The Soft Lawn
Imaginary Authors (2012)

The Soft Lawn, 2.0 is a wet, green grass scent with a hint of florals and something slightly chalky (maybe tennis ball?) underneath. On initial opening it immediately made me think of Green Irish Tweed, but not as bright and then it quickly faded towards something more arboricultural with a leafy green accord. It's pleasant but not anything I want to wear for very long. Neutral for me.

This is a borderline neutral / positive.

It does capture the idea of an early summer tennis court, and the “tennis ball accord” does work. All fairly muted and quite pleasant, but not special enough for a full bottle.

I was looking forward to sampling this one based on all the years I spent playing tennis growing up. Hard courts, clay courts, tennis ball cans...all the smells, I know them well. I even tried to make a grass court of my own at one point in a very large, open part of the side yard growing up. A friend helped me and we actually did complete it and played a few games on it. Amateur court, yes, but still, the experience counts.

The Soft Lawn smells like Falling into the Sea, also by Imaginary Authors, but less beachy, suntan lotion and more of an earthy, grassy note in the opening. Later, it is all still very, very similar to Falling into the Sea with its airy, beachy florals but just a hint of extra sweetness. I was expecting more grass/earthiness. It still smells decent but just not like tennis or anything they were shooting for.

Also, where's the tennis ball accord? I liken a fresh tennis ball out of the can to a dead fish or cat food smell, so that would have been interesting if it would have come through.

Projection is average but longevity is 8-9 hours.

Ugh. Its a dusty fougere. Smells like a potted plastic fern in the worst way. The ones with the fake crumbly moss glued to styrofoam in the pot. It is dry, so thats good. It doesnt overly sweeten itself to acheive its structure, and is completely devoid of moss or anything approximating. I understand where this was going. Just a failed execution to me.

I love the Imaginary Authors brand. But sadly this is not a winner for me. I sprayed my wrists and my chest. On my wrists I get some vague greenery. Could give off a grass clippings vibe, which is what they were going for, but overall my wrists were pretty subtle.

My chest however, was a different story. Right out the gate my chest starts with the "clay court" accord. It wasn't bad, just funky. But then after 30 minutes things took a turn for the worse. Some of the green notes warmed up and combined in a weird way and my chest started to emanate two things: dill and mustard. Neither are in the notes. But whenever I got a whiff. I could not stop thinking "I am not a posh tennis court. I am a walking hamburger". I got a good laugh out of it while doing my shopping, but this one just didn't work for me. Everyone's body chemistry is different though, so I'd say give it a shot if you're interested.

Pleasant, green floral fragrance with linden blossom as a principal component - the honey and beeswax type of character like you find in D'Orsay's Tilleul is less pronounced and in its place is a fresh aldehydic peach similar to that in "Falling into the Sea".

Overall however it could be said to suggest a soft lawn, though the tennis balls are almost certainly added by the marketers, rather than the perfumers.

And talking of marketing, the backstory of an enterprising young man called Josh Meyer with no prior experience putting the successful perfumes together on his kitchen table fits nicely with 'the American dream' but is, I suspect, a lot of old baloney. If I claimed to have built a fighter jet in my backyard from old tin cans, nobody would believe me, but you can get away with almost anything in the fantasy land of perfumery.