To round out my comments on my Miller Harris Collection Voyage, I’ve been sampling the third fragrance in the coffret: Tangerine Vert. It is really a unisex citrus cologne.Top notes are tangerine, grapefruit and lemon; middle notes are geranium, orange blossom and marjoram; base notes are oakmoss, musk and cedar. I have read that there is an actual fruit that is a green tangerine, very popular in China and Japan, where it is loved as a fruit that signals the end of summer and the start of autumn. It seems right to review its namesake fragrance in September, especially as we are enjoying beautiful Indian Summer weather. The Miller Harris website refers to “Sicilian green tangerine” but I love the imagery of the Asian fruits heralding early autumn.

The opening of Tangerine Vert is marvelous: a burst of citrus, sweet but not too sweet, with an undertone of slightly bitter rind and grapefruit that turns into an aromatic, green herb, nicely balancing the sweet tangerine. The citrus notes do not feel sharp to me; although lemon is listed as a note, I don’t pick that up. The tangerine dominates without being tangy. In the middle, the dominant notes to me are the marjoram and geranium. In the final stage, I cannot say that I smell anything but the lightest oakmoss faintly tinged with cedar. Lyn Harris has declared that “citrus is all about top notes” and Tangerine Vert embodies that principle.

Sadly, this fragrance comes and goes so quickly on me that I would have to spray it every hour to enjoy it the most. I have dry skin, and citrus notes are famously fleeting; the combination probably doomed the longevity. I may have a solution, though, or at least an experiment! I recently bought a bottle of one of Maison Martin Margiela’s new Replica Filters, Glow.  The “filters”, Glow and Blur, are lightly fragranced dry oil sprays that you use like a primer on your skin before spraying on a perfume. They are meant to brighten (Glow) or soften (Blur) your chosen fragrance as well as extend its longevity, and they are especially designed to be layered with other Replica fragrances.

Maison Martin Margiela Replica Filter Glow

I tried both of them at Sephora and much preferred Glow, which I could happily wear on its own as a very simple scent, with its notes of neroli, grapefruit blossom, bergamot and rose. It feels lovely on the skin, not oily but like a veil. Blur was pleasant enough, but I felt it was somewhat nondescript on its own; and when layered with a Replica fragrance (Flower Market), it tamped it down too much. So I bought Glow (shoutout to the lovely SA at Sephora, who happily sampled fragrances with me and sent me home with two samples of Flower Market and several more Chanel samples).

I plan to try Tangerine Vert layered over Glow, in the hopes that the “filter” will improve longevity and that its bright solar notes will amplify what I like so much about Tangerine Vert, the citrus opening. I’ll post an update! Have you tried either of the Replica Filters or Tangerine Vert? What did you think?