Ofrésia (1999)
by Diptyque

I wasn't excited by this on my first try -- it was just a faint, clean little floral, the kind you might smell anywhere. But my boyfriend (who could care less about perfumes) loved it. He said it smelled "like nature." So I gave it another shot. I'd seen it described elsewhere as smelling like feminine hygiene products, and this description stuck with me. There is a vinegary note (maybe it's the pepper's sharpness that I'm perceiving as vinegar) that keeps recalling the images I remember on those boxes -- soft-focus pictures of women in white dresses standing in fields of flowers. Everything about the image is supposed to invoke something fresh, clean, and natural, while the very nature of the product suggests the exact reverse.

My revised opinion, after resampling several times for my boyfriend's benefit: a faint, clean little floral with something just a little skanky and suspicious about it. I like it, though I'll probably forget all about it when the sample is gone.

I'm not familiar with real freesia and have a feeling I don't normally like the note in perfume, but Ofresia is a lovely little gem of a scent. I don't know what it smells "like", except perhaps a little like a fresh green tea scent. I just know that it's crisp, delicate, clean, wet, like a raindrop on a green leaf in spring. Really, naturally clean and fresh - not "clean and fresh" like all those horrid, sharp, ozonic/aquatic, often quite stale, laundry detergent/deodorant/shower gel type scents. Adepta said it beautifully, read her review instead.

Ofrésia starts life with an intensely sweet citrus and floral accord that at first had me thinking “Oh great, Diptyque stoops to frooty floral.” Thank the perfume gods that the scent veers quickly toward the green, establishing within minutes a bright, buoyant green floral accord that chugs along almost unaltered for several hours (in true Diptyque linear fashion). I’m not so certain that it smells of freesia, but Ofrésia is a lovely, luminous composition that has me smiling as I wear it.

If I were to compare Ofrésia with some classics in the green floral fragrance family, I’d look to Chanel’s No. 19 and Guerlain’s Chamade, both of which share the Diptyque’s air of sunlit spring mornings. Ofrésia’s green notes are less sharp and biting than No. 19’s, though, and its sweet-tart fruity dimension makes it more crisp and energetic than Chamade. As a thoroughly contemporary fragrance, Ofrésia also has a far simpler and more concise structure than its classic cousins: blocks of citrus, bright florals, and bittersweet herbaceous green notes laid side by side on a clean woody base, and not all that much else. A device does not have to be all that complex to work, however, and work Ofrésia does – at least for my nose. I’d have to call this out as an underappreciated gem in the Diptyque line and I recommend a sampling to both men* and women.

(*I think the citrus and green notes in Ofrésia might make it an easy wear for any man who’s comfortable with, say, the Guerlain Eau de Cologne variants.)

Peppery green, fresh floral, but not flowery! Lasts all day, and all the little notes you would rather do without, disappear just when you are ready for them to leave,

Sorry for giving this one a thumbs down. I love fresia so much to the point that I was really excited to try this one, but on my skin it has a true foulness to it. It's almost as if they didn't get the essence of the flower, but the entire plant instead. Definitely try it on to see what it smells like on your skin. I'm sad and disappointed.

Excepting my experiences with the flower, I never once thought of myself as a "freesia" gal. In fact, I never knew anyone besides BBW did a freesia scent... I just took it for a cheapie note that could be done however one would do it. Boy, howdy, was I mistaken.
I received a sweet little decant from my dear sister in scent (Dear K, my nose now trusts your every decision! :) What can I say; I've been instructed in the way that a freesia should "behave." I don't know why this flower likes my nose so much, but it does...and I wouldn't mind having more of it for my nose to appreciate. Thumbs up, all the way.