Etro
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The sagebrush hits immediately with peppery snap, bergamot bright and insistent, whilst petitgrain adds a leafy green dimension that feels almost tart. Within seconds you're standing in an herb garden at dusk, everything touched by shadow despite the citrus's attempts at luminosity.
The vetiver emerges with surprising restraint, never claiming dominance, instead allowing gaiac wood's smoky-resinous character and iris's cool powderiness to create a smoky-grey haze. The spice fades considerably here, replaced by a green-woody quietness that feels more like olfactory contemplation than declaration.
All brightness has evaporated entirely; what remains is the tobacco flower's papery dryness and a distant, almost colourless amber that clings softly. The fragrance becomes almost imperceptible, a whisper of smoke and dried vegetation, fading into skin scent within four to five hours, a ghost of its opening self.
Vetiver Etro arrives as a peculiar contradiction: a fragrance that promises earthiness yet feels almost ethereal in execution. Jacques Flori has crafted something genuinely strange here—a vetiver composition that refuses to anchor itself to the ground, instead floating somewhere between a herbaceous meditation and a smoky reverie. The sagebrush in the opening immediately signals intention: this isn't the creamy, tropical vetiver of mass-market fragrances, but rather a dry, almost desert-like interpretation, where clary sage's peppery-herbaceous character dances with bergamot's zest in a way that feels faintly medicinal, faintly dangerous.
What emerges in the heart is where the fragrance truly distinguishes itself. Bourbon vetiver—typically earthy and almost honied—here becomes something cooler, more austere, pushed into shadows by gaiac wood's burnt, resinous quality and an iris that lends surprising powderiness to proceedings. There's a smoky undercurrent threading through everything, suggesting someone's been smoking nearby rather than wearing smoke as a perfume note. This is a fragrance for the contemplative wearer: someone drawn to introspection rather than projection. It's unisex precisely because it refuses gendered sweetness or warmth.
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3.6/5 (79)