Vetiverus is one of the four Avant-Garden Lab fragrances I recently tested. And it is one that stands out clearly from the quartet (Veil, Orion, Ambergreen, Vetiverus), by its, even if only supposed, naturalness.
The fragrance starts herb-sweet and tarry-smoky: as if one had torn open fleshy, amber-colored dried apricots, and immediately pulled them with relish through a bowl of tar.
This harsh and tart combo may seem animalic - but
Salamanca comes more to mind: well-matched here with the original version of
Bat (2015).
Vetiverus could easily have come from Dr. Ellen Coven's box of ideas - so surprising it seems to the otherwise monothematic and carefree synthetic experiments from the lab of avant-garde Oliver Valverde.
Tarry smoky notes and tart, overripe, fruit-led sweetness create a wonderful and versatile mid-weight scent here:
Sprayed on clothing, the first accords catch in the fabric and congeal.
On the skin, however, unfolds - after several hours - a gentle vetiver with a nice osmanthus impact. I as a hobby nose, believe here both can distinguish well, and the long asphalt path through the warm and humid fruit leather jungle I like extremely well.
Tar and smoke with flowers or fruits to flank, is probably no longer the absolute avant-garde, yet Vetiverus with its two ignition stages and the beautiful metamorphosis into the green and tangy, is hardly a mere provocation, but rather a rather well thought out composition.
That Ambergreen bagged the laurels of the jurors at the time is somewhere understandable; Vetiverus probably appeared on the radar of very few - wrongly, in my opinion. A massive stuff, and a bold olfactory statement.
