Eau de Cartier Vétiver Bleu is the latest of Cartier’s flankers to 2001’s Eau de Cartier. The original Eau de Cartier is a perfectly serviceable, well-made cologne (from perfumer Christine Nagel, by the way), the sort that everyone needs at least one of. I was tempted to buy it more than once, years ago, but eventually filled the category with other basic colognes I liked better (Eau de Guerlain, for instance). Cartier has done any number of likewise well-made flankers for Eau de Cartier, and I’ve been tempted by some of those as well, especially the recent Eau de Cartier Zeste de Soleil. If they did a coffret of 15 ml bottles of all of them, I would not be able to resist, but so far, no coffret.

The series is marketed as unisex, but the individual scents tend to skew one direction or the other…

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