No. 8 Tonic Vert

Tonic Vert is a true tonic for the winter blues. With its crushed mint and sour citrus topnotes, the scent starts out with the stinging clarity of early morning sunshine cutting across a dark room. Unlike other green fragrances, it is neither soapy-soft or sappy-juicy. Rather, it is dry, dry, dry throughout, an essential bitterness focusing the mind and straightening the spine.

Yet this is not a classic green scent like No. 19 or even Green Irish Tweed – Tonic Vert makes a feature of its modern single-mindedness. Though more naturalistic than abstract or synthetic, it nonetheless manages to convey an impression of crisp angularity that feels more at home in a boardroom than on a ramble through the fields. The combination of that earthy, bitter vetiver with the strange pink fruitiness of pomelo and the minty rosiness of geranium is arresting to the nth degree: in the murky darkness of deep winter, you’ll want to spray this over and over just to let the light in again.