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Narth

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Hello Friends, it’s Narth here reminiscing about one of my longest holy grails of scent. Not a particular bottle, but an idea in my head. I’m sure we’ve all had them, seeking a rose with that cold water dewy note, the patchouli that was the loamiest of loamy earth, actual salt (still never found that one). When an idea of a scent is stuck firmly in your head it can seem that nothing ever quite fulfills that desire. Some years ago mine was GREEN COCONUT. I loved coconut so much but I absolutely did not want to smell like a baked good. Smelling like a baked good sells, as can be seen by all the etsy scents, candles and perfume oils promising you will be wrapped in the warm aromas of a glazed brioche almond muffin with berries. People like this stuff and a lot of products do a very good job of replicating the decadent deliciousness of baked sweet treats. Sadly though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth either on my plate or my skin. My hunt for green coconut was constantly thwarted by vanilla.

My green coconut search did have a few hits. Estee Lauder Bronze Goddess was kind of okay, but it was more reminiscent of suntan lotion than that sharp, husky greenness of freshly opened coconut. The Body Shop had an extremely excellent coconut body cream which I went through multiple bottles of but despite their products having excellent sillage I am still a perfume person and I wanted that scent in a bottle. Their edt’s were flat, sour and ephemeral in comparison. For years I thought about what exactly my green coconut should smell like. What I really wanted was a coconut version of L’Artisan’s Premier Figuier. That slightly bitter, lactic, vegetal fig without a sugar stick in sight only not fig, coconut!

Zoologist Elephant 2017

Chris Bartlett

Top: Tea Leaves, Darjeeling Tea, Magnolia
Middle: Cocoa, Coconut Milk, Incense, Jasmine, Woods
Base: Amber, Musk, Patchouli, Sandalwood

In Zoologist Elephant I have now found what I believe is the closest I will get. I’d like the coconut to be more dominant but the coconut that is in there is gloriously, fragrantly, green!

Zoologist Elephant is a raw, linear scent that anyone seeking more more more green will appreciate. There’s the intense vegetation, the crushed coconut mixed underfoot with earth and broken leaves. It’s lactic. It’s cold. It’s not screechy or in your face. I wish I got the humidity some people mention, I wish I was truly in the jungle but for me this is a cooler clime sedate fragrance. If you’ve enjoyed green scents but find the vintage ones like Estee Lauder’s Aliage too intense or grating this may well be your answer. Zoologist fragrances often take me back to older era scents but they’ve been retooled and the more abrasive elements are gone, replaced by something quirky. I’ve been wearing Elephant for several days and I’m looking forward to trying it in the heat. But for now I’m happy that a decade old desire has unexpectedly been satisfied.

Have you had a note you’ve been searching for, ever hopeful you’ll find exactly what you dream of?

Bye for now, Narth xx