Eucalyptus 20 - No.30 (NEW)

Eucalyptus 20, one of Le Labo's newer releases, takes eucalyptus somewhere unexpected - not sharp and medicinal on its own but folded into cedarwood, red thyme, labdanum and incense so it reads warm, dry and smoky rather than cooling and sharp. It is a rare fragrance that manages to feel both minty-fresh and dirty-earthy at once, with a couple of hours of noticeable projection settling into a close, steady skin scent for several hours more. Match Perfumes' No.30 works from a matching note set - eucalyptus, cedarwood, red thyme, olibanum, labdanum, gurjun balsam, hyssop and musk - and the opening's cool, aromatic-woody character is a fair match for the mood the original is going for. The gap opens in the drydown: Le Labo's labdanum and incense build a genuinely resinous, almost dirty warmth that lingers for hours, while No.30's base reads thinner and more conventionally woody, losing that distinctive smoky-earthy complexity and fading toward plain skin sooner. It is a solid everyday woody-aromatic, just without the original's unusual depth.