MemoryOScent

Black Vetyver Café is another star of this line although it rarely gets the praises it deserves. It has a somewhat harsh opening, reminds me of hairspray, but this lasts only for very little and is followed by a brief burst of vetiver. Very quickly the coffee notes enters the scene and this is the best coffee note I have come across in a fragrance. This is pure, plain coffee: no cappuccino, no frappuccino, no milk, no cream, no sugar added. Coffee notes very often seem to take a turn to the gourmand ending up smelling like those cheap flavoured coffee blends, a nondescript combination of coffee-chocolate-caramel-hazelnut concoction, straight out of the labs of food flavouring companies. This one however is surprisingly dry, dirty and herbal. It reminds me a lot of Greek/Turkish coffee, which is lightly roasted, preserving the herbal qualities of the bean. Coffee in this form reminds me of a light immortelle note. Throughout the development coffee is supported by the light green vetiver note and perhaps a little citrous, but it always stays the centre of attention. Many of the fans of BVC complain about its longevity. I have a different experience with this. On me it soon develops into a skin scent with incredible longevity. Just as I start forgetting I wear it I get a cloud of the rustic coffee note surrounding me again. I do not get a great deal of notes combining for this. Although Fragrantica lists vanilla in the blend I cannot detect a hint of it or of any other sweet smelling ingredient. I love BVC because it is dry, herbal and rustic and it becomes one with the skin. Sometimes it smells like I have spilled coffee on me and forgot to wash it off, which I find very charming and daring. Fortunately it has the right amount of vetiver to keep others from detecting it as such. I like the quiet storm feel, close to the skin quality, big longevity (at least on my skin) combination. I would have loved an eau de parfum version of this though. One of the best and most original of the line.


Notes from my nose: hairspary, vetiver, coffee, grapefruit, woods

Riccardo Goti is a modern jewellery designer for which I haven’t been able to find much on the internet, and much less for his three perfume releases, Black, White and Earth. There was one blog post from 2008 and some listings from exclusive shops. It appears Goti commissioned none other than Unknown Perfumers of Santa Maria Novella to create three perfumes that would interact with the wearer’s skin to the maximum to produce a highly personal sillage of essence and skin chemistry. The packaging of black is minimal and enigmatic. A simple rectangular bottle, no logo, no title, in a black pouch, nested inside a black leather box sealed with a leather mini belt and a hand written tag with “black”" on it. Although it is very minimal it supports claims I read that it is “the most posh perfume”, perhaps not to the full but with a grain of salt.

The scent itself is actually very intriguing. It has the Santa Maria Novella old world vibe. It starts with a very fresh top of bergamot and mint mostly. The mint is very cooling but doesn’t stand off as minty. Lavender notes add a gentle blue hue to the opening accord. And hear comes the intriguing part: the top notes last long, a good half hour. All you get is a fresh, natural cologne. And then some amber kicks in and the composition takes a whole new turn. It starts sweetening up with vanilla and the warm glow of opoponax. It is really impressive how the sweet notes remain hidden somewhere for a good half hour without any trace of them being obvious and suddenly take over completely making this a chameleon of compositions.

So this not only was this a good buy (I got it at 60% discount) but it also helped me pin down what opoponax is in a fragrance. It is a sweet herbal note that bares some resemblance to immortelle. It is not as heavily spiced but it gives you the same feeling of walking in the country and rubbing a twig between your fingers to see what it smells like. It is resinous and sweet at the same time and adds a ray of sunshine to fragrances.

I would not characterize Goti Black Essence a “black” fragrance. The Santa Maria Novella stamp is all over it and this means that it is radiant, a bit cologne-y at start and with a velvety base. This is the SMN style. And the use of top quality natural ingredients. But it is a satisfying scent, especially if one loves opoponax as I do. And very long lasting!

Notes from my nose: bergamot, mint chewing gum, spice rack, vanilla, opoponax

There is a fashionable talk about cross-dressing when it comes to perfume and by some it is considered the highlight of olfactive sophistication. The truth is there is nothing sophisticated about wearing fragrances marketed for the opposite sex simply because the barrier between masculine and feminine scents is nothing but a thin line drawn by advertisers to attract the originally less interested masculine audience. No other fragrance can ridicule more the idea of perfume genders than Aramis 900 Herbal Cologne. The ultra masculine label has chosen a number and a rustic adjective to market a formula based on one of the ultimate feminine fragrances of the 70's, Aromatics Elixir.

Aramis 900 opens with a green, bitter, metallic muted accord. There are no topnotes in the classical sense. There are no notes that scintillate and sparkle as in most fragrances. With the first whiff you go straight to the heart of the composition. An almost aggressive floral accord is the first impression. Jasmine, rose and hints of spicy carnation. Although galbanum is not listed officially in the notes it is very prominent to my nose with its detached, metallic coolness.Geranium also contributes to the metallic shine. It gives an almost gothic presence to Aramis 900. The perfect accomplice to play along these lines is rose and although the other florals steadily disperse, rose gets a firm grip on the composition. This is a rose seen through a metal screen. It is slightly dusty but its main characteristic is that it remains caged in the stern, dark green, armor. The dusty melancholy of this rose is supported by a wonderfully earthy patchouli and vetiver combination. I cannot pick the civet but I can certainly feel the bold twist this rose takes. Although Aramis 900 has a muted, subsonic quality, it is a very strong fragrance. Both volume and body come straight from the 70's. By today's woody fresh standards it can even be offensive. It is imperative that one simply caresses the nozzle of the sprayer to be able to wear this comfortably, especially in warm weather.

Throughout the development a leathery undercurrent lurks in the composition. It is the magnificent green leathery accord that Bernard Chant has infused in many of his creations. Like Aromatics Elixir, Aramis 900 is a chameleon scent. Depending on who smells it, it can be a bold floral, a green leather, a woody chypre, a herbal-spicy scent. It certainly is a larger-than-life fragrance. The kaleidoscopic explosion of densely knitted notes is nothing else but the more demure sibling of the magnificent Aromatics Elixir. Like all Bernard Chant creations it has a thick honey like texture. It does not envelop the wearer, it rather swallows him. It takes no prisoners. Wearing Aramis 900 and Aromatics Elixir side by side can be a wonderful experiment and dissection of how the definition of gender in fragrances has shifted. Back in the 70's perfume was bold. It only made sense to lighten up the feminine composition to create a perfume that could be marketed to men. By doing so the rose pops up in the composition giving to the masculine Aramis a decidedly more floral aspect. Nowadays if the two scents were subject to a marketing blind sniffing panel, I doubt that the initial gender assignment would be maintained. Aramis 900 is easier to be worn by younger women while Aromatics Elixir is so familiar to those who wear the classic Aramis. So next time you stumble upon a discussion about what degree of sophistication and dare it takes for a man to pull off a feminine scent, please go to the counter and smell those two together. Men have been gender bending since the 70's without even knowing it.

Notes from my nose: galbanum, jasmine, carnation, rose, powder, patchouli, earth

Aramis New West was launched in 1988 and it was one of the perfumes that made wearing american colognes cool. It was labelled “Aramis, Los Angeles, California”, not “Aramis, New York” and it was launched as the ultimate sporty, marine scent of California Coast. For the life of me I do not know why…? Probably because calone was just introduced in perfumery in the 80?s as the molecule that could put the ocean breeze in a bottle. The 80?s and 90?s are full of calone heavy fragrances like Kenzo Homme, L’Eau d’Issey, Cool Water and Dune. But with New West something went wrong. Or did it?

I still remember the first time I smelled New West: it was like a breeze of cold mountain wind slapping my face. Cool, abrasive and dense. The note pyramid lists everything but the kitchen sink: aldehydes, artemisia, lavender, sea notes (the star molecule of calone), mint, caraway, bergamot, pine tree, coriander, juniper berries, bay leaf, jasmine, watermelon (this was an aromachemical that got completely lost in the composition) , geranium, leather (what? vinyl maybe but who would put leather notes in an ocean breeze scent?), sandalwood, amber, patchouli, musk, oakmoss and cedar. In reality what dominates the opening is a bitter green accord of fir, juniper, pine and everything resinous. Everything seems swimming in a sea of green-ness. The classic geranium and bergamot notes are hanging form the branches of conifers and calone is there too but to my nose it never manages to smell like sea breeze. The ocean is never so green. Instead the air caressing my skin is the cold mountain air that ruffles fir branches and sweeps the snow. As development progresses the foliage becomes thicker and the scent more traditionally masculine.

After New West. perfumers seem to have mastered the use of calone. With experience came standardization and all the clean fresh scents flooded the market. which is not a bad thing. But I still haven’t found a crisper, more joyful fir tree scent. New West became extinct with some modest cult followers. In 2009 Aramis made an unusual but extremely intelligent decision to relaunch New West together with the other discontinued or semi-extinct gems like Havana, Devin, Tuscany and Aramis 900 in a new uniform bottle under the title “The Gentleman’s Collection”. It was a wise decision because prices for a Havana bottle on e-bay were sky rocketing. And every single one of those fragrances is still as unique as it used to be when we first smelled it. The new bottle is rather insignificant while the original was copied by Acqua di Parma for the Blu Mediterraneo line. Interestingly enough I remember having a sample of Blu Mediterraneo Cipresso di Toscana or Quercia Marina and I vaguely recall similarities.



Notes from my nose: fir, pine, juniper, bergamot, geranium, lavender, vinyl, mountain air

This is a “Greek summer” fragrance for me. It was a blind buy because it was cheap and I had read great things about it. First of all the packaging is amazing. The box comes in a silver plastic wrap. Inside there is a seemingly ordinary box nested inside a black paper sleeve with the name of the brand and perfume minimalistically printed. Once the sleeve is removed the black box is in full view. The back of the box is covered with information printed in an austere, technical layout reminiscent of Comme des Garcons packaging. When you lift the top flap of the box the whole box collapses as the six sides are not glued together but are rather cut and folded around the bottle like an origami. This is probably the most interesting box in the market and although it looks perfectly ordinary it is an interactive experience. The bottle itself is strict and geometrical, very close to the shape of the precious crystal bottle of Encre Noire eau de parfum.

The perfume itself is a not ground breaking fougere but full of intricacies to my nose. It instantly brings to my mind a most carefree time, a summer lunch by the sea after a morning at the beach. It opens with some bitter citrus, a combination of bergamot and green bitter orange. And bitter is the theme that runs throughout this fragrance. Lavender kicks in but not the barbershop variety. It is a herbal lavender, slightly camphorous and very discreet. A soapy, fresh ginger note adds to the effervescence of the composition. An anisic spice note lurks in the background and in the end vetiver, fir and oakmoss create a very masculine base. So how does all this relate to lunch? These are just the conventional notes that I can isolate. But on a different and spontaneously associated level I smell different things. I get the smell of squeezed lemon on my fingers. The bitter herbal smell of boiled greens, a very traditional boiled salad dish that is as diverse as it is fragrant. To copy from Wikipedia, at least 80 different kinds of greens are used, depending on the area and season, including: black mustard, dandelion, wild sorrel, chicory, fennel, chard, kale, mallow, black nightshade, lamb’s quarters, wild leeks, hoary mustard, charlock, Smooth Sow-thistle and even the fresh leaves of the caper plant. You can imagine that these can taste quite differently, from the rather soft, nutty flavour of Amaranthus viridis (Gr. vlitta, ??????) to the bitter taste of chicory (Gr. rathikia, ???????) and the intensely aromatic and complex taste of Tordylium apulum (Gr. kafkalithra, ??????????) which reminds me of immortelle. These green leafs served boiled mostly or even raw, with olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon can be a light, refreshing side dish or can be used in recipes for main dishes as well. Angel Schlesser Homme has the common denominator of green leafs trapped inside the bottle. The anise note evokes inevitably ouzo. And the weirdest part of the composition is the inexplicable grilled fish note. This may sound repulsive but I am not referring to the smell of fish flesh but rather to the smell of charcoal grilled fish skin or grilled prawns. In fact it is very close to the caviar note of Thierry Mugler Womanity but I guess calling it “caviar” sounds a lot more appealing than “grilled fish”. A very marine smell, full of iodine and hints of smoke. I was driving myself and others crazy trying to confirm this strange note and I am happy that at least one more Fragrantica reviewer (RobbieX) picks up the same fish note and the overall savoury gourmand vibe of this unusual and imaginative fougere composed by Thierry Wasser. Unfortunately I cannot say that I can pick out the rice note that most other noses get, maybe because it doesn’t fit in with the rest of my Greek summer synaesthetic experience.

Angel Schlesser Homme has such a profound interaction with my memories and experiences that every time I smell it I can feel the sweet exhaustion of the heat, grains of sand stuck on my skin, needle thin rays of sun coming through the shade of leaves, the cool glass of ouzo in my hands and cicadas causing mayhem at high noon as the table is set in front of me.


Notes from my nose: lemon zest, green leaf salad, grilled fish, ouzo