Rare, magnificent and auspicious, the albatross bird is the captain of the air. The natural marine accord celebrates that spirit, the fresh coolness of where the ocean meets the sky. Salty Salish Sea breezes meet the soft warm notes of cork, driftwood and cottonwood evoking images of seafaring vessels, creosote-soaked timber, and barnacle covered hulls. Set your sights on the horizon, feel the wind in your sails. Albatross is a perfume.
Created by founder and perfumer Christi Meshell, House of Matriarch's fragrances are made using the highest quality, certified kosher, natural ethanol distilled in Washington (from organic apples and grapes) so they will continue to smell better and better with time. Halal approved.
HOUSE OF MATRIARCH ALBATROSS REVIEWS
Fragrantica: "I love this! I just wish it projected better after an hour or so. I'm not one to respray all day. Similar to oud mineral but this has so much more going on! There's a floral or orange note hiding in the background that gives it some life. Again, something I wish I could smell all day but it doesn't last more than a couple hours before completely becoming a skin scent. Still love the smell though. I'm gonna savor my travel size. One thing I love about matriarch is that all her stuff comes in affordable(ish) 10 or 15ml sizes. Much appreciated."
Fragrantica: "This is really interesting stuff! I live at the coast and Albatross really capture the raw energy of being close to the ocean. Not a beachy, sunny vibe, but more like rocks, drift wood and rough weather. This and toukka ta tao is the only from matriarch bottle worthy for me. This is a masterpiece!"
Fragrantica: "Albatross - The splendor of the ocean, deep, dark, and ethereal. Albatross by House of Matriarch (Christi Meshell) is one of the genre's most distinctive scents. It is dark, dense, and true to reality, with a leitmotif of salty deep ocean, distant woodlands and pines. It conjures up thoughts of the eponymous albatross soaring above the crashing waves alongside a marine vessel encrusted with barnacles and bathed in the salty waters of the stormy ocean. Albatross has an opaque, gloomy, oceanic depth, where the marine environment can be senses in the form of a neverending sea breeze, vegetation along the coast and driftwood, which is intimately linked to the ocean."
Fragrantica: "You are taking a nap on the beach in Southern France, just close enough to the ocean so the tide tickles your toes. Something hits your foot waking you up. It's a message in a bottle. You pull the cork. This is the smell of that cork."
Fragrantica: "Albatross is one of the few aquatics that I actually truly enjoy from the first sniff. The way it smells is just so different than other aquatic perfumes that I have experienced. For me, it conveys an image of walking on a quiet beach in cold weather and you then get a whiff of the salt air intermingled with the smell of marine shell animals and sea soaked pieces of woody flotsam. I feel happy when I smell this. I enjoy it such that I was willing to buy a bottle straight off but alas... the longevity of this scent does not do it justice. I can barely smell it beyond an hour! Skin chemistry perhaps? And neither does it project much (not a criteria of import for me). It is a quite a shame as Albatross is truly unique. I may however get a 15ml for further testing in other seasons as I'm not willing to give up yet. In summary, scent is great (9/10); Longevity (3/10). However if your budget permits, you should definitely give it a try as your skin may be better."
Fragrantica: "I've lived majority of my life in Western Washington by Puget Sound waterfront. I will be moving away from PNW for the next several years and I wanted something to remind me of home. After reading all the reviews stating this scent is evocative of the Pacific Northwest coast, I decided to blind buy the scent. Albatross is a delicate scent that predominantly smells of pine-like driftwood without much of anything else. I do not get any salty or aquatic vibe (other than the fact that the wood is a driftwood). In fact, I would rearrange the main accords to woody >> aromatic > salty >> marine. There is no development of the scent, and linear from the moment it is sprayed to the last sniff (maybe the saltiness is more prominent during the first few minutes). Here is how I would imagine the life of the driftwood that is Albatross: it's a moderate sized piece of wood that drifted in the ocean for a decent amount of time to resemble a driftwood but the core remained intact with scent of original wood seeping out. Before completing its transformation into a true driftwood, it washed ashore a dozen or so years ago, and sat out in the PNW weather - mostly of drizzly rain, and occasional months of warm summer, washing all the trace of the "ocean" (fishy, seaweed smell) it acquired except for the hint of saltiness. It was then picked up by a collector living in a dry inland (maybe SoCal) who once again, washed it clean of any remaining oceanic smell and put in on display in a sterile white-washed living room as a decoration. And the smell of driftwood in Albatross is the smell of that wood. Albatross is a decent "artsy" scent with somewhat poor performance that maybe slightly overpriced for what it is. Unfortunately for me, it does not remind me of the PNW; maybe just something that once belonged there. If anyone has been to the cold, damp, dirty (not full of trash, but of sea life such as seaweeds and shellfish) beaches of the PNW (especially Puget Sound waterfronts) and not the dry warm beaches (i.e. in SoCal), they would understand what I am trying to convey here. I can understand why the creators did not want to make a scent that smells like a wood with stringent iron-like seaweed partially dried on it, but oddly enough, that was exactly what I was hoping."
Fragrantica: "Mmm... I'm revisiting this sample after about 6 months and I'm really enjoying it. I get fig leaf, white woods and a fresh mild sweetness to this. I think I can also sense a touch of liquorice. There's a bit of dryness to it that feels airy. It doesn't smell like the 'literal' ocean at all, more like an aquatic fantasy. I'm impressed that this effect is achieved with a natural fragrance. I'm usually not a fan of this genre due to smelling chemicals but this is lovely."
Fragrantica: "Albatross is a light woody-salty fresh scent that smells a lot like Tom Ford's Oud Minerale (OM) & it was released 2 years before OM! I can literally use my OM review to review Albatross! I will put my sentences from my OM review that described Albatross in quotation marks. When I first sprayed Albatross, it smelled like a woody incense & sea note's fresh & light saltiness. As if it is "a combination of Armani's AdG Profumo's fresh saltiness & Lalique's Encre Noire's (incensy) woodiness. Its smells almost like a lightly salted flanker of CdG 2 Man". It's a really good sea-themed scent. It feels like a walk by the beach on a winter morning. "It is a safe release but the scent is rather quite familiar; & is not a very unique smell." Don't be deceived by the exotic notes: drift wood, corks, & cottonwood. In comparison to TF OM, Albatross is lighter & fresher compared to OM's wood accord-dominated scent. However, at $330, this is absolutely not worth the full asking price, especially with a performance of a $30 fragrance: average longevity & projection. Overall, a good fresh woody scent that's extremely, exceptionally, extraordinarily, tremendously, & immensely overpriced."
Fragrantica: "I get marine notes in the beginning, it smells like fresh sea air. There is a little bit of saltiness and then i get some driftwood. It goes from quite marine/fresh to quite woody/salty. i am not normally a huge fan of aquatics, but i like this as it's not overpoweringly sharp or overly clean."
