Vetiver 46 (2006)
by Le Labo

Starts off rather dry and smoky. Almost incense like and a little reminiscent of the smokiness in Patchouli 24. There is a bit of wood notes in there and not much real vetiver to begin with. After awhile the vetiver note emerges and again is on the dry side. Not rooty, or raw – just a dry woody vetiver note that persists throughout retaining some of the smoky qualities from the beginning. While it is a good scent and sure not to displease anyone, I like my vetivers a bit more interesting and this just doesn’t do a lot for me. In the field of wonderful vetiver fragrances available, this one hovers squarely in the middle of the pack.

8th February, 2012.

Great! But very, very similar to Comme des Garcons 2Man. A little churchier, a little less bonfire. Same perfumer. Odd.

30th December, 2011.

Mr.Buxton enters the Comme Des Garcons headquarter bringing a case containing a "prototype" of CDG2MAN. He has a meeting with the art directors at the marketing department. He sits at the round table, opens the case and shows the guys his work.

After testing many microvariations of the same composition they all agree that the best is the one labelled as "No Vetiver". A guy stands up, smell the paperstrip and goes:

- this is almost perfect and we would like to keep the finished product as close as possible to this sample but what about turning the general campfire vibe into something more waxy? I'd like CDG2MAN to have a waxy feel to it, like a burning candle...I love the church-y incense and woody quality we got here but why not to add some vetiver to "No Vetiver"? and what about throwing in a tad of leather as well?

This is perfectly fine with Mr.Buxton who only has a small request:

- I worked many months on "No Vetiver", do you guys mind if I give the original formula you just dismissed to Le Labo? They just asked me for a vetiver based composition...

No objections

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Vetiver 46 smells great, but be aware that you can have CDG2MAN (which is even better) at 1/3 the price.

16th December, 2011. (Last Edited: 6th January, 2012.)

I like this one as you get a sweet smokey Frankincense accord with hints of wood and vetiver. Smells really nice on the skin and I am also picking up the slight lemony resinous aspect of the incense. Its a lovely fragrance accord.

14th December, 2011.

This is just another iteration of CdG Man 2. I like it a lot, and do smell the richness of the ingredients, but ultimately feel that the CdG is slightly more complex and, thus, more interesting.

15th October, 2011.

As interesting as this stuff is, I didn't really find it to be very vetiver-prominent. It opens with a really intriguing mixture of spices: sweet and very sharp, reminiscent of incense. The sharpness slowly beomes muted, leaving what to me is a just slightly "greened-up" version of a standard incense...basically Avignon, which unfortunately has a bit of a cloying edge to me. This edge fades away somewhat into the base, though, leaving some sweet exotic woods behind, of which vetiver is a part, but certainly not any more than you'd find in the base of any other woody scent. Frankincense also reveals itself rather late into the base notes, giving a creaminess to the wood. Personally, since I expected vetiver, and since I already have sample vials of CdG 2 Man, Sequoia, and their whole incence series, I nearly dismissed LLV46 as a waste of time, but it does smell good. I doubt that I'll ever prefer sharp, incensey wood over regular old sweet, creamy wood, but this frag succeeds somewhat in splitting the difference.

26th September, 2011.