kissing the dirt* - Nasomatto Absinth

I'll start off this post by saying that I am not a fan of vetiver. When it's one smaller component in a larger, complex composition, I feel it works extremely well: for instance, in Tauer's L'Air du Desert Marocain, Lutens' Iris Silver Mist, or Montale's Blue Amber. However, when vetiver is a major facet of the composition, well... let's just say I don't feel it. To me it smells like dirt. Not spring earth, wet wood and loam, like Iris Silver Mist does, but just... dirt.

Enter, with flourish, Nasomatto Absinth.

This is a very intriguing scent, to me. It does still smell like dirt, particularly on a blotter, but on the skin the herbs come out to give it a much cleaner aspect. It took me a while to figure out what kind of engagement in dirt would still smell so clean. Somewhat sweet but still greenish, quite fresh, very reminiscent of something I used to do as a child. Mudpies? No, it's too clean and sweetish for that. Too young; scroll forward.

*cue visual of tape fast forwarding*

It took me forever, but I finally did figure it out. When I wear this perfume, I am back to pulling Queen Anne's Lace out of the herb garden. Since Queen Anne's Lace is related to carrot the root of that plant smells like a cross between carrot and parsnip, and once I thought of how parsnips smell when you cut them out of the garden, I had Absinth's sweetness pegged. And as for the herbs, any child will tell you that sometimes, when weeding, they'll inadvertently pull one of the tomato plants or the tarragon seedlings out.

The flowers of Queen Anne's Lace themselves have a sweet, creamy yet strongly rubbery scent, and when the flower curls up into the nest boles, the plant and seeds have a particularly pungent dusty green smell. This is, I believe, what the perfumer is trying to pass off as the absinthe, but the smell of the Artemisia thujones in absinthe is far, far different. Thujones are related to camphor, and in taste are deeply bitter. There is nothing as sinus-clearing or bitter about this smell; it's definitely more playful and energetic, utterly ignoring absinthe's piercing hypnoticness.

All in all, while I can't think of this scent as an absinthe perfume, it is a fantastic rendition of vetiver that makes it accessible to even me. It's not an everyday fragrance, but without question a lovely rare unisex perfume.


* all credit goes to INXS for the title
Queen Anne's Lace photo courtesy of University of Auburn