Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
11/23/2011
Apicius
222 Reviews
Apicius
1
A Sartorial Fragrance
It is always good to see a new perfume brand starting not with a row of average scents, but with just one, brilliantly made perfume. This is the case with Abaci, a gentleman's tailor from Frankfurt, Germany's secret capital of stock brokers and banks.
On their website, they present middle-aged-gentlemen in partly posh, partly casual atmosphere, garnished with handwritten worldly wisdom. With their bespoke and other suits, they aim at wealthy managers and Frankfurt employees with a rather good salary. The presented subjects reflect on their lifestyle.
So, despite some hints in the scent pyramid, one must not expect a cosy oriental – but certainly some distance to the mass market. The scent pyramid is unusually detailled – by far too detailled to give you a clue about the fragrance's character. But if you test it, there is a sort of main direction: Abaci is a modern, urban, woody Fougère. It even starts with an enormous herbaciousness. What we smell here is something in between bay leaf and juniper, underlined by some woody sharpness. The different flowery heartnotes are entangled into a very discreet floral indifference, just as it is right and proper for a gent's perfume. A certain alcoholic, slightly soapy note contributes to the texture of Abaci – maybe something musky – which is especially prominent in the scent's sillage. We know this as a determinative element in some very good men's perfumes like Micallef's Jewel for Him, Lubin's Itasca or Jasper Conran's Mister.
Abaci does not have a very long durability. After about two hours, the base note is reached, and it is more discreet than the top and the heart. The base note is common ground: basically cedar wood and vetiver. Of course, with this combination, the very popular Terre d'Hermès comes to mind – but Abaci is far away from being just another TdH copy. Somehow, the cedar-vetiver-combo is just a little bit more refined than it is in TdH and its followers.
With the keywords ”gentleman's tailor” and “Fougère”, a less known perfume by Penhaligon's comes to my mind: Sartorial! Sartorial is nearer to the original Fougère accord from 1873 as Abaci is, but both have this link to a tailor`s workroom. There is this smell of bales of cloth, of cloth-dust and dressing. I like it – it shows where Abaci comes from. Whoever feels a sensual pleasure in visiting a tailor's shop will certainly appreciate the Abaci perfume.
I have the impression that the Abaci perfume was developed with consideration to fit together with that brand. There might have been something more behind it than just the random decision of a business responsible that it was nice to have a perfume in the product lineup. We can congretulate Abaci on the obviously successful co-operation in the development of this fragrance.
By the way: currently, a sample of the perfume can be ordered on their website for free!
On their website, they present middle-aged-gentlemen in partly posh, partly casual atmosphere, garnished with handwritten worldly wisdom. With their bespoke and other suits, they aim at wealthy managers and Frankfurt employees with a rather good salary. The presented subjects reflect on their lifestyle.
So, despite some hints in the scent pyramid, one must not expect a cosy oriental – but certainly some distance to the mass market. The scent pyramid is unusually detailled – by far too detailled to give you a clue about the fragrance's character. But if you test it, there is a sort of main direction: Abaci is a modern, urban, woody Fougère. It even starts with an enormous herbaciousness. What we smell here is something in between bay leaf and juniper, underlined by some woody sharpness. The different flowery heartnotes are entangled into a very discreet floral indifference, just as it is right and proper for a gent's perfume. A certain alcoholic, slightly soapy note contributes to the texture of Abaci – maybe something musky – which is especially prominent in the scent's sillage. We know this as a determinative element in some very good men's perfumes like Micallef's Jewel for Him, Lubin's Itasca or Jasper Conran's Mister.
Abaci does not have a very long durability. After about two hours, the base note is reached, and it is more discreet than the top and the heart. The base note is common ground: basically cedar wood and vetiver. Of course, with this combination, the very popular Terre d'Hermès comes to mind – but Abaci is far away from being just another TdH copy. Somehow, the cedar-vetiver-combo is just a little bit more refined than it is in TdH and its followers.
With the keywords ”gentleman's tailor” and “Fougère”, a less known perfume by Penhaligon's comes to my mind: Sartorial! Sartorial is nearer to the original Fougère accord from 1873 as Abaci is, but both have this link to a tailor`s workroom. There is this smell of bales of cloth, of cloth-dust and dressing. I like it – it shows where Abaci comes from. Whoever feels a sensual pleasure in visiting a tailor's shop will certainly appreciate the Abaci perfume.
I have the impression that the Abaci perfume was developed with consideration to fit together with that brand. There might have been something more behind it than just the random decision of a business responsible that it was nice to have a perfume in the product lineup. We can congretulate Abaci on the obviously successful co-operation in the development of this fragrance.
By the way: currently, a sample of the perfume can be ordered on their website for free!
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