Mown
Hendley Perfumes (2017)

Rather than the freshly-mowed grass that l expected, this is the scent of dried hay in late summer/early autumn, with a strong & unpleasant (to me) overtone of creosote. It's bitter, earthy & smoky, with a suggestion of autumn leaves, & leaning quite masculine. This impression lasts for around twenty minutes before the creosote becomes less obvious, & there's a whiff of rain-soaked earth & flowers, with a little sweetness beneath, perhaps tobacco. From this point it's more pleasant to me, slowly getting softer & smoother until eight hours in it's pretty much gone.

At first l really disliked this, but the drydown is actually quite intriguing, & if l can get past that opening l might enjoy it more when autumn comes around. l'll give it another try then...

Heartland Fougère? Mown, like many a hay-focussed scent, doesn't ring my bell. It remains quietly irritating on my skin without blossoming much or going anywhere and just doesn't add up to anything meaningful. Smooth, just not for me

From my explorations of his offerings so far, Hans Hendley seems to be one of those utterly dependable perfumers whose creations always smell unforced and natural – and completely compelling at their very best. With Mown Hendley takes a simple theme of late summer harvested hay – but have you ever encountered it rendered so true-to-life? Its slightly milky and earthy sweetness as also its warm humidity singing on the wearer’s skin – and, sure, a cured tobacco note and accents of dried fruits are part of the effect, but this is the essence of a hay bale and all it signifies: ripeness, calm, time to slow down, work well done.

This is the scent of short prairie lawn,fresh cut with a flower bed marking the edge. Here is where you doze on a sunny afternoon reading in a meadow, nothing but you, grasses, wildflowers and the openness of nothing horizon to horizon. Newly plowed fields and in the distance wild grass being burned off.
In some ways also takes a trip through seasons, bright flowers and sunny hay up front with early flowers moving to warmer darker earth and leaves that move toward fall and the end of the scent.

The initial sprays gave me a sensation of a planned boozy encounter in a hayloft interrupted by a falling accident. At first I thought it was vetiver in the top note, but the hay accord makes sense. It's quite sweet comes out of the bottle (albeit tempered by the hay), but that sweetness quickly fades into a woody mediocrity. The open was interesting; the dry down was not. Okay, but not for me.

I like Hans Hendley perfumes because they are artistic without being pretentious or inaccessible to a more general public taste. I would describe his style as Slumberhouse-esque, inspired by rugged, outdoorsy smells such as “pine, cedar, oak, forest floor, daffodil flowers (narcissus), honeysuckle, sage, tomato leaf, fresh bread, sawdust, smoke and the secretly amazing smell of gasoline” but much lighter than Slumberhouse and with a use of “radiant” woody-ambery basenotes.

Mown encapsulates both facets of the Hans Hendley style well. It features a damp, nutty hay accord interspersed with the dried fruit and bitter cocoa notes of curing tobacco, with a result that is syrupy, rich, and almost edible. However, layered over a radiant woody amber that smells like shards of wood impregnated with resin, smeared with honey, and left outside in the sun to dry, there is enough “burnt” in the scent's structure to keep it buoyant. Powdery orris helps tilt the scent towards the dry, bitter “grassy” aspects of the harvest line. There's even a toasted note in there that calls to mind cereals laid out on hay to dry out in the sun.

Before the woody amber sets itself on fire in the base, we have time for a whistle-stop tour of the tobacco curing shed. The dried fruit richness of the start mimics the chocolatey dampness of un-cured tobacco leaves, which smell like they've been dipped in fruitcake soaking liquor, before becoming green and waxy, similar to the smell of beeswax absolute. But as the scent dries out, so too do the sheaves of tobacco, honeycomb transitioning into the crackling nuttiness of 100% cured tobacco leaf, red-gold at the edges and barely sweet. The base is what marks Mown out as related to other powerfully dry, woody perfumes such as Woodcut by Olympic Orchids, Eau My Soul by 4160 Tuesdays, and Hendley's own Bourbon. At $28 for a 9ml travel spray, Mown has to be one of the best deals on the market if you love the earthy smells of the harvest.