Vétiver (1981)
by Annick Goutal

I was at NM looking to score a free spritz of Encre Noire which I did and when the very charming SA asked me how I liked it I told her, "Oh I didn't know it was so leathery. I really don't wear leather much." After a liitle discussion she said she had the perfect vetiver for me and sent me home with a sample of Annick Goutal. When I tried it guess what I smelled? You guessed it. Leather. A not too bad leather though. Overall the fragrance is quite remarkable. Really pretty. Smells very refined and the leather seems kept in check by other notes. I can't wear it because I'm a certified leatherphobe of course but ironically perhaps I think it might be really sexy on a female and wouldn't object to smelling it on the right one.

15th December, 2011.

Along with the new Lanvin, this is one of the few vetivers I've tried with a distinctly hair spray / nail polish quality. Initially it's very dark and subdued, with more pineyness than most, and the almost nutty quality of the old Guerlain. A lighter green starts to show through, with makes me think of aloe vera for some reason (moreso the actual plant than the juice or processed products). It becomes inky, but in an unpleasant way...much heavier than Encre Noire. The inkiness becomes more and more rubbery over time, and thus heralds the beginning of the beauty salon smell. A bit of the nuttiness remains for a while, but soon all that I smell is harsh chemicals; any plant material of any sort is secondary. This really could have been good, but ended up just being a big waste of time.

14th May, 2011.

This Vetiver is such an odd mix of the elements. It’s the surf-and-turf perfume. I hear the words marine, aquatic and salty used often to describe fragrances and I always wonder what they mean. I understand marine when talking about Secretions Magnifiques. In that case it’s the scent of drying and decaying beach debris. I understand aquatic to be a marketing term to describe calone and related aromachemicals. Salty? You got me.

Annick Goutal’s Vetiver gives you that blast of iodine at the outset that actually does suggest the scent of crashing surf thrown into the air. It’s very specific. It’s a scent that reminds you of the sea and not of iodine tincture or povidone-iodine. After the sea-air feel fades, though, Vetiver becomes an earthy scent. There is a tonka-coumarin note that combines with the less rootlike aspects of the vetiver to give a nice moist-hay, grassy scent. It smells a bit like a peaty Scotch. All of these elemental notes must sound a bit grim, but there is something that keeps Vetiver buoyant. It doesn’t actually smell floral, but in the heart something emerges that gives an impression that a soft white floral heart would also give. I’m not sure how it’s done, but it’s a great effect.

22nd February, 2011.

Notes: Javanese vetiver, rare woods, iodine, Burmese spices
I really like this scent! Like Eau d’Hadrien, it has a dry, uncompromising and exhilarating character. The grassy and cushy vetiver combines well with salty-briny iodine. I’m pretty sure that the ‘rare woods’ are oud, that goes well with the iodine and vetiver. The spices likely include clove and perhaps nutmeg. These earthy, pungent spices work well with the rootsy vetiver.

14th July, 2010. (Last Edited: 8th April, 2011.)

Sometimes it pays to revisit a fragrance I thought I knew well. I wore Annick Goutal's Vétiver recently as a comparator for Mazzolari's Vetyver, and incidentally discovered an element that I'd missed in the Goutal. Here is my review from the winter of 2010:

"Goutal's is a straightforward vetiver composition, sparsely decorated with citrus and lavender top notes, plus perhaps a very light touch of anise and/or caraway to accentuate the spicy facets of the featured note. Don't expect the raw, earthy quality of Route du Vétiver and Etro's Vetiver, nor the smoke and incense of Encre Noire and Sycomore. Instead, Goutal's Vétiver approximates the smooth, suave style of Givenchy Vetyver, though with less of the Givenchy's characteristic nutty richness and anisic overtones. I'd describe it as a dry scent, buttoned up and relatively formal, with an emphasis upon vetiver's grassy, rather than its rooty, aspect. It's a serviceable vetiver, but with less personality than many of the alternatives."

This last time around I detected a conspicuous tarry/smoky note, akin to that in Andy Tauer's Lonestar Memories and Olivier Durbano's Black Tourmaline. It's very much a campfire or barbecue smell, and it makes Goutal's Vétiver a lot more interesting than I recall. I give particular credit for the artful application of the smoky note. While the smoke tends to dominate the Tauer and the Durbano, here it blends into a balanced accord with the central vetiver, and the result is a more natural-smelling and integrated arrangement. The smoke also reveals Goutal's Vétiver as a stylistic precursor to later smoky vetivers like Sycomore and Encre Noire, though without their prominent incense notes.

23rd February, 2010. (Last Edited: 18th May, 2010.)

Some vetiver fragrances, such as Creed's Vetiver, obscure the vetiver note by burying it under a pile of other notes. Not so here. You'd better really like the smell of vetiver if you expect to like this, because the vetiver note is right out in the open and in your face.

Raw, sharp, and earthy best describe Goutal's Vetiver, which is exactly the way vetiver is supposed to smell. No buried vetiver notes here. The reason I like this vetiver so much is that it has a salty smell that is very much like the smell of ocean water. There's also a slight, dark smoky note lurking in there as well. The overall effect is like being at the beach at night with a campfire off in the distance.

This is a wonderfully natural smelling fragrance. So get yourself a bottle, spray yourself all over, and breathe in deeply. You won't regret it.

28th August, 2009. (Last Edited: 24th April, 2010.)