Top Notes 
Primofiore lemon
Bergamot
Heart Notes 
Vetiver
Rooibos tea
Base Notes 
Cashmere wood
Musk
Sandalwood
NicheOnly
129 Reviews
NicheOnly
3
Average by Clive Christian's standards
This review was revised in late November 2025, ~6.5-7 months after I posted the original review. At that point, I had purchased a bottle of the scent and had more experience with it.
In its opening, L: Red Tea Vetiver leads off with fresh spices and bitter citrus (listed lemon). In terms of execution, it doesn't smell similar to any of the market-leading tea fragrances and instead smells closer to various citrusy vetiver fragrances in the market today. The rooibos tea note listed in the heart adds some very interesting cinnamon-like nuances to the wearing experience, making me think of the color "red". In the heart of the fragrance, you do get a very noteworthy contrast of tea & vetiver, being opposed by the lemon (which remains there for around 1-1.5 hours) and the listed woody notes. I would argue the quality gradually declines into the dry-down as L: Red Tea Vetiver settles on white musk and vetiver with light touches of rooibos added in. Occasionally I could also sense some nutty/almond-like nuances in the on-skin experience, but I don't find those parts all that relevant.
Relative to other tea fragrances, I feel like L: Red Tea Vetiver sufficiently distances itself from the crowd. It's not just a generic citrusy-fresh (and occasionally green) take on the genre like Nishane's Wūlóng Chá Extrait de Parfum or MFK's Aqua Media Cologne Forte, it's also not competing in the smoky tea genre with scents like Arquiste's Indigo Smoke or Masque Milano's I-III Russian Tea. To list a negative or two, I feel like L: Red Tea Vetiver is among the weakest performing tea scents in the market today, with estimated longevity in the 5 hour range and sillage largely just intimate, esp. beyond the first 20 minutes or so. The scent retails for €410/50ml and can be found for half that in the grey market, but at the retail price tag, it's a poor deal no matter how you slice it.
Within Clive Christian's catalogue, albeit L: Red Tea Vetiver brings something new to the product offering, it still feels a long way off the highs that the brand has to offer. Having recently smelled 20: Iconic Masculine, that fragrance is considerably better in terms of execution, even if there's little nuance to another Elysium-like citrus aromatic fragrance. As for tea scents, Matsukita obviously has more nuance and character to it, given the smoky-woody product direction. Since L: Red Tea Vetiver doesn't have significant depth nor an outstanding blend, I don't see any way to rate it above a 7.0 and given the light flaws that I can pick up on, I'm putting it just below that. The uniqueness is definitely there relative to the mainstream genre, but that's not enough on its own.
In its opening, L: Red Tea Vetiver leads off with fresh spices and bitter citrus (listed lemon). In terms of execution, it doesn't smell similar to any of the market-leading tea fragrances and instead smells closer to various citrusy vetiver fragrances in the market today. The rooibos tea note listed in the heart adds some very interesting cinnamon-like nuances to the wearing experience, making me think of the color "red". In the heart of the fragrance, you do get a very noteworthy contrast of tea & vetiver, being opposed by the lemon (which remains there for around 1-1.5 hours) and the listed woody notes. I would argue the quality gradually declines into the dry-down as L: Red Tea Vetiver settles on white musk and vetiver with light touches of rooibos added in. Occasionally I could also sense some nutty/almond-like nuances in the on-skin experience, but I don't find those parts all that relevant.
Relative to other tea fragrances, I feel like L: Red Tea Vetiver sufficiently distances itself from the crowd. It's not just a generic citrusy-fresh (and occasionally green) take on the genre like Nishane's Wūlóng Chá Extrait de Parfum or MFK's Aqua Media Cologne Forte, it's also not competing in the smoky tea genre with scents like Arquiste's Indigo Smoke or Masque Milano's I-III Russian Tea. To list a negative or two, I feel like L: Red Tea Vetiver is among the weakest performing tea scents in the market today, with estimated longevity in the 5 hour range and sillage largely just intimate, esp. beyond the first 20 minutes or so. The scent retails for €410/50ml and can be found for half that in the grey market, but at the retail price tag, it's a poor deal no matter how you slice it.
Within Clive Christian's catalogue, albeit L: Red Tea Vetiver brings something new to the product offering, it still feels a long way off the highs that the brand has to offer. Having recently smelled 20: Iconic Masculine, that fragrance is considerably better in terms of execution, even if there's little nuance to another Elysium-like citrus aromatic fragrance. As for tea scents, Matsukita obviously has more nuance and character to it, given the smoky-woody product direction. Since L: Red Tea Vetiver doesn't have significant depth nor an outstanding blend, I don't see any way to rate it above a 7.0 and given the light flaws that I can pick up on, I'm putting it just below that. The uniqueness is definitely there relative to the mainstream genre, but that's not enough on its own.
Updated on 11/23/2025
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