A couple of weeks ago I asked about linden fragrance recommendations, and y’all delivered! Here’s the first three, which I got from Surrender to Chance, and other samples are coming via … somewhere (Scent Splits, maybe?) It’s been like an oven here – no rain, temps in the 90s, humidity in the single digits. We’re all under a fire watch but so far, so good. Anyway, this has been a great time to sniff summery scents. Here are my thoughts on these fragrances, with blurbage/notes cribbed from the StC site:
Imaginary Authors Soft Lawn was released in 2012 and updated in 2021 with the same notes, but the green of the lawn was smoothed and softened. Notes: Linden blossom, laurel, ivy leaves, vetiver, oakmoss, fresh tennis balls, clay court.
So, this one is delightful, if not exactly linden. It paints a picture (okay, tells a story) about a particular day / place in time on the clay courts, with everything showing up at the same time on me, including a little ziiiing of something fresh/rubbery. The fragrance has breadth but not depth — no real development after the first 5 minutes, and it’s more or less gone after a couple of hours. Fun, though, and a great summer scent.
Air & Weather Linden is a unisex floral green fragrance launched in 2023. Julia Crowe is the nose behind this fragrance. Notes of neroli, linden blossom, honey, tuberose, wood, resin and balsam.
Huh. It starts off with a sharpish burst that I can’t quite figure out based on those notes – more tart citrus than neroli. To me, it drifts through the linden phase really fast – that furry, funky sweetness – and then settles into honey, neroli and balsam. This is pretty much what I’m smelling after the first 20 minutes, and it lasts surprisingly well. Don’t get me wrong, that’s a compelling trio of notes with the balsam dialing down the sweetness, but for a fragrance literally named linden, not so much on me. Another great summer pick-me-up though.
Marc-Antoine Barrios Tilia is a 2024 release. Created by Quentin Bisch, it has notes of linden blossom, jasmine, broom, heliotrope, vetiver, orange blossom, ambrofix and georgywood.
When I sprayed this, my first thought was whoa … okay, now we’re talking. It has that enveloping richness and an almost oily, vegetal sweetness that I associate with standing under a linden tree. Apparently this is a polarizing scent, and I can see why. Definitely the most linden-like of the three, an almost photorealistic linden fragrance. I can pick out a bit of those individual notes if I look for them, but if I stop looking for them and just lean into it: the full linden-tree experience of blossoms and leaves and earth and shade. This clearly has a higher percentage of perfume oils judging by the gloss on my skin, so exercise caution when spraying. I maybe wouldn’t douse myself in this before work, but it is stunning.
images via Pexels
Linden always smells of warm weather relaxation to me – and the Barrios Tilia sounds like it smells of an afternoon on ny porch in high summer!!!