Most perfumistas have a note, or maybe two or three or ten, that they simply can’t bring themselves to appreciate. I have a few. I don’t love mimosa or heliotrope, although I don’t really hate them either. I can live without angelica, and anything more than a pinch of cumin is too much. I’m not fond of melon-y aquatics or very clean musks. My one true bête noire, though, has always been patchouli. Six years ago, a perfume with enough patchouli that even an amateur such as I could smell it was pretty much out of the question — which basically ruled out the entire oriental fragrance family. In the years since, I’ve mostly come to terms with patchouli, that is, I would no longer say that I hate it, and oriental perfumes are no longer verboten. I still wouldn’t say I loved patchouli though, and a fragrance that actually has the word patchouli in the name isn’t one I’m going to be rushing out to try.

The Osmoz booklet from the Les coulisses du parfum, Vol III, Legendary woods & resins kit describes patchouli as “woody • camphory • green • earthy • mossy • mildewy”. All of that sounds good to me, even the mildewy part — I think of oakmoss as mildewy, and it’s one of my favorite smells in the world. But there’s something about the particular way that patchouli is mildewy, in combination with the richness and the sweetness, that just doesn’t work for me. You’d think that newer, cleaner (molecularly modified) versions of patchouli would work better for me, but they don’t always — they usually wipe out much of the earthy part, which to me is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater…

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