Viewer Mail: I Want to Smell Like Wet Dirt and Rocks








katie,

i would like to know if u ever come across a fragrance that smells like soil, earth, wet dirt, rocks. if possible i would like to smell like that.

danyellabelly


Hi danyellabelly - “dirt, soil, earth” - talk about giving me a task to “dig into”, kee-yuk! The tricky part was keeping the recommendations fairly accessible - things you might find at a department store or a Sephora. If you up your budget and go niche, you could explore the soil-dusted patchouli and spiced vanilla of Chanel Coromandel, or head-clearing salty grasses of The Different Company Sel de Vetiver. And there’s a whole earthy world from there. But I thought I’d give you a break and start cheaper.

To address your geological fragrance needs, I’m conjuring the dirt with patchouli, the earth with vetiver and tobacco, the rocks with salty mineral notes and wetness with aquatic notes. My A-number-1 choice for you is Demeter Dirt, which is wonderful and smells like rich, fertile soil after the rain. It doesn’t have a lot of staying power, but it’s inexpensive, so you can just spray on more when it fades out.

Here are my other thoughts for you:

Hermès Terre d'Hermès (dry, woody vetiver)
Gap The Original (leather, plum, cedarwood)
Tom Ford Black Orchid (aquatic, earthy, inedible cocoa)
Lolita Lempicka Fleur de Corail (salty musk, Nag Champa incense, woods)
Narciso Rodriquez Musc for Him Oil (earthy musk & cement-y iris)
Kenzo Pour Homme (marine notes & mossy woods)
Bulgari Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (dry tobacco & citrus)

You’ll note that there’s a lot of skipping back and forth across the men’s and women’s aisles for these, but that’s OK – Mother Earth belongs to all of us.

Can anyone else suggest dirt and rock perfumes for danyellabelly? I’d be interested to hear which niche options would apply, too. Off the top of my head, I’d say Profumum Thundra, with its mushroomy wet leaves, would be a doozy.

13 comments:

  1. If you can sacrifice "wet dirt" and replace it with "space dirt" -- voila! Stephen Jones for Comme de Garcons. Or, moisten it up by layering it with Cristopher Brosius' Black March.

    I'm rather fond of the Terre d'Hermes, btw. And had no idea that what you list is what I would find in Fleur de Corail...turning it into a thing that makes me go hmmmm (in a positive way)....

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ah yes, ScentScelf, the fabled "meteorite" component of Stephen Jones. I must strap on my jet-pack and rocket over to re-sniff that one. And good suggestion with Black March. I haven't smelled it, but was reading the description along with CB I Hate Perfume's other dirt-oriented offerings. That line is a fertile row to hoe, dirt-wise.

    Lolita Lempicka Fleur de Corail is my latest "this weird thing is in Sephora??" craze. Some experience its Nag Champa as sarsaparilla or root beer, but it reads to me more as smoky, fruity incense. Je dig.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This is off the beaten path, but how about a perfume oil from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab? Zombi~dried roses, rose leaves, Spanish moss and deep brown earth. Or Deep In The Earth~rose geranium, Spanish moss, Irish yew & graveyard dirt...The latter is a favorite of mine and very unisex.

    ReplyDelete
  4. A variation on the Black March rec is CBIHP's Wild Hunt. It smells like the undergrowth in a forest, like you just turned over a log and the soil underneath is rich and moist and there are mushrooms and lichens growing nearby.

    ReplyDelete
  5. CB I Hate Perfume uses its dirt accord in several perfumes (both Black March and Wild Hunt are good choices) and also sells it separately. So you can layer any perfume with a foundation of dirt. CB is also the Cumming perfumer, by the way. And Demeter Dirt. Your one-stop dirt perfumer. (He does other things well, too.)

    ReplyDelete
  6. The BPAL line is a good suggestion, thescentmuse. Lots of brain'n'nose-teasing concoctions to found there.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Another Demeter: Thunderstorm

    Wet earth with a layer of ozone and concrete.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hells to the yeah, opusgrrl! Thunderstorm is the perfect wet rock perfume.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Ok so I think I am weird cuz I wanna inhale the smell of dirt and rocks so bad....I can't get enough of that smell. What's wrong with me????

    ReplyDelete
  10. I also wanna make love in the fresh black soil of newly potted plants and wallow around in the fresh gravel of rocks.....I have never ate anything of this nature but I wanna try eating rocks like some people do on here.....so confused....

    ReplyDelete
  11. Is there anything I can sniff so deeply that is not harmful that will satisfy this craving????

    ReplyDelete
  12. My email is windsablazin@yahoo.com and I wanna know why this is so taking over my life? I am constantly chewing ice now cuz it tastes like minerals and the water tastes like bleach.....I can't get enough ughhhhhh....

    ReplyDelete