Thé Matcha 26 Le Labo 2021

I was really excited to try this fragrance because I love tea and I love fresh fragrances! On first spray, I was initially intrigued, but…it really fell flat.

Unfortunately, I don’t get any tea from this, and contrary to what most people seem to get, I don’t get “fresh” at all—just green. There’s definitely cedarwood and vetiver and fig, all notes I normally like, but the combination in this particular fragrance is lackluster as far as I’m concerned. It all combines with a sugary sweetness that makes this smell unlikeable for me and even slightly nauseating.

Personally, as someone who likes clean, fresh fragrances, and dislikes overly sweet fragrances this one is definitely a miss. If you like sugary, green fragrances, however, this fragrance might be worth trying for you.

Reminds me of drinking hot lemon grass tea while sitting on a cedar-wood patio watching the first spring rain fall wrapped in a cashmere sweater

This is the first Le Labo scent I’ve ever tried. Honestly not sure if I buy the small batch perfume idea. So far I love how subtle and creamy this scent is. It’s fresh but also with a warm undercurrent to it. I’ll definitely be putting this in the spring scent rotation next year. Looking forward to trying some more of their most popular scents.

The Matcha 26 is a smooth and powdery fig scent at its core. There is a nice hit of citrus in the beginning but that fades quickly to a sweet and powdery fig. A greenness lingers throughout the perfume from top to middle, but gives way to a woody and vetiver filled dry down. This is a super enjoyable scent to me, very calming and soothing like sitting under a fig tree on a warm summer day. I was a bit disappointed that the matcha was not present at all. If the perfume was not named The Matcha I most likely would not know there was a hint of tea at all.

The Matcha 26 is the house of Le Labo's take on a fig scent. Perhaps the matcha is more about the contemplative feeling it invokes? It has a creamy quality similar to Philosykos EDP but taken in a more herbal/woody instead of the coconut direction. Despite being what I consider to be a skin scent, it has beastly longevity and sticks around forever on fabrics. Beyond fig with a creamy quality, I am unable to discern any other notes from the fragrance.

Dry, mineral green. Dehydrated fig latex, powdered moss, cedar sawdust. There’s bitter citrus rind – maybe a kaffir lime – for texture. I’m not a matcha expert and I know this isn’t photorealistic, but it still reads tealike to my nose. Maybe it's the impression of green tea, to a strict coffee drinker. This is clean, monotone, unisex. I get this “concrete petrichor” accord that almost echoes Baie 19. Sillage is mild, but longevity is solid. I can waft it for days in fabric.

Mental Snapshot: A postwar laboratory, all concrete and glass blocks. The memory of tea, recalled through a boardroom of stern-faced scientists. Each atomises a clear distillate into their stainless steel teacup, and they contemplate the twenty-sixth iteration. While unpleasant to taste, it provides a pleasant aroma.

tl;dr: brutalist tea ceremony