# Comme des Garçons — Comme des Garcons Series 1 Leaves: Mint

> Mint is one of five green fragrances in Comme des Garcons' Series 1: Leaves (2000), the house's first thematic series and an early showcase for Bertrand Duchaufour. It is the most literal of the set: 

## Essence

Mint is one of five green fragrances in Comme des Garcons' Series 1: Leaves (2000), the house's first thematic series and an early showcase for Bertrand Duchaufour. It is the most literal of the set: a bright, genuinely cooling garden-peppermint that relaxes into a grassy, herbal green over galbanum and pepper. Minimalist and naturalistic rather than sweet, its defining quirk is a real menthol-driven cooling sensation on the skin — closer to crushing fresh mint than to anything candy-like.

## Scent Profile

The opening is the highlight and the reason to wear it: a potent, true-to-life garden peppermint, bright and refreshing, with a noticeable physical cooling effect on the skin. That coolness comes from menthol triggering the same cold-sensitive receptors that make a mint julep feel icy — a mechanism the critic Victoria Frolova of Bois de Jasmin has written about in the context of cooling perfumes.

Bitter green galbanum sits underneath, giving the mint a stemmy, slightly resinous backbone, and a pinch of pepper adds a faint spicy lift. The composition stays linear and green: there is no real floral, woody, or sweet payoff to develop into.

The recognized weakness is the development. The vivid mint fades fairly quickly, leaving a grassy, herbal green that wearers find pleasant but not very exciting, before drying down to a quiet herbal skin scent. The overall arc is a cooling peppermint blast, a grassy galbanum middle, and a faint herbal finish.

## Performance

Performance is modest and a known limitation, in line with much of the house's lighter output. Projection is decent at first and gradually lessens as the scent progresses, but longevity is short — wearers commonly report only two or three hours on skin, with more than half of that as an unremarkable skin scent. The cooling sensation, part of the appeal, is itself fleeting. Expect a refreshing top-heavy experience rather than all-day presence.

## Wearing Context

This is a hot-weather refresher and a casual daytime scent; the literal cooling effect makes it a natural summer and heat pick. It is unisex by design, as the whole Leaves series is genderless in the house's framing. It works best as an easy green pick-me-up rather than a statement fragrance, and suits someone who wants clean, natural mint-and-green without sweetness and who does not need strong projection or longevity.

## Comparisons & DNA

Mint sits inside a clear family of green minimalist compositions, and the most useful references come from the house itself.

- Series 5 Sherbet: Peppermint (also Duchaufour) — the closest relative, which several wearers rank slightly higher; it adds cardamom, warm spices, amber, and musk around the menthol, making it rounder, while Leaves: Mint is purer, greener, and more cooling.
- Series 1 Leaves: Calamus — a sibling in the same green-minimalist series, leaning bamboo and celery-green rather than mint.
- Series 1 Leaves: Tea — another sibling, a smoky black-tea and mate study that shows the series' range.

Outside the house, the closest spiritual relatives remain other green and mint experiments rather than any single dupe.

## Reception

Coverage is sparse but warm-modest; Mint is the least-discussed of the Leaves scents. The consistent verdict is that the mint opening pleasantly surprises even people who usually dislike mint fragrances, but the scent loses momentum once the mint burns off, and many wish it had sustained the mint or added something more interesting than grass. Longevity draws notably lower marks than the scent itself. The net sentiment is that it is a charming, genuine, naturalistic mint worth trying for mint lovers that does not fully deliver after its opening.

## Versions & Reformulation

Mint was released in 2000 as an EDT in the Leaves series and has long been discontinued. When the house relaunched ten archival scents as the permanent Olfactory Library in May 2017 — formulas reportedly kept intact, repackaged in uniform white bottles — the two Series 1 Leaves titles chosen for revival were Calamus and Lily. Mint was not among them, so unlike several of its siblings it has not been officially reissued and remains out of production. It is also frequently confused with the better-documented Peppermint from Series 5 Sherbet, which is a different fragrance.

## Acquisition Notes

Discontinued and absent from the Olfactory Library reissue, Mint is harder to find than Calamus or Lily and surfaces mainly through resale and decant channels. Because it is a delicate, top-heavy green EDT, age is a real concern: the cooling mint is the most volatile element and degrades first in old stock, so vintage bottles may have lost the very quality that makes the fragrance worthwhile. Given its modest performance and the existence of the still-available, arguably richer Series 5 Peppermint, it is best pursued by completists and dedicated green and mint enthusiasts.

## Notable Facts & Lore

- Series 1: Leaves (2000) was the house's first thematic perfume series, inaugurating the Series concept that would run through Red, Incense, Cologne, Sherbet, and beyond.
- The perfumer is Bertrand Duchaufour, who created several Leaves and later Series scents, including the celebrated Series 3 Incense Kyoto and Avignon.
- The cooling sensation is a genuine menthol effect, not marketing, and it is the single most-praised characteristic in wearer reports.
- The minimalist green work here predates the broader fashion for mint and herbal-green fragrances by roughly a decade.
- Bottle and packaging design for the Series fragrances involved Marc Atlan and Rei Kawakubo.