O’Driù Peety: Honeyed Tobacco & Animalics

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Bespoke perfumery, your own urine, bears and honey, and tobacco sweetness. Those are some of the elements at the heart of Peety, a fragrance that I’d argue is actually much less edgy, revolutionary, or weird than you’d think. I think it is a very rich, rather classical fragrance that plays with French animalic traditions in a swirl of honeyed tobacco that can be quite addictive.

Angelo Orazio Pregoni of O’Driu. Source: Basenotes

Peety is a fragrance released in 2013 by O’Driù (henceforth spelled simply as “O’Driu” without the accent). It is a small Italian niche company founded in 2010 as part of a project by the Pleasure Factory, a specialty communications company. All of O’Driu creations are made by Angelo Orazio Pregoni, and several involve a “su misura” approach, or a “sur mesure,” bespoke touch. In the case of Peety (which was originally called “Secration“), the result is extremely clever and creative marketing which has certainly increased the company’s profile.

Peety via Fragrantica

You see, you’re supposed to “personalize” Peety with your own urine. The 50 ml bottle comes with 49 ml of fragrance, and you’re supposed to fill the rest with your own … er… liquid. No, I am not joking, and, no, I myself have not tried it. (Nor am I planning to, by the way. This is one area where my normally limitless curiosity comes to an abrupt, withering halt. So, obviously, this review of Peety is for the unadorned, more universal version.) However, others have “personalized” their Peety, and a few claim that, yes, their urine actually does make a difference in making the fragrance bloom. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless. I’ll take their word for it, because I like Peety a lot just as it is. Continue reading →

Vintage Bal à Versailles: The Animalic Queen

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Brantôme. La vie des dames galantes. Source: etudes-francaises.net

Bal à Versailles… the stories and images for this benchmark animalic floriental are well-known: leather-clad chevaliers peeing in corners of Versailles; lusty courtesans whose heated, quivering bosoms trickle with musky sweat; over-ripe florals competing with the smell of unwashed knickers; and, most of all, the smell of sex in the air. Leather, civet, dark resins all swirling together with indolic orange blossoms, jasmine, rose, sweetened benzoin, Mysore sandalwood, and a plethora of other notes to recreate the smell of Versailles, a rank place where 17th century aristocrats tried to hide their unwashed flesh and carnal pursuits under a heady layer of scented, powdered florals.

That is the legend and those are the stories, but not for me. Vintage Bal à Versailles has never been the rank monster of so many adoring and horrified tales. The very polarizing — indeed, infamous — fragrance has always been about something else for me. I first smelt it when I was 6 years old, and thought it merely a lovely, heady floral with a womanly vibe and incredible glamour. The 1970s were a time of Yves Saint Laurent, Bianca Jagger, half-dressed women with clothes cut down to their navel or up to their thigh, Studio 54, or, in my neck of the woods, sleek women showing off tanned, sun-kissed Mediterranean skin in couture and diamonds at the equally wild Whiskey à Gogo and Jimmy’z nightclubs. Bal à Versailles seemed a perfect representation for the time, and certainly no different than the Opium, Fracas, or Joy on my glamourous mother’s mis à toilette table. They all epitomized sensuality and sophistication to my young mind.

Jerry Hall, 1970s. Source: birkinbagbeauty.blogspot.com

We’re shaped by our childhood influences and mental associations, but I still don’t think vintage Bal à Versailles is the dangerous, rank, horrifying monster of all the tales. Honestly, it’s almost tame as compared to some of today’s animalic niche fragrances. Almost. It may be milder than Masque‘s intense Montecristo, but vintage Bal à Versailles is still not a fragrance that I’d recommend to someone just starting on their fragrance journey or to a perfumista used to modern, commercial perfumery. I wouldn’t even recommend it to more experienced perfume lovers unless they had a taste for strongly animalic, urinous, leathery, balsamic, resinous, indolic florientals with a touch of powder.

Photo: Pinterest. Original source unknown.

It’s a very narrow category but, for those who qualify, vintage Bal à Versailles is a must-try masterpiece that I cannot recommend enough. It is sensual, lusty but soft, sophisticated, edgy, opulent, and often verging on the feral. It is most certainly something that a man can wear. Supposedly, Michael Jackson did so for more than 30 years, stockpiling it in massive quantities. He is admittedly not a shining example of a very masculine man, but, as you will see from Basenotes and elsewhere, many men wear vintage Bal à Versailles without hesitation. One woman even said it was really a man’s fragrance, perhaps because Bal à Versailles has a leathery bent, along with a definite urinous edge from the civet that isn’t always easy. All of this, however, pertains to the vintage version, as the modern one is a ghastly, powdery, synthetic creation that has been compared to “grandmas in mothballs” and worse.

Eau de Cologne. Photo: my own.

Bal à Versailles was created by Jean Desprez and released by his company with the same name in 1962. There are three vintage concentrations, but I am going to focus primarily on the lovely, very affordable, easy to obtain Eau de Cologne with a brief discussion about the stunning, more expensive Parfum. (There is also a vintage Parfum de Toilette formulation, akin to an eau de parfum, but I haven’t tried that in years, and don’t have a sample to update my memory.) I will be basing this review on my own bottle of Bal à Versailles cologne which I believe is from the 1960s, and a sample of the vintage parfum.

Vintage Bal à Versailles Eau de Cologne, made in France. Photo: my own.

According to Fragrantica, Bal à Versailles’ very lengthy list of notes includes:

Top notes: rosemary, orange blossom, mandarin orange, cassia, jasmine, rose, neroli, bergamot, bulgarian rose and lemon;

Middle notes: sandalwood, patchouli, lilac, orris root, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley and leather;

Base notes: tolu balsam, amber, musk, benzoin, civet, vanilla, cedar and resins.

Source: Facebook

Bal à Versailles opens with the feral YEEOOOWL of a wild jungle cat in heat. There is no way around that simple fact, especially when you smell the fragrance up close. The word “urinous” is going to be used a hundred times in this review because that very long list of notes up top is dominated by one element above all others: civet.

If you ever want to laugh to the point of hysterical pain, I suggest you read Chandler Burr‘s account of an afternoon spent with the perfumer Jean Guichard in Givaudan smelling, among other things, civet. The incredibly amusing New York Times article entitled Meow Mix talks about what happens when civet was given on blotters to the group:

The owner of the perfume house immediately shouted, “Whoa!” The industry consultant yelled, “Ohmygod!” as if a grenade had exploded nearby. The Abercrombie woman jumped up and crouched at the door like a cornered animal. I think I actually ducked.

Civet. Source: focusingonwildlife.com

“This is civet!” Guichard announced. Civet is a fundamental French perfume material, a historic girder of the industry and the quintessential scent of France. It happens to come, Guichard said pleasantly, “from the anal gland of the civet cat.” [snip the truly hysterical account of the perfumer’s father, civet, “butt cream,” and kissing.] […] [¶]

Since civet is hugely powerful and long-lasting (cats use the odor to mark their territory), and since these are qualities valued by perfumers, it’s not surprising that civet is one of the fundamentals of French perfume. […][¶]

Talk to any perfumer, even American ones, and they’ll say that civet, used in tiny quantities, breathes astonishing life into perfumes, giving them weight and depth. Civet is like adding whole cream to soups or sauces: what could make you gag taken straight up and raw becomes, when underpinning the greater mix, golden and sensual.

The French can tolerate civetlike scents by the gallon. Kouros, an Yves Saint Laurent fragrance for men that’s perpetually on the best-seller list in France, is almost pure animal. It hits you like Wladimir Klitschko’s right hook and smells like his boxing shorts after 10 rounds. That is the polite way to put it. [Emphasis added by me.]

Photo: My own.

Vintage Bal à Versailles does not smell like a boxer’s dirty shorts after 10 rounds, but it does have a potent whiff of urine mixed in with honeyed orange blossoms, skanky raw leather that feels almost as if a lot of castoreum were used, and plush, warm, golden warmth. There is a strong, thick river of sticky, treacly, blackened balsams running through the base, and I would bet that one of the unnamed “resins” on the list is smoky styrax.

The intense, feral bouquet is infused with a plethora of other notes as well. Most noticeable is the bergamot that feels juicy, as if sun-sweetened and hanging thick from the vine. It is followed by crisp lemon, sweet jasmine, dewy lily of the valley, and unctuous, buttery, almost banana-like ylang-ylang. Lurking in much more quiet fashion in the background is the greenness of woody vetiver and fresh, green cedar. And, if you focus hard, you can even detect hints of rosemary flitting about, alongside a faint whisper of herbs. It’s not rosemary, per se, but more like a herbal bouquet with something almost like lavender.

Leather Hides. Source: Fragrantica

Within minutes, the notes rearrange themselves and Bal à Versailles shows other facets. The jasmine surges forward in strength, followed by even more leather and musk. On their heels is bright neroli, and dried, candied oranges. There is a growing touch of roses which smell simultaneously pale and pink, but also like the dried, stale kind that you’d find pressed in a book. In the base, old-style patchouli stirs next to the resins. Its brown, spicy, and slightly smoky aroma is perfectly complemented by the tolu balsam, burnt resins, amber, and a sliver of vanilla.

Dior Couture. Photo: Patrick Demarchelier for “Dior Couture,” a book by Ingrid Sischy, Patrick Demarchelier.

From afar, Bal à Versailles smells like urinous, indolic, over-ripe, honeyed orange blossoms and sweet jasmine, infused with raw leather, juicy citrus fruits, dried roses, a wisp of smoke, and a hint of powdered vanilla sweetness, all cocooned in a musky, resinous, golden, ambered glow. It’s a skank fest that goes beyond the whiff of slightly ripe undies to something much darker. I don’t think of Marie-Antoinette at Versailles, despite the strong vibe of chevaliers dressed in leather that was pee’d upon or women in opulent ball gowns. I think of heated flesh, leather, and sex in a mix that is very modern.

Photo: Photographer: Hans Feurer. Model: Candice Swanepoel. Vogue Australia June 2013. Source: Starstyle.com

This is not grandma’s powdered flowers, not unless grandma happened to be a skanky courtesan in a ball gown with strong dominatrix tendencies. To me, Bal à Versailles feels simultaneously like something classic from the golden age of perfumery but, also, like something that could take its place amongst the niche fragrances of today with their attempts to push the boundaries and to evoke the animal within.

Few of those modern scents can possibly match the complexity of vintage Bal à Versailles. If you took parts of vintage Shalimar, threw in a good dose of Kouros‘ urinous elements, you still wouldn’t have it. One reason why is that there is far more going on with vintage Bal à Versailles than just pee. In fact, I think it is actually less urinous than either vintage Kouros (which was driven more by costus root) or Masque’s new Montecristo. While there is an animalic musk element in Bal à Versailles, I think it smells more like a civet-castoreum mix than the powerful hyrax in Montecristo, the hardcore, intense costus root note in Amouage‘s Opus VII, or the more purely musk-fur-hair combination of Parfum d’Empire‘s Musc Tonkin.

This is probably a good time to provide some contextual definitions. In my mind and to my nose, there is a definite difference between, “animalic,” “horsey,” “urinous,” “barnyard,” and “fecal” — with the progression moving from left to right in terms of intensity, rawness, and brutality. Some people use the terms interchangeably or as crude shorthand for “ass,” but that is misleading, in my opinion, and ignores the definite differences in aroma between the various elements.

In the case of vintage Bal à Versailles cologne, several of those tonalities appear on my skin, though to very different degrees. The one exception is “fecal;” that is not an issue at all. In first place is “urinous,” followed by the much milder “animalic.” The leather occasionally has the faintest touch of something “horsey,” along with the rawness of uncured hides, but both those things stem primarily from the other two elements. Once, for an incredibly brief 5 minutes, there was a suggestion of something vaguely approaching a “barnyard” tonality but it was fleeting and in the background. I have never once smelled a fecal note from Bal à Versailles. There has also never been the smell of sweat, unwashed hair, smelly armpits, or stale body odor.

Photo: My own.

Bal à Versailles is a very well-blended prismatic scent whose opening bouquet of lushly indolic flowers with urinous, animalic, raunchy, leathery, balsamic, citric, and ambered notes changes only by small degrees. The core essence of the fragrance remains largely the same until the final hours, but the nuances and the prominence of certain notes vary over time.

Mysore sandalwood cross-section. Source: vk.com

The vanilla and sweetness grow stronger after 15 minutes, while powder clouds loom on the horizon. Small streaks of Mysore sandalwood appear, accompanied by fresh lily of the valley, and benzoin. The latter’s cinnamon-vanilla aspect melds perfectly with the Mysore sandalwood, creating a mix that is like spicy gingerbread with a growing touch of creaminess. At times, the lemon and bergamot are quite noticeable in the background; on other occasions, the dried roses very much overpowers the jasmine in the forefront. In one test, even the lily-of-the-valley, cedar and vetiver seem quite prominent at the 90-minute mark, while the leathery darkness in the base seemed to soften substantially. The orange blossoms, however, rule them all on my skin from start to finish.

Photo: Ellen von Unwerth for Vogue Turkey, December 2010. Source: http://blog.netrobe.com

Roughly 3.25 hours into Bal à Versailles’ development, the perfume is primarily creamy orange blossoms with urinous civet, sweet jasmine, soft roses, creamy sandalwood gingerbread, and a touch of vanilla in a golden haze. The leathery balsams feel much more muted, and the perfume as a whole is sprinkled with a light dusting of powder. The latter never smells like dated, old-fashioned makeup powder on my skin, perhaps because it is thoroughly infused with benzoin sweetness and ambered warmth. Bal à Versailles now hovers just above the skin, though it is not quiet a skin scent and it is still extremely strong when sniffed up close for many more hours to come.

Source: popularscreensavers.com

It takes a long time for the civet’s sharp yeowl to fade away, but the first hints of that come around the end of the 6th hour. Bal à Versailles is now dominated by creamy orange blossoms with a trace of honeyed beeswax from the sweet myrrh, followed by jasmine and lightly spiced cinnamon benzoin, all lightly dusted with powder. In its final moments, it’s merely a blur of sweet, golden florals with the vague hint of orange blossoms.

Generally, vintage Bal à Versailles cologne lasts between 10 and 11 hours on my skin, depending on the amount I apply. My bottle — like all the cologne versions — is a dab bottle, but I’ve decanted a portion into an atomizer which does increase the longevity. As a whole, the perfume is very potent in strength, but airy, lightweight, and soft in feel. The sillage is initially huge, with 2 good sprays creating an intense cloud that wafts 5-6 inches above the skin. Even when the sillage dropped at the 90-minute mark to about 2 inches, small trails would rise up from my arms whenever I moved, and linger in the air. As noted above, Bal à Versailles became a skin scent on me only at the start of the 4th hour, but it wasn’t hard to smell until the middle of the 8th hour. At that point, I was sure the perfume was about to die, but it clung to the skin tenaciously for several more hours to come. For a mere “cologne,” the longevity is excellent.

Photo: my own.

Bal à Versailles is lovely in cologne form, but it is truly spectacular in vintage parfum. It is deeper, richer, smoother, and more luxurious. There is much more leather, more darkness, and, most of the time, more raunchy brazenness. One of my few problems with the eau de cologne formulation is that civet feels quite sharp at times. That issue is overcome with the parfum, where it is much smoother and more well-rounded. I think the parfum is even more animalic than the cologne, but it’s not quite as shrieking or as obviously urinous.

Photo: my own.

There are other differences as well. On my skin, the eau de cologne is sweeter, thinner, much more overtly and obviously floral, and with a substantially weaker leather element. The vanilla comes out more in the cologne, while the darkly balsamic resins, smokiness, and ambered goldenness are stronger in the parfum. The latter has a much deeper, richer, lovelier drydown with oil-burnished, almost honeyed leather vying with the tolu balsam, incense-y styrax and amber for dominance. The florals seem almost like an afterthought at this point, which is why the parfum feels more masculine than the more feminine cologne. Yet, the parfum is also softer and has less projection on my skin, as is common with extrait versions. It lasts about an hour less than the cologne, but, then again, one generally uses much less.

Source: Tumblr and mindenseges.hupont.hu

I honestly cannot decide which concentration I like more. Sometimes, the sweeter, more floral, more vanillic cologne calls my name. On other occasions, the more intensely animalic parfum feels more appealing with its richer, smoother, deeper elements. Yet, sometimes, it can feel a little too animalic and a little too carnal, while the sweeter, more floral cologne seems easier to wear and more approachable. It comes down to mood, and perhaps to gender. The parfum feels a little more chevalier and opulent, while the cologne feels a little more like a feminine courtesan.

One big difference between the two is price. You can find a 1960s era bottle of the cologne on eBay for roughly $40-$60 in some pretty good sizes. There are always exceptions, with some sellers asking for much more, but it’s not hard to get a 2 oz or 60 ml (like mine) in that price range. I’ve even seen some barely touched 4 oz or 120 ml bottles go for roughly the same amount.

BaV Parfum mini on eBay.

Unfortunately, the eBay prices for the parfum version are quite crazy for anything other than a minuscule amount. Most of the bottles offered are roughly the size of a small sample or decant: they’re frequently 2.4 ml or 0.08 oz, and some are 4 ml. The price range for those is generally between $20-$35, which isn’t terrible until you consider how little you’re getting. On occasion, you will see much larger, more conventionally sized bottles, but those come with frightening price tags to match. (There is currently an auction for 4 oz bottle of parfum starting at $875. That makes the $217 bottle of parfum in a 7.5 ml size seem almost “cheap” in comparison.) Slightly less expensive than the pure parfum is the “parfum de toilette” version, which I believe is essentially eau de parfum, though I’ve never tried it and don’t know much about it. Here are some more photos:

1980s Parfum, 7.5 ml bottle. Source: eBay

Parfum de Toilette. Possibly 1980s. Source: eBay.

As a side note, there are bottles of “eau de cologne” shown on eBay which look very different than my own. They are not clear glass in a chiseled flacon, but tall, narrow bottles of opaque white with a gold pattern and, occasionally, the coloured Jean Desprez label that resembles a rococo painting of a 17th century woman. Some of the cologne bottles do resemble mine, but have a blue label instead of a cream one. I can’t date the various bottles, but I believe my bottle is the oldest version, followed by the glass one with the blue label, and then the taller, narrow, opaque white bottles which I remember from the 1970s. Here are some photos to show you the differences:

My bottle of Eau de Cologne. Seemingly 1960s.

My bottle of Eau de Cologne. 1960s, I believe.

Eau de Cologne, perhaps early 1970s? Source: eBay.

Eau de Cologne, perhaps late 1960s, early 1970s. Source: eBay

Eau de Cologne, late 1970s, perhaps? Source: eBay.

I’m no expert at all on these various versions, their dates, or how they may differ, but there is a very useful, detailed analysis provided on Bal à Versailles’ Fragrantica page by the perfume blogger, “Le Mouchoir de Monsieur.” He talks about the history of the various concentrations and reformulations, mentions their packaging differences, compares how they smell, and explains why he thinks Bal à Versailles should be dabbed on, instead of sprayed. He is clearly an expert, so I’ve included parts of his long text almost verbatim, but have broken it up with paragraph breaks to make it easier on the eyes and easier to read:

… following the classic standards of Haute Parfumerie, the original three concentrations that were initially made exhibited a trio of scents, each one different, and designed to sublimate the other two; thus, Jean Desprez himself would have instructed the wearer to splash on the Eau de Cologne with abandon, all over the body, perhaps even using it as an hair tonic. After a time, the Parfum de Toilette would be applied more sparingly, but liberally, on exposed parts of the body: The shoulders, neck, calves and decolletage. Finally, the Parfum, clearly conceived to be dabbed very sparingly on specific pulse points. […] It is my own judgement that BAV is one of the rare scents that truly does benefit from an application by hand, and not by atomizer: To atomize the parfum, for example, automatically distorts it. Remember: At the time of its launch, not one of these concentrations was offered in a vaporizer. The EDC could be then poured on, or applied with a sea sponge, as was often done with this type of “Eau,” (The first issue of this was called merely “Eau Bal a Versailles.”) The Parfum de Toilette, in its lyre shaped flacon, could be “dabbed,” eventually decanted into an atomizer and sprayed, but was most likely intended to be applied by stopper or fingertip. The original packaging of this concentration was clearly marked with the words: “A Fragrance to Compliment Bal a Versailles Parfum.” Finally, the Parfum itself, was very obviously one intended to be slapped on by fingertip with force, to awaken the veins, and to push the molecules of it into the skin.

“Louis d’Orléans Showing his Mistress” by Eugène Delacroix. Source: Wikipedia

As is rarely, if ever seen today, each one of these scents is vastly different. The EDC is a light, rosey musk and incense affair, surely the most wearbale by today’s standards, the PDT is a rich, heady symphony of smoke and resin, this one clearly the most “dated” of the three, heavy with the “Old Lady” connotations with which all of our modern noses are equipped, and finally, the Majestic Parfum, which is a symbiosis of so many elements that it defies any specific analysis in very much the same way many of the Classic Caron scents do. At the time of its advent, Bal a Versailles was the first commercial perfume of the Twentieth Century to out price “Joy,” which previously truly had been “the Costliest Perfume in the World.” […][¶]

Vintage ad. Source: The Non-Blonde.

There was a moment in time when the House of Jean Desprez, still in the hands of its founders, did itself re-formulate this composition, as it was discovered sometime around the mid to late Seventies that certain ingredients it contained were indeed toxic to the human body in the concentrations originally presented. This re-formulation was once again re-enacted in the mid Eighties, Jean Desprez still purely a French perfumer, for other reasons, these having to do with the increasing costs and outright disappearance of some of its second version components. This leaves us with seven French versions of this famed scent, all of which were of top quality, with no expense spared to maintain the integrity of the original vision of Jean Desprez[.] […][Emphasis added by me.]

Are you a little confused? Well, I wouldn’t blame you. I even skipped his detailed discussion about the more recent versions of Bal à Versailles, the two American companies that held or still hold the “Jean Desprez” name and patents from 2002 onwards, and their eau de toilette. If you’re at all curious, I encourage you to read his account. It’s a fascinating history, though convoluted and with an exhausting number of versions in total. (It seems there are fourteen, all in all.)

Suffice it to say, an expert on Bal à Versailles gives a thumbs up to the 1960s cologne as the most wearable by today’s standards, and to the vintage parfum as the truest, most beautiful embodiment of the scent. He also shares my belief that you should stay away from modern versions. I’ve heard that bottles can be found in places like TJ Maxx, and nothing good is ever said about them. People uniformly described the modern, reformulated fragrance as a horrifying, heavily powdered, very synthetic mess. I tried the modern EDT some years ago, and I wouldn’t recommend it.

Photo: Grover Schrayer on Flicker. (Website link embedded within.)

If you want more information on the three, main vintage versions and how they may differ, another Fragrantica reviewer, “Loving the Alien,” offers their assessment:

The Eau de Cologne is a civet-heavy and very powdery oriental in the vein of Toujours Moi and Tabu.

The Parfum de Toilette is a caramelized amber/tolu with deep notes of rose, similar to Avon Occur!, which is clearly inspired by Bal a Versailles.

The Parfum is an intensely spicy and incensey animalic. I can think of nothing similar to the parfum version.

They are all very, very different, although they have the same amber/resin/vanilla/orange blossom theme.

The new ones vary considerably; they are not apparently related to the original scent by much.

Regardless of version, I wouldn’t recommend vintage Bal à Versailles to anyone who didn’t love animalic, skanky fragrances. Fragrantica abounds with almost as many negative reviews as admiringly positive ones, though the perfume’s entry page does not distinguish between the various versions, vintage or modern, so it’s sometimes hard to know which one struck such intense fear and revulsion in people’s hearts. Still, I cannot emphasize enough what a polarizing, terror-inducing scent Bal à Versailles can be to someone who is unaccustomed to civet, its feline yeowl, raunchiness in general, or heavy, potently indolic, vintage fragrances. Some of the descriptions range from the mere “repulsive,” to my favorite: “someone’s overactive musk leather-bound crotch.” There is also talk about cat feces, sweat, “old lady,” and mothballs (undoubtedly from the indoles).

Screenshot from the movie, “Dangerous Liaisons.” Source: the Huffington Post

Even those who love Bal à Versailles use terms to describe it that would be negative in many other contexts like, for example, “filthy/beautiful/sublime.” The blogger, The Perfume Dandy, wrote a review on Fragrantica under the name “Assiduosity” where he lovingly called it “bestial” and “irresistibly repugnant”:

Bal a Versailles is a dangerous, irresistibly repugnant scent for men and women prepared to dance the dance of death. For all its wondrous beauty nothing can disguise the beating of its monstrous bestial heart.

There may be flowers and powder a plenty but this is an unapologetically animal aroma with plenty of tooth and claw.

With silage the size of a herd of wildebeest and longevity the length of an elephant’s memory this is not a commitment to be taken likely.

Accept its invitation and you are bid welcome to the party of a lifetime, but stay too long and you to may succumb to the guillotine’s blade.

But hell is worth the risk!!

Honestly, I think Bal à Versailles is so much tamer than the stream of forceful, intense, alarming descriptions on Fragrantica would lead you to believe. It is not for everyone and may smell dated by some modern standards, but there are far more intensely animalic fragrances out there, in my opinion. If you can wear Montecristo, Opus VII, vintage Kouros, Hard Leather, Serge Lutens’ Muscs Koublai Khan, or Cuir Mauresque, and if you don’t mind a light dusting of benzoin powder added to their debauched skankiness, then you should have no problems with Bal à Versailles. Everyone else, however, beware.

Vintage Bal à Versailles is not only for women. One Basenotes thread entitled “Can a man wear Bal a Versailles” had numerous men chiming in enthusiastically about the scent, including Mark Behnke of Colognoisseur. For one chap, Mike Perez, the vintage Eau de Cologne had a similar feel to some famous leather fragrances:

I finally found some vintage EdC today and bought it for a great price.

The EdC has, as a few other threads suggest, a similar leather feel to Knize Ten and (dare-I-say) Tabac Blond.

I think the comparisons to L’ Air de Rein by Miller Harris are credible, although this one hints at a much more orientalized feel. [Emphasis to names added by me.]

I can definitely see why he’d mention Knize Ten, though I personally don’t find it to be animalic. I think a closer analogy might be to an animalic version of Knize Ten Golden.

The eau de toilette bottle, which looks like a larger size of the parfum, so be careful and check the concentration on the boxes. Source: Basenotes

In that same thread, another chap compares the non-cologne formulations, and echoes the very common refrain that the EDT is the least appealing of the lot, though it is unclear to me if he’s talking about vintage versions:

I currently have the Parfum de Toilette and EdT. The Edt is kinda ho-hum to me. The Pdt is much better (richer and darker) but the parfum is my favorite. I went through a tiny bottle of the parfum in no time. It’s has a vague kinship to Kouros, but much more wearable. [Emphasis to name added by me.]

The bottom line to all this is that vintage Bal à Versailles is a legendary masterpiece in its genre. It is not for everyone, but if you have any love for raunchy, animalic, heady, powerhouse orientals, then it is something that you should try at least once in your life. I think it is beautiful.

Versailles. Photographer: Raul Higuera. Source: latinfashionews.com/

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: You can use find vintage Bal à Versailles on eBay at the following links: cologne and parfum. If you want to sample before you buy, Surrender to Chance has the vintage Cologne starting at $3 for a 1 ml vial. The vintage Parfum de Toilette starts at $4.99 for a 1 ml vial. The Perfumed Court has the vintage Parfum starting at $6.94 for a 1/2 ml vial. It also offers a duo of the vintage pure Parfum and vintage Eau de Parfum (parfum de toilette, I believe) for $19.99 for 1 ml vials of each. I don’t see the cologne version on their site.

Masque Fragranze Montecristo

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Kafkaesque

Source: opserver.de

Welcome to the jungle, as Axl Rose would say. Somewhere, perhaps in Paraguay, Africa, or Mongolia, a leather and fur-skin clad hunter called Montecristo stalks his prey through a jungle filled with tobacco plants and Cabreuva trees smelling of lemony florals. The trees are sprinkled with red chili pepper, cumin and costus root, then heavily blanketed in honey. The ground is a soft field of creamy brown from ambrette shrubs that waft a warm, vegetal, muskiness sweetness. They too are covered with honey. Scampering through the vegetation is the fluffiest, most adorable animal imaginable. He occasionally stops to pee on all the bushes, emitting a sharp, feral “YEOOWWL” in happy relief, as his scent swirls with the honey, spices and tobacco.

Source: godlikeproductions.com

On his heels is the hunter whose heated skin and sweat stains the rough leather of his vest. The chase is hopeless, our little rodent is too fast, and the hunter goes home. Covered with honey, he’s dirty and skanky from his exertions, and his musky skin is stained with traces of tobacco and sweaty leather. As he sips a glass of rum, his wife sponges him off lightly, leaving a mix of cleanness and animalism on his warm skin, before she takes him off to bed to make love.

The adventures of Montecristo the Hunter are the adventures at the heart of the latest masculine, niche fragrance from Milan. Montecristo is an eau de parfum from Masque Milano, or Masque Fragranze as it is written on their website. (The house is better known as Masque Milano, so that is what I shall call them from this point forward.) The company is a relatively new, and was founded in 2012 by two close friends, Riccardo Tedeschi and Alessandro Brun.

Masque Milano founders. Source: their website.

They see their fragrances as operas in several acts, even calling their brand at one place on their website: “Masque Fragranze – the Opera of life in four acts.” They add:

With Masque Fragranze, Alessandro and Riccardo do not intend to create a myth, a best-seller, a one-size-fits-all perfume for everyone. Rather, they aim at creating a collection of perfumes with a soul. Each one unique. Perfumes to wear like a second skin … the perfume behind the mask. […] The fragrances of Masque are to be created with a soul, and the nose’s appointment is to give life to our scene. Hence, every scene will have “its” nose.

Source: Luckyscent.

In the case of Montecristo, an eau de parfum which was released late last year in 2013, that nose is Delphine Thierry. On their website, Masque Fragranze describes Montecristo and its operatic screenplay as follows:

I – II
MONTECRISTO
In the livingroom of an old villa, in the Tuscan countryside.
It is the close of day.

Act I scene two
Every single element of the interior contributes to the warmth and reassuring comfort. The floor of old robust wood planks, aged and worn with the use. In the massive fireplace, coals are still burning. The comfortable couch is made of the best leather, once stout and rigid, and spotlessly tanned, is now soft and worn, and the colour is fading away. A deck of used playing cards abandoned on the coffee table. The tobacco leaves of the hand rolled cigar. A glass of rum.

Head Notes
Cabreuva, Ambrette Seeds, Rum

Heart Notes
Tobacco Leaves, Celery Seeds, Cistus [Labdanum], Benzoin

Base Notes
Golden Stone [Hyrax], Styrax Gum, Gaiac Wood, Cedar Wood, Patchouli. [Emphasis in bolding added by me.]

The Cabreuva tree. Source: purenature.co.nz

Two of those notes leapt out at me as something totally alien, so I did some research. As it turns out, those two ingredients play a big role in terms of Montecristo’s development on my skin, so I’ll take some time to explain what they entail. Apparently, “Cabreuva” is a type of tree found primarily in Paraguay. The aromatherapy site, White Lotus Aromatics, explains its smell and perfume uses:

The essential oil of Cabreuva (Myrocarpus fastigiatus) is a pale yellow liquid displaying a delicate, suave, sweet woody bouquet with a balsamic, floral undertone of good tenacity. […][¶] It is highly valued as a low cost fixative.

“Although very delicated and apparently faint, the odor of Cabreuva oil is often under-estimated in its effect of freshness and suave floral notes. In rose, lily of the valley, cassie, ambre and in woody-oriental perfumes, Cabreuva lends teancity and distinct notes of ‘precious wood’ with a background of slightly green, dry floralness, a combination rarely found in synthetic perfume materials.” Steffen Arctander

I have absolutely no idea what “golden stone” may be as an ingredient, and Google yielded nothing that applied, but the note appears to be what Fragrantica lists as Hyrax on its Montecristo page. According to its Hyrax definition entry, the hyrax is a small, adorably cute rodent whose feces have a super useful purpose in both ancient and modern perfumery. The Hyrax is the single, most important element in Masque Milano’s Montecristo, so bear with me as I quote from Fragrantica:

Hyrax via Fragrantica.

Odor profile: essence from the small rodent hyrax’s dried up crystalline fecal matter, combining olfactory facets of musk, civet and castoreum. Invaluable in a time when animalic essences derived by cruelty are banned. [¶]

Hyraceum, or Hyrax, is an aromatic raw material of the antique perfumery. However, men used this material much before they started to use it in perfumery. The African tribesman and people of the Middle East used Hyraceum as a traditional remedy for epilepsy, kidney problems, convulsions and feminine hormonal disorders. [¶] This substance is actually the petrified and rock-like excrement formed from the urine of hyrax. Hyraceum is fairly sterile, stone-hard material that also contains pheromones[….]

Photo: Fragrantica

In perfumery, we use very old, fossilized, dry and stone-heavy Hyraceum, which is typically over hundreds if not thousands of years old. It gives an animalistic, sensual and deep note that feels like a combination of musk, civet, castoreum, tobacco and agarwood. Because of its characteristic structure, this material is also known as Africa Stone. Earthy, rich and resinous[….] Last but not the least, no animals are harmed in making this material. [Emphasis added by me.]

When I smelled Masque’s Montecristo in the vial, I was struck by the softly lemony, floral musk aroma and how it glittered with drops of golden honey. Taking a deeper sniff, I could immediately see the feral yeowl in the back, but the primary impression was a lemon-infused “slightly green, dry floralness,” as quoted in Cabreuva’s description up above. When you apply a small dose of Montecristo on the skin, that bouquet continues to be very dominant, though it is not the main player by any means. It’s quite another story, however, if you apply a lot of Montecristo; in my case, about 3 good smears amounting to more than 1/4th of a 1 ml vial, or about the equivalent of one spray from a bottle. This review will focus primarily on what happens in that situation.

Montecristo opens on my skin with a lightly floral, woody muskiness, but the fluffy, cute hyrax rodent’s yeowl is evident from the start. The animalic notes are urinous, dirty, skanky, raunchy, and every other adjective that you can possibly imagine. I was immediately struck by the thought of vintage Kouros, and, to a much lesser extent, Amouage‘s Opus VII. Parts of what I wrote in that review apply here as well, as Montecristo’s scent is

urinous, like animal droppings, but also musky with a faint tinge of dirty hair underneath and [lemony nuances]. […] [The] sharply animalic note — often described by some as resembling “urinal cakes” — makes vintage Kouros a deeply polarizing fragrance. I suspect the same will be true of Opus VII. … [As a whole,] it is a deeply woody-leathery fragrance that feels quite smooth, with a savagely sensuous heart at its base and something that seems almost like a velvety floral.

Both vintage Kouros and Opus VII contain costus, an animalic base created by Symrise. There is no such note listed in Montecristo, but hyrax was described up above as having an aroma that combined the olfactory profiles of civet, castoreum, and real musk, presumably of the original Tonkin deer musk variety. So, if you’re familiar with any of those aromas, or with Opus VII, then you will have a definite idea of the main note in Montecristo’s opening hour. However, I should add that the costus-like aroma in Montecristo is substantially weaker than what I experienced with Opus VII. There, it was so intense and sharp that I described feeling as though a lion had peed on me and then dragged me through the Wild Cat enclosure at the zoo. Montecristo is nowhere as extreme, thank God, as I found Opus VII well-nigh unbearable. In contrast, I truly enjoy every bit of Montecristo’s raunchy dirtiness.

Source: etshoneysupliers.

Part of the reason why is because the animalism is much better modulated in Montecristo, but the main reason is due to its combination with the other notes. Sharing center stage with the hyrax musk is deep, potent honey. It infuses every part of the scent with a further animalic touch, but also with a rich sweetness that is almost indolic. My skin amplifies base notes, so I’m not surprised that the honey is so dominant, but I wish I knew where it came from. Cabreuva wood is described as being balsamic, not honeyed, so I’m quite lost. Perhaps it’s a side-effect of the rum, though the note doesn’t feel liqueured to me but more like straight honey.

Lurking underneath it is a quiet spiciness that slowly grows more fiery. It takes less than 4 minutes for something to appear that distinctly resembles dusty cumin, followed by what smells distinctly like a fiery, red chili pepper. There is also a natural, vegetal, very warm muskiness from the ambrette (or musk mallow) stirring deep in the base. More noticeable from the start, though, are the golden leaves of tobacco which weave their way throughout the musk and feel drenched with the honey. Lightly sprinkled on top of the whole bundle is a light, boozy note of rum. The overall mixture is a plethora of warmth, feral sharpness, sharp honey, natural sweetness, tobacco, spices, and vegetal musk.

Source: thesportshole.com

I find myself utterly transfixed by the animalic muskiness of the hyrax and, more to the point, all the different perfumes that Montecristo calls to mind. The urinous edge to the musk makes Montecristo different than Parfums d’Empire‘s challenging Musc Tonkin which, on my skin, opened with an extremely difficult aroma of hair, fur, fat and unwashed skin. Yet, there is a warmth underlying both fragrances, thanks to their shared note of ambrette. Montecristo feels like a more honeyed, tobacco-flecked, boozy, and ambered version of Musc Tonkin’s later, easier stages, once the fur and fat have died down. On the other hand, Montecristo is different in having the spices, as well as the lingering, extremely muted touches of the Cabreuva’s lemony, floral greenness at its edges.

Absolue Pour Le Soir, Photo pastiche: CaFleurBon

At the 10 minute mark, the honeyed, urinous raunchiness grows stronger, as does the cumin-chili spiciness, thereby triggering similarities to other fragrances. On both occasions that I tested Montecristo and regardless of the quantity that I applied, the first parallel that arose was Absolue Pour Le Soir by Maison Francis Kurkdjian. Both scents have the same heavily honeyed focus, infused with cumin, leathered undertones, dirty musk, and ambered spiciness at the beginning. There are differences, though, as Montecristo has a chili bite (from God knows where), not to mention tobacco and booze, but no incense or strong florals. With a much lesser quantity, Montecristo’s more tobacco-centered bouquet reminded me of a distant cousin to Serge Lutens‘ Chergui. A very distant cousin, as this would be an animalic, feral Chergui with spices, more amber, a thousand times more honey, darker woodiness, and no powder.

Special, limited-edition, rare bell jar bottle of Muscs Koublai Khan. Source: Serge Lutens Facebook page.

The main resemblance, however, is to another Serge Lutens fragrance: the magnificent, complicated, notorious Muscs Koublai Khan. If you apply only a small quantity of Montecristo, the musk smells similar, perhaps because the shared ambrette note, though the Masque Milano version is significantly sweeter with that powerful, animalic honey. If you use more, then Montecristo’s urinous, costus-like side is much fiercer, sharper, and rougher than it is in Musc Koublai Khan, not as smooth or refined. The more obvious, early differences are the tobacco, boozy rum, and that odd, inexplicable spice mix of cumin and chili pepper tonalities. Yet, once Montecristo’s opening mellows out and smoothens, especially three or four hours in, then the similarity to the Lutens is much closer. Perhaps the best way to sum up Montecristo’s first two hours on my skin is as a combination of Musc Koublai Khan, Absolue Pour Le Soir, and Serge Lutens’ Miel de Bois, before it eventually transitions into something more like Musc Koublai Khan mixed with lemony oud, dark resins, and leather. (We’ll get to those notes shortly.)

All this talk of Absolue Pour Le Soir brings me to another point: honey and skin chemistry. Honey — whether real or the side-effect of another note — is one of the trickier elements in perfumery. On some skin, it can turn screechingly sharp, akin to cat pee, plastic, or both. On others, however, it blooms. I happen to be one of the lucky ones, with the rather glaring exception of Miel de Bois. The one time I tested it was a rather horrific experience, though I plan on giving it a thorough, full assessment at some point in the future. My point, though, is that you may want to keep the skin chemistry issue in mind if you’re curious about Montecristo but don’t know how your skin traditionally deals with honey. And, as should obviously be clear by now, if you can’t stand any sort of animalic, dirty musk, or cumin notes in your perfumes, you will want to give Montecristo wide berth.

If the discussion of animalic honey and musk, costus, feral notes, rodent pee, cumin and the rest has you alarmed, well, Montecristo is a lot more balanced than you’d think. The perfume moves a bit like the shape of an “M” on a graph, where it opens softly, builds up mere minutes later, and feels pretty ferocious after 15 minutes. Yet, even at that point, changes are occurring to soften the impact, counter the animalic “Yeowl” that I keep referencing, and start the transition downwards to something much more approachable in nature. A quarter of an hour in, a soft, almost powdered creaminess stirs in the base. It’s lovely, reminding me of white honey beeswax butter or cream. Slowly, very slowly, it helps to take the edge of the urinous raunchiness, diffusing its slightly acidic sharpness. Also making its first appearance is a dried woodiness that, at lower doses of Montecristo, had a distinctly oud-like aroma.

Photo: Samuel S. Photo-men.com

It takes exactly 28 minutes for Montecristo to lose some of its ferocity on my skin, and to begin the slow transition to a smoother, less aggressively sharp fragrance. All the same elements are there as in the opening, but the raw, hard edges are being coated with a honeyed creaminess and satiny mellowness. I really think the ambrette plays a large part in all this, as its musky aroma is of the ultra-smooth, vegetal, plush variety. For me, its warmth is akin to the real scent of human skin, but clean, warm, skin the way it after a long, deep nap under a thick blanket. Montecristo’s musk isn’t at that stage yet, but it does show the first touches of a baby-soft, human fuzziness about it.

If I’m not talking loads about the tobacco, it’s because it really wasn’t the dominant note on my skin. In neither of my two tests of Montecristo did it trump the musk. In fact, the tobacco felt significantly weaker when I applied a greater quantity of Montecristo, as the honey and animalic musk were amplified.

At the end of the first hour, Montecristo turns softer in weight, density, and silage. The perfume is now a cloud radiating 2-3 inches above the skin, as soft as a baby’s chenille blanket in feel. It is primarily a warm, vegetal, sweet musk that really evokes for me the feel of human skin. It is still urinous and animalic, but the dirty side is much softer, more muted and smoother. With every passing quarter-hour, the urinous edge seems to take another tiny step back to the sidelines to join the tiny dabs of tobacco, boozy rum, and that rather nebulous whisper of woodiness.

Photo: Samuel S. via trendhunter.com

As a whole, the musk feels much more velvety, deep, and creamier than it is in Serge Lutens’ Muscs Koublai Khan (“MKK“). What I can’t seem to decide is whether the note is more or less feral than it is in the Lutens at a similar stage. In other words, the degree of pee. (The MKK was never fecal on my skin as it is on some people.) At various points in my notes, I wrote that Montecristo’s urinous yeowl softens much, much sooner than the same note does in MKK. On my skin, MKK has a quieter urinous, dirty, musky note at the start, relatively speaking, but it seems to last much longer than it does with Montecristo. In fact, when I wore MKK this summer, the feral bits were very sharp on me at times as well.

Yet, every time in the first few hours that I think that Masque’s Montecristo has settled into something not as animalic, something that is closer to the fuzziness of MKK’s later stages on my skin, something happens to make me change my mind. The urinous edge fools me, repeatedly, into thinking that it has receded. To be clear, it lasts almost to the very end, but I’m talking about how dominant it is, how long it takes for it to feel less of a dominating presence, and the time it takes for Masque’s Montecristo to approach the softer, “human skin” stage of the Lutens. All I can firmly say is that, as a whole, the musk in the Lutens feels thinner, lighter, and without the creaminess that I sense in Montecristo.

At the 90 minute mark, Montecristo turns drier and darker. The honey is much less dominant, and is folded into the musky base as a whole. The urinous edge is more muffled in feel, as are the tobacco and cumin. The rum and chili pepper have completely vanished. In contrast, the abstract woodiness starts to rise to the surface, along with that growing flicker of something oud-like. After 2.5 hours, Montecristo is a soft, animalic, vaguely dirty, sweetened scent with great warmth, ambrette musk, and leathery accents, all atop an amorphously woody base. Only the lightest touch of honey and tobacco lurk in the background. The perfume also hovers just above the skin at this point, and very weightless in feel.

Leather Tanning in Morocco. Photo by Burrard-Lucas via http://www.burrard-lucas.com/photo/morocco/leather_tanning.html

Raw leather being tanned in Morocco. Photo by Burrard-Lucas via http://www.burrard-lucas.com/photo/morocco/leather_tanning.html

What is interesting throughout Montecristo’s life is the leather undertone. It is never full-on or strongly black leather, but, rather, an impression resulting from the hyrax’s castoreum-like side. And its prominence fluctuates quite sharply. In the opening minutes, Montecristo has a definite whiff of something that made me think of the raw, uncured, animalic hides in Montale‘s Aoud Cuir d’Arabie. The note was quickly subsumed with the general, costus-like, urinous swirl of dirty animalism, but the leather was a definite subtext in the first hour. By the end of the 3rd hour, however, the leather feels unbelievably supple, lurking under the warm muskiness in a way that simply magnifies the latter. The softened, leathered castoreum also makes the warm musk feel incredibly velvety, evoking the feel of heated skin, perhaps after sex. A few hours later, however, the leather regains some rawness, but it’s a rather fluctuating dance back and forth. In all cases, the leather is only an undertone on my skin, and a rather quiet one at that.

Source: imgfave.com. Artist or creator unknown.

Montecristo is beautifully blended, and the notes feel quite seamless at times. I think that explains, in part, the variegated nature of the leather, but it’s not the only note that fluctuates. Once the intensity of the honey dies down, the cumin reappears as well, but this time it’s quite different. Instead of smelling merely like dusty powder in some Moroccan souk, the cumin smells lightly dirty. I don’t want to say “body odor,” because I don’t want to give the impression that the note smells like sweaty, hairy armpits. It doesn’t. It also doesn’t carry a stale, fetid, aroma of someone who hasn’t washed in days. I swear, it really doesn’t. But, yes, there is no getting around the light, earthy whiff of a body scent. God, I can see half of you stampeding for the door by now, as this is probably the very last straw in this whole Montecristo saga. If it makes any difference, it’s all very subtle. I mean it quite sincerely when I say that, if you can handle the cumin note in Absolue Pour Le Soir, you should have no problems with it here.

Montecristo continues to turn darker and woodier. By the end of the 5th hour, the Cabreuva’s lemony touches return, though they now feel underscored by a very fragrant, balsamic, dark resin. The slightest touch of something nebulously floral lurks at the edges, but much more noticeable is the almost agarwood-like nuance to the wood. As a whole, Montecristo increasingly smells of a lemony, slightly oud-like, vaguely dusty, resinous woodiness infused with a warm musk that is simultaneously vegetal and slightly urinous. The honey has been folded within; the tobacco briefly returns before flitting away again; and the leather fluctuates back and forth in strength, smoothness, and prominence. Montecristo remains weightless in feel, and continues to hover just above the skin, requiring little effort to detect its nuances if you bring your arm near your nose.

Source: Zavvi.com

It takes about 9 hours from the opening for Montecristo to turn into truly fuzzy musk scent. It is soft, warm, and sweet with just a slight powderiness underlying it. The texture is lovely, as it feels as soft as a petal. Now, finally, it becomes harder to detect, though Montecristo had turned into a skin scent somewhere near the end of the 7th hour. Montecristo turns more and more into the scent of sweetened, slightly heated human skin with a tiny touch of powderiness. It finally fades away on the same note, just over 14 hours from the start. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of its dirtiness and multi-layered complexity, finding its fluctuating, morphing levels to reflect great technical skill, and I remained fascinated with its nuances from start to finish.

There are already a handful of reviews for Montecristo, mostly from people who are drawn to this sort of fragrance to begin with and, as such, they are all very positive. Though I’ll get to the blog reviews shortly, I actually think the forum analysis from places like Basenotes and Fragrantica provides more useful, detailed or comparative information. One early Basenotes thread lovingly called Montecristo a “skanky, little monster,” and the poster, “Alfarom,” talked about Serge Lutens’ MKK:

The opening is literally arresting. A skank overload provided by a thick amount of hirax and other animalic musks. It immediately brings to mind of the fecal opening of MKK but whereas the Lutens morphes into a floral rosey thing, Montecristo gets all dark and moody with tobacco, resins and some of the darkest patchouli ever. Boozy / balmy notes lurk in the back providing some smoothness to an otherwise extremely challenging fragrance. The result is fascinating to say the least. The fragrance is pervaded by a warm animalic vibe throughout. Sort of a mash up between Lubin’s most oriental offerings and heavy animalic musks fragrances a-la Musk Tonkin and MKK.

On Fragrantica, there is similar talk about MKK. One commentator, “deadidol,” had a very different experience than I did with Montecristo, and you may find his wonderfully detailed review to be quite helpful. It reads, in part, as follows:

This has a super dirty opening of hyraceum and ambrette seed that could give MKK a run for its money. But whereas MKK is very civet-based, this leans more toward the sweatier side of things and will certainly challenge those who don’t fair well with hard-core musks. However, within ten minutes, it takes a massive detour into an unconventionality that’s wildly evocative and decidedly convincing in the associations it brings up.

Rum via cafekeyif.com.au

There’s a booze note (rum), but it’s more like the smell of booze that’s oozing from the pores of someone who downed the bottled a few hours ago—it’s got an unnerving filtered feeling to it. […] There are some relatively undefined wood notes, but combined they smell more like old bookshelves and furniture; and there’s something here that gives the impression of an extinguished fire as well. Imagine a poorly ventilated space that’s been coated with a layer of sticky, smoky, charcoal-type residue—a slightly sweet ashy scent, but mixed with dust that’s sat for days to produce a not unpleasant staleness that’s completely comforting. Frankly, it’s quite hard to perform a technical dissection of Montecristo as it’s evoking space more than individual notes, and it’s doing so phenomenally well.

So, this is a dusty, rustic, vaguely reminiscent scent that feels as though you’re looking into its world through an opaque piece of glass. Everything in it seems peculiarly distanced, yet it all comes together in a sublime way. I don’t know how wearable this would be for most people as it almost smells stagnant, but it’s hugely compelling and surprisingly cozy. If you’ve ever been drawn to parchment type scents (or perhaps the smell of old bookstores), or you like the challenge of a good ambrette seed musk, this is absolutely sui generis, and for me, it’s the best scent of 2013 hands-down.

There are female commentators on Fragrantica who seem to like Montecristo too, though there are only a handful of them thus far. One of them initially wrinkled her nose and thought, “this is way too much” but further testing changed her mind: the “more I test “Montecristo”, the more I adore it.” She calls it “a superb example of a true niche perfumer” that is “complex and dramatic.”

Old trapper’s hunting cabin. Source: Dailymail.com from Tradewinds Realty.

In terms of blog reviews, one of the more detailed ones comes from Fragrantica itself, where Serguey Borisov talks at length about the hyraceum and has a very evocative description of Montecristo. The piece is long, so I’ll quote the more relevant parts beginning with the images which Montecristo evokes for him. As you will note, he had a similar experience to “deadidol” on Fragrantica in terms of the perfume’s dusty woodiness:

An old clay mug with rum or whiskey stands on the table, an old sagging leather chair with cracked, scuffed and greasy arms, an old dog lying on the bearskin in front of it. Animal head trophies are on the wall—heads with the fangs, horns and ears. An old hunting rifle is positioned next to them. The entire room smells of animal musk, clove buds and dusty mineral particles which are reminiscent of gold or diamonds.

This is what the home of a troubled man smells like. The man had to be a priest and a soldier, a hunter and his prey, a miner and a night watchman. He lived so many different lives, with every single one’s own story written on his face. […]

Montecristo has a special animalic aura. It’s goaty smell is similar to costus or Symrise’s animalic base. [Hyraceum’s] scent is elegant and reminiscent of musk, castoreum, oud and civet. […][¶] It’s a wild and animalic nuance, it’s uncivilized and dangerous and as vague as dark shadows in a nocturnal forest. Wild, intense and smelly aromas make Montecristo just as dirty and brutal as Oud Cuir d’Arabie by Montale, but more bitter and more mineralic. The opaque brown formula, the scent of goat, resins and the bitterness of patchouli—that’s what distinguishes Montecristo from conventional incense perfume. Plus, it was strengthened with Iso E Super and musk.

I truly don’t detect ISO E Super in Montecristo, and I’m usually a weathervane for the bloody note. If it’s there, I don’t think it’s responsible for that vaguely oud-like smell to the wood. Serguey Borisov says the hyrax can be reminiscent of oud, so that’s the probable cause. I don’t detect any of ISO E Supercrappy’s usual troublemaker aromas; not its “pink rubber bandages,” its lemony-woody buzz, its antiseptic notes, or its basic, simple, dry pepperiness. There is also nothing which gives me a searing headache, so if there is ISO E crap in Montecristo, it has to be the most infinitesimal drop around.

The Non-Blonde loved Montecristo passionately, calling its complexity “mind boggling” and writing, in part:

I can’t imagine the reaction of an average perfume buyer to Montecristo by new(ish) perfume house Masque Milano. I just can’t. This is not the perfume to wear in close quarters with the uninitiated, because you will get The Look, I guarantee.

There are too many perfume brands and too many perfumes on the market. Very few of them offer anything new, even fewer come up with anything exciting that gets added to my “Must.Get.Bottle.Now” list. I just ordered my third sample set of Masque Milano perfumes, but I already know that Montecristo is going to be in my life from now on. Because it’s that good. That sexy. That fascinating.

As you’ve probably figured out by now, Montecristo is an unabashedly animalic perfume. The main culprits are two: ambrette seed with its expensive but unwashed musky vibe, and hyrax or hyraceum, which is basically fossilized pee of a cute rodent (completely cruelty free). The complexity of this animalic combination is mind boggling. It reminds me of really good civet, gorgeous intimate musk, the dirtiest part of exquisite oud, and a general air of debauchery. […] Montecristo is, indeed, dirty and slightly sweaty (cumin isn’t listed anywhere, but I swear I can smell traces about four hours into its wear-time) , it’s also warm, very boozy, leathery and intimate. It holds you close and tells you its interesting life story all through the night [….][¶] Montecristo is still there the next morning.

I share her opinion on the fascinating nature of Montecristo. Even more so, on how it would make average perfume buyers run screaming for the cliffs, then jump off. (I could see the survivors later burning any clothing that Montecristo happened to touch.) Montecristo is probably not a perfume even for someone well-versed in niche perfumery, unless they have a definite taste for animalic, dirty, leathered, goaty scents that skew very masculine. In short, this is a perfume for those with very specific tastes. I personally would wear it if I owned it, without a doubt. But I am hesitant as to whether I would ever buy it for myself.

Source: Tumblr. Original source or photographer unknown.

The reason is probably not what you would expect: it’s Hard Leather. The LM Parfums‘ animalic creation is my absolute favorite fragrance in recent years, and nothing is going to budge it from being at the very top of my list. If I have the need for honey-covered animalic, raunchy leather with muskiness, spice, oud and woodiness, I’ll turn to my precious bottle of Hard Leather. The perfume is more obviously leathered, has much more oud, and massive amounts of incense as well. Much more importantly, it has heaping mounds of almost impossible-to-find, genuine Mysore sandalwood from start all the way through to its gorgeous finish. The animalic notes in Hard Leather are much smoother, more refined and better calibrated than the Montecristo; the Masque Milano fragrance has a significantly more feral core, is much more urinous, and is also much sweeter. Plus, can I repeat my swoon over Hard Leather’s heaping, walloping, galloping amounts of genuine, rare Mysore sandalwood? Not a nary of a whiff of that in Montecristo.

For me personally, Hard Leather is also more versatile and easier to wear. Its dirty raunchiness is much more limited and refined in scope, so I would have no problems wearing it every day if it were not so expensive. In contrast, Montecristo is much more focused on the feral hyrax from start to finish. When you throw in the powerful role of the honey in Montecristo, the result is a scent that is best suited for special occasions, not everyday ones. Then again, I also think that way about Absolue Pour Le Soir, which is another fantastic scent, so that isn’t a slam.

If Hard Leather didn’t exist, I would absolutely consider Montecristo because I really think that it’s a super fragrance. It has phenomenal longevity, really good sillage, complexity, depth, and sexiness. It’s also not too bad in price: 100 ml of eau de parfum costs $215 or €150, which is substantially less than Hard Leather. So, if you ever wanted a mix of Absolue Pour Le Soir (APLS) and Muscs Koublai Khan (MKK), with a small shout-out to Opus VII from the costus-like raunchiness and a nod to the rawness of Montale’s Aoud Cuir d’Arabie, then you should give the Masque Milano fragrance a sniff.

Otherwise, I would advise extreme caution. I have to emphasize as vociferously as I can that Montecristo is not for everyone. In fact, I think a lot people would struggle with it, unless they are APLS, MKK, and Hard Leather fans. I also think that Montecristo skews highly masculine. Women who don’t appreciate skanky, dirty, leathered or masculine fragrances will probably be repulsed by the urinous aspects evident here. For this perfume more than for most, skin chemistry is also going to be paramount. It’s really going to determine just how extreme some of the nuances are on your skin, from the hyrax’s dirtiness to the animalic honey and cumin.

If all goes well, hopefully, you’ll be taken to the jungle with Montecristo the hunter. If it doesn’t, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

DETAILS:

Cost & Availability: Montecristo is an eau de parfum that comes in a 100 ml bottle that costs $215 or €150. In the U.S.: you can buy Montecristo from Luckyscent, along with a sample. I could not find any other vendors. Outside the U.S.: Montecristo is available at First in Fragrance and Essenza Nobile, both of which sell samples. In the Netherlands, it is sold at ParfuMaria for €149. I couldn’t find any other retailers, especially in the UK. Masque has a website showing Montecristo, but it has no e-store and I could see no vendor list either. Samples: Surrender to Chance carries Montecristo starting at $3.99 for a 1/2 ml vial.