The Agua Lavanda Review That's Grown Out Of Control

I must confess, I am one of those old-fashioned women who swear by lavender and whose house is never without it. We're talking lavender sachets and soaps in every drawer, lavender pillows in bed, lavender skincare, lavender-scented detergents, relatives bringing lavender souvenirs from their trips to lavender-rich regions, and so on and so forth. Oh, and let's not forget lavender tea and lavender honey, many are the joys of this simlple herb. So it's only natural that at a certain point I set about finding the Holy Grail of mono theme lavender perfumes. And trust me when I say that I had searched for it high and low, drugstore and niche, and then some. Some were too sweet, others too masculine, others yet - too bland, and then there was a whole subset of perfumes with lavender on the label and none inside. 

All that until Jicky came along and put things into perspective. At least then I knew what my perfect lavender were to be like, and so I went on relentlessly, trying this and sampling that, all the while passing up the huge, green, suspiciously cheap and shampoo-like bottles of Puig's Agua Lavanda.

I firmly believe, that it was none other than the Gods of Perfumery who prompted one of my usual decanters to include a 10 ml sample of AL as a gift with my next purchase. I stuck it in the farmost corner of my bathroom shelf and forgot all about it.

And then there was summer. Not just any summer, but the hot, balmy, humid, no-matter-what-you-wear-it-shall-be-soaking-wet-in-less-than-ten-minutes, urban Asian summer. Ice tea and air conditioning were the only things that kept me barely alive, and since I was unable to wear any of my beautiful, complex, essentially cold-weather perfumes, I decided to give that lavender sample a reluctant try. I showered thoroughly, fished the decant out of its confines and cautiously planted a measly drop of the pale green liquid on the upper side of my left wrist.

It was... grassy. And bracing. And cool. And I wanted more, so I sprayed generously all over myself, thinking I should have probably started the shower preemptively,  just in case.

Suddenly my bathroom in the middle of sweltering Beijing  felt like a field in Provence: purple all the way to the horizon and hazy blue onwards, sun-drenched, with all the little herbal nuances, the hay, the warm, golden tobacco sweeping around me on an lazy evening breeze. As I inhaled, so grew before my inward eye the magic field of my dreams, wisps of lavender, rosemary, sage and heather all around me, and I felt complete. I felt happy.

Agua Lavanda has since become the single most abused substance in my family, both here in China, and back home. My Mom and I spray our bedlinens with it, each in her own home, thousands of miles apart we are one in this small secret gesture.  My very much younger Brother adores it and flaunts it year-round with an air of inimitable smug.  My Dad and Husband have both abandoned their summer aftershaves in favor of a good old splash of AL. I dab a bit on my kids' hair after their bath, and on mosquito bites too. And then of course I perfume myself with it, every time I want to go back to my inner Provence, not just in summer.