Description
When I was a kid, one of the best parts of summer was sharing family picnics along side my grandfather’s spring fed pond. It lay beside a wooded grove and a long sloping hay field. On his property, my grandfather grew berries, fruits, vegetables, corn, and rhubarb. Eating fresh rhubarb straight out of the garden accompanied by fresh strawberries and a small paper cup with a bit of sugar at the bottom to dip the stalks and fruit into was a glorious delicacy. (Back then, strawberries were rather tart! We thought they needed sugar as much as the rhubarb).
For the last Summer Fun addition, I’ve conjured a scented memory from my childhood.
I’ve wanted to make a rhubarb fragrance reminiscent of my experience with that “crazy, stalky fruit-vegetable” growing at my grandfather’s house and in my own backyard, infused with the radiant freshness and intense flavors that I remember. August Picnic, 1976, brings it all into focus for me: tart strawberries & rhubarb, homemade lemonade, green grass in the sunshine… all that then contrasts with the deep woods in the background, and shadowy pockets where the light dapples on the surface of the water.
Carole Pitcher –
Strawberry Fields Forever. I put this on for the first time this morning To a sunny summers day. It opens with grass and lemon. After about ten minutes the fruit kicks in. It really is like eating slice of pie with lemonade on the grass. Like Dawn’s Beach Blanket, this is a magical literal interpretation of its name. My only problem is that now I’m craving strawberry pie. I’m looking forward to trying this in February when I’m craving sunshine filled strawberry meadows.
Tamara Holubar –
This is such a transporting scent. Love the Rhubarb & strawberry.
Beautifully blended.
BMC (verified owner) –
Really love this one – enough to purchase a full size. It puts me in a garden. The tart rhubarb note is beautiful, and just what I hoped for. I don’t get obvious strawberry, except maybe a trace of wild strawberry (not candy sweet) in a volatile top note. The EdP had decent longevity on me…I’d need to spray more liberally (testing here from a sample vial) to determine projection.
Julia Quinones (verified owner) –
This is an amazing atmospheric scent. Starts off very green and sharp with a hint of realistic rhubarb and strawberry sweetness. Slowly the rhubarb and strawberry become more prominent and more concentrated, but the green aspect hangs around for a good amount of time.
I like to imagine that the arc of this perfume follows a storyline – you go out to your garden in the early morning when the dew and not-yet-warm sunlight makes everything smell clean and verdant. As you start making your rounds and the sun gets higher, you get a more complex “garden” smell that encompasses the warming flesh of fruit. By the time you pick you rhubarb and strawberry, the morning is in full swing and each snip of your shears brings a bright, tart rush of pink sweetness. Then you spend the rest of the morning chopping, muddling, and reducing your spoils into a fresh, bouncy jelly.
This has excellent lasting power and sillage on me. I would say it lasted about 6 or 7 hours. I know that may not seem like a long time in comparison to perfumes that might last 10 or 12 hours, but I much prefer something like this that unfolds, ages, and exits gracefully.
mlleghoul (verified owner) –
August Picnic, 1976 is an elusive and ephemeral splash of zesty, effervescent, subtly sweet-tart strawberry lemonade joie de vivre on a summer day when the grass is blindingly green and tall enough to tickle your knees and the sun hangs golden above the cedars, not even the barest whisper of winter in its shade—the joyous and wistful and fleeting perfume of an idyllic June afternoon
mtriplett621 (verified owner) –
I’ve been looking for the perfect fresh summer scent that doesn’t veer into overly fruity or tropical territory, and the moment I tried August Picnic, 1976 from my sample order I knew I had found it! It’s utterly refreshing, starting out tart but with a hint of sweetness underneath that comes forward a bit more as I wear it. I look forward to purchasing a full size of this one!