Of all the fragrance families, one of the hardest to classify is “green.” One one level, it’s as simple as the smell of fresh-cut grass, but it’s easier to understand green as a fragrance if you instead imagine a walk in the forest, or through a field or park.
By and large, they match the lightness of spring and summer, but they also hit the sweet spot during the dregs of winter.
Is this one more green, or more leather? It doesn’t matter, because the marriage of those two sensations creates something smart, like the olfactory equivalent of a lazy cottage Sunday.
It’s called Blade of Grass, but there are a lot of notes working together in Richard James’ scent that give it a collective green lean.
Philosykos is figgy through and through, combining fig leaves, fruit, and tree notes with cedar and sweet coconut.
Its powdery softness is akin to fresh laundry, though it smells nothing of the sort: there’s green apple, oakmoss, musk, bergamot and mandarin, cashmere, cedar, and amber.
It’s a lighter EDP, but a lightness that lasts; it’s terrific for the guy who might feel somewhat scent-averse or -shy, but who wants to cast a subtle, universally-liked radius.
It sends you down the slopes of the Swiss alps, but not as a winter skier; instead it’s got the freshness of a summer mountain stream, bottled at the base, and savored now for 25+ years.
And while the scent won’t last terribly long, it gives you a satisfying come down from the gym, and ensures that you smell as fresh as you feel.
It’s a terrific example of how a variety of notes can combine for that forest-bathing feel, even if the scent is technically more aromatic or woody than green-centric.
But it’s the musk, moss, and galbanum resin that give Nightclubbing its best moves, and which make it perfect for date night, or the longest nights of the year .
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