There is that moment every Holiday season soon after Thanksgiving I find myself in a Christmas tree lot. The act of picking out a tree is one of the pleasures of the season. Part of that is the simple smell of the scene. The rows of trees with sap coating the cut at the end on a cold night, breath steaming, is intrinsic to my scent memory of Christmas. The reason I have a real tree is to transport this smell, in a small way, back home. There are lots of great choices out there to capture this as a perfume. I thought for this month’s Discount Diamonds I might remind you of one hiding at the back of your drugstore fragrance case; Stetson Sierra.
Sierra was the fourth release from Stetson in 1993. It was the follow-up to two of the most popular drugstore perfumes, the Original Stetson and Preferred Stock. There was a sense that this brand was trying to be an all-American style full of masculine tropes emblematic of the cowboy who wears a Stetson hat. In these early days creative director Elizabeth Marrone really had an idea of what a “Stetson Man” should smell like. She would work with perfume Rene Morgenthaler to create a fragrance which is, “a breath of fresh air that takes you to Big Sky.”
Rene Morgenthaler
M. Morgenthaler goes for an herbal accord as the primary accompaniment to the fir balsam keynote. It captures the scent of the needles on the trees as rosemary, sage, allspice, thyme, and cumin are artfully blended into a rough accord which captures both the rawness of the sap with the softness of the pine needles. Right here is the smell of lots of pine trees leaning against saw horses with price tags affixed to them. It is subtler than most drugstore styles. The subtlety is removed in the later phase as a load of synthetic woody aromachemicals mix together in a typical base accord.
Stetson Sierra has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.
If you find yourself stuck in line at your local drugstore on an emergency Holiday run; look at that fragrance case. If you see a green bottle for about $15 with Stetson Sierra on it. Grab it and make believe you’re out shopping for Christmas trees instead of waiting in line.
Disclosure: This review is based on a bottle I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
