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Turiutittee – :
Smells like PLAY DOH with smidge Lemon and Kale juice.
Tonka appears with slightly wooden base after 20 min.
Exaggerated reviews here… slightly left of field scent.. totally unremarkable…
Playdoh… thats all. NEXANGELUS sums it up powdery bitter modern chypre…
Trecer – :
Very interesting patchouli with many faces; hippy and earthy, sweet tonka/vanilla, soft woody… Changes are subtle and seamless, but patchouli is always present as the main theme of the fragrance.
What blew me away is a gorgeous, powdery drydown that surprised me late in the evening when I wasn’t paying attention to the notes and the development… a goodnight kiss by an angel.
Earlier I read comparisons with Unum Ennui-Noir and can confirm only that those two are similar, yet very different; EN is dark, powdery and linear, with patch hidden under those soft, fluffy notes, where the patchouli in Arbole Arbole is a star – a shapeshifter and in that sense very much like LM Patchouli Boheme. An unusual, pretty patchouli.
Kasperka – :
All I coud smell was honey, it actually made me sneeze. Honey lovers – this one is for you:)
ster – :
Why am I getting straight from the comb honey for the first hour? I ordered sample from the Perfumed Court and it is a pale green color.
Aerohopleneriweu – :
Powdery, bitter modern chypre. It is sweet on the drydown and smelled from a distance. Essentially this is the base of Amouage Gold pour Homme. I recognised that straight away. Obviously the Amouage is more dense and has animalic musk and more floral notes on the top. A great little chypre. The colour is stunning and the feel is a lot like Smell Bent, even though they tend to be a little more on the raw side. I cannot help thinking this is what grass juice would taste/smell like.
rra181speagoessenda – :
My 3rd favorite from this house. My favorite is Slow Drive and 2nd favorite is Dilettante. This is good, tonka and patchouli dominant, and like all his offerings very natural smelling. I’ve smelled one like this before, one of my Profumum Roma fragrances. I would recommend sampling this one first before buying as it is unique and different, not suited for the mainstream.
masicru – :
Enveloping, dense, deeply comforting and enchanting, a perfume for introverted pleasure. When I wear it I don’t need, or want anything.
It has a soft, peach skin suede like texture. There are floury woods; velvety sandalwood and some sharp cedar. A couple of fresh olives have dropped off the tree, the balmy wind rolling them around on the parched earth, bruising them and coaxing out their creaminess. The slightly rugged, green and gorgeous patchouli is central and gives it a bit of an edge amongst lots of rich tonka and some smooth vanilla adding a little sweetness. Sometimes I think I catch a glimpse of gentle, powdery flowers (violets, heliotrope?) whispering on warm skin.
The facets of this liquid seem ensouled, they become real, animated in the smelling of them, they paint a picture, it’s friendly, rounded, soothing and has depth. It has an ample, long and lovely dry down. This is one of my most loved and frequently worn perfumes.
Arbolé Arbolé. … She’s not bothered about what’s going on around her, she’s perfectly content in her own warm, bucolic bubble.
Edit 16/3 ~ I was eating some raw almonds whilst wearing Arbolé and I’m sure I smelled a soft, unsweetened almond note in there. I’m also wondering if there is a rice tincture in this perfume (in all of Hiram Green’s perfumes actually) Mmm… lovely.
FienueElili – :
I was scared of that one because I am cautious with patchouli but also vanilla (often gives me headaches) but lured by the chartreuse color. At first, I was getting every other notes people mention (olive, play doh, rose, baby oil…) and was pretty confused with Arbolé. It’s not an easy one but it’s growing on me. Of all the unlisted notes, the olive is the most predominant on my skin. It’s not a perfume to seduce or impress, it’s a personal scent. I like it.
Edit Jan 28th : Now I love it! The patchouli is gorgeous, I would never have thought that I could love a patchouli scent this much!
Faubabafe – :
When I was pregnant I hardly wore any perfume, which made me sad. But I wasn’t about to expose the fetus to any potential hazards – once the baby was born I started wearing my regular perfumes but the more I read the more I became convinced that it was unconscionable to continue doing so while nursing given the prevalence of synthetic musks in most perfume formulations. So I resigned myself to having to make do with essential oils or with one of the largely mediocre and uninteresting brands that come up when you google “natural perfumes.”
Enter a trip to Amsterdam. I usually try to sample perfume houses indigenous to whatever country I am visiting, which lead to me Hiram Green and the wonderful Annindriya Perfume Lounge and the icing on the cake was that the line is a natural one! I dragged my family including baby halfway across Amsterdam to sample this line and by complete coincidence Hiram was in the boutique to launch his new release Slowdive. What ensued was a wonderful hour with a very generous and talented artist and me buying Arbole Arbole. It was love at first sniff. I never ever buy full bottles after just testing in store, but this was such a compelling fragrance.
The green color led to me expect a chypre or at least something herbaceous, but after an initial menthol-y opening Arbole develops into a warm if light patchouli with a dry down of tonka and vanilla. It is not a sweet scent but comforting, like holding a warm cup of milk with chocolate while wearing your favorite cashmere sweater but also while taking a walk in the local indoor botanical garden.
For me, the best part of this fragrance is that it changes every time I wear it. Unlike with the synthetic perfumes I own, there is no linearity to it from wear to wear. I will catch different facets each time. I can’t stress how much I like that – it is like owning several different perfumes in one.
I highly highly recommend this scent.
evgen.bem – :
This is absolutely stunning and on my skin it’s a seamless blend of Heliotrope Lavender Vanilla and a hint of patchouli. But more than that it has a bitterr sweet essence a mysterious aura of Vintage Dioressence. I wore a few bottles of that and loved it but that was in the 1970’s and this comes very close to it. Glorious!! I have no olive oil or pear or cedar…..just a heady synthesis of powdery sharp creamy lushousness. Ooooh I like this. Much the best of Hiram Green’s latest perfumes. Definitely worthy of a full bottle and a large one at that.
Eldiyar – :
This is very baby oil smelling, someone also mentioned olive and that seems about right. A green olive bathed in baby oil. Maybe some rose oil too.
The sandalwood is the first of the listed notes to make itself known. It comes in giving a powdery undercurrent. It does have a little bit of the homemade play dough smell but the rose and baby oil are still there keeping it from becoming dominate
I was really hoping for some good vanilla cedar, but this isn’t very woody, at least not in the first 30 minutes.
After two hours a really good vanilla showed up. Unfortunately, I tested before bed so I missed the hours of vanilla, but it was still there in the morning so I know it has great longevity and would be a great fragrance for someone who enjoys baby scent or has a different skin chemistry.
augurov – :
Surely it’s a rose, tonka, vanilla fragrance?
Piennasnids – :
Could not agree more with the previous review about a salty play-doh smell. I honestly thought the same thing when I tried it.
holiday – :
I can get the notes If I try hard enough, though on me this just comes off a very salty home made play-doh. I get it, I want to see past it but on me that’s all that’s developed. Safe scent for the kindergarten classroom I suppose.
Edit: hours and hours later this smoothed out and though I still get the play-doh, it’s not as salty lol
specnaz80 – :
Arbolé Arbolé is a surprisingly delicate tonka bean fragrance. From beginning to end, tonka bean is the dominant note, but it takes on Oriental nuances of cinnamon and pipe tobacco. It takes some effort to notice wood and patchouli. To me the drydown smells more like velvety amber, the kind of amber that gives off that Play-Do effect, which I personally adore. I say “velvety” because there is a powder-like effect, but it is not powdery like talcum powder, it’s more of a texture. It is a warm and inviting perfume. Not too sweet, either. One spritz on each wrist lasted all day with good projection, yet the perfume never overwhelms. Arbolé Arbolé is the perfect addition to Hiram Green’s incredible line. I am eager to see what he does next.
4e4enecimv – :
A justifiable complaint against much of natural perfumery is that the compositions can be muddied and vague. Blending botanicals, even when using isolates, can be tricky. Compositions with a limited number of components keep the materials’ personalities front and and center but don’t compel them reveal anything new. When too many materials are used the composition loses precision and an important range of dynamics. Some botanical pairings have an inherent synergy and create appealing accords, most of which have been well explored in aromatherapy. They rise to a certain level of prettiness but don’t often have the dynamic olfactory range or abstraction of perfumery.
In the hands of most perfumers botanical work is the folk music of perfumery. It’s better with fewer performers. No how many additional acoustic guitars and voices (or essential oils) you add to the chorus, the ideal tops out at a small number and actually loses something when more is added. Mandy Aftel, whose perfumes are my source material for learning about natural perfumery (hell, why not start at the top?) is the exception that proves the rule. Her perfumes manage to juggle focus and complexity smartly.
Another exception is Hiram Green. If botanical perfumery is folk music, Green is Dylan-gone-electric. There is none of the indeterminacy of so much botanical work. Blend is not blur and Arbolé Arbolé shows the value of using multiple materials from the same category—IF you can keep them from crossing paths.
I tend not to go very far into a discussion of notes and materials, but it’s appropriate in this case for two reasons: 1) Though I assume isolates, fractions and other botanically derived substances are used, when Green mentions patchouli, sandalwood and cedar at his site, I believe he means the actual botanicals. 2) The materials are identifiable to the nose but work together to make novel olfactory shapes.
Green allows his materials to overlap, but not to run onto each other. Though all are considered woody materials patchouli, cedar and sandalwood have very different profiles. In Arbolé Arbolé the woods are mediated by vanillic tones, from the heliotrope/puttied-almond range to the sweet-hay scent of coumarin. Patchouli, technically a grass, has cool, earthy qualities and lends Arbolé Arbolé a definitive green hue. Likewise, sandalwood covers a lot of ground. Its resinous dusty qualities become a matte powder when joined with the almondy vanilla. Cedar has a harder silhouette than patchouli and sandalwood. It gives the perfume backbone and stability. The astringency of cedar latches onto the yogurty facet of sandalwood and gives the perfume a firm tartness, as if it has a twist of some imaginary citrus fruit. Together, the woods form apparently simple shapes that belie complex olfactory patterns. Medicinal. Waxy. Powdered. Acidic. Honeyed. Rubbery. Lipsticky. It has a similarly cozy, dissonant effect as Molinard Habanita, with scents-textures a fraction of an inch from contradicting each other. The woods form a braid, making a pattern together, but keeping separate tracks from start to finish.
Green borrows the title of Spanish poet/playright Federico García Lorca’s poem Arbolé Arbolé and the comparison is fitting. Lorca’s surrealism was grounded in the symbolic nature of his vocabulary. He gave great significance to simple acts and objects. Green’s use of materials carries a weighted feel, as if they too are somehow loaded. I mentioned the complaint against botanical perfumery that it can produce hazy perfumes that lack a center. I should balance that with another legitimate complaint, this time against synthetic perfumery. Over-reliance on aromachemicals initially used as adjuncts to woody materials has lead to the opposite problem. Cheap, easily accessible foghorns like Norlimbanol, Kephalis, Cedramber and Ambroxan have made woody perfumes synonymous with headaches and hangovers. To find a definitively woody perfume without these unsettling characteristics is a pleasure.
A test of natural perfumes is to evaluate them without the word “natural.” Taken as a perfume of any kind, Arbolé Arbolé is inventive and extremely engaging. Here Green does to woods what he did with flowers in the first perfume in his line, Moon Bloom. He takes the definitive members of an olfactory genres, in Moon Bloom’s case white florals, and coaxes a varied chorus out if them. Moon Bloom focussed more on harmony and smoothness. Arbolé Arbolé leans into contrasts with purpose and seems more assured. Just three to four years after the launch of the line, Arbolé Arbolé is the work of a more mature artist. The way Green manages differences in his chosen materials and doesn’t smooth over interesting olfactory collisions tells me that he’s deliberately challenging himself. And succeeding.
(from scenthurdle.com)
JJDavid – :
On me, this opens with a powdery sweetness. There’s a hard-to-place wood note in the opener, and then something quite unusual: a flat, starchy-papery note that reminds me quite strongly of Play-Doh. Perhaps this is what the other reviewers refer to as the olive scent?
Beyond that, a creamy vanilla opens up and carries through the rest of this fragrance’s (rather generous) longevity. Lasted easily 8+ hours on me, with fairly strong projection.
dswwee – :
Patchouli vanillic & doses of tonka beans. More of sandalwood & cedar as well with powdery effect. It’s more of a velvety material! It’s quite heavy comparing to their other fragrances but remains in the same family. It is quite vintage sort of dusty, and more of the patchouli side as i can sense some roses in between after 5 minutes of sprays.
Still it’s not creation from scratch as I have smelled something similar previously with almost the exact smell but i can’t remember what was it!
This house remains one of the major houses that really captures my senses.
H2O – :
With a juice color *this* inviting, I had to try it — even if the dominant accords were raw sewage & embalming fluid. Good news. It smells a LOT better than that!
Reviewer K1 is right. Green olives make a distinct impression here. Every summer, a deluge of “Olive”-scented soaps appear at TJ Maxx / Marshall’s / Ross. They don’t actually smell like the oily fruit, in a gourmand / foodie sense. There is, however, an industry agreement on what ‘olive in a soap’ should smells like. Arbolé smells like this. And it’s stronger on the Castelvetrano, than Slumberhouse’s Pear & Olive.
Neither Hiram Green’s official website nor the Fragrantica pyramid contains Olive, which is interesting. The only place they appear, is the Federico García Lorca poem. Olive’s also visually conveyed, in the striking chartreuse juice in the rounded Hiram Green signature bottle design.
Everything else on the pyramid make an appearance too, with tonka being the strongest on my skin. This is a _gorgeously_ blended perfume. La niña in Lorca’s Arbolé wasn’t swayed by her suitors, but *I’m* certainly enchanted. Considering for a FB purchase!
gogastar – :
So excited was I by Hiram Green’s new perfume that I was tempted to blind buy a FB on the day it was launched. Vainly I searched for reviews but no one has had a chance to sample this before the official launch it seems. Being disciplined, I decided to get a sample instead. Evocative name, lovely group of olfactory notes. I even looked up the poem it was named after. I really want to love this perfume.
The opening is a very strong vetiver accord. I double checked the perfume profile. Unlisted ingredient? Wonky skin chemistry? This is like badass Sycomore stuff. Green sweet grass vibe.
The drydown is more my style with the tonka, vanilla coming to the foreground amidst a vague sandalwood sweetness.
I Guess I won’t be ordering a full bottle. The notes look so good though…