Geo F. Trumper’s Wild Fern—a true Fougère
For my birthday yesterday I received a surprise present from my father; a bottle of one of those scents from my childhood that gets the wheels of my bittersweet memory turning. I don’t know what made my father decide to part with this bottle; it was a gift of a vintage bottle of Geo F. Trumper’s Wild Fern from one of the greatest bon vivants in my family of bon vivants, who sadly died of pancreatic cancer some years ago. I loved him, and miss him often, so anything that reminds me of him makes me somewhat sad—I feel like we lost him too soon. That said, I am very happy to have this bottle in my collection. It is precious to me. I remember the smell of this bottle, the gorgeousness of the green marbled tin, my surreptitious sniffs at the lid—this is probably the very bottle that made me fall in love with Fougeres—and perhaps with fragrance in general! It has a bitter citrus opening, deep anisic note, a definite greenness and a note of what might be bitter almond which quickl...