Armani Privé - Vétiver d'Hiver Vétiver Babylone

Vétiver Babylone is winter stripped to its skeletal essentials—raw, astringent, and defiantly green when everything else has turned grey. Alberto Morillas bypasses the usual woody warmth associated with cold-weather vetivers, instead crafting something that feels like frost crystallising on citrus peel. The bergamot and citron arrive razor-sharp, their acidic brightness amplified rather than softened, whilst mandarin provides barely a whisper of sweetness. What makes this composition compelling is the way the spice accord—coriander's soapy aldehydic facets meeting cardamom's eucalyptus-like coolness—refuses to add conventional warmth. Instead, these notes accentuate the green, almost metallic quality of the vetiver that dominates from the first spray.

This is vetiver as winter herb rather than summer grass: astringent, medicinal, with patchouli lending an earthy bitterness rather than its usual chocolate richness. The aniseed creates an intriguing herbal-liquorice thread that weaves through the composition, adding an almost medicinal quality that recalls old apothecary bottles and tinctures. There's an intellectual austerity here, a refusal to please in obvious ways. It's for those who find conventional aromatic masculines too loud, too obvious, too eager to seduce. This is the scent of someone walking through a winter garden at dawn, breath visible in the cold air, appreciating the beauty in dormancy. Utterly uncompromising, bracingly fresh even in freezing temperatures, and entirely unconcerned with modern tastes for sweetness or smoothness.