Dirty Hinoki Heretic Parfums for women and men

Wow, I am so glad I gave Dirty Hinoki a chance! At first, I was a bit put off by the strong citrus opening, but after several wears, I began to appreciate its complexity (especially during the dry-down). Imagine Akro Bake, but the sugary caramel is replaced by earthy thyme and nutmeg. Perhaps a cousin of Gypsy Water, twice removed…

Dirty Hinoki is nuanced and intoxicating, I quickly began to crave it! The dry down is absolutely sublime: woodsy, fresh…yet “dirty,” just as the name portrays. Truly a damp forest after a heavy summer rainfall with a strong dose of lemony sweetness. I love it!

The longevity is short (2-3 hours) and the sillage is intimate, but it lasts long enough for me to appreciate it and garner a few compliments. My husband (who is notoriously picky about fragrances) says that I smell like sexy forest fruit loops, take that as you will. ^_^; I think that Dirty Hinoki is the perfect for reading companion during rainy summer days.

The long and short of it? Definitely not a safe blind buy, as its performance seems to vary drastically depending on your skin chemistry. My friend tried it on and it didn’t agree with her at all. Having said that, it is absolutely worth sampling. Make sure to test Dirty Hinoki out thoroughly before making up your mind; it took me about a week before I truly fell in love and committed to a full sized bottle. :)

it's...not like anything else i've smelled. i was into it, and then i wasn't, and then i realized i just don't like it on fabric. smells great on skin!

Like another reviewer mentioned this scent does grow on you. To me it smells like home brewed ginger ale with all the spices included. For those who know Caribbean desserts, another similar smell would be Cassava Pone, well spiced and sugared. I'd say it's not for everyone, its scent is a bit on the heavy side. Definitely for fall, or at night.

A magical fragrance! Another reviewer described this as a lemon cake frag and it totally changed the fragrance for me. It's like the blue or gold dress debate... sometimes it's completely piney and forest-y fresh, other days I smell sweet lemon cake. I prefer when I experience it as forest-like. The lemony pine is reminiscent of Byredo's Gypsy Water, however this one is much punchier and less "faded" smelling. As with most Heretic frags, the longevity isn't great. For this reason I keep a sample size in my purse to touch up half way through the day.

The official notes:
Grounding Hinoki wood blends with crushed herbs for an earthy and ethereal plant-based scent that’s a Japanese “forest bath” in a bottle. Natural ingredients plus safe synthetics.

TOP: Lemon, Cedar, Nutmeg, Thyme, Pine
HEART: Hinoki, Cypress
BASE: Elemi, Wormwood, Fir Absolute, Ambrettolide, Balsam, Frankincense


I really like this one. The fresh cleanliness of this is amazing. It has a smooth lemoniness that I love. It is unique, but quite expensive. I am considering buying some version/size of this. It comes in 15, 50, and 100 ml bottles. Got the Discovery set and this one was my favorite by far.

This scent grew on me, but not enough for me to really like it. I'm usually a sucker for woody scents so I figured this would be for me but something about it just doesn't work. I get a strangely smokey marine note, especially at the opening. It's almost like seaweed. As it dried down, the ginger and lemon mellowed out enough for it to become a smoother, more enjoyable woody scent without as much of that seaweed situation I was picking up on. The final dry down smelled like walking into a Lush store circa 2017. Not bad, certainly interesting and evocative, but not for me.

Extremely lemony, so much so that it overpowers any other scent at first. During the dry-down it is still VERY lemony. This was my first Hinoki cologne, so I can't comment on the strength of that note. The nutmeg comes through at first, but leaves during the first hour. Pine, Fir, and Cyprus stay a while and eventually take over the lemon, but not by much. Amber doesn't come through much.

Did not like this scent very much, but it someone loves the scent of lemon and wants a good amount of wood, this is probably perfect for you. It's like eating raw ginger, but the ginger is somehow lemon flavored, if that makes sense. You still have the rooty-ness and the dirt, but the shock of lemon is more than anything else.

I first thought that they must have filled it with the wrong fragrance. Because at first I thought this has none of the listed notes, none of them. No cedar or hinoki or cypress, etc. This is a rich gourmand, a sweet cake, a baked good. This smells like rich, sweet desserts. There's nothing dirty, or foresty, about this. Nothing woody even. It's just a delicious cake. So either I love Dirty Hinoki, or I love whatever they put in this vial instead, will I ever know?

As it dried down and with a later re-spray, I found it was actually a beautiful incense-rich hinoki composition. So my nose caught up with it, and now I can detect all the notes each time I use it, though it always opens with that gourmand accord of delicious baked goods to me. I really love this, it competes very well with CdG x Mon Hinoki and CdG's incense series as well, particularly Kyoto.

So odd on my skin it smells like by the fireplace minus some sweetness. But it's a love for me.

Such a powerful green woody scent. What I love about it is that it's not diluted with any citruses or fruits. Instead it's a straight pine and fir with almost oud-like hinoki base. The hinoki is deep, dirty, slightly animalic and wet. It's resinous and slightly sweet. Such a unique scent that's hard to describe in one paragraph. I was definitely blown away and I kept it for my husband. It does lean masculine, but it can also be considered unisex fresh and woody scent for the summer.

It’s super green wood at first, very herbal, and dries quickly to lemongrass/verbena wood and cypress. Fades completely after about four hours, so it’s totally gone at that point, but it’s really really nice as it goes along. So I get the Japanese Cedar; it’s cypress and cedar incense. I adore this.

Such a unique scent. It has a freshness but does not lack depth. To me it reads like a strong gin and tonic, heavy on the pine and juniper. Unique and intriguing but you have to get pretty close to smell it!

Thank goodness other people mention smelling ginger, I thought I was going crazy because this 100% smells like ginger to me, despite its absence from the notes list. A sweet, earthy ginger. If you've every had those incredibly chewy ginger candies, it's that scent.

I agree with @NSilver however it doesn’t last or project at all for the price, had to walk away from this one at Sephora today.

Dirty Hinoki smells like the cool shadow of a pine forest in a warm day where you keep catching the faint scent of incense from a cabin just out of view. To me, this is a summer hike through the mountains, simultaneously warm and cool. It’s a very fresh pine-forward start, but mellows quickly to let the incense-y notes gently shine. It doesn’t smell like any other perfume I’ve come across. It’s very singular as a perfume, so while I love it, I don’t recommend buying blind.

Kinda smells like the modeling clay that comes with that Cranium board game

I quite enjoyed this fragrance. The pine note was quite powerful and often surplanted the other notes, but the citrus keeps it quite fresh and forbids it to be too woody and sappy, instead playing with the thyme, cypress and cedar to give it a lighter more herbal twist. Its fairly realistic in that it gives the feeling of walking into a wooden temple instead of walking into a coniferous forest. You would think with that name that there would be a more earthy vibe yet this was very squeaky clean, it may come off as quite pine-sol ish to some, but I personally enjoyed the "natural cleaning product" vibes it gave. My issue despite how pleasant it is is that this last for 0.5 seconds and has no sillage, which basically makes it an extremely overpriced body mist...

I think this one might just not work with my skin. The lemon-thyme-pine start of it smells very similar to a lemon polish or air freshener to me, and it has pretty poor sillage despite lingering close to my skin for a long time. I look forward to gifting my sample to a friend I hope has more luck to it, since it feels like it has a lot of potential that it isn't living up to when I wear it.

Smells a lot like gingerbread. That's not something that feels particualrly dirty to me, but hey, if that's your kink...

This is love at first sniff for me. Beautiful potent pine opening followed by soft lemon and thyme. The dry down is very similar to Saint Julep from Imaginary Authors but without the boozy notes that kept me from loving that one whole heartedly. This is incredibly sexy to me in an authentic and vulnerable animalic way that I adore. Makes me feel like I’m wet, nude and alone in the forest.

This is happiness in a bottle.

I love Encre Noire so I was very intrigued with this fragrance based on everything I saw. I'd say the comparison to Encre Noire is undeserved. Dirty Hinoki is like the fun, playful, sexy cousin of Encre that you would never think is related.

I say the similarities between the two begin and end with the citrus notes. I love the usage of it in both of the fragrances, the smell elicits a joyful and uplifting feeling within me, yet the citrus are different and the rest of their compositions share no commonality. I agree that Dirty Hinoki has bit more of a "Lemon" flavor but its sweet, like a Verbena Lemon or maybe Yuzu. I still detect a hint of orange in the Hinoki as well but in contrast Encre has a pure Sweet Orange identity that as I said elicits similar response but its distinctly different.

The wood elements are light on the senses yet evocative, like walking through a cypress and fir tree forest on a crisp sunny day breathing in the fresh air. The "wood" smell isn't really what the scent reflects, its more of the whole tree itself, the leaves, the bark and a bit of moisture in the air. Reminds me of Spring. There is a crispness and yet warmth to it as well.

This scent is not heavy but don't assume that it's weak either. I easily can smell the scent all day with a single spritz, and more will do a lot of work, however it isn't necessary. This Fragrance isn't for impressing someone with an expensive smelling cologne from a fancy house. There is no snobbery, pretention or assaulting of the olfactory system of others with this fragrance, which some people won't like.

This is one of the most pleasant colognes I've smelled. It isn't really meant to make a strong statement so much as a wonderful, purposeful and inviting experience you will find yourself coming back to repeatedly with a happy thoughts of an adventure you never truly went on. In my opinion, this transcends what a cologne is and pushes the idea of what it can be. It opens a frontier to an experience that brings you to places you've never been before rather than just being a way to fish for compliments from others.

citrusy, pine-y hinoki, a little herbal, disappeared from my skin within minutes.

This smells mostly like citrus on my skin, it smells almost more like orange than lemon. I really wanted the forest and woods to come out. Low sillage and weak longevity but the smell is very pleasant, just not earth shattering.

pine and ginger had a one night stand and ginger gave birth to this while pine refused to sign the birth certificate

Proceed with caution.

It's intriguing to me that the rating of this scent is so high (4.32).
I was excited to try this fragrance based on the excellent rating here. I was expecting the best hinoki so far, but when I tried it, it was like hitting a wall at high speed (maybe I smelled the paper strip too close). The first time I've smelled it, I thought "Oh my, this is not for me." It became better after 24+ hours when it dried down. It smells better from a distance.

You may enjoy it if you like conifer, cypress scents. It's very natural, dewy, aromatic with a hint of resins.
If you liked Daisy Skies, you may enjoy this one too.

Big plus for using safe ingredients.

I'll be testing it again - maybe I'm missing something or maybe there was something wrong with the tester. Not a safe blind buy.

I like this more than I expected to.

Dirty Hinoki is a bright, aromatic take on a woody fragrance. The lemon is more prominent than one might think, and it's brightened by some beautiful artemisia and thyme. It also has an appealing touch of sweetness that is evocative of sap. The effect is cooling and bright but also delicate. This reminds me of walking through a forest during broad daylight, rays of sun shooting between conifer branches. The scent clings close to the skin and isn't very long lived, but it's quietly beautiful.

I am allergic to Encre Noire, but not allergic to this fragrance. It scratches the itch for Encre Noire, so to speak, as another excellent fragrance centered around sappy coniferous woods.

wow wow. this is the first fragrance that brought me to make a review. This is so clean, refreshing, cooling somehow? It's truly what people are saying. A breezy walk through a forrest the day after it rained.

This perfume isn’t anything like I expected it to be. I knew it would be woody and aromatic just by the notes listed and the comments, but you can not imagine it’s delicate, soothing beauty unless you smell this for yourself.
Smelling this is like taking a calming, meditative walk through a beautiful and peaceful forest. I just cannot explain this scent and do it any justice. It is probably the least perfume like scent I have ever had.

A beautiful love letter to the experience of walking through a forest in Japan, fresh and dewy and woodsy.

This is scent is like a caricature of Japanese culture. Some parts of it are quite lovely, but every time I wear it, I get hints of sesame oil. It makes it feel like I've eaten Japanese food, but not in a way you would like. It feels like the smell of fried food follows with me all day.

i get a lot of lemon from this, so much so that i would classify it as a citrus-forward scent. there are also really sweet elements, and the tiniest hint of a slightly fruity sweetness from the olibanum. this is lovely!!

I sprayed one spritz and I love it. It smells sweet and woodsy like a forest after rain. There is a slight spicy element to it almost cinnamon like but it’s muted enough also it’s mixed with the other things so it’s sweet. I am also getting a slight lemon vibe. I was hoping it would be more incensey but overall it’s great. I also catch the frankincense.

It was an instant love for me. This is probably my favorite offering by Heretic so far, and I have tried several and own 6. Love it!

It took me a few tries to like this scent, but I grew to like it a lot
It is a solid herbal take on a forest/hinoki inspired scent. It's sappy, fresh, airy, herbal, and I would argue is fairly unique. Is it really hinoki? Maybe not so much to those used to real hinoki oils, but the overall perfume does remind me of wood and cypress and forests overall, leaning very very natural, warmed by the sun and dry summer air.
Very poor sillage and longevity, but it is a mostly natural scent. This is more of a personal meditative scent, not something I would wear going out as it will be gone by the time I reach my destination. But I enjoy wearing it after a shower, working at my home office.
I also highly recommend layering it with CDG Hinoki. It layers like they are missing pieces for each other.