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When I think back on the "green" fragrances I've owned and worn over the past ten years, the greenest of them was probably Tsar by Van Cleef & Arpels. Every spray of Tsar was like a handful of glittering emeralds, the scent of woods and leaves and mosses and pine needles, with an expansive breath of lavender, juniper, and rosemary whistling through the branches. It smelled lush and was almost formless in its abundance, a fragrance of regality and heraldry befitting its name. I rue that I wore every last drop of it and then discarded the empty bottle, for now Tsar is long discontinued and priced at $150 an ounce.
Wearing Fanghorn II reminds me of that intense greenness, although there is something pleasantly "off" about how it smells. It opens with a bitter blast of piney greenness that practically glows in the air, a dense, textured, intensely woody buzz of evergreen needles, sappy woods, and bright terpenes. No wonder it was voted "Best Artisanal Perfume" of 2021 in Basenotes' North American category. It's very hard to ignore something this focused and full-throated. As it dries there are shades of artemisia, juniper, sweet black hemlock, and a mineral stoniness, which is suggestive of a craggy landscape under all the heavy branches. Everything gets dustier and drier with yet more time on skin, and I get a weirdly antiquated vibe of sixteenth century cedar closets and timber cottages nestled in the wilderness of Renaissance Europe. Mysterious stuff.
Nilsson achieves a balance between crisp green needles and sticky woods by using a saccharine hinge of caramellic hemlock to connect them. At times its sweetness threatens to turn Fanghorn II into a candle, but it's complex and dynamic enough to skirt the realm of functional fragrance. This is Pineward's "core expression" and signature accord, and it's great if you want "green," but I still prefer the sunnier elegance of White Fir.
By the way, what does "Fanghorn" refer to? It sounds like an Old Spice shampoo, not an upscale niche fragrance at two dollars per milliliter. In the age of Proctor & Gamble, let's be a little more careful with our names.