Longtime readers here at Now Smell This will be familiar with the idea of the purgatory basket. It doesn’t have to be a basket, strictly speaking: it could also be a bowl or box or drawer, any container that holds an assortment of samples we try, think about, and decide to reassess later. The delay might just be a matter of mood or season or, in my case, a busy calendar that distracts me from my usual sampling efforts.

I recently revisited four releases from 2021 (and one older fragrance) and realized that they all had some kind of “green” theme in common — gardens, vines, mosses. In addition to my usual rotation of L’Ombre dans l’eau and tart rhubarb-y scents, I might be branching out (hah) a bit this summer.

To start: I recently read Muriel Barbery’s A Single Rose, and its descriptions of Kyoto’s Zen gardens sent me hunting for the vial of Le Jardin Retrouvé Mousse Arashiyama (image below) that I’d stashed away for later reappraisal…

Read the rest of this article »