Vert Pivoine Histoires de Parfums for women

As someone who finds most mainstream peony frags not only unpleasant but actually unwearable, I cannot claim to be surprised that VERT PIVOINE is my least favorite of the otherwise splendid offerings from the house of Histoires de Parfums. I had always thought that it was the aggressive, synthetic, blob-like, infinitely expanding rendition of peony used in the vast majority of less-expensive perfumes that made them unbearable to me. After wearing niche-quality VERT PIVOINE, I realize that the fact is that I simply do not like peony at all. VERT PIVOINE boasts a triple dose of the note, making it take three times longer to evaporate away. Désolée.

Although this perfume does not make me ill and is not a big-time scrubber—as many peony frags are for me—it will never find its way into my collection. If you love peony, you'll probably like this one, but it is unclear to me that it is significantly better than some of the many mass-market peony frags available everywhere you turn. There is a touch of rose here, but this really is a big fat peony frag, at the end of the day. Still, I don't want to claim that VERT PIVOINE is bad, for to do so would be equivalent to saying that Bassetts Allsorts are bad because they contain so much black licorice. In fact, they are great—provided that you love black licorice! And I do! But I digress...

Vert Pivoine is a nice rose perfume, quite real in a way. I like simplistic rose scent, this one was seemingly ticking all my boxes about a year ago before I sampled many rose fragrances; however, coming back and retry it, there’s something in this perfume makes me hesitated and not really fall for it.

The perfume, it smells quite linear, with slight nuance, I cannot smell much of the notes listed here. The opening is fresh dewy real rose scent, somewhat reminds me a lot of Serge Lutens’ Sa Majeste La Rose, which I adore; if only Vert Pivoine could stayed this way, I would buy a bottle without a blink, but the reality is the beginning is short lived, and a long phase of slightly powdery, much less characteristic version of Paris Eau Printempt 2008, or something rose-y, powdery in a sweet floral way like that, plus a tiny pinch of pink pepper. It should’ve been a nice combination, but there’s something warning me instinctively here, it’s not the typical synthetic smell which gives me headaches, but it’s not that nature nor smooth either, somehow, it’s a bit heavy handed on rose and I don’t feel 100% comfortable with it. The dry down is like a slightly stronger version of a typical rose water facial mist. And actually the dry down is the most lovely phase to me, it’s rose-y, and floral in a feminie and comforting sense.

Nice scent, but I expected something more. It would be nice if I was gifted a bottle of this and I might use it occassionly, but I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.