Vetiver Chameleon Super Premium CO2

Adam Michael has this to say “So vetiver, the naturals material I deem as the second most complex after oud. From something as simple as different origin you can essentially have two completely different aroma profiles at your disposal and more so if you evaluate the aroma profile of cultivated and wild materials. The sheer amount of different nuances that can be found within vetiver is truly captivating. So before I get into it, let me state as of 17/01/20 that this material was initially named Vetiver Gourmand, but due to findings since, is now renamed Vetiver Chameleon, and with good reason.

Now, aromatically and applied directly to the strip, the first notes that hit you are actually that of warm caramel, toffee, fudge, milk chocolate, nougat, licorice, cocoa powder and syrup. If you evaluate more closely you can detect woody notes and delicate root type aromas, consisting of aged Texan cedarwood with heightened powdery chocolate aspects, mellowed Virginian cedarwood and aged oak barrels, along with the root like qualities that best resemble hydro distilled costus root and our own Bourbon vetiver. Slowly, we head off into what I’d best describe as a floral chocolate direction and providing an experience I associate with evaluating orris absolute and resinoid materials. Here, I start to detect a lot of soft powdery dusty warmth with sweet and spiced chocolate buttery character, like that you experience with the early opening of most low irones content absolutes, along with sweet bread and trace warm milk qualities,  finished with a rhizomes vegetal belly that does display distinct vetiver charm.

After around eight hours the dried roots theme becomes slightly more pronounced before we quickly nosedive into a prominent all out chocolate scented woody affair with the faintest hit of smoke and grass. A world Willy Wonka would no doubt revel in showing you himself. Rich wood notes, again Texan, Virginian and now Chinese cedarwood all feature heavily, and also to a lesser extent Siam wood perhaps for its wonderful opulent soft warmth and Japanese hinoki for its distinct evergreen bite. The chocolate impressions at this stage are all milk chocolate biscuit orientated and tinged with soft spices and delicate trace plumes of candied orange.

When the base notes kick in around ten to twelve hours later, the aroma is forest notes, milk through to bitter chocolate, play-doh and lightly spiced vetiver qualities with lots of gourmand orris dusty facets. Via the strip only, the aroma is a beastly 350 + hours.

In reality however some will want to add this material to oil for building attars or creating massage blends. Most will want to add this to alcohol for creating perfumes. As such, and by adding to oil or alcohol or warming the material via bain-marie, the aromatic profile completely alters.

So, added to alcohol, the aroma morphs into a full on super beasty all out green rooty vetiver affair that best resembles that of Vetiver heart, albeit this takes it to another level from the point of view of intensity. Mixed in alcohol at just 10% and applied onto skin you will still be able to detect this for 8 + hours, and again its complete monster green vetiver rooty throughout. You essentially create a cloud of this aroma within your immediate environment. All these green beasty notes become immediately evident when the material is warmed by bain-marie.

Added directly to oil, the aroma mostly stays true to my findings for the first 2 to 3 hours when evaluating this directly on the strip. In so much it maintains its gourmand identity and then slowly shift shapes into something resembling the outcome of mixing tobacco with vanilla materials, before it also takes on the green rooty aspects, albeit far more muted. At 10% on my skin I can detect this for 12 + hours.

Concerning use, for purpose of alcohol perfumes, shines with tobacco, oud, patchouli, and its fellow vetivers. Within attars, pairs like a marriage made in heaven with heavy florals such as jasmine sambac and champaca, and again with patchouli, especially absolute, ouds, tobacco Oriental, ad its fellow vetivers and especially Bourbon.”

Botanical Name: Vetiveria zizanioides

Origin: India

Alcohol soluble: Yes

Oil soluble: Yes