Luncheon on the Grass: Paul Cezanne  

Summer and vetiver seem to go together.  As the mercury rises, I reach for my favorite vetiver fragrances like Guerlain Vetiver or Lalique Encre Noire. One of the reasons is that vetiver seems to add so much to the warmer half of the year because it has such an interesting duality. Vetiver can sometimes have a grassy quality, or an almost woody quality, or an earthy aspect. Which aspect shows up has to do with the source of the vetiver and the method used to extract the essential oil. Diptyque in their latest fragrance, Vetyverio, has chosen to display a combination of all of the different aspects that vetiver can bring to a fragrance. The perfumer they chose to accomplish this was Olivier Pescheux.

M. Pescheux has previously done four L’Eau fragrances for Diptyque the best of which was 2009’s L’Eau de Tarocco. In that fragrance M. Pescheux manage to capture and enhance the juicy aspects of citrus and create a lush opulent fragrance out of a series of notes that usually serve as the opening to multitudinous other fragrances. L’Eau de Tarocco was one of my fragrances of summer 2009. For Vetyverio M. Pescheux has chosen to use a blueprint that worked for another Diptyque fragrance, Tam Dao.

 

Tam Dao is one of the most complex studies of a single note, sandalwood, as exists in perfumery. It works because, Daniele Moliere the nose, allowed sandalwood to create an axis around which the other notes would interact and allow for those interactions to illuminate and delineate the central note. In Vetyverio I experienced the same kind of development as M. Pescheux takes us on a journey through all that vetiver can be.

 

 

L’Eau de Tarocco showed what a deft hand M. Pescheux has with citrus and in Vetyverio the top notes once again show that skill. Mandarin orange, Italian lemon, and grapefruit share the lushness evident in L’Eau de Tarocco but this time they are tempered by the grassy quality of vetiver.

 

 

When vetiver has that grassy quality to it, it can sometimes feel almost medicinal but the acidity of the citrus along with the juiciness adds a tempering quality to the vetiver which allows it to just feel closer to fresh-cut grass without a hint of the medicine cabinet present. Citrus and vetiver are old familiar partners but in the heart of Vetyverio M. Pescheux decides to go in a different direction and he adds three floral notes; rose, ylang ylang, and geranium.

 

 

The geranium ushers the florals to the foreground and allows for the transition of the core vetiver from the grassier aspect to the earthy aspect. Here it feels like the freshly turned garden full of roots and over it all a delicate mix of serene rose and ylang ylang.

 

 

As Vetyverio develops, a spicy phase ushers it to the base as clove, nutmeg, and carrot seed turn the vetiver from earthy to woody and as that woodiness takes hold a clean strong cedar arrives to allow Vetyverio to close as a combination of slightly smoky wood and clean wood underneath of which is found a  restrained musk.

Vetyverio has excellent longevity and modest sillage.

 

 

 

 

As Tam Dao did in 2003; Vetyverio with M. Pescheux at the helm, does in 2010, it takes one of the most well-known notes in all of perfumery and somehow allows you to discover all of its subtleties all over again.

Disclosure: This review was based on a preview sample provided by Diptyque.

-Mark Behnke, Managing Editor

Editor's note:  I believe if Paul Cezanne wore a fragrance it must have been a vetiver