Lanvin
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Cypress and fir resin immediately dominate, sharp and mineral-tinged, with tarragon providing an unexpected peppery snap that feels almost herbaceous-medicinal rather than culinary. The coriander amplifies this green-spice dynamic, creating an opening that's bracing rather than welcoming—you're walking through a coniferous forest in autumn where the air itself feels crystalline and clean.
The composition softens fractionally as myrtle and juniper emerge, deepening the greenery into something more aromatic and botanical. The aquatic quality becomes evident here, lending an oxygenated freshness that makes the green notes feel more translucent, as though the fragrance has become infused with cool air and mineral water. The spice recedes slightly, allowing the herbal complexity to dominate.
Cedar provides the only real warmth in the drydown, but it's a pale, silvery cedar rather than something dark or smoky. White musk attempts to anchor the composition, though admittedly with minimal conviction given the fragrance's notorious projection issues. What remains is a ghost of the original freshness—green, faintly spiced, and remarkably evanescent, as though the fragrance has begun its retreat almost as soon as it arrived.
Oxygène Homme arrives as a study in crystalline restraint—a fragrance that feels less like a traditional cologne and more like the olfactory equivalent of morning frost on a Nordic landscape. Alberto Morillas has constructed something genuinely austere here, eschewing the warmth most masculine fragrances court in favour of something altogether cooler and more intellectual.
The cypress and fir resin form the spine, but it's the tarragon that truly distinguishes this composition. Rather than the expected sweetness of anise-adjacent botanicals, this tarragon reads as something sharper—almost medicinal in its brightness, cutting through the resinous evergreen base with an herbaceous clarity. The coriander amplifies this effect, adding a peppery edge that prevents the composition from becoming soft or diffuse. This is not a fragrance that coddles; it prickles slightly, demanding attention rather than insinuation.
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3.7/5 (151)