July 2021

For all that vetiver famously possesses an olfactory range stretching between hazelnut, roses, and earth, it is always unmistakably ‘vetiver’ in the same way that patchouli is always patchouli. You’ll notice, therefore, that descriptions in reviews tend to drift towards one pole or another – dark or fresh, wet or dry, wood or root. But in the end, they’re all variations up and down the scale of the essential vetiver-y-ness of vetiver.

Then there’s the personal tolerance angle to assessing vetiver fragrances. Before I learned to love the (vetiver) bomb, I would rank vetiver scents on a sliding scale from what a friend of mine calls ‘bullshit vetivers’, i.e., scents like Timbuktu (L’Artisan Parfumeur) or Shaal Nur (Etro) where it plays a key but minor role, and the hard no of the swampier, danker, more evilly-vetiver vetivers like Racine (Maître Parfumeur et Gantier) and Vetiver (Guerlain). So, when I see a perfumer venturing out into vetiver soli-root territory, I always wonder (a) what the perfumer will do – or not do – to break vetiver out of the olfactory straitjacket it was born into, and (b) where it falls on my old but probably still ingrained sliding scale of tolerance.  

On the first, Vetiver by Hiram Green definitely innovates on the theme by using the vetiver as the portal through which we get to – at a distance at least – a spicy, musky base dressed with a lemongrass brightness. But Vetiver is still clearly vetiver. The burnt lemon peel aspects of the root are cleverly accentuated by ginger, another root that crackles with spikes of primary yellow before tailing off into sepia. This is vetiver in the guise of a sparkling eau de cologne, although while fresh, the opening is immediately spicier and more aromatic than citrus alone. Soon, the fragrance settles into its second and what seems to be final iteration – the nostalgic scent of ancient wooden furniture and dusty covering sheets that have lain undisturbed for half a century until relatives come to clear the place out.

Not enough is said about the appeal of mustiness. But it’s precisely this smell of ancient neglect that marks fragrances like Djedi (Guerlain), Mukhallat Malaki (Swiss Arabian), Muschio di Quercia (Abdes Salaam al Attar) and Messe de Minuit (Etro) out as special. Further, it’s the dryness of materials – stone, wood, earth – that is important to me at a personal tolerance level, as anything wetter signals a rot of a less noble kind, i.e., damp rot in walls, rotting fruit, or the breaking down of animal tissue. The dustiness of the vetiver in Vetiver is the pleasant exhalation of once-loved rooms, books, and ‘good’ furniture, their human users long gone and their memory faded with time. If, like me, you abhor the rootier, marshier variants of vetiver that smell like stagnant pondwater, then you’ll love Vetiver for first its cleansing-spicy and then dry-woody character.

But let me also tell you that if you’re a complete vetiver wuss, you might like Vetiver anyway because there is the get out clause of a very good ambrette material tucked away in the basenotes. Normally quite vegetal and cool-toned, here the ambrette takes on an almost ambery, resinous sweetness (akin to the ‘rice pudding skin’ vibe the same material creates in Musc Nomade by Annick Goutal). And there are moments where the lingering citric brightness of the ginger smashes into the musk mallow, recreating that distinctive Refresher-Bar-meets-amber vibe of Opus 1144 (UMUM).

How much of this you perceive will depend on application method and the distance at which you smell it. When lightly applied, the sweet, sparkling resinous-musky facet rides up quite insistently, but applied heavily, it is the pleasantly dry, musty woodiness of the vetiver (and the warmth of the ginger) that predominates. Similarly, when smelled up close, Vetiver is all about that vetiver, but when smelled from a distance, the sillage in the air is more that of a bright, spicy Italianate balsamic mixed with something vaguely woody and earthy.

Now, that might be a mixed bag of findings for some (especially those don’t like musks or balsams masking – if even partially – the purity of vetiver), but if you’re looking for a vetiver-centric scent that faithfully conveys the essential vetiveriness of vetiver without making you feel like you’re ingesting a plateful of collard greens boiled in fetid swamp-water, the Vetiver by Hiram Green is a brilliant option. I enjoyed this sample to the last drop because it gave me the ‘dusty old books in a decaying mansion’ vibe I really dig, while also giving me the white-hot lemongrass sting of ginger at the top to wake me up and the sweet, almost resinous sparkle of ambrette in the base to see me out comfortably. It’s basically what I’d make for myself if I were a perfumer and I wanted a vetiver fragrance.

Source of sample: Kindly gifted by the perfumer, Hiram Green.

Cover Image:  Photo by v2osk on Unsplash