creamy Mitsouko undertones? In my opinion better than the Eau de Parfum, which is more straight green. Maybe a simplistic description but this really brought a positive response from trying the sample again.

It seems like Dr 1878 forgot to make a review of the perfume itself and instead of looses the track with the following content: 40% garden fan fiction 30% badly fitted texture metaphors 20% things the perfume doesn’t have 10% actual information (hidden like a rare Pokémon) The review sadly doesn't add much to the table, for the experienced parfume connoisseur.

اولد اسکول با کیفیت شروعی هارش و خزه ای که به مرور زیبا و جذاب میشود ----------- Scent & Quality: 8/10 Longevity: 9/10 Sillage: 9/10 Creativity & Uniqueness: 7/10 Affordability: 2/10 ----------- Overall: 7/10