Forest Rain (2008)
by Kiehl's

It's been a while since a single scent has so captivated me! This little known wonder from the house of Kiehl is enticingly good! Spread the words- this a classic and one of the best new scent to come out during the last few years!

As Pidgeon Murderer says, its smells like shampoo. Its very sharp, and pretty offensive to me. It is very strong and there is something sweet about this fragrance, I don't even know what muguet is but its probably that. Original Musk was on the shelf near it, they shouldn't be: Kiehl's OM is on a different league.

Well, I guess I'll be the first...
I've just acquired a bottle of Forest Rain and I've been wearing it for about an hour. Although I have a limited experience with Kiehl's fragrances, I can say I've never been blown away by any of them. Forest Rain included. Not to say that it's not good. It's interesting. The opening is very citrusy and woody, like a hybrid lemon/orange being stored in a cedar chest. This disapates fairly quickly, leaving the decidedly floral notes of muguet, which I've just learned is a synthesization of Lilly of the Valley, which apparently is hard to distill, so it has to be recreated with other ingredients. This hangs around for about a half an hour or so and then these sit atop the basenotes of vetiver and musk, which leans far more to the masculine in this construct. Here, in its final phases, I am put in mind of Bulgari Black, the juice that comes in the hockey puck and smells more like a leather motorcycle jacket than la nuit.
So where does "Forest Rain" come into the picture? It doesn't. I was expecting a kind of piney acquatic with this, but its anything but.
Its pretty assertive. Not too, but its not wimpy either. Being a fan of old school kick ass masculine scents, I like that. Right now I'm getting little whiffs of classic Coppertone suntan lotion...I don't know if it's the Kiehl's, but I hope it is. I love the smell of Coppertone...often wished they'd come out with a perfume version of it.
In conclusion, I'd have to say that this would be a great all purpose scent for cooler weather. A perfect office scent. A scent when you want to smell pleasing, but don't want to call attention to it...it does fall on the spicy side, so keep that in mind.

Musk, Fresh and Masculine..

Its a combination of clean vetiver and mossy woods with the drydown of Kiehls Musk. Long lasting, much longer than the original Kiehls musk..highly recommended! good stuff!

Unfortunately terrible. Astonishingly good-looking bottle and the concept created some high expectations.

Very STRONG and cheap smelling juice. It smells like generic super-market fresh-floral fragrance for women.

Fresh and watery muquet is very overwhelming in this scent. It’s very strong. Vetiver is very subdued – I think it should have been much more pronounced to make this more earthy and masculine.
Powdery musk comes clearer and clearer during the drydown. This is super strong fragrance with monstrous lasting power.

It smells interesting at first, but after short some time it turns awfully annoying and cheap smelling shampoo-like fragrance. And yeah, it is very feminine too.


I am very disappointed in this.

I had high hopes for this one. Opens with a fair bit of citrus, the vetiver is fairly light, certainly not as earthy as VE or RdV and lighter than the Hermessence Vetiver Tonka. There's a bit of musk, but again, it's a bit soft and light, the drydown is a mix of the vetiver, musk and lilly of the valley.

I'm not sure why it's called "Forest" but I definitely can see the "rain" part of the name as it does have a wet feel to it but I had hoped for some more coniferous notes.