Verveine Deodorant Stick 50g

A deodorant is judged on how it behaves at the end of a long day, not on how it performs across a room, and L'Occitane En Provence Verveine Deodorant Stick 50g is scented with that in mind.

Three materials give it its smell. Lemon is the brightest, a clean zest sharpness that reads as washed rather than perfumed. Lemon verbena follows, the herb itself, green and dry with a slight sherbet quality and a stalky edge that lingers longer than the fruit does. Geranium rounds the pair off with a cool, green, faintly rosy character, which is what keeps the whole thing from smelling like a kitchen cleaner.

It is a short list of materials, which is appropriate here. A deodorant scent needs to be legible and inoffensive at close range, and three clean materials do that better than a complicated formula would. The geranium is what stops the citrus from smelling merely functional.

In use it is a stick, applied directly to clean dry skin, and the scent is an accompaniment rather than the point. It layers comfortably beneath a fragrance from the same line, and in hot weather it is a sensible thing to keep in a gym bag or a suitcase. Fabrice Pellegrin is credited with the scent. Do not expect it to replace a fragrance; it is there to keep you fresh and to smell pleasant at arm's length, and on both counts it earns its place in a washbag.

The company was started in Provence in 1976 by Olivier Baussan, who had been distilling and selling oils of his own before the business grew into the French beauty and fragrance house it is now. Plant derived ingredients from the region are still its basis, with manufacturing and research carried out at Manosque.