GothicHeart

You give me ice, my heart will burn.
You give me fire, my heart will shatter.

These two verses were originally created in my mind about Horizon by Guy Laroche, but during a wrist to wrist comparison between Fahrenheit and Fahrenheit 32 they unveiled a whole new meaning. For some moments they had me pondering over what would be the lesser evil for a heart; to burn or to shatter? Since "burn" could also be followed by "with passion", I finally decided that "burn" it is. Right after that I suddenly realised that the verses could be the national anthem of Flankerland, cause by their very nature they actually are an inversed harangue scolding the stupidity which thrives there. For what has 32 got to do with the original behemoth of the '80s other than the very same thing that its name indicates when converted to Celsius degrees? Since I'm quite sure we all can do the math, then zero, nil, zilch, aught, cipher, squat, you name it. However one more synonym of the aforementioned words is "love" and the prime meaning of this word is exactly what I feel about it.

Now, if there had to be some subliminal connotation for the word "white", I guess it would be immaculacy for half of us, and coldness for the rest. I belong to the rest. I could also belong to the very few who think of white as the colour of madness, and although cold suits madness way better than immaculate, that's another story.

Fahrenheit 32 is the younger brother whose heart froze with terror upon seeing what his elder sibling had done to the world. Therefore he searched for the most far-flung and sparsely populated place possible, so as to avoid any future contact with his brother's volcanic temper, changing a few letters in order to turn "sulphuric" into "soporific" in the meanwhile. For sleep is the ultimate nepenthe and the world suddenly found itself with too many ugly stories that needed to be forgotten after 1988. Deciding that any eternal icescapes would be the perfect place to invest in oblivion and save face, Fahrenheit 32 moved to Antarctica and rendered its niveous self invisible in its endless whiteness.

Am I the only one around here who always conditions himself into smelling vanilla upon seeing vast planes covered in snow?
Am I the only one who believes that howling glacial winds is what's actually unleashed every time I press the sprayer of Fahrenheit 32?
Am I the only one who keeps its bottle in the fridge during hot summer days for I fear it will thaw if I don't do it?
Could it be the sole fragrance outnumbering (or is it outfreezing?) absolute zero?
Could it be the wedding perfume of the Snow Queen?

I've always believed that it's nigh impossible to tell whether ice prevails over fire or vice versa and the very existence of the universe (and Iceland) keeps my question unanswered. However, in olfactory terms this is one of the very few cases where this question is no more, since according to what evaluating credit my nose might hold, Fahrenheit 32 has won over Fahrenheit by a landslide. Oh, and it's also the sole case thus far where a flanker has outdone its begetter, despite being a weakling compared to its infernal majesty. I bow before the mighty Fahrenheit, but it's the kind of bow that's motivated rather by dread than respect. And then I ride the winds with Fahrenheit 32 and go to watch the polar lights reversing the spectrum of its icebound whiteness in the night sky over its frozen kingdom. Join us. It's certainly worth it...

Eve was a moll.
Adam was mad.
God was drunk.
Satan was green.
Heaven was crumbling.
Innocence was decaying.
Debauchery was thriving.
Something was very, very wrong.
But also so very right.

I should have booked in 1994...

The place I live belongs to a continental climate zone which means harsh winters and sizzling summers. This fact has led me to believe that most fragrances are shining their best self either in cold or heat, suffering a considerable reduction of developing their olfactory merits when they are worn in their less effective temperature spectrum.

That never was the case with Pino Silvestre because it was always a breath of fresh forest air, incarnated by either the howling arctic winds of Scandinavia or the gentle summer breeze of the Mediterranean. The etymology of Scandinavia is yet to be decided, but since "Mediterranean" means the center of the world, then Pino Silvestre represents this term way better than any other male fragrance would ever do. Emitting its green waves from Italy, the very heart of the Mediterranean, Pino Silvestre is global, epic and staggering.

Thinking that calling it the best male scent ever made would be sort of an overstatement, I'll just say that having a place in the ten best male fragrances ever would be no overstatement at all. I have never ever confused it with any other fragrance and I believe it's so classic that it's classicality itself. Something like the olfactory equivalent of Jules Verne and Alexander Pushkin, since it's wildly adventurous and plain equitable altogether. Or something like being simultaneously complacent and not complacent or romantic and not romantic, if you like. How many fragrances would not be laughed at by making such claims, even if they are around for six decades?
And speaking of straightforward merits, who said that a fragrance has to cost a fortune to be stunning? Where I live you can have 750ml of Brut, 300ml of Tabac and 350ml of Agua Brava for 100€. Or a whole bucketful of shiny green pine cones named Pino Silvestre.

Although it was launched some 20 years later, I believe it was Europe's answer to the other iconic men's fragrance coming from the western shore. Pino Silvestre's archenemy could be no other than the most popular masculine fragrance ever made till then. In other words, Old Spice. But since they belonged to two entirely different genres, instead of a legendary battle we were left with yet another olfactory masterpiece instead.
I've heard its bottle being called tacky many times, but if I had to call it something too, then "honest" would be the word. What you see is what you get, simple as that. You buy a fragrance in a green pine cone, right? What would you expect yourself to smell like other than a pine forest?
Its biggest advantage however is its aptidude of reassuring you that everything is going to be just fine. That even if the whole world has come to your doorstep, brandishing pitchforks and torches while demanding your ostracism from their modernity land, there's still a sheltering forest to hide and prepare your retaliation. Pine cones can be surely used as a last resort weapon after all, especially when unopened. Just like the ones after which Pino Silvestre's iconic bottle was made.

I don't believe there's more than a handful of European men over forty who have never used Pino Silvestre at some point. And many of them are still proudly using it, no matter how hard fragrance evolution tries to lure them away. I believe it has a very certain association with olfactory childhood memories, and many of us are extremely stubborn when it comes to parting from them. And while most of us live in cities, surrounded by a passel of artificial smells, some of us still have a soothing pine forest forever rooted in the very centre of our hearts' geography. And what is a scent without a heartbeat throbbing it?...

Desirade is quite a strange case. While it's clearly an oriental, it's like it comes from an orient entirely of its own, for it's very unusual and it doesn't remind me of anything else. Not of a perfume at least. What it actually reminds me of, is Nag Champa incense sticks. It has a wetness which is so intense that's almost tactile. It's overly sweet, cloying even, but instead of running away from it, I found myself going closer. I guess this is what "hypnotic" means in olfactory terms. Not being able to run away from something seemingly undesired. And this is Desirade's secret power in the form of an enthralling spell.
I don't know whether it has anything to do with the French overseas island of La Desirade in the Lesser Antilles, unless it was named after it to evoke a sence of exoticness. If this was the case behind its christening, then congratulations Aubusson, you've absolutely nailed it! This is exactly how I imagine the lush, strange flowers of the Caribbees would smell like.
Never mind that it has the most impractical cap ever, cause that aside, the bottle is very beautiful; like a bubble of gas slowly escaping the ocean floor, or a spearhed driven into the ground, if the direction is reversed. Actually, it's an accident waiting to happen, as it scores a perfect ten in knockoverability [sic], but I really wouldn't mind my house smelling that captivating for a couple of months. And since it can be purchased for a song, the only adjective I'd use for this kind of an accident would be "happy".

How does yellow smell?
To me it smells like Volupté, for Volupté is a million suns burning in a bottle, blooming like yellow and white incandescent cosmic flowers, embroidered in the huge dark canvas of the space between the stars.
Most of the time we tend to forget that down-to-earth matters are still floating in a microscopic speck of cosmic dust swirling in the most farflung rims of a rather tiny galaxy.
If there was some fictitious fusion between the sci-fi and cloak and dagger genres, this would be the treasure waiting for the audacious adventurer in the end.
This is what Conan the Barbarian would risk his life for, in order to seize it from its rare earth august pedestal, facing either monstrous sentinels or grids of death rays all the way.
And while its abstract shape would have probably looked incomprehensible to his barbaric mind, the walnut-sized emerald on its top, beaming mesmerising memories of dense humid forests and lost cities, would have made it irresistible to his ravenous eyes.
I can't decide whether its bottle depicts a very primitive or a highly stylised bust of some long-forsaken goddess.
In its golden fathomless depths I can see the voluptuous charms of a barbarian queen ruling on some lush corner of an exo-planet, totally unaware that she's been monitored by eyes coming from thousands of light-years away. Eyes belonging to a deep-space plunderer named something like Carmen Sandiego, whose scent is oscillating like a pulsar for all eternity. Volupte is both these women and each of them is fiercely tantalising in her own unique way.
And while its top notes are scorching supernovas wreaking effulgent splendour on the dark and frozen extremities of the macrocosm, its base note is tears shed for something dear and long gone. And although you can hardly recall what it was, its absence still ravages your heart.
Somewhere in the background a melancholic voice is singing:
"For a moment you could not recall the colour of her eyes..."
And I stand terrified by the unbearable veracity these words are carrying.