Vetiver pour Elle (2004)
by Guerlain

A million thumbs up! This fragrance is absolutely divine. I totally adore it's candyish quality. After I sprayed it, I almost felt like licking my wrist! The staying power of Vetiver pour elle is good for such a light fragrance but it is not as good as it should be, considering the price. I was tempted to buy it for myself but it is so outrageously pricey where I live (over three times more expensive than a regular edt).

26th April, 2011.

If vetiver could be made into a mouthwatering candy or pastry - the way other aromatic vegetal ingredients like mint, licorice, horehound, angelica, and anise could - it would taste the way Vetiver pour Elle smells. The layer of florals here wouldn't be out of place in a Middle Eastern sweet.

23rd July, 2010.

Notes (from OsMoz.com): Bergamot, orange blossom, honeysuckle, nutmeg, vetiver, tonka bean.

What was Guerlain thinking, putting together a composition like this, then deciding not to distribute it? While Guerlain Vetiver is many a vetiver lover’s benchmark, I’ve never been able to warm up to its staid - even stodgy - treatment of the title note. By contrast, Vetiver pour Elle is a much more exciting and original composition. Too bad you can’t actually buy it.

After a brisk lemon and bergamot opening, Vetiver pour Elle glides into an elegantly streamlined accord of clean, woody vetiver, green orange blossom, and nutmeg. This arrangement is more emphatically floral than any treatment of vetiver I’ve worn, save Mazzolari’s equally suave and transparent Vetyver. Wearing Mazzolari Vetyver and Vetiver pour Elle side-by-side somewhat eases the pain of Guerlain’s incomprehensible distribution strategy. While I can readily distinguish between the two, they are very closely related. Since the far less expensive Mazzolari (I never imagined I would say that!) is every bit the Guerlain’s equal in quality, it could easily fill the same green floral vetiver wardrobe slot.

Meanwhile, Guerlain, hows about you try selling this stuff somewhere? You just might make some money off of it…

8th June, 2010.

Now THIS is a vetiver! It is so much better than the men’s version of Guerlain Vetiver. It is so much better than a whole host of vetivers out there. It is primarily a floral vetiver and it has a recessive nutmeg warmth – adding a tiny bit of spice to the mix. The “sweet” in the fragrance is furnished by tonka bean for a sweetly refined somewhat vanilla note that has strength but doesn’t seem to overwhelm with its sweetness: It’s so well put together that, if I concentrate on the tonka bean, the fragrance seems overly sweet, but when I concentrate on the whole, the sweetness disappears and the exquisitely balanced whole comes forth. The vetiver presented has the necessary edge to it, but the slight edginess goes unnoticed within the matrix.

Vetiver Pour Elle is a masterpiece of proportion and style. It has enough sillage that it’s not a skin scent, but the sillage isn’t strong. Its longevity is very good. Personally I find this quite feminine on my skin so I wouldn’t choose to wear it, but it could very well be the most beautiful vetiver fragrance I’ve experienced.

4th December, 2009.

Green citrus bergamot, white-floral citrus neroli, green-floral honeysuckle, white-floral lily of the valley, the sweet spice of nutmeg, woody green vetiver, and the new-mown hay note of coumarin from tonka beans. Altogether a woody and green scent with traces of sweet florals and spice, with a dryish edge of coumarin powderiness. Vetiver with a touch of fougère? Yes, but too much vetiver to allow lavender in, so a kind of fougère manquée. Yet J-P Guerlain's instincts were dead-on; the right balance for a softer version of the 1961 Vétiver, if anything even woodier, less harsh, for removing the screen of rougher base notes and revealing more of the vetiver. It's quite nice for men, too — despite the rather sexist name.

1st September, 2008.

Until 2004, Guerlain's only true vetiver-scent - the widely acclaimed, simply named Vetiver - was reserved for men. Women loved it, though, and they often asked Jean-Paul Guerlain to create a feminine version. Forty-five years after Vetiver, he finally accepted the task and made Vetiver pour Elle. He kept the characteristic notes of vetiver root, nutmeg and bergamot, but replaced the sweet tobacco with flowers like jasmine, lily of the valley and orange blossom. At first, its availability was limited to French airport shops, presented in a bottle that was a strange compound of Robert Granai's masculine Vetiver bottle and the romantic 'heart shaped stopper' bottle. The scent soon proved so successful that it was incorporated into the 'Les Parisiennes' line in 2007. With Vetiver pour Elle, Jean-Paul Guerlain managed to unite the smell of the earthy vetiver-root and bitter nutmeg with rich notes of white flowers. While the added tarragon in Vetiver Extrême tends to drown the wonderful vetiver in a prolonged soapy-herbal vapour, in Vetiver pour Elle, vetiver and flowers complement each other perfectly in a poised dance. The fragrance evolves and alternates beautifully between the flowery and earthy notes, and the wearer gives up deciding whether it's the white petals or the soil beneath the flower that he smells - or simply both. It's worth mentioning that perfume expert Luca Turin in his 2008 perfume-guide describes it as possibly the best woody fragrance currently - also for men.

12nd May, 2008.