Misetu ~ A Natural Perfume by Liz Zorn

Liz Zorn of Liz Zorn Perfumes has been creating perfumes since the 70's, learning her craft from various old books, through experimentation, and by taking art theories (she's also an artist artist) and applying them to perfumery.

Misetu is only one of several natural perfumes Ms. Zorn has created. It is a sweet, honey-floral, fruity parfum with a powdery, soapy, only faintly leathery drydown. The intense magnolia evolves to bitter warmth and floral powderiness, turns slightly urinic (which IS NOT a bad thing), and skips toward sweet, warm, dry, honied skin. Like a fresh, new bottle of parfum in an old, dusty boudoir. Very old-fashioned feel to it. Girlie. On a scent strip, the perfume is singularly magnolia-ish ~ hardly a move in evolution from the point of application to the end (when the strip gets tossed), so it has to be worn on the skin to truly get the 'feel' of it.

The duration of the perfume is decent (naturals have a tendency not to 'stick' as well as synthetics), about 3 - 4 hours on my skin, and throughout the drydown it retains the fruity magnolia 'n honey essence.

What I find most interesting about this perfume is that *urine note; a certain sweet, creamy, maple~y, honied mustiness that oftentimes wafts off Australian sandalwoods. What's so interesting? Well, according to the list of essences, there isn't any sandalwood in this perfume. So I'm going to blame that note on Ms. Zorn's artful blending. A residual effect from the combination of elements used to build this perfume? Who really cares? It's splendid regardless.

However, having observed that last bit, this perfume isn't really my style. Well blended, pretty, has longevity, is imaginative -- yes! Would I wear it? Probably not. It's no reflection on the perfumer, simply a reflection of my tastes.

Parfum's notes: red grapefruit, jasmin sambac, magnolia, white lotus, elemi, guiacwood, vetyver, tobacco, aglaia flower, clove, geranium, "spices", lavender, ylang~ylang, Peru balsam, orris.

*Ms. Zorn states on her website that she's built an 'animalic inspired earthiness' into the perfume; this is simply a dispute (not really) of our terms. She says 'animalic', I say 'stale pee pee'; either way, it's good.