I will talk about some of the Le Jardin Retrouvé fragrances today. If you want to know more about the house and its history, there's a lovely post by Divina from Fragrance bouquet.I'm going to talk more about impressions today. :) It is difficult for me to talk about scents without having notes, my nose is not really that good.
But since Mr. Denis Gutsatz was so kind to send free samples for me to review, I'll try my best. One thing I realized while trying them is that it took me a second round of smelling them to actually begin appreciating them better. Or maybe it was just the fact that I had a terrible cold.
The things is, it seems there are a lot of citrusy notes in almost all of Mr. Yuri Gutsatz's creations. Most of the time they are in their right place for me - the one I actually didn't like was Citron Poivrée (smelled like lemon drops).
Anyway, none of them smelled modern to me or terribly new. Some of them reminded me of my childhood spent running around my grandmother's garden or parks where I played with other children. Some of the rose fragrances (more about them soon) reminded me of people from my childhood - especially my grandmother.
Of the four I will go through today, Verveine celeste is the one that smelled most spring-like of all the creations and most memory-inducing. And I believe I finally found my cut grass fragrance. I've been looking for it for so long and I absolutely love the fact that I can smell it in this. The only problem is that it will wait until spring for me to feel the need to wear it. But I don't mind.
And that might be one of the reasons I didn't fall straight away for the Jardin Retrouvé scents. Almost all of them evoke spring feelings for me.
I like Tubéreuse very much - it smells green and tuberose-jasmine like. Very strong - I'd say the strongest of the line and if you don't like the smell of either tuberose or jasmine, steer clear. I love it. But also in the spring. It smells exactly like I imagine tuberose and jasmine should smell.
One of the woody scents in the line, Santal is lovely if somewhat bland when compared to woody scents of Serge Lutens line for example. This one is listed under masculines but as more of a unisex. Very true. I think it now sounds like it's not good when compared to more heavy scents but actually it's quite lovely. On my first try I thought I got some fruity, herbal whiffs from it - but I seem to have missed them on my second try. And it all rests on this lovely santal woody base and sort of stays clear of either going into warm, sweet more feminine territory or the other way into more masculine territory.
The last one for today is Cuir de Russie. Interesting take on leather albeit maybe too sweet for my taste. Not as in candy too sweet, but in leather too sweet. It's a floral cuir to me. Strange and actually not bad. I'll be giving this more thought in the near future, there is definitely potential here. Lots of it.
I only had one floral on the list today, but the others in the line are included as those that provoke childhood memories.
All of these scents would in my opinion work great as ambient scents which is what Mr. Gutsatz probably thought himself since some of them come as candles as well.
And the name of the line is apt as well. It is definitely a place to go to find lost scent memories of childhood (in case you have memories of running through green places).
Picture by: http://www.lejardinretrouve.com/
P.S. The best thing of all is if you find something you love, you're not going to pay terribly much for it - the prices they offer are the ones from 1975. when the company was founded. Worth exploring. I'll be exploring their beauty oil soon. :)
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