Digitalis Parfums Quartana 2016

Imagine a cucumber-scented soap bar aroma, dialed up to...11. I nearly feel suds in my nostrils, little soap bubbles popping, tickling and tingling.

This is how Digitalis begins. It's wild. Soon something in my brain lit up telling me it was something I smelled in the very distant past—like childhood. Some functional product, perhaps. Then I realize that this has some heavy-hitting ozonic materials in it. Almost eye-watering, jeez Louise. Then its grows more wet soil and geosmin like, then it dawns on me! Yes, I have it! The smell of childhood, turning over rocks to see all manner of creatures scurrying away: pillbugs, earwigs, burrowing insects and earthworms. The smell of my hands after inspecting, examining, with wonder, the organisms.

Oh, and also the smell of watermelon minds comes to mind.

Digitalis is thrilling as a piece of olfactory art, but my mind can't quite reconcile with the very fact that it doesn't really smell like perfume, per se. That said, it's fascinating, even if it doesn't feel eminently wearable.

I was really hyped about this brand because of the marketing, I'm not gonna lie. Which makes this even more disappointing. It's one of those scents that opens beautifully but then smells super cheap as it dries down. I appreciate the freshness but it's kinda like shower gel. I wish it was more heady than headache-inducing. I think they should have gone a more heady and earthy route, using oak moss or an equivalent; regular moss lacks depth. Plant smells need a nutty or woody scent to back it up and this has none.

If you love the scent of the woods after a rain, this is your fragrance! It actually lasts a really long time. It's such a different type of green fragrance, very realistic, almost 3D. I smell a field full of green, vibrant plants, moss, ozone, and the coolness of cucumber and violet somehow smell natural rather than like aromachemicals (I am 99% certain they must be aromachemicals as you can't get these ingredients in their natural form, but they don't smell fake). Makes me feel like a forest fairy in spring! A wonderful, wonderful fragrance from this house.