Perfume Review – Tom Ford Private Blend Noir de Noir: Henry VIII’s Tudor Rose

Posted on January 11, 2013 by Kafkaesque

The Tudor Rose, emblem of the royal house of King Henry VII, King Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I.

If the royal medieval dynasty, the Tudors, had a perfume to go along with their rose emblem, I suspect it would probably have been something like Tom Ford‘s Private Blend Noir de Noir For Women and Men. It is a scent that is as rich, baroque, lavish, and earthy as the bawdy, gourmand Henry VIII himself. Noir de Noir is not the delicate flower of Diana, Princess of Wales, whom Elton John called England’s Rose. No, this is Henry VIII’s prime rib to Diana’s scones and clotted cream. It’s rose turned rich and decadent, spiced and meaty, with an earthiness that hints at faintly musky intimacy. It is a scent that I think rose lovers will absolutely adore.

Fragrantica categorizes Noir de Noir as a “chypre” eau de parfum. You can read more about chypres on my Glossary but, in the most basic nutshell, a chypre perfume has a foundation consisting of oakmoss, or oakmoss in conjunction with certain other notes (like patchouli). On his website, Tom Ford describes Noir de Noir as follows:

A dark Chypre Oriental, this scent opens with an earthy mantle of richly woven Saffron, Black Rose and Black Truffle, with hints of floralcy. Underneath, Vanilla, Patchouli, Oud Wood and Tree Moss soften the intensity, making the scent a sensual experience.

Noir de Noir opens with the darkest, blackest, most luxuriously rich rose possible. I should confess that I am not someone who is crazy about rose scents (I overdosed on YSL’s Paris when I was 13), but I was very impressed with the opening of this one. This is much more my kind of rose! It made me think of dark, damask Persian or Bulgarian roses with their much sweeter,

A damask rose.

headier scent than some of their pale European cousins. It’s a very narcotically ripe sort of rose note and so plush, it’s almost boozy. I don’t get the red wine notes that many refer to, but that booziness is such that it actually verges into a fruity realm. To be specific, I have a very strong and distinct impression of Welch’s grape juice or grape jelly. Despite that, Noir de Noir evokes a dark, medieval world of baroque velvet, sumptuous fabrics, rich wood-paneled rooms hung with elaborate hunting tapestries, and tyrannical, grumpy Henry VIII in bejeweled robes striding to a long dining room table covered with ornate silver and mounds of red-blooded, meaty dishes. This is most definitely England’s rose of a different century than Elton John’s pale, blonde Diana!

The sweetness of the rich, damask rose is accompanied by what seems to be a faint flicker of oud but it is so light, I think I may have imagined it. It is definitely not the medicinal oud I’ve encountered in Montale or By Kilian‘s agarwood fragrances, nor the oud of YSL’s reformulated M7. In fact, I tried on Noir de Noir twice to be sure, and, the second time, I was convinced that there was absolutely no oud at all. Zero. Others, such as Perfume-Smellin Things, have reported the same, but Undina’s Looking Glass reported quite a bit of oud when she gave it a test run.

Oakmoss or tree moss.

Equally undetectable to me: oakmoss. At no time did I ever smell the pungent, almost mineralised dusty grey-green bitterness of oakmoss and, again, I don’t seem to be the only one. Perfume Posse also found no oud or oakmoss in Noir de Noir. Given the IFRA regulations on oakmoss, Tom Ford would have had to use either synthetic oakmoss or have the real thing be in such minute proportions as to be basically nonexistent. Judging by the perfume, I would guess that he went with the latter route because this is as much a “chypre” on my skin as Welch’s grape jelly is….

Instead, there is a definite note of sweet saffron with its faintly woody hues and a strong note of black truffle. I’ve cooked with and eaten real black truffles, and its earthiness is profoundly apparent here. The richness of the black truffle adds heft and meatiness to the rose. It also adds an earthiness that creates a faintly bawdy, sensuous note of body funk to the scent. It is not always apparent and, by the end, it flitters in and out like a ghost. Sometimes, especially in the opening hour, it is stronger and I sniff my arm with a faint trace of concern; I smell a wee bit ripe. At other times, it’s delightfully subtle and just a faint whisper that adds a note of sensuality to the perfume.

The earthiness of the black truffle explains why Noir de Noir is consistently described as a “high-class” or elevated version of Tom Ford’s Black Orchid fragrance, another one of his perfumes which has black truffle at its heart. In fact, there may be more than just an unintentional similarity between the two scents. My best friend, who so kindly sent me my sample of Noir de Noir, was informed by a Tom Ford sales lady that Noir de Noir was apparently the scent that was initially supposed to be Black Orchid. I’m not wholly clear on her meaning, and neither was my best friend, but it seems that Tom Ford may have originally intended for Noir de Noir to be the scent called Black Orchid. The latter came out one year before in 2006, while Noir de Noir came out in 2007, so who knows the accuracy of that story. Still, it is indisputable that the two scents share a similar “Noir” or “Black” theme of florals mixed with earthiness and black truffle.

I haven’t tried Black Orchid but, judging by Black Orchid Voile de Fleur and several other Tom Ford scents that I have tested, Noir de Noir smells far more expensive and not very synthetic. It lacks that almost shrill screeeeeeeeeeeeeeech of the opening, that clanging, loud, almost nose-burning olfactory assault that can be quite brutal at times. I attribute the latter to a very synthetic quality in some Tom Ford’s fragrances: Neroli Portofino comes immediately (and painfully) to mind, followed to a lesser extent by Black Orchid Voile de Fleur, White Patchouli and Violet Blonde.

No, Noir de Noir is a much better perfume than any of those other scents. Luca Turin seems rather enamoured of it, too, giving it a four-star rating in his book, Perfumes: The A-Z Guide. He also called it a “rose-chocolate,” as do legions of others. I assume the combination of black truffle and patchouli gives rise to that impression amongst so many, but I’m afraid I can’t smell any chocolate. What I can smell, however, and what I am convinced Noir de Noir encapsulates more than anything else is Turkish Delight. If you’ve ever had a box, or if you’ve ever read C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch & the Wardrobe from the Narnia series, you will know what I’m talking about immediately. Turkish Delight is a sweet dessert that is often made from rose water and covered with white confectioner’s powders. It smells strongly of candied violets and that note of candied, sometimes powdered and vanilla-y, violets is an enormous part of Noir de Noir.

As time passes, Noir de Noir becomes more and more like powdered rose-vanilla with a hint of candied violets. At no time did I ever smell rich chocolate, though I do get that faint earthy note of body funk from the black truffle from time to time. Commentators on MakeupAlley seem to share my rose-vanilla impressions for the most part, and one even noted the Turkish Delight comparison, too! In contrast, Fragrantica commentators seem to fall predominantly into the chocolate camp.

One area where I depart from the majority in both camps is sillage and longevity. Even for my skin, Noir de Noir is of very short duration. In fact, it may be the shortest-lasting Tom Ford I have encountered. It became close to the skin about 1.5 to 2 hours in, and lasted for a grand total of 4 hours. There have been a few comments on Fragrantica and elsewhere about the 2 hour mark, so it may not just be me but we can be counted on one hand (or maybe just under two). Contrary to us few oddballs, the vast majority of people report that Noir de Noir lasts eons and eons on them, with some giving 12 hours or more!

If Noir de Noir lasted anywhere close to that amount of time on me, I might be a little more enthused about it. As it is, the very boring dry-down of powdered vanilla rose and violets with ghostly hints of earthy bodily funk is really not fascinating enough for the very high price of the perfume. The smallest bottle — the standard 1.7 oz/50 ml size — costs $205. That’s a bit steep to smell like Turkish Delight, no matter how lovely (and it really was lovely!) the opening notes of boozy, heady rose with saffron. The steepness might be a little more tolerable if the ~~Turkish Delight~~ er… Noir de Noir actually lasted on me but, again, it didn’t.

It’s probably at this point that I should bring up the other perfume to which Noir de Noir is repeatedly compared and you’ll probably be very surprised by what it is: the celebrity scent, Queen, by Queen Latifah. According to Fragrantica commentators on both the Tom Ford entry and the Queen one, it is an almost exact dupe for Noir de Noir! I haven’t smelled it, so I can’t comment, but the reportedly striking similarity may be of interest to you given the price differential. A 3.4 oz bottle of Queen eau de parfum retails for $59 and is currently being sold on the Walgreens website for $28.19 and on eBay for $15.16! In contrast, that same sized bottle of Noir de Noir retails for $280. eBay sellers are also offering the smaller 1.7 oz size of Queen for only $8, whereas the analagous 1.7 oz bottle of Noir de Noir retails for $205.

If the comparisons are true — and at least 44 people voted that they were — then that is quite a spectacular price difference! To be honest, I’m rather tempted now to buy the Queen just to see if they’re right! I’m sure there will be a difference in quality, as even its critics admit that the Tom Ford Private Blend line is of high quality. Plus, according to the Scentrist blog, the reported perfume strength of the Private Blend line (26%) is higher than even the regular Tom Ford line (18%). But, despite that, I’m still tempted to try out the Queen Latifah perfume. Have I mentioned how much I love a bargain or how curious I am?!

All in all, I liked Noir de Noir, though I’m far from its ideal, targeted audience as I’m not usually a fan of rose scents. Still, I’m surprised by how much I liked its opening. As a whole, though, I would have liked the perfume better had its sillage, longevity, dry-down and cost been different. But its richness and earthiness make it something that I think would appeal to many people, men and women alike.

To be totally clear, this is definitely a scent that a man can wear. And, judging by the comments on Fragrantica, a lot of men really love it. Amusingly enough, two of my closest friends — one of each gender — had very opposite reactions to Noir de Noir. My male friend (someone who wears such masculine scents as YSL’s M7) adores it and succumbed to a full bottle after just a few sniffs of the sample. In contrast, my female friend found it a touch too masculine (and she loves Tom Ford’s Oud wood)! I think the dispositive factor will be how you feel about rose. My female friend is, like me, not a huge fan. If you are — and if you like heady rose scents in particular — then I absolutely recommend that you try giving this sniff. Beyond a shadow of a doubt.

But the Henry VIII lifestyle is not included….

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Noir de Noir is available on the Tom Ford website where it sells for: $205 for a 50 ml/1.7 oz bottle, $280 for a 100 ml/3.4 oz bottle or $495 for a 200 ml/8.45 oz bottle. In the US, you can also find it at fine retailers such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, and others. In the UK, you can find it at Harrods where it sells for £135.00 or £195.00, depending on size. Elsewhere, Tom Ford fragrances are carried in numerous different countries; hopefully, you can find one near you using the store locator on the Tom Ford website.

Samples: If you like rose scents and are intrigued, but are also sane enough not to want to spend such a large amount without testing it out first, I suggest ordering a sample. You can find them starting at $3 on Surrender to Chance, or on other decant/sample sites like The Perfumed Court. I think Surrender to Chance has the best shipping: $2.95 for any order, no matter the size, within the U.S., and $5.95 for most orders going overseas. (It’s a wee bit higher if your order is over $75.)

Perfume Review: Tauer Perfumes L’Air du Desert Marocain

Posted on January 10, 2013 by Kafkaesque

The desert is vast and still. Silence reigns under the thousand stars. Dawn is around the corner, and the Bedouins have just started to awake. Soon, they will feed the camels and put out their wares for trading. Soon, the sun will shine intensely upon the sandy dunes and the dry desert wind will pick up traces of the spices, mixing it with the dust and the scent of Morocco, filling the air with the riches of the ancient spice route and the mysteries of the desert.

That is the promise of L’Air du Desert Morocain Eau de Toilette Intense, a unisex fragrance by Tauer Perfumes. And it is a promise that it delivers upon, lock, stock and ten roaring barrels. It is an incredibly impressive perfume, created by a Swiss scientist who has absolutely zero formal training in perfume making, and it explains why both L’Air du Desert Marocain and the Tauer line of perfumes itself have become such a massive hit.

Tauer Perfumes was founded by Andy Tauer, a molecular biologist with a PhD who left the world of science in 2005 to become a perfumer. L’Air du Desert Marocain was his second creation, made to be a lighter version of his hit, Le Maroc pour Elle. And it has become not only adored, but, also, critically acclaimed. L’Air du Desert Marocain received a 5-star rating as a masterpiece from Luca Turin’s co-critic, Tania Sanchez, in Perfumes: The A-Z Guide.

It is the smell of Morocco and is immensely evocative, but, for all that I think this is one absolutely marvelous scent and for all that I couldn’t stop sniffing my wrists in the beginning, I don’t think this is a scent for me. It is too dry, and one of those rare perfumes that I think actually leans a little too masculine (despite being unisex) and it is also something that would be hard to wear every day. But, on the right man, though, I think that it would be rhapsody and heaven — the sort of scent that would make another woman or man want to sniff him for days on end and to dream of his scent. On a man, this is a fragrance that could make his spouse or significant other find it impossible to keep his or her hands to themselves.

L’Air du Desert Marocain via Luckyscent.

Fragrantica classifies L’Air du Desert Marocain as an “Oriental Spicy.” The Tauer website provides the following notes:

Head: Coriander and cumin, carefully blended with petitgrain.

Heart: A warm heart note with rock rose and a hint of jasmine.

Body:Dry cedar woods and vetiver, brilliantly joined on a fine ambergris background.

However, I have seen a fuller listing of notes elsewhere. For example, Bois de Jasmin gives what seems a much more comprehensive account, and that is what I’m going to work with:

coriander, petitgrain, bitter orange, lemon, bergamot, jasmine, labdanum, geranium, cedarwood, vetiver, vanilla, patchouli and ambergris.

L’Air du Desert Marocain opens with such forcefulness that my head spins. It is a good forcefulness, and I absolutely love it, but I recall Fragrantica‘s statement that this was made as a “lighter” version of Le Maroc Pour Elle and blink. Quite frankly, it is almost a little overwhelming in its spiciness, and I rarely say that. Yet, it explodes with such a marvelous opening that I find myself testing it out three different times on different places. And each opening was different.

The very first time, I got a very strong scent of orange petitgrain with spices. You can read more about petitgrain and all the various notes in the Glossary, but, in a nutshell, petitgrain is the distillation of the bitter twigs of a citrus tree, usually orange blossom. It is a woody, bitter, but highly aromatic scent. Here, the strongly woody, faintly bitter notes recall a wooded version of orange blossom. To my nose, there are also lovely saffron notes, mixed with spices. They are not easily identifiable, individually, but create an overall impression of a Middle Eastern spice market. The notes are sweet, but dry and far from cloying. There is, in fact, almost a smell of dust or dusty sand which suddenly explains one commentator on Fragrantica who disdainfully asked: “tell me, is one willing to smell like the baked, parched sediment that is sand?”

Tribal nomad smoking a hookah in the desert.

I happen to think that dry note is essential to cut through the extremely heady, powerful spice notes that are apparent from the very start. There are notes of woody, sweet incense and amber from the labdanum (also known as rockrose or cistus, and similar to ambergris). The incense in L’Air du Desert Marocain is some of the sweetest incense I’ve smelled in a while, perhaps because it is laden with the patchouli which is very rich, black, dirty, 70s kind of patchouli. The whole thing is very strong, and it never goes away, though it does fade to an underlying sweetness after about five hours. (Yes, this thing is a sillage and longevity monster!)

Source: 1stdibs.com

With the dust and wood undertones, I keep remembering an artsy, funky antique shop here which sells hundred-year old wooden Chinese apothecary cabinets; they smell faintly dusty, woody, and carry the lingering traces of old spices. I go to my own spice cabinet and drawers, hoping to pinpoint exactly what spices I’m smelling here. I find nothing. My coriander does not smell exactly like the coriander in L’Air du Desert Marocain, and neither does my cumin. But those are mere powders and, from interviews that I’ve read with Andy Tauer, he seems to use the most expensive oils and distillations. It certainly smells like it. You can smell the incredible quality of the perfume.

My second try with L’Air du Desert Marocain yielded a totally different, but equally fascinating, opening burst. This time, I smell lemoned coriander and tea. Amazing Earl Grey tea with notes of bergamot, an ingredient which falls between orange and lemon in scent. There is Earl Grey but there is also something else, something smokier, darker and almost tarred. It evokes Lapsang Souchang, a black tea which Wikipedia says “is distinct from all other types of tea because lapsang leaves are traditionally smoke-dried over pinewood fires, taking on a distinctive smoky flavour.” The black, bitter, smoky tea is tinged with pine notes but also the lightness of the bergamot and the piney aspect of cedar. I feel triumphant at finally pinning down one of the more elusive notes in the perfume, but I’m astounded at how different this opening is from my first go-round.

My third try yielded a mix of my prior two attempts. This time, the opening was of cedar, lemon, vetiver and pine needles with a strong element of dust. Actual dust! The wood and dust notes are complimented by the earthy sweetness and amber notes of the vetiver, but cedar is the predominant star here.

This undulating wave of shifting notes is, in my opinion, a characteristic of a “prismatic” scent. The Perfume Shrine has a very thorough explanation of scents which may appear linear but which, in reality, have prisms and shifting weights amongst several key components.

A variation on the linear scent is the “prism”/prismatic fragrance, whereupon you smell a humongous consistent effect all right, but when you squint this or that way, throughout the long duration, you seem to pick up some random note coming to the fore or regressing, then repeating again and again; a sort of “lather, rinse, repeat” to infinity. A good example of this sort of meticulously engineered effect is Chanel’s Allure Eau de Toilette (and not the thicker and less nuanced Eau de Parfum) where the evolution of fragrance notes defies any classical pyramidal structure scheme. There are six facets shimmering and overlapping with no one note predominating.

Here, with L’Air du Desert Marocain, sometimes the opening gave me notes like the petitgrain, orange and labdanum, sometimes bergamot, coriander and cedar, and sometimes a combination of all three, including the base or bottom notes (the heavier molecular compounds which last longer on the skin).

Regardless of which version I start out with, two hours in, the heart of L’Air du Desert Marocain starts to unfurl. It is labdanum, patchouli, and sweet incense with cedar and faint touches of cumin that, at this point, in no way smells like body odor or sweat. The overall impression is of spiced amber and perfumed wood. The sillage is slightly less overwhelming at this point, but there is still significant projection.

Three hours later, the cumin starts to turn and shift a little. There is a faint, tiny element of sweat that creeps in. If you’ve read any of my reviews for perfumes with cumin, you will know that I’m highly sensitive to the scent of cumin and its inevitable turn to a sweat note. It happens on me each and every time, whether it’s Serge Lutens’ Serge Noire or Amouage’s Jubiliation 25. And, each time, I struggle with it. Here, it is fainter than it was in Serge Noire but, still, 6.5 hours, I have to give a faintly worried sniff under my arms. It’s my own issue and my own neurosis because, again, my nose is extremely sensitive to cumin (it’s why I can rarely cook with it). Here, it’s very subtle, but the faint trace of body odor is definitely apparent at this point.

The cumin note doesn’t impede my enjoyment of the perfume’s dry-down which is rich and almost narcotically boozy in its smoky amber and patchouli. It’s not a cozy, “let’s snuggle under the blanket” sort of amber. This is far too incense-heavy for that. It’s more masculine and rugged — and much sexier. On a man, I can imagine his partner or spouse thinking, “let me nuzzle you, sniff you and run my hands over you.”

I can’t think of the person whom I think embodies the L’Air du Desert Marocain man. This is not for Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise, nor for the Marlboro Man or John Wayne. The character which consistently comes to mind is the Bedouin chief, Ardeth Bay, played by Oded Fehr in The Mummy (1999). Or Omar Sharif’s character in Lawrence of Arabia.

Women can certainly wear L’Air du Desert Marocain and, again, it is officially a unisex scent “for women and men,” but I don’t think it’s the most versatile scent or the sort of thing that one could wear daily. In fact, some men on a Basenotes thread I read found that it was perhaps a little too much for them, too. That said, I think it’s a fantastic scent and well worth a sample for those who like their scents spicy and heady. It will take you to the deserts of Morocco and, if you’re lucky, make you feel like a Bedouin king.

DETAILS:

Sillage & Longevity: This thing lasts and lasts! My skin consumes perfume voraciously and, yet, L’Air du Desert Marocain had serious projection or sillage for the first 2.5 hours, then slightly less for the next hour, and only becoming close to the skin a little under 5 hours in. Nonetheless, it was still easily detectable at that point any time I brought my nose to my wrist. In terms of longevity, it lasted just under 10 hours on me, which is pretty remarkable. On others, the fragrance is reported to last eons with only a few sprays, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it lasted a good 16 hours on someone, if not far more if you used a lot.

Cost & Availability in General: In the US, you can buy a 1.7 oz/50 ml bottle for $125 from Luckyscent and The Perfume Shoppe, as well as directly from Tauer Perfumes from February 2013 onwards. (See further details below in the Tauer section.) If you want to order now from Lucky Scent, please be aware that they are backlogged until the end of January 2013 on all orders for the perfume. They also sell a sample vial for $4. Samples are available from Surrender to Chance as well, starting at $5.99. In Europe, First in Fragrance sells the perfume for €95.00 for a 1.7 oz/50 ml, or for €190.00 for a 3.4/100 ml bottle from. It too carries samples. In the UK, Les Senteurs carries the Tauer line but the online website only seems to carry samples, not the full bottles. It may be different in the actual stores, but you will have to check. I don’t know about the shipping rates for any of those sites. The Tauer website’s store locator also provides locations in over 10 countries — ranging from France and the Netherlands to Russia, Singapore, the UK, Poland, Romania, Spain and more — where its products are available. You can find that list of stores here.

Cost & Availability from the Tauer Website: The Tauer Perfumes website lists the cost of the 50 ml/1.7 oz bottle as as: Fr. 96.00 / USD 103.70 / EUR 79.70. Tauer Perfumes also sells a sample 1.5 ml/ 0.05 oz glass vial of L’Air du Desert Marocain for: Fr. 6.00 / USD 6.50 / EUR 5.00. Though they used to ship to most places in the world, you need to know that they can’t ship to a number of places in Europe right now and that they will only be able to ship to the U.S. from February 2013 onwards. For various reasons due to a sudden problem with their shipping supplier, as of this post in January 2013, they say that they can only ship to customers in Switzerland, France, Germany and Austria. They also state they they hope to remedy this situation soon.

As a side note, the Tauer website also sells a sample Discovery Set of 5 different Tauer perfumes (for free shipping to most places in the world) which you can choose at will for: Fr. 31.00 / USD 33.50 / EUR 25.70. The website provides the following information:

Free selection: It is your choice to pick a set of 5 DISCOVERY SIZE perfume samples in glass spray vials. 1.5 ml each (0.75 ml of 0.75 ml of UNE ROSE CHYPRÉE or UNE ROSE VERMEILLE or CARILLON POUR UN ANGE) are at your disposal. Pick any scents from the Tauer perfumes range. The amounts of 1.5 (0.75 ml) are minimal amounts. Usually , we will ship around 2 ml (1ml). The DISCOVERY size vials are spray vials and will allow you to enjoy our fragrances for several days.

Packaging: The DISCOVERY SET comes in a glide-cover metal box for optimal protection.

Shipment: This product ships for free within 24 hours after we received your order world wide. Exceptions: Italy, United Kingdom, Russia, Belgium, Czech Republic.

Perfume Review – Robert Piguet Fracas: The History & The Legend

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Kafkaesque

“There are perfume legends, there are perfumer legends, and then there are perfumes that become obsessions. Fracas is all three, which is a hat trick less common that you’d think.”

Fracas Eau de Parfum.

Thus begins The New York Times‘ review for Fracas. It is a five-star review by the highly respected perfume critic, Chandler Burr, for a perfume that he rates as “transcendent.” And I couldn’t agree more. [Clarification: this post and piece is about vintage Fracas, both the very original versions and late 1990s Fracas, not the horribly mangled, modern reformulations.]

As a very small child of six or seven, and one already obsessed with perfume, there were two fragrances that I loved above all others: YSL’s Opium and Robert Piguet‘s Fracas. Out of the vast array of expensive French bottles littering my mother’s mise à toilette, out of all the Lalique jars and containers filled with various mysterious, adult things, out of all the things that made being a woman seem so fun and magical, there was really only Opium and Fracas that mattered to me. It was the 1970s, we lived in Cannes in a villa on the side of the mountain, overlooking the whole city below. There were exciting and often turbulent things going on, new things to explore, and make-believe adventures to be had. And, yet, I was always drawn back to that table. To be honest, it was primarily for the Opium which is still, to this day, my favorite perfume in all the world (in vintage version). But Fracas was a close second.

It was the empress of all white scents. It was a perfume that, as I recall, brought every man who passed by my mother to a stumbling, stuttering halt as they wondered what was that marvelous, incredible, hypnotic smell. It was a scent that I always thought was exuberantly joyful and happy, but which seemed to seduce whomever came within ten feet of it. It seemed like some cloud of happy white magic, all in one jet black bottle. It was the perfume worn by Marilyn Monroe (when she wasn’t wearing Chanel No. 5), Rita Hayworth, and Brigitte Bardot. And its modern die-hard fans range from such polar opposites as: Madonna to Martha Stewart, Ivana Trump to Courtney Love, Princess Caroline of Monaco to Bianca Jagger. It intoxicated them all. And it intoxicated a tiny seven-year old, too.

Continue reading →

Review En Bref: Montale Aoud Cuir d’Arabie

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Kafkaesque

I always try to be fair. In fact, I’m a bit obsessive about giving things second and, sometimes, third or fourth chances. (I think it’s my Libra side.) So, I decided to give the high-end French niche house of Montale one final chance.

If you’ve read any of my prior posts, you will know that Montale is my kryptonite, a perfume house that consistently brings me to my knees — and not in a good way. At various times, I’ve described Montale fragrances as: “horrific,” or “Chernobyl” on my arm, and Lime Oud, in specific, as something warranting a “Silkwood Shower,” an extreme measure normally suited for cases of radioactive contamination that will lead to inevitable death.

But, my Libra side is hard to ignore so, a few weeks ago, I ordered Montale’s Aoud Cuir d’Arabie. I did so even before a fellow perfume blogger, Scent Bound, suggested it, but when he recently warned me that it would take a few tries because “it is the smell of a raw skinned animal,” I paled. No, really, I actually paled when I read that. So, last night, I put on Aoud Cuir d’Arabie, fully expecting to end up huddled in a foetal position in the corner, sobbing and crying “Mommy!”

The fourth time is the charm? I’m shocked — truly and genuinely shocked — to say that it wasn’t bad. In fact, I think I may have liked it?

The Hairy German.

Now, I should confess right at the start that, soon after I put it on, The Hairy German jolted my arm and almost all of my sample vial ended up on my sheets. So, I didn’t have enough to try it out for 2-3 days to see if Scent Bound was right and I’d end up liking it, but I certainly had enough to know that it was very different from my prior experiences with Montale.

I started by putting on (cautiously and with great fear) 1 small dab on each wrist. Normally, I put 3-4 on each arm, but this is Montale! It is a line where prior experiences have shown that a miniscule tiny drop on your finger can last through numberous, frantic, desperate washings, through Lady Macbeth-like pleas to “out, damn spot, OUT!” and through hysterical fear that you will never, ever (ever!) be free of Montale. You see, all three of my prior experiences with Montale followed that exact same path, and I am a woman upon whom almost nothing lasts. But Montale is a whole other story; it is nuclear stuff and you can’t escape it. A single drop can drag you by the hair, caveman style, and clobber you like a T-Rex. And it’s not just Montale’s Aoud line, either, as I tried one that wasn’t. (Oriental Flowers.)

But Montale has as many as 27 different oud fragrances, and this one definitely strays from that horrific, nuclear path. I put on that initial dab on each wrist, waited to be brutalised, but soon realised I was still alive and unharmed. So, I put on some more. Yes, I actually did. Me! Montale!!! I put on 2 more dabs on each arm, and still I lived to tell the tale.

Aoud Cuir d’Arabie isn’t a hugely complicated scent. According to the notes on Fragrantica, it consists merely of: tobacco, leather, birch and oud. Birch is an element whose extract, tar or oil has often been used in treating leather, as an antiseptic in medicine, and to treat eczema or psoriasis. Here, in Aoud Cuir d’Arabie, it creates an immediate impression of the pink rubber in Bandaids. It is medicinal. But so is the initial smell of oud, and the two together create a rather singular, linear note. There is leather — black and cold, almost raw and feral, but never (on me) painfully fecal like horse manure, the way it was in Chanel‘s Cuir de Russie.

Finally, there is an oddly soft floral note that almost evokes rose and hovers as faint as a ghost in the background. I must be hallucinating it from the pinkness of the rubber bandages because rose is the furthest thing from the notes listed anywhere, though I smelled a rose note in both the prior Montale ouds that I tried. I later learn that, according to the Perfume Niche, the rose note is a signature to Montale’s aoud fragrances.

Aoud Cuir d’Arabie is a cold, cold, cold scent. I smell cold leather and cold, stone fireplaces. There is smoke, but it is not the warm smell of tobacco. Rather, it is the smell of burnt paper. I imagine a giant, cold, stone hearth where there is a lingering trace of burnt papers. It is not acrid, and it is nothing like the smell of burning that one finds in incense, but it adds an interesting note to the leather and birch. I am reminded of By Kilian‘s Pure Oud which has similar cold notes of smoke, stone and pure leather. I liked it then, and I like it now.

That is about the sum total of my experience with Aoud Cuir d’Arabie. I find little else because — on me, as with all the prior Montales — it is an incredibly linear scent. It doesn’t morph or vary, and it never turns into something hugely animalistic or rich with sweet tobacco. On the other hand, it is also nothing as extreme as the experiences noted on Basenotes where the scent is described with something approaching fascinated horror or bewildered love. Some of the comments:

A hospital janitor using bleach to clean puke off the floor. Oh, and an animals corpse by the roadside rotting in the hot summer sun. Why do I love this?

Limberger cheese. Vomit. Dry down did improve to leather, but what a nasty start!

This is a difficult fragrance. When I first applied it, the fecal/animal note was a turn-off. Luckily, after dry-down plus 15 min. that lessened, and the Oud and Leather predominated. It’s projection is great, and longevity is excellent. I wouldn’t EVER blind buy this, you must try it first. I enjoy it after the fecal smell dissipates, and own a large sample spritzer of this. I can’t apply it unless I have 15min. to let it dry-down before I have contact with anyone.

The first thing you get when you apply this is a very barnyard, fecal note, I’m not sure if this is caused by cambodian oud or a very animalic leather. But once you pass that stage the whole composition gets softer and a toned down version of the classic rose oud Montale combo emerges. I also get a pipe tobacco smell together with the leather in this stage that is very interesting. While it evolves the composition becomes very resinous, leathery and animalic, it gets very close to the skin becoming a skin scent, and when you think the scent is gone, you suddenly get a waft of it trough the air. Just marvelous!

it wreaks its dirty havoc all around me. The thick, pungent, hot leather of this fragrance, further pronounced by the Oud, is a leather reminiscent of an attire which has clearly been used repeatedly for numerous socially unconventional sexual acts and yet has never been cleaned once. It is almost verging on repulsive. Nevertheless, when I wear this, there is some aspect of this which gives me the greatest pleasure. […] Perhaps this says more about me than of the fragrance itself, but at least in my opinion, it resembles an almost forbidden indulgence of monarchial proportion.

Portia from Australian Perfume Junkies also loves this passionately. (You can read her review for Perfume Posse here.) As did the Perfume Niche who wrote:

It opens with an animalic note of sweaty, worn leather combined with a medical hit of oud. Pungent, rugged and raunchy. A note of tobacco adds richness, Soon Montale’s signature rose note appears and adds a gentle floral presence. As it dries down, the leather becomes more refined; the oud softens, becomes warmer and more resinous. Together they combine to create a sexy sensuous intimate scent that stays close to the skin.

I certainly liked it enough to want to give it a further, detailed review over the course of a few days. That said, I have to confess, I frequently wonder if I’m confusing enormous relief (at surviving a Montale without being clobbered with ghastly, nuclear strength horror) with actual liking. I think relief may be a huge factor here, particularly as I did find the scent to be very linear. But, I’m a Libra and I like to give things chances, so I will buy another sample of Aoud Cuir d’Arabie. If things change, if multiple tries end up revealing far greater complexity, or if I fall for it without question, I will be sure to update this review.

DETAILS:

If you’re interested in trying out Montale’s Aoud Cuir d’Arabie, you can get a sample on Surrender to Chance where the smallest vial starts at $3.99. If you are intrigued enough to want to buy it outright, it is available at Lucky Scent where it costs $110 for a 1.7 oz/ 50 ml bottle, $160 for a 3.4 oz/100 ml bottle, and $4 for a sample. And, of course, you can purchase it directly from Montale on its website where it costs 80€ for a 3.4 oz/100 ml bottle.