When I’m deciding what perfume to wear in the summer my eyes always pause on my collection of favorite vetivers. Warm weather and vetiver go together like peas and carrots. (Sorry Forrest Gump) Vetiver is also one of the most versatile ingredients in all of perfumery having a multi-faceted profile. Over recent years perfumers have been using various fractions of vetiver to enhance certain parts of that profile. They have been part of some excellent perfume. Except my summertime shelf of vetiver is only populated by those fragrances which want to give me a full-spectrum vetiver at their heart. I have recently found a new perfume which achieves this; Bentley Beyond Wild Vetiver.
Marc Roesti
The perfumes inspired by the iconic luxury car Bentley are one of those unsung collections which has produced above average fragrances. Many of the car brands which have perfume affiliated with them are through the bigger beauty corporations. For Bentley that means Lalique is responsible for the collection which began in 2012. I think the second fragrance released under the Bentley label; Bentley for Men Intense is one of the best designer fragrances of the last ten years. There has been a noticeable aesthetic which has formed over the last seven years which is probably due to Lalique creative director Marc Roesti. He has overseen perfumes which capture a sophistication befitting the brand.
Sidonie Lancesseur
Mr. Roesti’s latest addition is a series of three perfumes called the Bentley Beyond collection; Exotic Musk, Majestic Cashmere, and Wild Vetiver. This is a different direction than what has come before. The previous Bentley releases have been complex masculine-style perfume. The Beyond collection is still focused on a masculine aesthetic but with stripped down construction focused on the note listed in the name. I like all three, but Wild Vetiver is the one which connected with me. Mr. Roesti asked perfumer Sidonie Lancesseur to take vetiver and display all the kaleidoscopic hues of this versatile ingredient.
She uses an Indonesian version of vetiver as the core. In the early moments she uses pepper to tease out the grapefruit quality of vetiver. It adds a roughness which becomes a recurring theme throughout Wild Vetiver. Verbena comes next and the citrus-tinted green of that ingredient connects the grapefruit along with the sharp green aspects of the vetiver. This is a gorgeous refreshing vetiver at this point. What takes it up a level is when Mme Lancesseur takes the dry woodiness of amberwood and roughs it up with birch. It is where the wild in the name is found. The birch makes the amberwood less monolithic which then allows the woody earthiness of the vetiver a place to find purchase.
Wild Vetiver has 10-12 hour longevity and average sillage.
If you like vetiver and are looking for something different Wild Vetiver is that kind of fragrance. It might take some doing to find where Bentley perfumes are carried. If you want a full-spectrum vetiver for summer Wild Vetiver will be worth the search.
Disclosure: This review is based on a sample provided by Bentley.
–Mark Behnke
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