Mystery Dance: Andy Tauer Unnamed Vetiver/Vetiver Dance

Last week I, along with ninety-nine other people, got a sample of Andy Tauer's new scent, an at that time unnamed vetiver. That, in fact, was what it was called; "Unnamed Vetiver". Apparently it's going to be called Vetiver Dance; I mean, there's the bottle down there and everything.

I liked, but did not madly love, his previous offering, Incense Rosé, and decided that I had to smell more of his stuff. Now that I have, I can make a couple of pronouncements. First, there seems to be an overriding aesthetic to his work; this new scent is recognizably the work of the person who made Incense Rosé. (I probably shouldn't make that judgement until I've smelled more of his work, but the two scents, though very different, have the same brushstrokes.) And second, Vetiver Dance is stunning.

I told myself I wasn't going to refer to the list of notes included with the sample, but I don't have one of those trained noses that can reliably fractionate out the elements of a scent, so after three days of wearing and deeply smelling the scent, I thought, The hell with this, and read the list: "Grapefruit, black pepper, green clary sage leaves, brilliant lily of the valley, dark vetiver from Java, crisp cedar wood and soft ambergris with a hint of cistus and Tonka beans." I didn't identify all those things, and there seem to be things in the scent that aren't listed, so you can take that however you like.

The first thing you smell is grapefruit, that volatile explosive, lightly spiced. Once it's gone, which takes less than a minute, the green of vetiver comes charging up at you, and it doesn't stop.

I swear that before I even knew the thing was going to be named Vetiver Dance, my notes for the scent included the fact that the middle of the scent is constantly in motion; not dancing, necessarily, but jostling around, as if its elements were jockeying for position. The scent isn't smooth and seamless; you can feel the pieces shifting around like a game of three-card monte--little stabs of green vetiver, chips of wood, and other, mysterious things. The list of notes doesn't, to my nose, bear any real connection to what I'm smelling; I can't say for sure that there's lily or clary sage, or even a specific floral or herbal note. What I can say is that the middle is fascinating in its complexity and restlessness.

Cedar sometimes has a wood-smoke aspect (I first noticed it years ago with the original Salvador Dali scent) which is present in the later stages of the scent, and perhaps it's the specific kind of vetiver Tauer has used, but there's a dark, leathery birch-tar element, too. Finally, the scent closes with a dark sweetness, a sort of honeyed wood. It lasts for hours and hours, but it stays very close to the skin; you won't be offending anyone with this.

Vetiver Dance is gorgeously made, thoroughly unisex, and irresistible. When my sample is gone, which it soon will be, I have to have more. It's due in October. I can't wait.