Before you enter the Monet room of the Chichu Art Museum, which is built into the southern side of the island of Naoshima in Japan, you are asked to take off your shoes. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the process of taking my shoes off was the first step in my immersive experience of the Monet room. The next step was entering a foyer of sorts that was very dim and had the effect of slightly disorienting me as I didn’t know where I was supposed to go or what to expect. I didn’t understand what was happening because I was anticipating art to be on the walls of this initial room, but there was nothing. The walls were bare. After a moment, I noticed an opening into another room as a few people walked through it, slowly and quietly.
Upon entering this other room, the mood, lighting, and color emanating from the five large works by Monet took my breath away. There is no artificial light in the entirety of the Chichu Museum. All of its light comes from the natural light outside, and since the museum is built into the side of the island, it is essentially a subterranean building. The Monet room is illuminated by natural light that runs along the periphery of the ceiling which, on that rainy day, cast a moody, otherworldly glow upon Monet’s waterlily paintings.
Because photography is not allowed in museums in Japan, there is an inherent intimacy created knowing everyone in the space is present with the art (or at least they aren’t distracted with trying to capture it on their phones). This intimacy was even more intensified in the Monet room, as its floor is laid with beautiful tiny white tiles that I could feel under my feet. This created a very tactile and grounding experience which made me feel comforted and able to make myself vulnerable to become fully present with the transcendent experience I was having with the art.
So what does all of this have to do with Amazing Green? Well, in the Chichu Museum shop, they sell this Commes des Garçons fragrance (which despite its French name is a Japanese brand) and I knew if I at least liked the scent I was going to buy it. I love having scent associations with places and travels, and after my mind expanding Monet experience, this fragrance purchase was pretty much inevitable. So I spritzed a little on my scarf and wandered around the shop enveloped by its dewy greenness. The next thing I knew, it was in my shopping bag along with a book on Tadao Ando, the architect of the museum, as well as the postcards you see in this newsletter.
Amazing Green as you would expect is quite green. It’s got a cool, watery quality, like rain on ivy, which lends itself to being a year-round fragrance. This especially reeled me in since the day we were at the Chichi Museum was cold and rainy, so I appreciate having that association as I love wearing green perfumes during the colder months. Ivy, palm tree and jungle leaves are listed in the notes (I’m not sure what palm tree and jungle leaves smell like) as are green pepper, coriander, orris root, vetiver, gunpowder accord and white musk. It’s an interesting mix and what I can tell you from my experience is that I don’t get gunpowder from Amazing Green (although I’m not sure what that smells like either). I do get a hint of incense which grounds the greenness, and the spicy notes are subtle and waft playfully but certainly not aggressively. There is indeed a solid amount of white musk in the dry down making this undoubtedly a skin scent for the last several hours of its wear time.
Overall, I do find Amazing Green to be amazing. I love its bright and dewy-green opening, and its distinct heart of earthy vetiver with a bit of ashy incense. The white musk is quite pronounced in the dry down and I would have liked more vetiver and less musk in the base to suit my taste, but that’s not a deal breaker by any means as the essence of the Amazing Green lasts throughout the entirety of its evolution on the skin. Of course I can’t expect it to transport me to the Monet room of the Chichu Museum and to have a transcendent experience every time I wear it. But when I do, it evokes that memory in me, being in the present moment while communing with sublime art and that- is truly amazing.