Green Valley is my favorite fragrance. It’s the most beautiful scent I’ve ever smelled, and nothing else has truly come close. Creed’s Original Vetiver is in the same neighborhood and gave me a similar sense of awe, but Green Valley went further: richer, lusher, denser, more expansive, more complex, and unforgettable.
Since Creed discontinued it back in 2010, cruelly in my opinion, I’ve been searching for something comparable. Nothing really measures up. Paul Smith Man is maybe halfway there if you squint, but it’s still a stretch. Dior Fahrenheit (the original, not the flankers) also shares some grassy-floral, green qualities, but its defining petrol-violet “barrel” accord dominates too strongly for real comparison. I’ve read Dua Brand’s Vert Instinct is the closest clone, but it’s pricey, and I don’t trust Dua. They don’t seem like true perfumers, and I’m not comfortable buying from a company that outsources its wares.
Recently, though, I pulled out my bottle of Dunhill Fresh. This one’s odd. Released twenty years ago by Maurice Roucel, the name suggests citrus brightness, soapiness, maybe aquatic freshness. Instead, it opens with a muted violet accord reminiscent of Fahrenheit, only blurred, as if Roucel draped a foggy green filter over it. And here’s the twist: it reminds me of Green Valley. At first, I thought it was just the Fahrenheit overlap, but when I went back to my empty Green Valley bottle and sniffed the atomizer, I noticed something uncanny. The residue, oils clinging to the glass, gives off a rich violet and tea-like aroma that matches the heart of Dunhill Fresh almost exactly. It feels as if Roucel captured that hidden aspect of Green Valley but left out its grassy-bright overture, likely because Dunhill wasn’t paying Creed’s budget for natural materials and there was no realistic way for him to replicate them. Since he's a true genius, Roucel didn't even try.
Dunhill Fresh doesn’t smell like Green Valley -- let’s be clear about that. What it does smell like is the semi-evaporated dregs of Green Valley. There’s something in its structure that carries a mysterious resemblance. In the far drydown, ten hours later, when I smell where I sprayed, a familiar fruity cadence emerges, followed by a soft grassy lilt. It’s faint, a ghost of an accord, but it brings the comparison into focus. At that point Dunhill actually does echo the Creed.
It’s a tricky comparison because Green Valley has often been likened to other Creeds, especially Green Irish Tweed and Silver Mountain Water. Back in 2011, when I was still wearing my bottle of GV, I understood the SMW comparison but never the GIT one. To this day, I can’t see the resemblance. GV and GIT are worlds apart. With SMW, the link is clearer: GV carries an accord of blackcurrant and warm citrus, just as SMW blends currant with mandarin orange. But in GV that accord is just one thread in a much larger tapestry, while SMW remains leaner and far simpler.
Dunhill Fresh is also lean and simple, though it handles its plush accords sparingly, which is rare in perfumery. Somehow Roucel bottled the soul of Green Valley, but the soul alone isn’t enough. To understand what GV truly was, you need the bitter wildflowers rising through fields of tall grass, the gingery-bright shimmer breaking through a misty morning of sunlight in liquid form. Roucel couldn’t capture that, and perhaps no one could. Yet one has to wonder if he wasn’t the shadow hand behind GV itself, since to this day no perfumer has ever been officially credited for its creation.