Grass
Lush (2018)

Grass by Lush (2018) is simpler than a backbeat, and thuds just about the same. If you want a green naturalistic perfume that goes through a parma violet middle into a big wet kiss of herbs and woodiness, bitter and freshly-mown, this is your stuff. Lush perfumes are somewhat more expensive than they used to be, and the black-labels like this more so than their standard white label lines, so you gotta shell out $65 for just an ounce as of this review, but at parfum extrait concentration, one ounce should go a real long way. There isn't much more to say other than don't expect a full line in this stuff, as the black label selections are often just perfume.

Big wet greens from what is going to be galbanum, cis-3-hexanol. and other chlorophyll-like materials lead into the alpha and beta ionones that provide the sweet woody parma violet combination, with some clove-ish smoke, vetiver, orange blossom as the opening citrus-adjacent note, and finally a sandalwood dry tonka base. In that base also comes some chewy herbs like the kind perfume Mark Constantine works across his entire perfume range, especially things like Dirty by Lush (2004). This is fresh but not minty like that, although the herbal link between them is there. Performance isn't screaming but Grass will last forever on skin.

Mark Constantine isn't winning any awards as the most sophisticated perfumer ever, as even decades after Lush started, his style still feels raw and bohemian, like someone who has been bashing oils and playing with basic aromachemicals but is happy where they are, with no real interest in becoming the next Jean Kerleo or Edmond Roudnitska. It's fine; punk rock and bluegrass are both still a thing too, so there is a certain earnest quality in such dogged self-imposed simplicity that you either love or hate, but remember all the same. I think by now the kind of person who shops at Lush regularly is on board with this, and you'll have to be too if you want to smell like this particular grass. Thumbs up

How interesting, this smells like a hippie Shalimar with a hay-like patchouli. As in; if I smelled the dry down blindly, I would think this was Shalimar. But weirdly, I kind of like wearing it, even though I find actual Shalimar challenging and I'm not the biggest fan of hippie patchoulies either? I don't know how it works, but it's nice. A bit clunky in the typical Lush fashion, but nice.

Eh, this is pretty mundane at best. A review down below mentions wet and rotting hay ... now, that sounds interesting. How can I get that?

I definitely get some violet. I was wondering what was interfering with the note of grass. As it progresses, I get less grass and more of the sandalwood and violet. I think it would have been better if they had replaced the violet with violet leaves. If you want something better, go with Viola from Fiele Fragrances. I think that fragrance executes the green notes better.

Of course it's green and fresh but it also has an oriental side with incense and spices. So special and well done. Different from other Lush products but also from everything else I have smelt.

This turned into wet and rotting hay on my skin. :(