Yharnam79

I am (open) confessed fan of the Prin fragrances and the entire "fragrance philosophy".
And since I am, what my own fragrance tastes, meanwhile pretty sure, I have actually (once again) dared the bold step and ordered the two new Prins unscented. Of course with a bit of a guilty conscience, because of the price and in the great, great hope, I may find both at least "okay".

I wrote in my statement, it's a bit like Sandor 70's, Peau de Bête and Aran got together. The oud note in Varuek is additionally very close to that of Arsalan.
And if you look at the fragrances mentioned times, then it shows that all these are not classic "crowdpleaser". One can thereby evtl imagine what awaits one with Varuek....
Who could not do anything with Prin so far, will probably not be able to with Varuek.

Varuek (translated: wolf) knocks with oud, animalism and bite not exactly timid around.
Dark he is. Dark and serious.
Territory-marking and snarling.
And dangerous.
Or protective?
Brown and dark green.

Very clearly, there was one animal or another rolling vigorously in the moss.
Unintentionally it has thereby dug up an ancient leather shoe.
Sweaty, oppressive and sticky is the oud, and the masses of hairs of the animal fur, grasses and leaves have stuck.
All sorts of herbaceous, mossy green stuff (some succulent, some slightly mouldered) lies all over the dust-dry forest floor in some places, muddy in others.
And watching over it all is the wolf with his shaggy, hunting-soiled fur.
Kind of scary, kind of the exact opposite.
Powerful and mysterious.
The beast sweats, the damp fur glistens in the red sun and the oud stretches into thick drops in balsamic threads.

Varuek is a difficult scent, no question.
I think those who don't like Prin per se, or simply the type of scents, will turn up their noses in disgust here too.
Lovers of such fragrances, however, will most likely have their true pleasure with it.
I am pleased, given the blind purchase, that I belong to the second category.

One of the best fragrances of the entire Prin line.

The bell rings in the night,
its sound awakens the creatures,
that through the pale midnight,
swept on their brooms.

Shrouded in mist, she enters
and creeps a breeze before her.
Close to fainting, methinks,
that now is the last hour.

And when the bell has stopped ringing..
the witch in her home,
has cleared all souls,
awakens the day - awakens being.

The Bell. *



In the upbeat, a shaggy sheep rolls through all manner of herbs, mosses, lichens and musty wood.
Satisfied, it beds down to rest on an old, weathered yet still beloved and oft-worn tweed jacket;
its head laid down on dust-dry sawdust.
From the already dilapidated mud and wood shack next door, faint wisps of pickling and/or solvent drift over to him. Maybe even the smell of rusty tools.

While the sheep is now slumbering peacefully in the background in the base, the scent is now fully filled with wood or woods, almost sharp green stuff - some of it rain-wet, some already a little carbonized - and sharp-smoky herbs.
The share of matted wool-animalic, which also before already swings back and forth between sheepskin and tweed jacket, has now also strongly withdrawn and almost seems mild and (honey-?-) sweet. Quite in contrast to the deep green grass-herb-wood mixture. This is and remains of the sharp-tart variety. In between now and then almost acidic. To this contributes in my perception the wormwood herb significantly.
Pleasant is the buffer by an actually etws peaty undertone. Similar to the Moorbodens, whose smell I have from childhood days of the "eternal sea" still super-present in memory.
That the already werwähnte tweed jacket bed has already come into contact with soap the one or other time also flares up again and again.
Likewise, with every turn that the ball of wool makes in sleep, the shaggy but somehow nice-cuddly sheepskin comes through again.


Tart-spicy-smoky and dark green.
In addition, the ancient tweed jacket washed with curd soap and the shaggy sheep in it muffled.

Great (done)!





* kasper hate - the bell

Who by chance or intentionally has already read reviews of me, which should have noticed quite quickly that I like to move in the clearly experiementelleren fragrance worlds. Thereby I am very much inclined to the "natural aromas". Animalism, what some rather sensitive noses would probably describe as "dirty" and also all kinds of "earth and forest scents" arouse my interest quite quickly - as far as the latter is concerned, I'm always on the lookout for a forest scent that really smells woody. Now I do not mean that the olfactory forest walk may not also show other nuances. However, as soon as the subject is then slapped by a thousand other notes and impressions, usually also my enthusiasm dwindles to a "already smelled a thousand times" - feeling.

Short, bold and quite clear "forest" now comes along with a fragrance name, which of course immediately aroused my interest and not least my expectations. Increased still by the extremely interesting and promising fragrance pyramid and not least by the classically beautiful Auftitt of the flacon.

WALD corresponds almost to what I had wished for so long.
As if this fragrance was the basic essence of all forest-like perfumes that I have smelled so far:

Unadorned, almost serious, gnarly resinous smoky and so deep and dark green that it almost seems like black.
Eerie and inviting at the same time.
Old and wise is this forest.
Much seen, experienced and endured he has.
Signs of the years and wounds of various forces of nature run through the trees and the ground. Mud from the rain, a little further on the lightning-burnt, almost charcoal remains of grass, bushes and branches.
Here and there a forest dweller, rubbing the dirt and sticky resin from his fur on the tree barks. Above him in the branches, thick, sweet-tart wild honey drips down onto the undergrowth directly from a bee's nest.
A small, abandoned campfire, which still steams slightly before itself. just like all kinds of (incense) incense is next to a small clearing with a crooked and almost completely crumbled wooden cottage.
A witch's house?
Herbaceous, mystical smoke rises from the crooked chimney and weaves among the leafy branches. Inside, an ancient cauldron over a blazing flame. What is steaming away in the cauldron is hard to make out; alive it certainly was once.
Around it all sorts of wooden shelves, or let's call it wooden boards with all sorts of tinctures, ointments and herbs.

WALD is definitely not a crowdpleaser.
He's too opinionated and serious.
Nevertheless, it is a fragrance that you should have smelled.
For me, he is at the same time the end of a long search.

This should probably be one of my shorter reviews. Because contrary to all the praise that I think of this fragrance, he gives me such a complex fragrance picture, as a stringing together of the Ingedenzien would be simply superfluous.
...and that would probably not do justice to the fragrance.

Betel pepper leaf gives edgy bitter spice, the vetiver is juicy and fresh, the partly hot, partly smoky spices as if from distant Asia and captured directly in a Buddhist temple and interwoven with myrrh and wet cold green.
This all sounds great, but describes only a fraction of the resulting whole.
And even if that may also sound pretty unspectacular and pleasing, both it is not at all.
Too edgy, too unusual, too strange or let's call it peculiar is what rises to one's nose.

By the way, I am actually not a real friend of fougère fragrances.
Something in the "classic fougère blend" or at the classic fougère accord I simply do not like.
The only one that got me so far was Dodo. However, that should also pass as a " Fougère-Abwandlung".
Possibly also Häxan, which I personally however not really to the category Fougère count, even if it probably down-broken to it to belong.

Mohragot is (also) a niche in the Fougère genre.
A very, very dark green.
Wet.
Earthy.
Spicy.
Bitter.
Mystical.
Strange.
Mysterious.
Impenetrable thicket.

To speak in metaphors:
It's like being inside a deep green gemstone.

A truly fascinating fragrance.

Actually, I'm not really into reformulation of fragrances.
I thought it was stupid even back at Beaver's. With Bat it was different because it was about ending the collaboration with the respective perfumer. I was also split in two with Dodo and Rhinoceros, because I find both fragrances to be perfect in the actual formulation and wonder why they didn't simply choose two other animals as namesakes.

If the original creature still stood around in clouds of smoke, herbaceous and sweetish-biting, its successor goes completely different scent paths.
Rhinoceros (2020) starts out no less engaging and brisk, but it's not a burnt desert herb that hits you in the nose but a woody whiskey rum flag. And rarely has a blow on the nose been so good to bear!
Surrounded by full and strong coffee aromas and something herbal, almost ethereal, of which I have not yet fully understood what it is.
It gets darker in the early drydown. The rhino now shows leathery and smoky. And still quite drunk. And the pachyderm seems to have wandered through mud and mire. Mossy dark green mixes with the otherwise rather smoky, whiskey coloured scent.

In all its independence, I am always confronted with fleeting images that build bridges to other fragrances.
For example to Tobacco Oud, yes also to his rather dissimilar brother Tobacco Oud Intense.
Then the mixture of fuselage and smoke takes on an almost "poltergeistesque" form again, only to make way again shortly afterwards for the actual dermis, while chewing with relish on basil - standing in burning grass.
Although no vanilla or vanilla-like substances are listed, I also regularly imagine to perceive bittersweet vanilla beans. Very far away.
Because Rhinoceros is miles away from "sweet" - and that in both respects ...

To go back briefly to comparisons with other fragrances:
There are scents, (many, many scents) that smell to me like a mixture of a mix of scents I know. Some recently tested prime examples of this are Kobe (Xerjoff) or Imperial (Boadicea the Victorious), which smells to me 1to1 as if the respective light versions of Oud Wood, the Rochas cone and Black XS had simply been put together.
With Rhinoceros, my bridge-building was neither negative nor would I lean out of the window to say, "...smells like..."!
All its nuances are skilfully built up here into a completely independent whole.
As if the pachyderm had just put together the best qualities from all the nuances and fragrances mentioned and then confidently wallowed in them.

All praise with one crying and one laughing eye.
As far as I was concerned, there would have been no need for a reformulation of the original rhino that I have come to love so much.
One could have given him the name of another desert animal for all I care.
But I'm not in it now and don't know anything about the reasons for the (in the case of Dodo also quite fast) reformulation with the two new zoologists.
Nevertheless: the fragrance is what it is.
Very, very strong


Rhinceros (was and is) a turf marker.
It also radiates a considerable amount of masculinity.
Dark-shimmering.
Self-confident.
The ripped leather jacket over the shoulder.
Smoking and heavily alcoholized.
And a little bit in heat


Let's get back to the end:

Very, very strong smell!