Hi there Niche Nerds,

Sometimes I look at a notes list and an idea of what a fragrance will smell like pops into my head, an olfactory guess. When I first wore Wisteria Hysteria it was a complete surprise. That pretty white bottle, those interesting green/spicy notes, I thought they would be a blind for a modern, sweet, light, slightly green, spicy and creamy composition. BOY was I wrong.

Wisteria Hysteria by Nathalie Feisthauer for CdG/Stephen Jones 2014

Photo Stolen Fragrantica

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Cloves, mate, carnation
Heart: Wisteria, rose, incense
Base: Musk, styrax, benzoin, amber

Wisteria Hysteria opens GREEN, so outrageously green I find it hard to believe this is a mainstream UK designer release, well Stephen Jones is a milliner and hats are part of design right? This is a fabulously edgy green, very Comme des Garcons metallic science fiction and also verging on a natural perfumery style, quite the dichotomy.

Photo Stolen FashionStroke

Sweet green, a funky, gothic, marshland fragrance. There is nothing here of my memory of our enormous wisteria vine that grew over two 30 foot tall tree stumps in our back yard. Spicy green, that only softens slightly with the introduction of the bouquet in the heart yet still has a cool unburned incense mixed with old BarBQ coals. Weird, unusual, interesting and moreish.

Photo Stolen Flickr

After about an hour Wisteria Hysteria calms down considerably, becomes a softer, creamier version of itself but still holds the green tight. At some point through the heart I get a scent that reminds me of Indian spices on some of their packet snack foods, spicy and delicious but HOT!

At this point I am instantly transported to some of my earlier visits to India. I would be there for around 6 weeks and the first 2-3 weeks I would be eating as much Indian food as I could and loving every bite. Then at around the 3 week point I would suddenly get overwhelmingly homesick and turn bitchy. Varun would be waiting for this and produce some Indian snack foods and mandarins or mangoes depending on the season. Those delicious snack foods would tide me over and I would be OK to deal with till the end of the trip. So Wisteria Hysteria brings to mind some incredibly happy reminiscences of some of the best times of my life.

Photo Stolen OpenCage

Then it is softly, softly green to sweet, warm, still green dry down.

Further reading: Now Smell This and Grain de Musc
LuckyScent has $165/55mlSurrender To Chance has samples starting at $4.50/.5ml

Did you get to try this? Is Stephen Jones a milliner that you know?
Portia xx