Valdar

Back in the day, there weren't weird shows like Jungle Camp. The jungle was populated by real monsters instead of C-list celebrities like Dolly Buster who were filmed eating worms. Back in the day, they only let the really cool people, like Tarzan or Mowgli into the Jungle.

In the old days, everything was better and in the old days, the scents of Zoologist were still real elemental forces. The old, wild Dodo or the Bat from 2015...all still real monsters and no comparison to the new versions, which have degenerated into harmless little fruits.... but STOP!
Here comes the sloth! And this is an absolute primal force, or rather a primal roller, because it flattens everything. The notes are extremely raw, unadulterated and brute banged around your ears. A violent chamomile, a bestial acai fruit, bedded on a pitfall, filled with the viscous honey of green death, which swallows you like quicksand.
Okay okay....that might sound a bit brutal, because the notes are actually friendly in nature at their core, but in "Sloth" they come across as so real, so authentic, and yet also overripe, compost-like, that it really has nothing to do with the idea of perfume in the true sense anymore. In the process, any pandering is cleverly bypassed in favor of authenticity.

Now I have to get a little more structured and factual. The top note starts with harsh chamomile and indefinable fruit. Slowly, the chamomile joins the un-sweet honey notes of the heart note and is primed by a hay note. In those moments, it's reminiscent of "The Smell of Weather Turning" by Lush. If there weren't those fermented fruits resonating along the way, perhaps most reminiscent of the fruit from Byredo's "Pulp" but not playing too much of a role.

In any case, what I find really cool is a note that I can't place at all. It is very present in the head and heart and smells to my sensation, like pumpernickel bread. (Maybe someone here knows what that could be?)

As it progresses, it takes on a basic vibe reminiscent of BAT (2015) from the same house. Just a general, dense jungle feeling, which could not be nailed down on the basis of individual fragrance components.

This all lasts a really long time (10 hours+), has decent sillage and is wearable at any time of year and on any occasion, since people, if then, always think it sucks anyway, whether at a summer wedding or in the winter at the office work.

Okay seriously, it's a fragrance for yourself to enjoy alone at home in front of the TV while watching Costa Cordalis in Jungle Camp, who has to bathe in snails to supplement his C-list celebrity pension a little bit, so maybe he can afford an exquisite 160 euro fragrance like this one someday. How twisted life can be sometimes...

But well, the only drawback is (besides the price) that I find the fragrance, for the rather quiet mentality of a sloth as too wild. However, I must admit that I spontaneously also no more suitable animal comes to mind, except just an imaginary jungle monster, such as Dolly Buster, when she has to swim through a swamp with leeches and eat rotten mangoes. So in the distant future, when the reformulation is renamed "Dolly" and there's a disturbing drawing on the vial, you know Victor Wong has been on the phone with me too many times.

"Such filthy cold, and in the middle of April!" grumbled Max, as he went to the shed early in the morning at sunrise to fetch a spade. "Can't I wait till noon to do the job? The ground's still all firm and frozen?" he asked into the glassy sky streaked with soft rays of sunshine. "No! It has to be now, while it's still cool and frosty!" came the voice of his maker out of nowhere with a rumble.
"What's it for anyway? And can't I dig the hole over there in the slightly softer potting soil?" inquired Max further. "No! It must be here, where the soil is clay, and adorned with beautiful snowdrops and the fresh grass!" spoke his Maker. "Good heavens, but what for? Why this fuss in the middle of the morning? Besides, these flowers look much more like lilies of the valley!" continued poor Max, whining to himself.
The earth vibrated and his slowly growing angry creator answered, "Max! When Moses was told by his Creator to climb the holy mountain, he didn't ask any questions either...he just did it and that's that!"
"Oh shit, but I'm hungry, I need breakfast to have enough strength to dig a hole here!" the Chosen One continued to complain, like a petulant child.
The bright blue of the canopy of the sky opened up with thunderous sounds to form a crack that for a brief moment allowed a glimpse into the utter infinity of existence. A small object fell out of the crack and landed directly in front of Max. It was a coconut flavored Corny cereal bar. Max ate the bar and began to dig until his maker finally spoke "Stop! Take this frozen piece of clay with the clumps of grass on it covered in dew in your hands!"
"All right boss...now do you want me to mold Adam and Eve 2.0 out of it or what?" the Chosen One wanted to know further. "It's enough if you smell it and tell me what it smells like"
Max brought the lump to his nose and said "Well, just smells like a damn lump of frozen earth with a few tufts of grass on it....and now?"
"Nothing now....your order is hereby terminated!" boomed out the Creator's reply.
"Waaaaas, you've got to be kidding me!!!" roared Max.

Poor Max will never know that I, his almighty creator, only had him dig the hole in the frozen clay so that I would have a suitable example scenario for this review to better describe Zoologist's "Snowy Owl" fragrance.

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So, the scent starts off absolutely great with an indefinable, very dry coldness (you can't tell it's mint and coconut unless you read it's in there). There's no telling how this snow accord is made, but it certainly seems authentic to me.
Green, grassy elements follow, which might appeal to friends of, say, "French Lover", but all much lighter and drier.
After about 2 hours, the whole thing falls apart and all that remains is an inconsequential musk base, accompanied by the mysterious dirtiness that accompanies head, heart and base note from the beginning. This earthiness somehow floats along in the sillage independently of the actual scent and is gone as soon as you smell it directly on your arm. It's not the smell of potting soil, as in Figment Man by Amouage, and it's not the smell of dark peat, as in Nightcap by Dunhill (have fun people asking for a bottle of that at Douglas).
So In Snowy Owl, it's dry, frozen clay that is the complete sillage characteristic of this perfume. The rest of the magic takes place up close and personal on your arm for you!

So! And now I went outside today sprayed with it, happened to meet my aunt and said "Here smell my arm"
She sniffed and said "Mhm smells funny...it doesn't smell bad but good either, what is that?"
I replied, "It's a perfume that is supposed to reflect the scent of a snowy owl's habitat....fascinating isn't it?"
She said, "Mhm...well okay...." and walked on, unimpressed.

And that's the crux of why I give the fragrance a 7.5 and not an 8 or 9. It doesn't manage to retain an emotional component over a longer wear time. I want a perfume to touch my feelings. That can be negative sometimes and you are stirred up and say "Ewww" or you are moved to tears because a fragrance creates beautiful, atmospheric images in your head that make you dream. Unfortunately, Snow Owl only manages to do just that for the first 5 minutes with the snow accord. The rest is a somewhat green musky ground noise with floating clay particles. Quiet and disappeared after 7 hours anyway.

I'm not a professional and what I'm about to say is already petty whining on a high level, but perhaps an ozonic note symbolizing the flying of the owl would have given it a bit more emotional depth.

So it remains a quite nice, but for Zoologist mediocre fragrance. Too bad, because I would have rather identified with a snowy owl instead of a sloth, but Sloth scores much higher with me right now

Who doesn't know it? You wake up in the morning to gentle rays of sunlight shimmering through the dense branches of the forest. Dewdrops sparkle like diamonds in the leaves of the trees. Birds are singing and the sound of a brook can be heard in the distance. This would be beautiful if it weren't for that piercing pain raging in your head, the tired limbs and the lack of memory, immediately linked to the question, "Where the hell am I? What happened yesterday?"
But that smell in the damp clothes slowly brings fragments of last night back to mind. It is the scent of sweet Malibu coconut liqueur and mead (the honey wine, not that meaty spread).

Exactly! That damn mead! And that devilish coconut liqueur! There you were just walking in the woods for a bit in the evening and suddenly there was this wooden bar! Exactly! An outdoor bar, in the middle of the wilderness, made from fresh, resinous wooden planks. And those trolls and elves who ran the bar. "Why don't you try a sip of our liquor...a little glass won't hurt...and a little mead to wash it down...come on boy, just a glass or two, they're really small glasses too" they said.

And now you're lying like a fool in the moss, somewhere, hidden in the deep woods, with a headache and no sign of the bar. As if it never existed. A look in the wallet reveals the next shock. 160 euros drunk!
Well, but funny it was still somehow...

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So, what to expect with Amber Teutonic?

First of all, more amber than teutonic. And this amber accord comes around the corner sweetish, chewy, honey-like and part of it really has a fruity coconut association. It also has a boozy undertone that makes me think of various liqueurs.
The Teutonic woodiness forms a kind of cool background noise and is also dominated by a certain resinousness. Background noise is perhaps not an entirely accurate way of putting it. Let's say it shapes the amber's surroundings.

Now, unlike other scents from D.S. & Durga, like "Bowmakers" or "Mississippi Medicine," which I liked right off the bat, this one took a few tries. In the end, though, it still develops a greater magic and mystique than the two I just mentioned, which are beautiful but also easily transparent, which is more than you could say for Amber Teutonic. The chords here are an art in themselves, creating associations and images that have absolutely nothing to do with the individual notes that make them up. Fascinating....

The durability is relatively good with about 9 hours, the sillage reasonable and the wearability felt best in spring and autumn, certainly quite versatile and absolutely unisex.
Only and only the price of 165 euros for 50 ml gives me a headache, but as a worthy alternative, if you want a sweetish, honey-like forest, I can only think of "WALD" by Euphorium Brooklyn, which is in the same notch, but with (I think) about 150 euros for 50 ml is also not really cheaper (and does without the coconut liqueur).

So people... if you have a little spare change and want to be as cool as someone who gets drunk at night in a forest bar with mead and coconut liqueur to stagger hungover in the morning through the wilderness, then get the stuff!

First of all, this perfume is great cinema, because it is:

- unique
- modern
- well portable
- versatile applicable
- exciting
- high quality
- good performance (S/H)
- and absolutely crazy!!

I find all the components mentioned in the pyramid...the salt, the pepper, the ink, benzoin, etc., but incense dominates from beginning to end. And that is a good thing! Through the fresh elements surrounding it, it appears clear, clean, radiant and friendly, but the ink gives it a certain uniqueness and depth.

If that weren't great enough, there's also a wondrous, chlorine-like indoor pool note that resonates in the background as a special feature.
I'm not professional enough to say for sure what creates this feeling, but I attribute it to the salicylate. This is the salt of salicylic acid, which we know in different forms from aspirin, anti-dandruff shampoos, as well as from creams against acne and athlete's foot.
This does not give the octopus a medical character, but it seems as if it does not live in dirty waters, but rather splashes around in artificially cleaned and sterilized indoor swimming pools.

Now I've been wondering all the time while wearing it how it all fits together:
Sacred incense (one of the most beautiful I know) and a fierce squid that secretes black ink and swims around the indoor swimming pool ?
And since it was like dandruff from my hair (since I have no shampoo against it) and the circle was closed
The incense is smoked by a sect who pay homage to their god in a ritual ceremony in the indoor pool! For this God is none other than the mighty Cthulhu, who rose from the bottom of the sea and moved to an indoor pool, as this could be better converted into a church and, moreover, modern times require modern measures.
So let's celebrate the resurrection of the great old man with this magnificent fragrance creation!

"It is not dead that which lies eternal, till time conquers death"

What you get here is (discreetly formulated) daring and ingenious at the same time!

Had to test it, because on the one hand I'm a big friend of the brand and on the other hand I often came across comparisons with the 2015 Bat from Zoologist, which I found very interesting.

Right from the start I could hardly smell parallels to the Bat (2015). While the earthiness of the Bat is tropical, warming and banana-fruity, reminds me more of an air-conditioned terrarium for reptiles, the earthiness here is completely different. Figment smells like pure, clear potting soil with a not more defined sweetness

It doesn't smell like perfume. Not at all! And yet not bad at all, if you like the smell of soil.
You would never spontaneously think of lemons, rose geranium and pepper at the start. On the other hand, if you know it, it is quite possible to deduce that this fresh earthiness is created by a chord made up of these components. And that's great ... that's just great from an artistic point of view!

In the course of time the whole thing loses a bit of its pungent sweetness and freshness and gains incredible depth. Sandalwood and vetiver can be guessed, but it simply remains earthy. This earth seems to have only a thousand facets, which it reveals within about 10 hours, while my personal favourite moment begins at about half time, after 5 hours.

Presumably, the somewhat biting prelude is a bit too aggressive and unusual for the people you are surrounded by. But I think that after about an hour, Figment becomes more or less socially acceptable. You don't smell perfumed, but perhaps as if you had just repotted some flowers or dug up a box of gold that was a meter below ground with your bare hands. This definitely does not smell "normal", but it's not bad at all.

I didn't find this perfume really animalistic, although at least at the beginning I thought that a few sour faecal smells were resonating in the background, which, however, only minimally influences the overall impression

The Sillage is good, the shelf life is great! From the season I would prefer to wear "Figment Man" in spring. That seems to me very suitable from the feeling. Fresh earthiness...that's what fits in an invigorating, blossoming time and dead seasons, like summer and winter or dying seasons, like autumn might be too depressing.

So the fragrance from an artistic point of view: 10/10
The fragrance with the aspect of wearability: 6/10

For my evaluation, I have chosen a middle course accordingly, in order to remain fair.