Nasomatto Duro

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Kafkaesque

“Fire Storm” by Marina Petro. Source: marinapetro.blogspot.com

Honeyed leather, spices and patchouli, dusted with cocoa, then infused with dark woods, tobacco, and a touch of smoke on a resinous amber base flecked by vanilla. That is one side to Nasomatto‘s Duro. The other might be the aroma-chemical bomb that is woven through every fiber of this perfume. Duro is one of those scents where I really wish I couldn’t detect a drop of aromachemicals a mile away, because I think I might like it otherwise. Unfortunately, Duro has such an enormous quantity of occasionally sharp, abrasive synthetics that it would probably drown a hound dog. And I’m not the only one who struggled with this issue.

Duro via Luckyscent

Duro is an extrait de parfum created by the Dutch niche house, Nasomatto, a brand which is best known for their cult masculine favorite, Black Afgano. It’s not easy to find details on Duro, when it was launched, or what precisely is in it. On its website, the company provides no notes, and simply says that Duro is intended to “enhance all the manifestations of male power.” I find that to be an asinine, obnoxious, and immature comment on a variety of levels. Plus, someone better not tell the legion of women who wear patchouli or spiced wood fragrances that they are somehow swinging a male organ, because that is the olfactory essence of Duro and that is also one of the implications of the company’s chest-thumping statement.

Source: imgfave.com. Artist or creator unknown.

Since there are no official notes for Duro, most sites simply list “leather, woods and spice,” as Luckyscent does. However, First in Fragrance always seems to have a company’s press release copy for a fragrance, and it provides the following description and olfactory notes for Duro:

Duro – The essence of male attraction
This composition concentrates the erotic essence of mythical masculinity and sexual attraction in itself.
Duro – A fragrance that directly and unequivocally shows the way with its overwhelming fragrance of sensuality.

Top Note: Agarwood (Oud)
Heart Note: Woods, Spices
Base Note: Leather, Resins

Leather tannery in Bangladesh. Source: ecouterre.com

Duro opens on my skin with a blast of animalic, slightly urinous leather slathered in honey. It is followed by spices and several, different, sharp aromachemicals. There is a chemical oud that smells a touch antiseptic, then something vaguely ambered (Ambermax? Ambroxan?) which has a rubbing alcohol twang. Putting aside the large quantities of those two extremely sharp notes, the rest of Duro’s opening bouquet is lovely. The animalic note isn’t fecal nor reminiscent of a barnyard. It’s musky and a wee bit urinous, though in an extremely subtle way. As a whole, the honeyed leather feels a little raw, uncured, and butch, but in the pretty way of LM Parfums‘ Hard Leather.

The spices are interesting. I tested Duro twice and, the second time, there was merely a generalized “spice” accord. However, during my first test, the bouquet felt quite multi-faceted, even if the spices were so fused together that they weren’t always easy to pull apart. As best as I could tell, there seemed to be the lightest touch of saffron, cloves, and black pepper, followed by a much more significant tonality of red chili pepper. The latter felt like another aromachemical in the sharpness of its fiery bite, but it was an nice counterbalance to the honeyed leather. I think I detected ginger as well — candied, dusty, and freshly pungent — but it was very muted.

During that first test, Duro began manifesting a dusty sweetness and an increasing touch of creamy woods less than 15 minutes into the perfume’s development. The woods felt almost as if some Mysore substitute had been used, supplemented by the spices. The note had a distinct gingerbread undertone that some sandalwood fragrances can have, even through artificial means. One example would be Chanel‘s Bois des Iles which is Chanel’s successful homage to Mysore, despite never actually containing any of the rare wood. Here, Duro briefly reflected the same sweet, spicy, gingerbread characteristics, but it was very short-lived and generally overpowered by that very synthetic oud aromachemical.

Source: 123rf.com

The second time I tested Duro, I didn’t experience either the wide range of individual, clearly distinct spices nor the quasi-sandalwood impression. Instead, the main note apart from the honeyed leather and the fake oud was patchouli. Lovely, true, original patchouli with all its spicy, red-gold-brown, slightly smoky, sweet facets. It was a touch earthy, but never dusty. It also occasionally showed a glimmer of the note’s green, camphorous side, though that sharpness may again have been the various aromachemicals wafting all around.

I’ll be honest, at times, it was extremely hard for me to detect the subtle nuances of Duro because they felt hidden behind an advancing phalanx of aromachemicals that acted as a wall or barricade at the very top of Duro’s pyramids. The first time was really difficult indeed, and I almost scrubbed Duro, especially as it gave me a profound headache whenever I smelled the perfume up close. I was relieved that Duro was better the second time around when worn on a different arm, but it’s only a question of degree. That said, I fully concede that my nose is much more sensitive to aromachemicals than the average person, and some of you may have no problems at all. (Then again, judging by the comments on Fragrantica, perhaps you might….)

Duro continues to shift as time passes. First, there is the arrival of a tobacco note. It’s dry, sweet, a little bit smoky, and, once in a while, has a tinge of an ashtray-like note on my skin. After 20 minutes, there is also the first whiff of labdanum. It feels a little synthetic and reminds me of the note in Black Afgano because it has the same cherry cola or root beer nuance. It is accompanied by a slightly plummy undertone as well, almost as if the patchouli were manifesting its purple, jammy, dark molasses facet.

Mark Rothko, #20 or “Black,brown on maroon.” Source: artsearch.nga.gov.au

The more significant change always occurs about 40 minutes into Duro’s development, when the leather loses its honeyed touch and sinks fully into the base. There, it remains as a constant undercurrent to the scent, waxing and waning in terms of its prominence. In one of my tests, Duro at this stage had shifted to a very oud-y, aromachemical woody fragrance with dark, fruited patchouli, a touch of chili pepper pimento, hints of gingerbread spices, and a rootbeer-like sweetness over a thin leather base. In the other, Duro was a brown (not fruited) patchouli scent with earthiness, sweetened tobacco, spices, abstract woodiness, aromachemical oud, amber, and spices on a leathered foundation.

Duro is a very concentrated fragrance in its overall bouquet, much as you’d expect from a pure parfum extrait. It is, however, much airier and softer than the notes would have you realise. There is a lightness to the scent, and the sillage is only moderate at first, before dropping to hover just an inch, at best, above my skin at the end of the 1st hour. It remains there for another hour, before turning into a skin scent. Yet, Duro’s overall bouquet remains largely unchanged as a whole.

In fact, Duro is an extremely linear scent, though I always say that there is nothing wrong with linearity if you love the notes in question. The individual elements fluctuate in terms of their prominence or order, but Duro itself doesn’t change for a few hours. For the most part, it merely turns more resinous, ambered, and golden in feel.

“Novemthree” by Olaf Marshall. Source: vitaignescorpuslignum.blogspot.com

The biggest change occurs at the start of the 4th hour when new notes arrive on scene. There is, without any doubt in my mind, vetiver in Duro and I noticed it on both occasions when I wore the scent. There is also cedar. None of this is particularly surprising, as both elements are common companions to patchouli in European fragrances. Here, the vetiver is somewhat smoky and dark. In one test, Duro turned primarily into a vetiver-patchouli fragrance at the start of the 6th hour, lying atop a very arid aromachemical, ambered base that was resinous and a little plummy. The perfume felt simultaneously woody, sharp, smoky, and slightly leathered.

Source: Colourbox.com

It was a very different story the second time around when I tried Duro on my other arm. In that case, the patchouli remained as the dominant note from the end of the 2nd hour onwards, not the smoky vetiver. Duro was a blend of earthy patchouli with abstract spices and a hint of tobacco, lightly flecked by vetiver and cedar atop a warmly resinous amber base with a leather undercurrent. The scent was sweet, spicy, warm, a touch smoky, and very golden in feel. It became even better around the middle of the 3rd hour when the patchouli started wafting a cocoa powder heart. Vanilla started to stir in the base, adding to the prettiness. By the start of the 5th hour, Duro was patchouli, cocoa, amber, vanilla and aromachemicals, lightly flecked by vetiver and with a hint of cedar, atop a resinous, slightly leathered base.

Source: wallpapers.free-review.net

In both versions, the long, final drydown phase of Duro was largely the same: woody sweetness dominated by patchouli and abstract ambered warmth. There were differences in terms of how distinct or clear the individual notes might be, but as a whole Duro simply turned into some variation of a patchouli woody scent with different forms of sweetness (amber resins, vanilla, or both). The woods became increasingly amorphous, the leather largely faded away on my skin, and the spices melted into the patchouli which, in turn, became more fuzzy, warm, sweet, and vanillic. It was pretty, and lasted for ages. As a whole, Duro lasted just short of 8.75 hours in one test, and just over 9.75 in the other. The sillage was always soft after 90 minutes, and it generally turned into a skin scent after about 2.5 hours with 3 very large smears (or the equivalent of 2 small sprays from a bottle).

Source: androidcentral.com

On Fragrantica, reviews for Duro are mixed, with some people calling it a woody, resinous “masterpiece,” while others find it nice but far from unique, and a handful note Duro’s very chemical nature. A good number of people seem to have encountered the same sillage and softness issues that I did, as they had difficulty detecting Duro after a few hours. Here are a selection of the negative or conflicted reviews for the scent, many of which echo a common theme:

megachemical blast of wood…lasts nothing… the hole in your wallet will last longer!

Very synthetic smell. Didn’t project at all. Longevity was maybe 6 hours. I really can’t stand that sharp, medicinal, chemical oud scent you get from fake agarwood. I wore it a few times but it was no better than Montale [….]

Smells like vix rub … woody musky like a incense burning on wood in a hindu temple not something i would wear … drydown is a little better but all i can smell is that wood note

Duro, like the name suggests, is extremely hard on the nose. At least for the first hour or two it smells like a medicinal syrup with heavy woods. However, the dry down is fairly pleasant.

Oo no, I really don’t like this one, very strong and heavy woods of the bitter type. Also detect strange medicinal notes [….] Definitely prefer B Afgano.

I bought this bottle Dec 2012, at first i felt it was too medicinal, the oud and spice really strong, almost felt like i was in the operating room, but after several months i began to love the scent,,you have to get used to it, its a strong masculine spicey, leathery, oudy bomb!!

This is unique, bold, very strong, but sadly utterly unenjoyable to my nose. I smell some of the same dark (opaque!) resin notes in Duro as I do in Slumberhouse’s Norne… But with an additional cherry cough syrup accord layered on top.

A solid woody spicy and completely masculine fragrance which is very simple but well-made at the same time. [¶] The opening is a heavy and dark combination of smoky woods, some spices and a little bit of sweetness completely in the background. [¶] The smoky woody/leathery smell remind me of the smell of oud and there are noticeable amount of spices and some sweetness beside it. [¶] In the mid you have exactly the same smell which only gets smokier and woodier. [¶] Smell very masculine and bitter smoky woody, but smell very familiar too! nothing new or unique about it.

Source: alexlesterspersonalblog.blogspot.com

Others, however, adore what they think is the super-sized masculinity and testosterone of the scent:

A fantastic masculine perfume. Women scare of it I think! […][¶] Shortly a perfume not for human maybe, gorillas deserve it. You either hate it or love it and there’s nothing in between. This is one of the manliest fragrances I’ve ever smelt. Seems is made out of pure testosterone. [¶] For men who drink beer at morning and work with axe.

This is the most explosively masculine perfume I’ve ever smelled!! You couldn’t stop this from projecting if you held it at gunpoint and threatened it’s bottle. [¶][…] This perfume says: “WOOD, SPICE, LEATHER…B@TCH!!!! I’M A MAN!!!”

DURO!!!! [¶] The HARD ON of male perfumery! […][¶] If you like wood up the wazzoo this is the fragrance for you! [¶] Loud woodiness of dank strong Oud and a harder denser wood combined with it. [¶] Then there’s the spice it’s hard but not in a cooking spice type of way or even a hot chili kind of way, it’s dry woody spice…almost like the natural spicey scent that would come from a piece of exotic wood. [¶] This fragrance for me is absolutely everything I look for in a masculine powerhouse. The spice perfectly tones down the unpleasant quality oud can have. You know? that bit when it takes a nosedive after the initial almost sweet strange amber quality. [¶] Anyway…the price of this juice is high, extortionately high some might say but I still felt Duro was a worthy purchase because of how bold and strong this juice is. [¶] Longevity and projection are massive as you’d expect from extrait de parfum. [¶] It’s not especially unique smelling this one but what can I say? It has a certain appeal & I was charmed by it.

As you can tell from that last comment, Nasomatto fan boys love the brand’s macho reputation, though even they have to admit that Duro is not particularly unique.

Montale Aoud Musk via mychicstore.com

What is more interesting to me is the fact that a lot of commentators find Duro to be comparable to Montale‘s Aoud Musk. Nay, actually “identical to” the latter, in several people’s opinions. I haven’t tried Montale’s Aoud Musk, but if it’s true, then that would certainly be a much cheaper purchase. Duro costs $185 for a mere 30 ml, while Luckyscent sells Montale’s Aoud Musk for $120 for a 50 ml bottle and for $170 in the 100 ml size. In addition, you can find Aoud Musk on numerous discount retailers for much less, making the price differential all the greater.

The other thing that I found noteworthy is a comment about Nasomatto’s dilution of its scents. I’m pretty sure the version of Black Afgano that I tried was altered to be much sweeter and less smokier than the fragrance of legend, but it seems that it isn’t the only one in the line to be so changed. A Fragrantica commentator called “Aphexacid” wrote in August 2013:

First, let me say that the rumor of Nasomatto watering down their perfumes is unfortunately TRUE. [¶] I purchased Duro and Pardon together, and they were both completely a shadow of their former selves. [¶] I got maybe 1 hour of moderate projection out of each, then it became skin scents. 6-8 hours later, gone.

What does Duro smell like? Its basically a weaker, less interesting version of Montales EPIC masterpiece “AOUD MUSK”.

Duro is lacking backbone.

If Duro has been diluted, that may explain why the scent I tested did not seem wildly masculine but, rather, felt like something that women could appreciate as well, if they had a taste for resinous, woody, patchouli, oud fragrances. I truly don’t think Duro is that much of a chest-thumping fragrance, though a number of men on Fragrantica would clearly disagree.

What a number of people would not disagree with is my view that Duro is as aromachemical as hell. Judging by all those references to synthetic, medicinal, antiseptic, “vix,” cough syrup, or “operating room” aromas, quite a few people picked up on it. In short, it’s not merely a question of me being abnormally sensitive. There’s nothing wrong with the judicious, light use of aromachemicals in a fragrance, but to have such a vast quantity in a tiny bottle that costs $185 when the fragrance supposedly is “identical to” a Montale? That’s a problem.

I really wanted to like Duro, especially as its notes should be right up my “patch head” alley, but it’s a complete pass for me. However, if you enjoy very resinous, woody fragrances centered on oud, patchouli, spices and amber, with a light streak of leather, then you may want to give Duro a sniff for yourself.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Duro is a concentrated parfum extrait (or pure parfum), and is generally sold only in a 30 ml/1 oz bottle. However, a mini 4 ml version is available directly from Nasomatto, who sells the 30 ml bottle for €118 and the 4 ml mini for €42. Nasomatto ships world-wide. In the U.S.: Duro retails for $185 for 30 ml. It is available at Barney’s, Bergdorf Goodman, Luckyscent, Neiman Marcus, and BeautyBar. Outside the U.S.: In Canada, you can find Duro at The Perfume Shoppe which sells the 30 ml bottle for $165. I think that is in US pricing. In the UK, Duro costs £108, and is available at Liberty London, Roullier White, Bloom Parfumery, and The Conran Shop. In France, you can find Duro at Premiere Avenue or Jovoy for €118. In Spain, you can find Duro at Parfumerias Regia, in Italy at Sacra Cuore, in Russia at what seems to be Nasomatto’s own Russian site, along with Orental.ru. In Germany, Duro is sold at First in Fragrance. In the Netherlands, you can obviously find it at Nasomatto’s own shop in Amsterdam. In Australia, you can find Duro at Libertine which sells the 30 ml bottle for AUD$220. In Hong Kong, Konzepp carries the fragrance. In South Africa, the Nasomatto line is available at Rio Perfumes. In the UAE, the line is sold on Souq.com. Samples: I obtained my sample from Luckyscent, but you can also find Duro on Surrender to Chance where prices start at $4.99 for a 1/4 ml vial. Samples are also available for purchase at many of the sites linked up above.

Santa Maria Novella Nostalgia: Drive, Baby, Drive

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Kafkaesque

One of perfume’s many joys is its transformative power, its ability to take you to other worlds and points in time, or to turn you into someone else. The rather aptly named Nostalgia briefly made me feel like the racing legend, Mario Andretti, in a 1970s Alfa-Romeo Spider convertible or like the ultra-cool Steve McQueen in his Jaguar XKSS.

Steve McQueen in his Jaquar. Source: mtblabel.com

Close your eyes and imagine a powerful old car on a racing track set in a birch wood forest. The smell of diesel fuel is in the air, along with the cracked leather seats of the ancient vehicle, and the smell of campfire smoke from a fire in the trees beyond. Bergamot swirls its sweet juices into the mix, along with vanilla, amber and earthy patchouli. As you rev your engines, and press your foot on the pedal, you speed away so fast that you leave the diesel fuel far behind, and enter into a vanilla, amber cocoon nestled amidst the birch trees. There, you take shelter in a haze of creamy, warm, lightly powdered vanillic sweetness infused with campfire smoke. It’s a simple smell, but then, Nostalgia is a return to a simpler, more nostalgic time.

Nostalgia is a fragrance from Santa Maria Novella, an Italian niche house based in Florence and one of the oldest actual pharmacies in the world. By many accounts, Santa Maria Novella is also the real, true source for the birth of cologne as a type of fragrance. You can read the full details of their fascinating, storied history going back to the 1200s and to Dominican friars in Florence in my earlier piece on the Farmacia (and its Ambra cologne). The house has been connected to everything from Catherine de Medici on her wedding day, to a marchioness burnt at the stake as the last “witch” in France, and marauding thieves who fought off the Black Plague. It’s completely fascinating stuff, if you are a history junkie as I am.

Santa Maria Novella. Pharmacy salesroom today. Source: MuseumsinFlorence.com

Even cooler is the fact that many of the current fragrances in Santa Maria Novella line continue to have the exact same olfactory profile as they did several centuries ago. In fact, they are said to follow a completely unchanged recipe, thanks to Santa Maria Novella’s heavy focus on all-natural ingredients (with no animal testing).

Source: Santa Maria Novella website.

Nostalgia, however, is brand new fragrance, relatively speaking. It is an eau de cologne that was released in 2002, which is a far cry from the 1600s or 1800s date of some of their other creations. By those standards, it was practically delivered yesterday.

Nostalgia is a leather scent which Santa Maria Novella describes as follows:

Santa Maria Novella’s most original fragrance for men, Nostalgia is the scent of a vintage racing car. Using mixes of rare South American woods, vegetable musk, patchouli, citrus wood, tobacco, amber and vanilla, it brings to mind the smell of benzene, tires and vintage leather for a truly unique and individual eau de cologne.

According to Fragrantica, Nostalgia’s perfume pyramid is:

Top notes: bergamot, rubber and styrax. Heart: cedar and patchouli. Base: leather, amber, vanilla and birch tar.

Nostalgia opens on my skin with diesel fuel. Yes, the smell of actual gasoline, but an extremely refined, high-class gasoline, if you can believe it. It smells like filtered, perfumed gasoline that is scented with fresh, sweetened, but somewhat zesty bergamot, and with a hint of vanilla. Something very herbal and fresh lingers in the rubbery corners, along with traces of general sweetness and the tiniest suggestion of a warm element in the base. The vanilla quickly recedes to the sidelines, and its place is immediately taken by birch tar on fire. There is smoke, more smoke, black rubber, and then, bubbling black tar, all enveloped in that refined, bergamot-scented racing fuel.

Ferrari Formula 1 rubber tire, post race, via reddit.com

I find the whole thing fascinating, and, I swear to you, it’s not like an olfactory assault at NASCAR. Instead, it’s oddly and shockingly smooth. I repeat, something about the overall combination feels almost refined, or as refined as such an accord could be. One reason why is because nothing is out of balance. The racing fuel is not a barrage of anything really sharp, extreme, or chemical; I never feel as though I’m filling my car at the gas station, though the vehicle may have a tiny leak somewhere. The strong element of crisp, chilled, but sweetened bergamot definitely helps, as do the subtle hints of vanilla and amber lurking at the edges.

Source: Theatlantic.com

Thanks to the singed birch trees, there is an outdoors feel to this Grand Prix race track. At the same time, there is also an undertone of black pepper and cracked leather. The latter is not the butch, latex, fetishistic bondage leather of some fragrances, like Etat Libre‘s difficult Rien. However, it’s definitely not the well-oiled, polished leather of Puredistance M, either. Despite the birch tar commonality, this leather also has nothing in common with Caron‘s Tabac Blonde, Knize, or Cuir de Russie, at least in their current, non-vintage manifestations.

Source: blog.hemmings.com

Nostalgia’s note is a tiny, fractional bit closer to Andy Tauer‘s Lonestar Memories, but it’s not really that either. It lacks the feeling of soldering mechanics, the sticky sweetness, the sharpness, and even the forcefulness of the birch tar in Lonestar Memories. This is much smoother, softer, and more refined. As a whole, both the birch tar smoke and its leather undertone in Nostalgia feel like a completely different take on the note for me. This is the leather of an old car with some goaty, diesel, smoky aspects. It’s rough in the untamed way of birch campfire smoke, but it is also darkly resinous with styrax, and a little bit fresh and cologne-like with bergamot.

Paul Newman in his racing days. Photo: rolexblog.blogspot.com

Less than 10 minutes in, Nostalgia shifts and starts to move away from the racing fuel. Earthy patchouli arrives, complete with both its faintly camphorous side and its sweeter, softer tonalities. The amber becomes more noticeable, too, while the bergamot takes a step back. The golden sweetness infuses the tarry, smoked woods and the old leather, softening that initial, utterly cool smell of racing fuel turned sophisticated. It’s a bit of a shame, as the opening minutes were Cool with a capital “C.” We’re talking Steve McQueen and Paul Newman cool in a Mario Andretti racing world. Instead, Nostalgia is now all about campfire smoke, tar and patchouli, lightly flecked with smoother, more refined leather, all upon a warmed, sweetened vanilla and amber base. It’s warm, smoky, masculine and sexy, but not as unique as that debut.

Source: hqwide.com

Something about Nostalgia mesmerizes me, for reasons that I cannot fully explain. Upon reading about it initially, I thought, “racing fuel sounds cool, but who wants to actually smell of it??!” And if you phrase it as “gasoline,” it sounds even worse. All of the descriptions seemed to entail a scent that would be too raw, tough, dry, beastly, and masculine, even by my expansive standards. Yet, somehow, Nostalgia hits that perfect sweet spot for me. It’s hardly as smoky as Profumum‘s birch tar bonanza, Fumidus, or as austerely dry as Naomi Goodsir‘s Bois d’Ascece; and it’s definitely not as rubbery or leathered as numerous scents that I’ve tried recently. It also lacks the difficult, black, mentholated, “car oil” gasoline of Patchouly Indonesiano from Farmacia SS. Annunziata, another old, Italian, “pharmacy” fragrance house.

Source: saab92x.com

Yet, on my skin, Nostalgia is not predominantly about diesel fuel after the first 10 minutes, and it’s not even really a birch tar leather fragrance as a whole. Both aspects are there — though the “leather” is much weaker than the singed campfire wood — but they are seamlessly blended into a bouquet that is primarily about smoky warmth. After 20 minutes, Nostalgia is so smooth, refined, ambered, and golden that I find it absolutely beautiful. (And quite addictive, too, judging by my eagerness to smear on more Nostalgia wherever I could.) I love the touches of sweet, warm, slightly spiced patchouli, with vanilla, sweet bergamot, and the balsamic resins in the base. They complement the subtle touch of leather beautifully, removing its goaty, cracked, aged facets. From the seats of an old convertible, the leather has now turned into something more akin to a well-worn leather jacket worn by a guy who spends his time around a campfire.

The accompanying notes are interesting. Tiny touches of something herbal and vaguely medicinal lurk at the edges, but they are light and seamlessly blended within the larger whole. On occasion, the patchouli even offers up a touch of fresh, green peppermint that, oddly enough, works well with the bergamot. In the base, the styrax resin offers up a smoky, dark, resinous touch with the faintest hint of leather. It’s the same resinous note that lies at the heart of vintage Habit Rouge (which had a lot of styrax in its drydown in the old days), and in Shalimar.

Source: 123rf.com

At the end of 30 minutes, Nostalgia is a warm, graceful, vaguely leathered scent infused with birch tar and its campfire smoke, patchouli amber, and styrax, all lightly threaded with veins of sweet bergamot and vanilla. Initially, the perfume’s sillage was very forceful, wafting about 4-5 inches above the skin, but Nostalgia never felt opaque, dense, or chewy. Now, 30 minutes in, the projection has dropped, in keeping with Nostalgia’s generally softer nature. The perfume wafts in any airy cloud about 2 inches above the skin, and feels even thinner. Up close, all the notes are potent and visible in their individual state. From afar, however, the most noticeable element is the birch with its smoked, burnt woods aroma, only this one feels sweetened, almost honeyed in nature.

Nostalgia continues to soften, turning more abstract and warm as time passes. By the end of the first hour, the perfume is a soft haze of browns and gold, dominated by birch tar amber with patchouli and bergamot, with a base that just barely nods to sweetened vanilla. It’s lovely, but very sheer and light in weight. To my disappointment, it hovers just above the skin. In fact, my voracious skin seems to be eating it up with every passing moment, no doubt because it is an eau de cologne. Still, the notes continue to be very strong when smelled up close, particularly the ambered, sweetened birch. I just wish I didn’t have to put my nose right on my arm to detect the rest of the elements.

Vanilla powder. Source: food.ninemsn.com.au

The vanilla starts to rise to the surface, increasingly taking over Nostalgia’s focus to share center stage with the birch and amber. Midway during the 2nd hour, the birch’s smoke is fully subsumed within the other notes, and the impression of leather fades away. Oddly, and for reasons that I don’t understand, the bergamot briefly seems to grow stronger again, and it occurred during both my tests of the perfume. Even odder still, on one of my arms, Nostalgia remained much smokier and less citric than it did on my main (left) testing arm. Perfume doesn’t usually vary on me, from one arm to the next, but when it does, my right one always reflects a much drier, darker, or smokier version of the scent. That seems to be the case with Nostalgia, though it’s a short-lived, very minor difference as a whole.

Source: de.123rf.com

At the end of the 3rd hour, Nostalgia is a skin scent centered on vanilla amber thoroughly infused with black smoke and a touch of singed woods. The patchouli and amber have melted into the base, where they add a general, indirect warmth but they no longer feel distinct or clear in an individual way. The most striking aspect of Nostalgia at this point is how creamy that vanilla is. It feels like a sweet crème anglaise sauce: thin but rich, and almost silky in the mouth.

The vanilla increasingly becomes the focus of Nostalgia’s drydown on my skin, with slowly fading levels of birch smokiness. There is a tiny touch of powderiness, in the way that tonka can generally impart, but it is not substantial on my skin. Nostalgia is a gauzy, thin blur, and it feels as though it’s about to fade away any moment now after the start of the 6th hour. To my surprise, the perfume hangs on tenaciously a little bit longer. In its final moments, Nostalgia is a simple smear of something vaguely sweet and dry, conveying the subtle sense of a note that might once have been vanillic in nature. All in all, Nostalgia lasted just short of 7.5 hours on my skin with low sillage after 90 minutes.

On Fragrantica, Nostalgia seems to be a massive hit with the vast majority of posters, with guy after guy writing how they have to buy a bottle. Or, in the case of one commentator, a second bottle:

Cigars gasoline sweet powder rubber and a bit of sweat. What could be sexier? Take that first sexual experience in a car with a bearded guy who is way too old for you, guilty, uncomfortable and exciting, wanting to run away from it and wishing it would last forever at the same time, and put it in a bottle. Nostalgia is a perfect name for this fragrance. […] Oh man I totally need another bottle of this.

“Rush” movie still, via developersaccomplice.co.uk

Another commentator amusingly began his positive review by describing Nostalgia as “FERRARI AUTO REPAIR,” writing:

FERRARI AUTO REPAIR

I could also called this ‘Elegant Benzoin’. [¶] The gasoline opening is challenging yet intriguing. [¶] The other notes are present and accounted for, even if they can’t be specifically named (at least, by me). [¶] After time, the complex notes sparkle more than the Benzoin – and this fragrance keeps pulling me into it’s unique, luxurious heart.

I just may need to own this.

1967 Fiat Spider. Source: bringatrailer.com

Some other impressions:

Rubber and leather that smell exacactly like the interiors of my grandad’s old FIAT 500 during the summertime, when odors are emphasized by the high temperatures of the season. A great fragrance if you like challenging smoky rubber/leather scents a-la Knize Ten / CDG’s Garage / Lisa Kirk’s Revolution. I do. [¶] Downside: the drydown is quite conventional if compared to the opening, but still pleasant..

this juice is damn amazing and dramatic…Reason being, right out of the gate it smells really strong like racing fuel and literally 15 seconds later it begins changing..into this gorgeous blend of rubber and leather and several minutes later upon dry down remains the alluring vanilla-leatherish-Bvlgari Black blend. [¶] 10 out of 10 for uniqueness, quality, shock factor, longevity, sillage, and originality. [Emphasis to perfume names added by me.]

For one person, it took time and repeated tries to appreciate Nostalgia. His first attempt was not positive, but then he fell in love with the opening. He writes, “I just wish this stunning opening lasted longer” — and I share his feelings. He’s going to buy a bottle, and I would too if my skin did not eat up Nostalgia.

Women have written about Nostalgia too. One lamented that she only detected “sweet, prickly green tea,” which seems to be quite a unique experience and definitely not the norm. Another female Fragrantica poster, however, had a more typical encounter, and loved it:

I love love love this perfume. Not for the fainthearted nor the heavyhanded. Best worn on autumn as it can get too heavy for summer yet it lacks that certaint ‘warmth’ necessary for winter. Very avant-garde, surprisingly sexy. The funny thing is that my husband loves it on me but not on him.

One thing I found very interesting is that the current version of Nostalgia may have been reformulated to lose a lot of its leather heart. Almost three years ago, in July 2011, a poster called “Roan” wrote:

The re-edition doesn’t have the scent of leather.
In few words, this perfume during the opening is very very unusual…the first sniff will make you cry 🙂
It smells on tyres, pit stop, road, gas, rubber, cars, colors, like the store which has everything for the house – ‘do it yourself’. The smell is fantastic hehe, after a while it settles down and becomes powdery and sweet, very conventional, it has a lot of similarities as Le Dandy D’Orsay in the drydown. This is a must try for everyone who love perfumes and the art of perfumery!
P.S. Sillage and logivity are good enough, regarding the smell, I expected that will last for days. [Emphasis to name added by me.]

Ferrari Formula 1 Pit, practice session. Photo: Reuters via Emirates247.com

On my skin, the “pit stop” aroma was very short-lived indeed, as it seemed to have been on those who posted more recent reviews of the scent. I get the impression that the fuel note (like the leather one) may have been tamed down or reduced even further since 2011, judging by a few, more recent, comments that I’ve read on its duration. It’s rather a shame, because it’s truly lovely in its uniqueness and in its incredibly refined nature. It’s not NASCAR, but the Ferrari Auto Repair that one of the comments mentions, but it doesn’t last for very long.

There are several blog reviews for Nostalgia out there. On CaFleureBon, Ida Meister raved about the scent in a 2011 article that compared it with Lisa Kirk‘s Revolution.

Nostalgia revs you up with all the aromas of an imported vintage automobile – it reeks of luxurious leather interior, exotic woods, and benzene; what’s not to like?

I’m not a driver, and I’m mad for it.

The photo used by Ida Meister to convey Nostalgia. Inspector Morse with his famous Jaguar.

Both begin with that unholy blast that sears your nostrils, it’s NOT a gentle come-hither, I’ll grant you that.

Where they differ is in the drydown.

Nostalgia is an original Sillage Monster.

It may soften a bit, but it remains fairly potent and outspoken to the last, it just won’t give up the ghost.

I’m incredibly appreciative of this bizarre quality, and keep spraying myself over and over again.

But I’ve yet to purchase a bottle; where the hell would I wear this?

She does have a point. It may not be the most versatile scent, but I would wear it at home happily as a cozy scent (yes, I know, I’m odd) if it actually were a sillage monster on my skin. I’m sure that spraying from an actual bottle would improve things a bit, but only at the start. My skin simply doesn’t do all that well in the long-term with fragrances that are colognes in strength.

I think the most interesting and useful review for Nostalgia comes from the blog, Cocktails and Cologne, which analyzes in-depth just how much the fragrance does or does not replicate the “vintage race car concept”:

I love the smell of exhaust and unburned fuel from a hot rod without a catalytic converter—I even like the way my clothes smell after I’m around it. But would I bottle it? Fortunately, Santa Maria Novella’s vintage race car concept fragrance doesn’t take it too literally.

Nostalgia’s inspiration was the metal, rubber, wood, and leather of hand-built Italian race cars. It’s a great concept for a perfectly masculine fragrance, very elemental, and very sentimental too. […][¶]

That Nostalgia doesn’t have more fans may be a result of its polarizing top notes and its lackluster packaging (More on that later). I’m guessing many people never get beyond the top notes to the smooth, Bulgari Black-like vanilla and rubber stage.

The top notes are bright and utterly artificial smelling. I worked in a garage for a couple years and I’ve been around vintage cars my whole life but none of Nostalgia’s top notes quite conjure up the feeling of vintage racing to me. It’s closer to the smell of the plastic glue I used to use to build 1:24 scale models of cars as a teenager.

About an hour in, it smells a little more like Bulgari Black’s top notes: smooth and rubbery with a hint of leather and vanilla. It’s much milder than you’d expect for something that comes on with such a chemical assault. Unlike Black though, Nostalgia’s vanilla isn’t sweet; it’s more leathery with a hint of smoke. I love Black but I may prefer Nostalgia. [snip.]

The whole review is very well-done, astutely noting how the Nostalgia is suited to a specific audience, and discussing the issue of the old-fashioned packaging. (It puts some people off.) The article is definitely worth a complete read for anyone interested in the fragrance.

Source: worldfragrances.com

As you may have noticed, the subject of Bvlgari Black comes up a lot in the discussion of Nostalgia. I haven’t tried it, but the perfume is mentioned so often in other, very similar fragrances that I’ve covered that I really need to rectify that soon. At this point, though, I suspect I pretty much know how it smells, and yes, Nostalgia’s drydown is probably quite close.

I bring up Bvlgari Black for another reason. I know a number of women who love the fragrance, and have no problems wearing it. Those same women should also love Nostalgia. Yes, this is a fragrance that initially skews somewhat masculine, but that “racing fuel” opening is incredibly short-lived on me and on others, and the rest of the fragrance is much more approachable. Nostalgia should work for anyone who can handle the smoky birch tar aspects of Lonestar Memories, Profumum’s Arso and Bvlgari Black, along with the leather in Rien or Tabac Blond (both of which are significantly and substantially more leathered than Nostalgia), and smoky scents which contain touches of earthy patchouli. Those people should have absolutely no problem with all those various elements coming together in one fragrance that smooths out their rougher edges into a refined blend.

For everyone else, I’m not sure I would recommend Nostalgia. If you don’t like leather or birch tar, I don’t think you’d enjoy the scent. That said, I would like to emphasize again that all of the potentially difficult elements appear only in the opening phase of Nostalgia, since the majority of the fragrance’s life is centered on a very simple amber-vanilla with birch smoke that eventually turns to mere vanilla and smoke.

In short, if you’re even slightly tempted, then don’t let the sound of Nostalgia’s opening scare you off. It is a scent that both men and women who love birch leather, smoky fragrances, vanillic leather, and Bvlgari Black should try. Nostalgia is very affordable, utterly fascinating, and extremely well done.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Nostalgia is an Eau de Cologne that comes in a 100 ml/ 3.3 oz splash bottle and which costs $125 or €95. In the U.S.: Nostalgia is available directly from Santa Maria Novella’s US website which offers free shipping for orders over $150. (You may need to buy an atomizer spray that they offer to go with the bottle, as I believe it might be a dab bottle, like some of their other fragrances.) Santa Maria Novella also has numerous other sections worth checking out. All items are cruelty-free and have not been tested on animals. The Pet Section includes everything from Lemongrass Anti-Mosquito repellant in lotion form to No Rinse Cleansing Foams, and more. Santa Maria Novella also has stores in 5 U.S. cities from L.A., to New York, Chevy Chase, Dallas and Bal Harbour, Fl, and you can find those addresses on the website. Also, LAFCO, on Hudson St. in NYC, is said to carry the entire SMN line. I checked the LAFCO website, and I don’t see any Santa Maria Novella’s products on it, but I believe they carry them in-store. Other U.S. vendors: Brooklyn’s Dry Goods NY sells Nostalgia below retail for the old SMN price of $110, while NY’s Carson Street Clothiers sells it way above retail at $165. Aedes in New York seems to carry a good selection of some Santa Maria Novella products, from candles to soaps, along with Nostalgia for $125. You can order Nostalgia by phone from Luckyscent, but it is not one of the fragrances that you can order from the website. Frankly, there seems to be an odd situation with a few vendors being unable to sell SMN fragrances on their website, with one NL site explicitly saying that they received a directive from the company not to do so, but only to offer their fragrances in store. I don’t understand it.

Outside the U.S.: In Canada, a retail chain called Gravity Pope carries an extensive number of Santa Maria Novella products, from fragrances to shampoos, lotions and soaps. They show Nostalgia on their website, but for the reasons listed above, cannot sell it online but only in store. In Europe, you can turn to the Italian Santa Maria Novella website to buy Nostalgia, but I’m having a little trouble navigating the site. There is also no pricing that I can find. The SMN Farmacia has a number of European off-shoots: stores in London and in Paris. I can’t find an address for the Paris store, but the official distributor for the company’s products is Amin Kader Paris which has two stores in the Paris. Again, I can’t find Euro pricing information for the fragrance. On a side note, on a Fodor’s site, I read that Santa Maria Novella has shops in the following cities: Roma, Venice, Lucca, Forte dei Marmi, Bologna, Castiglione della Pescaia, London, Paris, and Livorno. In the Netherlands, Lianne Tio sells Nostalgia in her Rotterdam store for €95, but not on her website due to the SMN directive. Switzerland’s Osswald also carries the full SMN line, but doesn’t seem to have an e-store. In Poland, I found Nostalgia at Galilu, while in Auckland, New Zealand, it is available at Passion for Paper, though you can’t seem to buy it directly from the website. In Russia, the full SMN line, along with Nostalgia, can be ordered by phone from Ebaumer.

Samples: I obtained my sample from Surrender to Chance which carries Nostalgia starting at $3.99 for a 1 ml vial.

Review En Bref: Memo Paris Irish Leather

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Kafkaesque

My Reviews en Bref are for fragrances that — for whatever reason — didn’t seem to merit one of my detailed, exhaustive, full reviews. In the case of Irish Leather from Memo Paris, it’s because I couldn’t bear to leave it on my skin.

Source: haker.com.tr

Memo Paris is a niche line based in Paris. None of its scents are sold in the U.S., but I got to try a few while on holiday, and there were two I rather enjoyed. However, my appreciation was tempered by the fact that at least one of them contained ISO E Super, which I loathe with the passion of a thousand fiery suns. The rest of the line also seemed replete with the aromachemical, so I never bothered to get a sample. Recently, Surrender to Chance began carrying the line, so I ordered Irish Leather.

Source: CaFleureBon

The main reason was because of the incredibly evocative, romantic way that Memo describes Irish Leather on its website. The company’s co-founder, John Molloy, is Irish and he clearly wanted to convey the feel of his home country:

It’s one of those icy, biting mornings. The sun scarcely manages to break through the heavy grey clouds. The air is crisp and dry, and the wind slips beneath my clothes. The North wind whips the grass that sticks to my boots. I walk into the stable and swing open the wooden tack room doors, freeing the burning scent of leather, wood, amber and honey. Its age-old odor stands out sharply in the frozen morning air. My horse whinnies softly. It’s the smell of her freedom. The leather gathers in the wind, the grass warms with the wood. Irish Leather gallops off into the horizon.

According to Fragrantica, the notes in Irish Leather are:

juniper berries, amber, leather, mate and tonka bean.

Mate or Yerba Mate. Source: theplanteater.com

However, the company has quite a different list:

Pink pepper, oil of clary sage, juniper berry, green maté absolute, oil of flouve, iris concrete, tonka bean absolute, leather accord, oil of birch, amber accord.

Flouve grass via en.academic.ru

It might be worth a brief description of some of those less commonly known notes. According to Fragrantica, maté is a South American tree whose leaves are used for tea. They have a very herbal, bitter, and/or grassy aroma. A Google search for Flouve turned up a Wikipedia page for something called “Anthoxanthum odoratum, known as sweet vernal grass, holy grass, vanilla grass or buffalo grass.” The scent is apparently dominated by coumarin, and smells “like fresh hay with a hint of vanilla.” As for clary sage, it is a plant with a very herbal profile that sometimes smells a little lavendery. It also can have soapy and slightly medicinal tonalities. On occasion, it can have a leathery undertone as well.

All that is fine and dandy, but you’d rather expect a scent named Irish Leather to smell of the eponymous note. Not on my skin. Not on any of the numerous occasions where I tried it, only to give up in a deluge of Chamomile tea, green herbs, grass and, yes, ISO E Supercrappy. So, so, so much ISO E Super. I have now tried Irish Leather four times, and four times I have scrubbed it off. I have never gotten past the 5 hour stage before I finally succumbed, but at no point in those 5 hours did I ever smell leather.

Now, I fully realise that I am much more sensitive to aromachemicals than the average person. I also realise that the vast majority of people can’t smell ISO E Super. I really wish I were in their boat. All I can say is that, most of the time, I can put up with a lot of aromachemicals, despite my issues with them and despite the fact that they can give me a headache when an extremely large quantity is used. I will put up with it for the sake of a full, comprehensive review when the rest of the perfume’s notes have promise or are good enough to endure the misery.

Mate tea via 123rf.com

That was not the case with Irish Leather. There is absolutely nothing that I found interesting enough to warrant a 5th attempt that would take me all the way to the end. It has nothing to do with the headache, the number of Tylenols I was popping, or my sensitivity to the aromachemical. Irish Leather is simply not all that interesting a perfume, especially for its high price and accessibility issues. There is something particularly irritating (not to mention disorienting) about wearing a scent that is meant to evoke leather and horses, only to smell of Chamomile tea, herbs and crappy chemicals.

Juniper berries.

Irish Leather opens on my skin with juniper berries that recreate the scent of gin, followed by massive, walloping amounts of ISO E Super, and green notes. There are fresh green herbs, maté which strongly resembles chamomile tea, grass, and a touch of sweet hay. The primary bouquet is of the green maté tea aroma, with fresh gin, herbs, and ISO E Super. The latter has a chemical, rubbing alcohol vibe that is so strong, it completely flattens the other grassy tonalities.

ISO E Super. Source: Fragrantica

Irish Leather is very light and airy, but the ISO E molecules are so large and, more importantly, the quantity is so vast that I continuously have to sniff dried coffee in order to clear my nose. ISO E has the tendency to block out the nose’s smell receptors when it comes to the other molecules, the way an eclipse can block out the sun. On occasion, the size of the molecules can even prevent the nose from noticing the overall fragrance when it is smelled up close, which is why some people can’t easily detect their own perfume while others standing at a distance have no trouble at all.

Distance helps in smelling a fragrance replete with ISO E Super, but that doesn’t do much good for me if I want to detect or single out all the nuances up close. From afar, all I can smell is chamomile tea, green tonalities that are primarily herbal in nature, and the chemical. Unfortunately, up close, even after clearing my nose with coffee, that is all I smell as well. Leather? Nary a whisper of it. I feel as though I’m wearing one of Ormonde Jayne’s green scents (she likes maté a lot as well), only this one has the ISO E Super quadrupled. For the most part, I just feel as though I’m wearing chamomile tea. And I don’t like chamomile tea very much.

About 20 minutes into Irish Leather’s development, the green accords have been joined by what may be the faintest vestige of something smoky. I think. The hay element also seems stronger. I think. The perfume hovers about 2-3 inches above the skin. I think. None of this is a certainty because the ISO E Super has totally overpowered much of my ability to detect nuances, and there is nothing in the scent that is rich or dark enough to counter the chemical. My headache whenever I smell the perfume up close for too long doesn’t help either.

Somewhere in the middle of the third hour, the perfume starts to shift. It turns warmer, less crisp, green and wholly tea-like. There is a creamy and sweet element which infuses the herbal notes, along with hints of an abstract “amber” chemical. A vague suggestion of birch lurks about as well, but it is even more abstract in nature and generally feels like dry woodiness instead. Again, still no leather. None. What there is instead is a light whiff of an arid, desiccated chemical that simply becomes the very last straw for me.

I rarely last more than an hour or two past this point, though I admit that the wholly abstract, generalized, vegetal musk that creeps in near the start of the 5th hour isn’t terrible. It’s warm and slightly sweet, as though a farm’s wild grass and fresh hay have been turned creamy and golden. Unfortunately, it continues to be infused with the ISO E Super which takes on a very Ormonde Jayne lemony undertone. I still feel as though I’m wearing herbal tea, only now there is some warm cream and an abstract fake “amber” in it.

As a whole, on my skin, Irish Leather is merely random forms of vegetation — whether herbal tea, grass, Chamomile, or fresh hay — in a chemical cocktail for hours and hours. Perhaps it gets better by the end, perhaps the leather actually shows up, but I’m not being paid to undergo this experience and I draw the line somewhere.

Dried Camomile tea leaves via uniquecoffeeroasters.com

Irish Leather is a European exclusive and is not cheap at a minimum retail price of €168 for 75 ml, with some vendors selling it as high as €190. At today’s rate of exchange, €168 comes to $233. I personally find that to be ludicrous, but then the degree of my irritation is extremely high at this point.

I generally don’t provide comparative reviews in my “En Bref” posts, but I will here because I am that irate and I want to show that my perceptions of this bloody fragrance are not the result of some idiosyncratic hatred for ISO E Supercrappy. On Fragrantica, the reviews for Irish Leather are not good, and I’ll start with the comment that also notes the massive amount of the bloody chemical:

big amount of iso e super…
..not very interesting to my nose..and actually no leather…only plus: lasting power
if you like the smell of gin & iso e super, I recommend escentric 01 over this one. if you like the synthetics more complicated, I recommend comme des garcons 2 man..

Then, the others:

disappointing, for every leather freak a major letdown!

I am not sure if the names matches this scent,I am almost convinced it doesn’t. Opens with a strong iris note,could be the juniper berries and dries down to a vetiver-suede combination that just doesn’t work miracles!Green,sharp,reminiscent of forests but not of horses or leather. It reminded me of Hiris by Hermes.Overall,disappointed because of my high expectations(again).More likely to suit a man,I find it too dry and harsh for a woman.Decent longevity and low sillage.

The one quasi-positive review isn’t particularly enthused either, though the commentator does try to put a good spin on the scent:

Opens with a beautiful, albeit a short-lived forest accord; juniper berries and birch. At first, the drydown is leafy&vegetal which is presumably the mate note, reminiscent of the smell of the drink complemented by iris, sage, birch and leather. Leather is quite subdued for the first three hours, but more obvious after the mate & his veggie friends fade a bit. The latter part of the drydown is vegetal leather (very similar to Montale Aoud Leather).

Although this not my cup of tea (pun not intended), I found IL interesting and enjoyable, but not something I’d wear on a regular basis. Lovers of intense leather fragrances probably won’t enjoy this, but if you like your leather with some greenness or are looking for a scent that reminds you of a walk in Nordic forest while sipping some mate, this is worth trying. Modest projection, got 6h of wear with one spray so impressive longevity!

Yes, ISO E Super can give you impressive longevity indeed. As for the eventual “vegetal” leather scent that she experienced, it doesn’t seem to overcome the “cup of tea” from the maté for most of the fragrance’s lifespan, including its drydown, by her own admission.

I refuse to spend any more time discussing this absolutely crappy “leather” fragrance. The end.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Irish Leather is an eau de parfum that comes in a 75 ml/ 2 oz bottle that retails for €168 or £168. The Memo line is not sold in the U.S. at this time. Outside the U.S.: you can order Irish Leather directly from the Memo website. In the U.K., you can find Irish Leather exclusively at Harvey Nichols. In Ireland, Brown Thomas sells Irish Leather for €190, which seems way over Memo’s own price for it. Below retail is France’s Premiere Avenue which sells Irish Leather for €160. The perfume is also available at First in Fragrance for €168, at Belgium’s Parfuma for €171.20. In Paris, you can find Irish Leather at Colette for €170, in Italy at Profumi Balocchi, and, in the Netherlands, at Babassu where it is sold for €163. In Moscow, you can find the Memo line at Tsum or Orental, and in Dubai, at Harvey Nicks. Memo is also sold in Seoul and Tokyo, and you can look at the Memo Store Locator guide for listings. Samples: I obtained my sample from Surrender to Chance where prices start at $6.99 for a 1 ml vial.

Arte Profumi Fumoir: Campfire Smoke & Promises

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Kafkaesque

The promise of Russian leather, birch tar, smoke, ambergris, and velvet-covered, opulent smoking rooms in gentlemen’s clubs lies at the heart of Fumoir, a new and expensive eau de parfum from the Italian perfume house, Arte Profumi. From the company’s elegant description right down to Fumoir’s notes (which also include pepper, cumin, and rose), the perfume sounds glorious on paper.

Fumoir, via First in Fragrance.

Arte Profumi, whose name translates to The Art of Perfume, is based in Rome and seems to have been founded around 2013, the year when it launched all its fragrances. Fumoir is classified as a leather scent, but its name refers to smoking rooms at a gentleman’s club, as well as to a smoke house. Arte Profumi‘s website has little by way of description for the scent, and absolutely no notes:

FUMOIR
Birch
… conversations among men,
in reserved rooms,
covered by wood, leather and velvet
surrounded by smoke.

Source: Wingtip.com

First in Fragrance has much more information, and describes Fumoir as follows:

“Fumoir” by Arte Profumi is dedicated to a very special world – the world of gentlemen’s clubs and the pleasures of tobacco.

The quite, intense and distinctive fragrance takes no prisoners. Pepper and cumin are the strong vanguard. The fragrance bites wonderfully with smoky and leather notes, the rose in the heart is known only by hearsay and ambergris stays firmly in the background. The rest is pure and driven to extreme masculinity.

“Fumoir” doesn’t rely on hints. Whoever enjoys assertive smoky notes and old, creaking leather, or prefers a statement to diplomacy, will love “Fumoir”. The name in French not only means gentlemen’s room or smoking room but also smoke house.

The notes, as compiled from First in Fragrance and Fragrantica, are:

pepper, cumin, birch tar, tobacco, russian leather, rose and ambergris.

Talisker, an Islay single malt. Photo: Savuista at the Savuista blog.http://savuista.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html

Fumoir opens on my skin with beautiful birch, manifesting itself as campfire smokiness infused with a peaty, somewhat salty, single malt, Islay Scotch. I’m quite serious when I say that I actually murmured out loud, “Laphroaig on steroids!” which is a huge compliment, as I love Laphroaig the most out of the all the Islay malts. Here, the Scotch is amplified with that gloriously burnt wood, campfire smokiness that is such a core component of birch.

Birch Tar pitch via Wikicommons.

Birch tar is more than just smoky, though. It is often a key element in creating the impression of leather, especially Russian leather. Back in the old days, Russian tanners cured hides with the tar, and something in the popular imagination (or perhaps just in my imagination) tends to associate the leather aroma with dashing, fierce, or untamed Cossacks. (As a side note, Chanel‘s Cuir de Russie probably helped in creating this association.)

Here, in Fumoir, the campfire aroma of scorched birch wood is soon followed by a definite note of blackened, tar-encrusted leather. At this point in the perfume’s evolution, the leather very much feels like its own distinct, individual element. Unfortunately, it later ends up being subsumed into the birch tar, which drives Fumoir from its very first moment until its end.

Source: lamag.com

The leather is really lovely at this point. It is so black and sultry in its smoky, rugged heft. Yet, there is an odd meatiness about it that continuously reminds me of a mesquite-smoked barbecue. Fiery black pepper thoroughly covers it and the overall effect is… well, you may call me crazy, but I keep thinking of Steak au Poivre. Perhaps it’s the result of the cumin with the pepper and birch, creating a combination which my mind is translating into a big, fat, meaty steak, covered with walloping amounts of pepper, and thoroughly infused with smoke from a campfire that is burning mesquite wood. The cumin really isn’t visible in its usual way, apart from that odd impression, and I detect no rose at all at this point.

Four members of the Tsar’s Imperial Russian Cossack bodyguard. Source: Pinterest.

Instead, Fumoir is a bonfire of darkness, singed woodiness, tar, peaty whiskey, and leather. The latter slowly takes on a slightly animalic touch, a raw, butch quality. For the first time in a long time when smelling a birch leather fragrance, I’m really transported to the steppes of Imperial Russia with its Cossacks. It never really happened with Cuir de Russie, but then, Fumoir is not as refined as that scent and it lacks the avalanche of soapy aldehydes that dominated the Chanel scent on my skin. In short, the Italian perfume has a very untamed, fierce element that the Chanel never did. At the same time, both the campfire smoke and the leather are stripped of the forest or chilly pine aroma that other fragrances with birch often carry.

My favorite part of the scent, though, is definitely the Laphroaig single malt aspect that I noted earlier. As the opening minutes pass, the note grows stronger, and its peaty smokiness works incredibly well with the meatiness of the leather, the pepper, and the birch. Scotch and a campfire steak, how perfect is that?!

Photo: Savuista at the Savuista blog. http://savuista.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.html

Alas, my overall enthusiasm is suddenly tempered exactly 15 minutes into Fumoir’s development when a synthetic note stirs in the base. It smells of very dry tobacco but, also, of an ISO E-like aromachemical. It is wrapped up in an extremely arid woodiness, as well as with a touch of very, amorphous golden… something. I can’t pinpoint what it may be. My first thought was Givaudan’s tobacco synthetic, Kephalis, that is often used for its leathered undertones. Later, though, I wonder if it’s Givaudan’s Ambermax with its peppered, ISO E Super-like notes? The dry, ambergris substitute, Ambroxan? A combination of Kephalis and one of the ambers seems most likely. Whatever the real cause(s) may be, there is definitely something that is not right and very fake in Fumoir’s base.

As a whole, the perfume’s overall bouquet in the opening stage is of tarry birch wood charred in a campfire and infused with mesquite, pepper, Laphroaig whiskey, and meaty Cossack leather, all lightly flecked by a dry tobacco whisper and a good dose of aromachemicals.

Source: speckyboy.com

Then, Fumoir slowly, very slowly, starts to shift. 40 minutes in, the perfume starts to gradually turn warmer and fractionally sweeter. The peaty whiskey fades away, while a kernel of “amber” in the base begins to bloom, seeping over the tarred leather and birch smoke. It creates a small dot of goldenness in the pitch black, but it is an abstract amber, an impression more than a clearly delineated, crisp note.

And it most certainly is not actual, very expensive ambergris, no matter what is listed in the notes. This is nothing like the scent that dominates a fragrance like Profumum‘s Amber Aurea. This is a wholly abstract construct that is nebulous, dry, and, increasingly, subject to a chemical taint, just like the equally nebulous tobacco note. The “amber” is actually why I mentioned those particular aromachemicals up above. Neither its ISO E-like jangly sharpness nor its excessive dryness is a joy.

The problem is that far too much of both synthetics have been used for them to blend well into Fumoir, though they certainly seem to help with the perfume’s projection. The perfume is very potent in the opening hour, and with good sillage that wafts out about 3-4 inches above the skin before eventually dropping at the end of the first hour. Despite the forcefulness of the birch smoke, Fumoir is quite airy in feel, and it grows thinner with time. Actually, it feels rather like an eau de toilette in nature, one which has a powerful start, but little actual body or depth.

“Gold smoke” by etafaz on deviantART.

At the end of the first hour, Fumoir is largely a two-note symphony centered on the main aspects of birch: burnt campfire smoke and leather. The pepper, whiskey, and vaguely abstract cumin element have faded away. However, the “tobacco” is finally starting to emerge in its own right, along with the “amber” in base. I don’t mind synthetics in fragrances if they are well-blended, in balanced proportions, and don’t render the scent into something that is heavily chemical in nature, but I have enormous issues when the quantity is high, especially at Arte Profumi’s prices. (More on that later.) Plus, Fumoir gives me a faint headache whenever I smell it too deeply for too long up close. That is a telltale sign that the aromachemicals are in a large quantity, as I don’t have such a reaction otherwise. Needless to say, I’m feeling rather grumpy at this point, and it only gets worse.

At the end of the 3rd hour, Fumoir smells of aromachemical amber, burnt wood in a campfire, and birch tar that is vaguely leathered, all in a warm blend infused with abstract, peppered, tobacco tonalities. It feels richer than it actually is, and it also reminds me of a very synthetic version of Naomi Goodsir‘s Bois d’Ascese, though not as interesting. Fumoir’s sillage has dropped to about an inch above the skin, but the notes aren’t hard to detect up close.

Source: Theatlantic.com

Fumoir is largely linear in nature, which is fine if you like the notes in question. Obviously, I don’t, but it doesn’t help that the simplicity of Fumoir’s bouquet is becoming increasingly boring. From afar, it really is nothing more than the birch tar’s burnt woods and some extremely arid relative of ISO E Supercrappy. For a brief period about 6.25 hours in, the rose appeared, turning Fumoir into a dry, woody rose and birch tar scent on an abstract amber base. It feels like a very distant cousin to Le Labo‘s Rose 31, only the nebulous rose is massively dominated by campfire smoke and an amber synthetic, instead of cedar woods and actual ISO E Super.

Campfire ashes. Source: dansdepot.com

The resemblance doesn’t last long, and Fumoir returns to its core scent of birch tar smoked woods with aromachemical amber and aromachemical tobacco. By the middle of the 8th hour, the notes veer between acrid, smoked, and ashtray-like in their nuances. There is a subtle vein of dirtiness that lurks underneath, like really old, stale cumin, mixed with mesquite. The whole thing makes me feel incredibly dirty — in an unclean way, and not in the good, sexy, skanky way.

I’d suppressed the urge for a very soapy shower for hours, but, finally, towards the end of the 10th hour, I gave in and washed off Fumoir. It was exactly 9.75 hours into the perfume’s development, and Fumoir would probably have endured even longer as my skin holds onto synthetics like mad. In all honesty, I think it was the monotony which got to me even more than the acrid, burnt, stale, fetidness of the final hours. Fumoir is all about the birch tar first and foremost, then the two other aromachemicals. The remainder of the notes are hardly key players, and the lovely Cossack Russian leather subsumes itself into the overall scorched woods aroma in a way that renders it a mere undertone in the perfume’s overall scent.

I tested Fumoir twice, increasing the amount of fragrance that I applied, and the overall result was largely the same in both instance. The only difference is that I didn’t detect any rose note with larger quantity of Fumoir. It was just more linear, aromachemical laden, and boring. And I washed it off even sooner.

I couldn’t find any blog reviews for Fumoir, and the fragrance has no comments listed on its Fragrantica page. There isn’t even a Basenotes entry for it. However, Parfumo (which is like a European Fragrantica) has some votes for the quality, sillage and longevity of the scent. So, even if there are no actual comments posted, perhaps you may find 3 people’s numerical assessment of the fragrance useful:

3 votes each for Longevity and Sillage, each coming in at an 83% ranking;

3 votes for the scent as a whole, which puts it at 2.5 stars or a 50% ranking.

I think the 2.5 out of 5 rating for the fragrance is generally fair, though perhaps a bit high for me personal. Still, it’s telling that 3 people who may not be as annoyed as I am by massive amounts of aromachemicals don’t think highly of the scent either.

It doesn’t help that Fumoir is neither cheap nor easily accessible. It is exclusive to Europe at this point, though you can easily find samples at Surrender to Chance. Even if you were to order it from First in Fragrance in Europe (or Jovoy for EU-based customers), Fumoir costs €225 for the 100 ml bottle. At today’s exchange rate, that comes to roughly $308. This is not a scent worth $308 or €225! It simply is not, even if you don’t share my disdain for aromachemicals. There is none of the rich body, nuanced complexity, or interesting development that would warrant such a price. I generally liked Arte Profumi’s Ecclesiae incense fragrance, though I thought the price for that one was too high as well, but Fumoir lacks its sibling’s quality.

Photo: Narinder Nanu via washingtonpost.com

More to the point, if you’re an ardent fan of campfire birch scents, there are much better alternatives out there at a much better price. There is the richer, deeper, piney Arso from Profumum Roma; there is the drier, more austere, interesting Bois d’Ascese from Naomi Goodsir (which is hardcore birch, campfire smoke!); and there is also Jovoy‘s Private Label with its heavy vetiver focus amidst the peaty birch campfire smoke and Mad Max leather. They’re all significantly better fragrances.

In short, Fumoir fails to live up to its promises, and I would skip it.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Fumoir is an eau de parfum that comes in a 100 ml/3.4 oz size and costs €225. There are no American distributors for the Arte Profumi line that I could find. Arte Profumi has a website, but not an e-shop or a Stockist/Retailers list, so your best bet in obtaining the scent is from two big European perfume sites. Paris’ Jovoy and Germany’s First in Fragrance both carry the scent. The latter also sells samples and ships internationally. I couldn’t find any retailers in the UK, the Netherlands, or outside of Europe. If you’re in Italy, however, the company has two boutiques in Rome. Samples: Surrender to Chance now sells Fumoir starting at $4.50 for a 1/2 ml vial. There is also an Arte Profumi Sample Set starting at $12.99 for 3 of its fragrance (including Fumoir and Ecclesiae which I previously reviewed) in a 1/2 ml size.