Reviews of Vétiver Extraordinaire (2002)
by Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle

I was really excited to smell this at first. It's such a different interpretation and the vivid first impressions stuck: leaves and needles frozen in ice, or freeze dried, or laminated. I also smell water which is quite fantastic. I don't know many vetivers yet but I'm surprise there hasn't been drawn the comparison to cdg vetiveru, both are kind of like pale washes.

this one is so elusive though, you could spray the live long day and nobody would be any the wiser. discreet. private, kind of repressed!

It's a beautiful scent but before that it is a fragrance that says, "oh no you don't". Which is alluring, but. . .. I don't want to be denied satisfaction.

At least its titties and balls are not all hanging out like Musc Ravageur!

Funky.

It takes a while for the other notes to disappear. They smell nasty to me. Someone said lighter fluid and I think that is pretty close.

Then the funky bad vetiver from testosterone hell kicks in and stays.

I wouldn't wear it out but sometimes a few drops at home to round off a few days of different vetivers......

..OOOOwwwwwww!!!! Baby!!!! Get on down!!!

VE is a very nice vetiver rendition, but I can’t help but feel there isn’t much to it. I mean, I don’t feel VE is much different from vetiver in EO form. It’s got a few twists and additions here and there, but I don’t really feel like it’s very complete or well done. I do, however, love Vetiver, and this is the closest you can get to Vetiver EO in a fragrance.

Vetiver Extraordinaire is one of the strangest fragrances I've yet encountered. The first minute smells like a BBQ grill that badly needs cleaning. In the beginning, it has a potent cumin note that really gets to me, but it does diminish quickly. I am also not a big fan of the bitter bigarade orange note that Frederic Malle uses in their fragrances and this one has it strong. The bitter bigarade oranges mixes with the strange musty ozone note and gives it kind of a dank, sour feel for the first few minutes. Afterwards, when the uber-strong bigarade orange and spice rack cools down a little, the vetiver shows up along with lovely fellow base notes of musk and amber. VE is sharp bigarade oranges, hot spices, smoky cedarwood, a dank, musty ozone note, grassy vetiver and a warm amber and musk base. It is very smoky and I still get teriyaki chicken cooking on the backyard grill out of this one, but I still like it a little for some reason. Maybe because it is so different and yet still okay smelling. Though kind of nice it is still slightly novelty and reminds me a lot of a less sweet version of the sickening Gobin Daude Biche dans L'Absinthe. It's kind of fun to wear out but only when you want to be extremely different.
NOTES: Bergamot, Bigarade Orange, Pink Pepper, Nutmeg, Floralozone (muguet ozone),
Haïtain vetyver, Sandalwood, Cedarwood, Oak Moss, Myrrh, Cashmeran (synthetic spiced floral), Muske-tone (synthetic musk), Tonalide (synthetic musk)