Eau des 4 Reines (L'Occitane)

My brother happens to be a huge fan of L'Occitane's fragrances, and owns five or six of them, making the brand his number one choice. He only has eight to ten frags. He's not a huge fragrance enthusiast, so this seems about right. For some reason, L'Occitane is the gateway niche brand of Connecticut, and the go-to for young guys and gals who don't know a lick about perfume, but want to wear something "fancy" and "obscure." The Danbury Fair Mall has a sizable shop frequented by New York Staters and western Yankees of means, and last I checked it was as pricy as ever, given what you get (basically your average mall scent).

Eau des 4 Reines is the third L'Occitane I've worn, putting me considerably behind my younger sibling with this brand, but it inspires no urgent need to catch up, as I find it to be a disappointment. I should make clear though that I think it's a good perfume, and worth checking out if you're a lover of rose scents. There's nothing wrong with it, quality-wise. It's made of decent, long-lasting synthetics, and possesses a delicate floral character that is at once abstract and regal, postmodern and stuffy. That's an odd balance to strike. The most direct comparison I can make is not to any single perfume, but to one part of a perfume, the base of Creed Spring Flower.

Spring Flower opens with a barrage of sour fruit notes that become somewhat sweeter with time, before dissolving into an intricately delicate and transparent floral bouquet, mostly light nuances of rose, jasmine, muguet, and freesia. The effect is very fresh, green, yet also watery and sheer, reminiscent of a toned down version of Tommy Girl's "fresh" notes. It is quite dynamic for what it is, and note separation is very good if you pay attention. It also smells much more natural than it is given credit for.

Eau des 4 Reines is a significantly less dynamic recreation of Spring Flower's bouquet, with the same emphasis on delicate petals and clean, watery freshness. I guess the idea was to capture the essence of roses in a fresh vase of water. This is fine and well, but for some reason the balance is off, and the watery aroma chemical overcomes the florals, creating an unfortunate hand soap effect. An hour into the drydown, the light rose and jasmine notes of Ed4R are smudged out completely, and there's no longer any point in searching for anything distinct.

As I said before, the rose note is decent and rose lovers should at least give this a try, if they can find it. I believe it's been discontinued, but like any discontinued scent, its ghost haunts the grey market. Just don't expect anything along the lines of Perfumer's Workshop Tea Rose or Jo Malone's Red Roses, both superior roses in every way. And if you enjoy this but wish it were more interesting, Spring Flower is the answer.

Eau des Baux (L'Occitane)

It is rumored that Eau des Baux is a poor man's Tobacco Vanille. This doesn't mean much to me, because I'm not interested in Tobacco Vanille, or any other flavored tobacco fragrances. There are two kinds of tobacco fragrance: (1) the raw/unadorned tobacco leaf (this sometimes strays into cigar and cigarette tobacco), and (2) the flavored pipe/cigarillo tobacco. I prefer the first kind by a wide margin. Flavored tobacco smells nice, but unnatural, fake, intentionally embellished with additives into something that smells like potpourri. The closest I've come to appreciating that sort of tobacco scent is Jil Sander's Feeling Man.

Generally though, I don't see the point of making flavored tobacco a perfumery note. Tobacco leaf, and even treated, unflavored cigarette tobacco smells excellent without the addition of sweet, fruity-woody notes. Lagerfeld Classic, VC&A PH, Cuba by Czech & Speake, The Dreamer, and Jazz are prime examples of how tobacco can smell in a simpler state. The Dreamer is a notably difficult fragrance for some people. It's unusual, marked with overtly synthetic notes, yet its spine is the basic aroma of unfiltered cigarette tobacco - treated, but not flavored (albeit very dry and "raisin-like"). Think original Gauloises, not Newport Lights.

Eau des Baux attempts to give consumers a luxurious flavored pipe tobacco experience "on the cheap." It's not a super-cheap scent, mind you, but you can get a large bottle for around fifty bucks. I think it's an OK bang for the buck, although I personally wouldn't pay more than twenty for a bottle. My problem with EdB is that it smells like a room spray, and not a fine fragrance, for reasons that are hard to pin down. I suppose it's the potpourri thing that L'Occitane's Vetyver had going for it, rendered here in a "vanilla theme." All the notes can be smelled with perfect clarity, with bright cypress, pink pepper, and cardamom on top, followed by a tight incense-cedar accord, which resembles Dutch pipe tobacco in tandem with the fresher elements.

Eventually it all devolves into a sweet vanilla amber, the ultimate mall-rat oriental, ready for a legion fanbase of hoodied crustpunk misanthropes who think shopping at L'Occitane gives them a worldly edge. Discontinuation rumors also swirl around this fragrance. The fact that my brother's partner can accidentally Christmas gift EdB to him - the wrong L'Occitane as it turns out - suggests this is still very much in production, and probably will be for years to come.

Vetyver (L'Occitane)

Vetiver has always been a problematic note for me. It's not that I don't like how it smells, because I do. There's something wonderful about its rooty-green goodness, and the way it compliments a man's presence. I should love vetiver: it loves me instead.

However, there's one serious snag - vetiver is boring. There, I said it. Despite its charms, vetiver comes across as a bit one-dimensional, and lacks dynamism, intrigue, exoticism, whatever you want to call it. To my nose, an exciting vetiver fragrance has yet to be made. Too many perfume houses rely on vetiver alone to carry their in-house vetiver scent, and wind up with a stodgy product. Guerlain Vetiver is beautiful, in many ways the perfect masculine fragrance. But I'd sooner wear Jacomo's Silences, or anything with more complexity and pizzazz. That's just me.

Creed's Original Vetiver is a beautiful fragrance, and it's one of my favorite frags. But that's because it's a beautiful green composition. The very reason Luca Turin slams it is the reason I love it: it's an example of excellent perfumery, that design sensibility of arranging olfactory components in a manner that creates a whole new accord, a truly unique experience that isn't easily replicated or improved upon. A lot of work went into integrating the vetiver, and making it crucial to the scent's success. Even more work went into ensuring that vetiver wasn't the star of the show. Those of us who "get it" can appreciate Original Vetiver. Those who don't can wear Guerlain's instead.

L'Occitane's take on vetiver is somewhat of an anomaly to me. It's a vetiver fragrance that truly has no vetiver in it. It's a sleight of hand trick, a well-placed aroma chemical in measured proportions that rubs me the wrong way from start to finish.

I'd like to impart this about Vetyver - it's a good fragrance for Christmas time, as its smell conjures the holidays: Christmas, New Years, anything from November onward. It has that warm, spicy, homey feel to it. It opens with a brilliant desiccated lemon, rosemary, and sage accord, and rapidly transitions into a deep nutmeg and cedar, with strong rosewoody overtures. I like the smell of rosewood, and enjoy how this olfactory illusion plays out in Vetyver. Underlying all of these things is a vetiver-like woodiness, very well centered and obvious, but not overpowering.

As it dries down, Vetyver becomes very dry and smoky, with a subtle tobacco-like effect, although I'm sure there's no actual tobacco in there. Vetiver steps forward and attempts to claim its territory, but nuthin' doin' since this ain't no vetiver fragrance to begin with. No, this is just an aroma chemical, namely Hexyl Benzoate, shown above. HB imbues perfumes with a dry, rooty, woody-green balsamic feeling that could easily be mistaken for vetiver, if used in the right context. Vetyver is nice, easy to live with, and well made given its provenance, but simply misses the mark for me. Very subjective call. I could see others loving Vetyver, and could understand why. Maybe in a few months when I'm roasting chestnuts I'll have a change of heart.