Vetiver09/20/2025
Floyd
384 Reviews
Floyd
Helpful Review
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The Roots that Connect us to the Earth
What we think of when we think of earth. Where we come from, where we are going. Back to our steaming roots. To the rain beneath the wet autumn grass. The acrid smoke above scorched herbs. The darker brew, the healing tinctures. The sunbleached clays, almost white. The mud that the rivers wash over it in the rushing days of the great monsoon. Wood that rots in it, like tanned skin. Mulchy and leathery, turned into petroleum, terpenes and gasoline. Over thousands of years. Twas ever thus. Connected to us.
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Gulabsingh Johrimal from Delhi is one of the oldest traditional fragrance houses still in existence in India, the country where the foundations of perfume production were probably laid over 5000 years ago. Since 1816, Gulabsingh Johrimal has been producing attars, oil essences, and perfumes, among other things, using time-honored methods. The products have an effect like forces of nature that reach far back into India's fragrance memory.
The history of Ruh Khus, the distillate from the vetiver root, which is said to have calming, antiseptic, antioxidant, and antibacterial effects, among others, goes back even further. The roots are distilled in a complex process in a copper cauldron sealed with a clay-saturated cloth and heated with cow dung and wood.
“Ruh Khus No. 1460” unfolds almost all the facets that I have come to know from sweet grass root so far: First, there are the light green, pungent, cool, sour grassy notes, which soon become more moist and earthy, the roots seem to ferment in a very light-looking clay. Dark, almost bitter-smoky herbal tinctures soon become apparent, followed by mud, petrichor, mulchy-soft woods, which at times appear somewhat leathery. In this phase, the scent is reminiscent of some high-quality oud varieties. Finally, the typical petroleum and gasoline terpenes come to the fore in the base. There are always new facets to discover, with different images of nature appearing again and again, clear to moderate in their projection and enormously long-lasting.
(With thanks to Snoopyelfi)
**
Gulabsingh Johrimal from Delhi is one of the oldest traditional fragrance houses still in existence in India, the country where the foundations of perfume production were probably laid over 5000 years ago. Since 1816, Gulabsingh Johrimal has been producing attars, oil essences, and perfumes, among other things, using time-honored methods. The products have an effect like forces of nature that reach far back into India's fragrance memory.
The history of Ruh Khus, the distillate from the vetiver root, which is said to have calming, antiseptic, antioxidant, and antibacterial effects, among others, goes back even further. The roots are distilled in a complex process in a copper cauldron sealed with a clay-saturated cloth and heated with cow dung and wood.
“Ruh Khus No. 1460” unfolds almost all the facets that I have come to know from sweet grass root so far: First, there are the light green, pungent, cool, sour grassy notes, which soon become more moist and earthy, the roots seem to ferment in a very light-looking clay. Dark, almost bitter-smoky herbal tinctures soon become apparent, followed by mud, petrichor, mulchy-soft woods, which at times appear somewhat leathery. In this phase, the scent is reminiscent of some high-quality oud varieties. Finally, the typical petroleum and gasoline terpenes come to the fore in the base. There are always new facets to discover, with different images of nature appearing again and again, clear to moderate in their projection and enormously long-lasting.
(With thanks to Snoopyelfi)
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