Salted Green Mango (2019)
by Strangers Parfumerie

Salted Green Mango opens with subdued bitter orange and moderately sweet hybrid pineapple and melon smelling mango before transitioning to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart the moderately sweet pineapple and melon-like mango remains, now adding a synthetic smelling salty, aquatic accord with sharp vetiver support. During the late dry-down the salty aquatic aspect dissipates and finally vacates, leaving the remnants of of the moderately sweet mango to pair with relatively dry sandalwood through the finish. Projection is average and longevity excellent at over 12 hours on skin.

I have had tremendous positive experiences with several other Prin Lomros compositions, finding the perfumer extremely talented. Knowing this perfume was a Lomros composition I fully expected to love it, but Salted Green Mango turned out to be a mega-stinker. The open immediately is off-putting, with the green mango's odd mixture of a sweet melon and pineapple hybrid that is quite unsettling. That said, the worst aspect of the composition is in the early heart phase, when a disgusting synthetic smelling salty oceanic accord is added to the mix, bringing the composition to scrubber territory in near record time. Things do improve considerably in the late dry-down when the salty oceanic accord finally leaves, allowing a fine, relatively dry sandalwood to balance out the remnants of the mango creating a rather pleasant finish. Pleasant late dry-down aside, had I not been forcing myself to continue wearing the perfume for this write-up, I would have never reached it as the middle is truly unbearable. The bottom line is the $80 per 30 ml bottle Salted Green Mango is easily the worst thing I have sniffed from talented perfumer Lomros (and one of the worst I have sniffed period), earning it a "poor" 1.5 stars out of 5 rating and an *extremely* strong avoid recommendation to all.

I get seaweed and salt, nothing else, no mango whatsoever, hard pass for me.

Tropical green notes from green fruits, green grasses, melons, flowers and all the sharp green which feels clean and fresh ends with very dry seaweed accord. Up close this is very green and the base is all about the seaside. But, from a foot away this is another original and very interesting dry but sharp green scent that has a sober woody dry finish. A nice spring awakening fragrance. 4/5!

The fragrance starts with something sea-like, perhaps seaweed, and quickly morphs into the green mango. Green unripe mango is very different from the yellow sweet one we normally find in the supermarkets. It has a more greenish, sour, crispy smell and flavour. In Thailand it is eaten with a dip sauce that is spicy-sweet-salty-sour and this can be recognized in the dry down of the fragrance.

Later on it dries down to a more general fruity fragrance, but not too sweet, just perfect. It stays close to the skin but is long lasting. Unique and unisex.

Salted Green Mango is, for me, the standout of the Strangers Parfumerie line. The mango note is not really the point – it’s just a momentary swelling of something syrupy and green-tropical behind the avalanche of musk and vetiver, subsiding into the ether far too quickly to be a feature.

The thing to pay attention to here is the salt. Salted Green Mango is basically a huge, spacey cloud of sparkly vetiver-musk molecules that mimics the invigorating scent of salt air. It smells clean, but despite the probably industrial amounts of white musks or Iso E Super used here, also quite organic, like what I imagine the air around the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah smells like on a breezy day. And yet, there is something clearly lab-made about the scent; it feels engineered, ergonomic, and therefore a bit more chic or more modern than just a simple clustering of naturals.

I’m in love with how this (really quite simple) scent of white, clean, salty woods and musk gives me that ‘my-skin-but-better’ aura; it’s effortless and sensual. I’m willing to bet serious money that people who love those modern, shape-shifting floral-woody musks made to smell like 50% cyborg, 50% warm human skin – stuff like Glossier You, Diptyque’s Fleur de Peau, and Le Labo Ambrette 9 – will love Salted Green Mango. For me, it knocks all those modern skin musks, as well as Jo Malone’s (really excellent) Wood Sage & Sea Salt, right off their perches. This one goes straight on the full bottle list.