Oriza L. Legrand
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The corn mint arrives like a slap of cold water, impossibly fresh and almost caustic, immediately tempered by wild fennel's liquorice-tinged sweetness and clary sage's herbal, slightly camphorous bitterness. It's bracing and unsettling, the olfactory equivalent of breaking through undergrowth into a clearing you weren't meant to find.
The oakmoss unfurls with almost obscene generosity, a deep, damp, forest-floor accord bolstered by galbanum's green resin and violet leaf's cucumber-like coolness. Angelica adds an earthy, almost root-vegetable quality whilst the clover brings an unexpected hay-like softness that prevents the composition from becoming entirely feral, though the mastic's piney grip ensures it remains firmly tethered to the woods.
What remains is humus made wearable—labdanum's amber warmth mingles with the literal smell of earth, enhanced by roasted chestnuts that add a toasted, slightly sweet woodiness. The leather is subtle, more the smell of old boots left by the door than anything overtly animalic, whilst vetiver provides a smoky, rooty foundation that keeps the whole affair grounded in soil rather than sky.
Chypre Mousse is a fragrance that smells like pressing your face into the forest floor after autumn rain—and I mean that as the highest compliment. Hugo Lambert has created something genuinely unsettling in its realism, a scent that eschews the prettified "green" tropes for something far more literal. The opening is a jolt of fennel's anisic sharpness cut through with corn mint's almost menthol-like clarity, whilst clary sage adds a herbal bitterness that sets your teeth on edge. But this is merely prelude to the real spectacle: a heart dominated by a monumental oakmoss accord that feels less like the polite, IFRA-compliant ghost most modern chypres offer and more like the real, earthy, slightly fusty thing itself.
The genius lies in Lambert's supporting cast. Galbanum and violet leaf provide that signature green snap, but angelica brings an unexpected mineral quality, whilst mastic adds a pine-resinous undertone that bridges to the base. And what a base it is—roasted chestnuts and actual humus, the smell of decomposing leaves rendered in labdanum and leather. The mushroom note isn't the champignon of the market but something darker, more fungal. This is a fragrance for those who find Bandit too polite, who wear their Sycomore on muddy walks rather than to gallery openings. It's uncompromising, peculiar, and utterly committed to its vision of chypre as something wild rather than refined.
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4.0/5 (174)