Canadian Beauty

When the weather gets warm, I pull out my green scents because they evoke a certain freshness that other perfume profiles don’t deliver. If you’re looking for something fresh but don’t want the usual citrus cologne, try going for something green instead, and since green perfumes are having a moment, there’s definitely lots to choose from.

A mainstay in my collection (my bottle is from 2010) is Sisley’s Eau du Soir. As you can tell by the gold lid, Eau du Soir is a classy old-world perfume. It’s not completely devoid of citruses because it opens with a zingy peppery grapefruit, which lends a certain bitterness and bite. Eau du Soir has an inherent bitterness which roped me in at a time when I didn’t love anything even remotely sweet in my scents. It lent me its cool aloofness, a machismo that balanced out the femme side I presented to the world.

Still, there’s an old-world floral accord that makes up the body of this scent, rose, jasmine, and ylang-ylang, so it’s really not entirely a masculine scent.

⠀A herbaceous patchouli pervades all aspects of this perfume, anchoring it, but also surrounding all the notes, like a ribbon of bark enclosing a bouquet of flowers. The richness of all the notes speaks to the quality of this perfume and what lends it an old-money vibe. There’s no filler here and also no waste. Everything is just so.

This is clean, put together, immaculate, and confident. It’s meant to be worn with pressed clothes and smart shoes.