Review: High Line by Bond No. 9

If there's ever industrial art in a bottle, it has to be High Line. Making scents out of logical places like world famous cities, historical locations and beaches make sense and from a marketing pov, sells. Making scents out of a place described on wikipedia.org as 'The High Line is a 1.45-mile (2.33 km) New York City park built on a section of the former elevated freight railroad of the West Side Line, along the lower west side of Manhattan, which has been redesigned and planted as an aerial greenway' makes you lift an eyebrow. I did, when I caught wind that Bond No. 9 was to put the park in the bottle. 


Being a non-New Yorker, I googled and first reaction was: rust and grass?oh dear! I've never really taken much notice to the smell around our local rail tracks and to be honest, I was a little tempted to go on my knees, crawl and attempt to sniff. Fortunately, Bond No. 9 is not one to take it literally as evident in their past creations. 

High Line is a clever composition featuring notes of nature found along the tracks such as purple love grass, Indian rhubarb, red leaf rose, tulips, grape hyacinth, sea moss, teak, bur oak and musk. Might be a good thing there is no notes of rust, smoke, tar, grease, insects. Compared to the other Bonds, High Line is delicate and soft. The opening is ozonic and green, but not chopped grass. It is the beautiful cool morning breeze passing through fluttering grass, evapourating the sweetened morning dew infused with the scent of delicate freshly bloomed flowers. Towards the heart, it becomes interestingly even more aquatic and floral before settling into a light woody trail. 


I consider this an amazing creation because High Line is very wearable with fantasy notes that do not feel a bit synthetic so kudos to perfumer Laurent LeGuernec. For you bottle lovers, you will be pleased to know that the 'High Line' on the bottle is an actual metal cut-out that is glued to the bottle!

Rating: *****