Once again I am cribbing off of other Posse Peeps, this time March, who wrote about this one last week. She forced me to come off my “I am not buying anything” determined resolution for 2025 (which at least lasted longer than the resolution to give up Dewey’s Key Lime Cookies or clean out the veggie drawer in the icebox) and purchase a bottle of this. She had me at “green”.
I had had experience with Miller et Bertaux, having gone through at least one bottle of their Spiritus, which I ran across at a sadly now defunct store in Santa Monica on Montana Avenue (with a sister store on 3rd Street in West Hollywood) called Palmetto. I found a nearly full tester on the sad sale rack for something like $25, with a smudged label. Oddly enough the only other customer in the store was Ms. Lauren Bacall- every inch the Stah! and ordering everyone around whether they worked there or not in a benign way that came across as lovably imperious rather than just imperious. She smelled it when I spritzed and clearly wanted the bottle. G-d love her, she was known as an Old Hollywood version of Minnie Driver in AbFab; wanting it now and wanting it free. And I got a bug up my butt, said to myself “not today, Satan” and paid for it before anyone even had the chance to ask if I could give it up. Then walked out of the store, gliding over her patented Haughty Gaze without really seeing her (a useful trick learned from my mother) and left the store with my friend.
I wanted to tell her I thought she was robbed of that Oscar for “The Mirror Has Two Faces” but I didn’t think she wanted to hear it.
Anyway, green, green, green.. and green. It’s green. Actually it’s GREEN. Notes (from March’s review) are laurel, bay leaves, verbena, green sap, coriander, jasmine, cedar, vetiver and musk and you definitely get the first six straight off, as well as grass clippings (which I love), peppercorn, and a little pickle juice. Just a little. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t read that this is something that usually puts March off Galbanum scents, but it’s there. Not full on Vlasik-fantastik, but there.
Once that slightly spiky opening calms down, you can discern the jasmine, cedar (reads more stemmy than woody) and skin musk which is also in Spiritus. This part is lovely and eminently wearable and last for a good 10 hours. But I have to admit I did go back and respritz to get the full Green Monster effect, grass, galbanum, gherkins, and all. I might have tossed that resolution, but it was worth it.
Have you tried either one of these? Any others in the line you like (please don’t make me lemming.. Again..) I do know that you can get samples of others in the line from Surrender to Chance, but I haven’t. Yet. Let us know in the comments if you have.
Miller et Bertaux green, green, green.. and green is available on the interwebs at very reasonable prices- less than $60 for 3.4 ounces. I purchased mine at Fragrancenet.
Images: My iPhone, Pexels, and Wikimedia Commons
I have a sample of this along with a sample of Malle Synthetic Jungle in a bag somewhere but I don’t know where. I’ll look for it because I forgot it until now.
LOVE the Lauren Bacall story. I’m so glad you snapped up your bargain!
I hope you like it and would love to read what you think about the Malle- it was a love/hate for a lot of people.
I do not remember ever trying any Miller et Bertaux and I won’t be trying this GREEN one, at least not yet. I’m still in fig world and already in love with Diptyque Philosykos edt and edp. It seems to be everyone’s figgy love – mine too.
You are a troublemaker, “Vlasik-fantastik” indeed. Now when I sniff Vlasik rich perfumes and instead of going, eww, go fantastik, it will be all your fault. My susceptibility to the power of suggestion has nothing to do with it.
Love your Lauren Bacall story! There was always something about that lady that drew me in.
I love a fig scent almost as much as I love figs..
I love being e troublemaker too!
Hahahaha I’m glad it worked out so well! At that price, especially THESE days, it’s practically free. I know Portia’s a fan of the line; I ordered samples of some of the other new ones from StC, they’ve just arrived … that story about Betty Bacall is fabulous. I saw a magazine article/tour of her apartment at the Dakota in NYC, and it was also fabulous. If I’d had $20 million I’d have bought it.
Ditto on Bacall!
She WAS robbed of that Oscar!
I would get some of the other from StC..
I loved their bottles and apt too. Love the Dakota. So many great buildings on CPW and the Westside. So much nicer than one of those awful new buildings that are 140 stories and three feet wide..
I’m curious but not enough to do anything but stash this in the back of the mind for when I’m somewhere that stocks it. Love the Bacall story. Do we think it’s actually sort of hard to be famous (that kind of famous) because you can no longer go out and just be? Maybe famous people crave the attention… Beyond that, pickles have never been my thing. Even when I lived in NYC.
I think it must be especially hard for ones like Bacall that remember when you could live relatively normally. When you think that up until the early 70’s they could live on a normal street that you could walk to. The the whole Mason era up to Hinkley and that changed everything.
Help! Help! I’m down a rabbit hole! But this Alison in Wonderland is seeing bottles of green juice flying past her!!!
I’m dangling a rope made of ivy down to you..
Snapped! Darn it! The green juice is always just out of reach!
Gotta get more ivy…
e troublemaker!
Dats me!!
YAY for tossing the no buy Tom. You can go back on the wagon again now if you like.
LOVE Miller et Bertaux and have a few bottles here. I could own every on in the collection. All wearable and just a little happily strange. Also, so affordable and their bottle is my favourite perfume bottle of them all nowadays. So easy to hold and spritz. A couple of other brands use them too.
Portia xx
I do love their bottles and the cardboard boxes as well- the little bureau feet are so cute!
I’m delighted you acquired some Green x4 and tried it for yourself, Tom. I own and like it very much. My skin seems to pull the coriander and other herbaceous notes out strongly. That’s what I smell in the long-lasting drydown. Not so much the galbanum, vetiver or jasmine, which frankly I’d prefer. But I like this quirky oddball and appreciate that not every Sue, Sal, and Sara that I encounter is gonna be wearing it too. I’m glad you stuck to your guns and bought the Spiritus bottle that Lauren Bacall was eyeing. Finders keepers rules, right?!?
In the case of good scents heavily marked down? Darned tootin!
Now I’m 2 for 2 on this line. I’m almost afraid to try the rest..
We must be something close to skin twins — my skin pulls the same notes.
Fascinating! I like that!
You may have found your scent twin!
Interesting!
Oh.. Palmetto! I do miss it so. I miss Montana Ave. The OLD Montana Avenue (I yarbled about that a few weeks ago on your comment on March’s post).
I think that Bacall (Madame Betty to you, mister!) story is fabulous! I would’ve done the persack same thing.
Miller et Berteaux… I don’t know if I’ve ever tried anything from the line. Must investigate.
I miss that Montana Ave as well. And the Santa Monica that had Henshey’s department store, Fred Segal, and the 3rd St. Promenade that wasn’t like every mall from Portland Oregon to Portland Maine.
Oh! I loved 3rd St. Promenade. My friend and I would go to Ye Olde King’s Head for fish and chips and a Newkie Brown, then we’d stroll on the Promenade. Good memories.
I know! When they had the ivy dinosaurs and store like Na-Na. I sometimes look at “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure” and sigh..