loewenherz

I was very undecided. From the beginning. Even before I had him up my nose for the first time. And during that. And now basically still. I don't know if I'm supposed to like him or not. Whether riot or trivial.

MOL intens - so Harry Lehmann says - is ISO-E-Super. And nothing else. A synthetic substance that is said to have an animal-like ambry cedar wood accord and an extraordinarily high durability. I wasn't sure how to find it: just an ingredient, and a synthetic one at that. And this from Harry Lehmann, the charming traditional house with the artificial flowers in the small shop on Kantstraße in Charlottenburg. Many 'big' fragrances (including those by Jean-Claude Ellena, Ormonde Jayne and Serge Lutens) use ISO-E-Super - some rather covertly bashful, others quite prominent. Nevertheless, if I look at the 'monotheme ISO-E-Super' in isolation, it may be scientifically interesting, but I am not one to approach perfumes scientifically. I approach perfumes sensually.

Beyond the above-mentioned considerations, I find a sensual fragrance which, despite its monothematic nature, is everything, but not one-dimensional. There is something weightlessly metallic and something gently animalistic, there are wood juices and moist earth - and I understand a bit why someone - the house Harry Lehmann is not alone with the idea - would like to show the facets of ISO-E-Super, this supposed wonder substance, once unblinded and falsified alone. The scent of which, despite the facets mentioned, is simple and reduced, as if on a quiet day in early summer you were alone thinking about a lake shore. A little outdoor and a little quiet melancholy, a little defiance, a little tenderness. Musk and fire and pine wood in the rain, you'd almost think. And then remembers: wrong thought, everything only ISO-E-Super.

Conclusion: the wonderful Chris Rea once sang about going fishing, a bit resigned and sad - and yet gentle:

'I'm gone fishing, I got me a line.
Nothing I do is gonna make the difference -
so I'm taking the time.

And you ain't never gonna be happy, anyhow, anyway.
So I'm gone fishing,
and I'm going today.

I'm gone fishing, sounds crazy I know.
I know nothing about fishing,
but just watch me go.'

I'm still undecided - in an intellectual way. I really like it sensually. And now: gone fishing.

In the middle of the 2000s I was what you would call a 'young professional' today - happy to finally get out of university and to have 'arrived in (professional) life': regular daily routine and income, suit, job ticket and now and then taxi included. And as much as I appreciated everything I had wanted for so long, I missed 'my wild 90s'. And sometimes on Sunday afternoons I listened to Blank & Jones and watched a few old episodes of Friends on DVD - and in weak moments I thought about not wiping the corridor again in sponge technique terracotta colors, at least one wall. And in very weak moments I thought of Beyond Paradíse for Men by Estée Lauder.

Estée Lauder's Pleasures for Men (with the matte grey lid) had been 'my' fragrance in the 90s - metallically fresh and youthfully glue-sweet - it had been Blank & Jones and Friends and terracotta-wiped walls in the hallway with me. His and my time together ended when he finished his studies and moved to another city, but I was not at all averse to choosing a potential successor 'from the same stable'. And as much as I loved to remember my time with Pleasures for Men back then - and still do - as much as I still like to listen to Blank & Jones every now and then and watch one or two episodes of Friends on Sunday afternoons - I'm still glad I never bought Beyond Paradíse for Men.

His character is still completely that of the 90s - probably that's why the longing number worked so well back then. Beyond Paradíse for Men is sweet metallic - even sweeter and more metallic than Pleasures for Men was. It conveys androgynous good humour in almost psychedelic-looking cheerfulness: floral and colourful, fruity and loud, and almost clownishly tropical and Caribbean, like in a comic strip, with the subtlety and impact of an alcopop, which had been so popular in the 90s: Bacardi Breezer, Sierra Slammer, Smirnoff Ice. In 2004 his time was over, but some indecisive people are trying to jump on every trend at the very last moment. Estée Lauder's Beyond Paradíse for Men was already 'beyond everything' back then

Conclusion: stupid for a while. The wrong fragrance at the wrong time - today much more than in the mid-00s. Good that I resisted him then. Just like the terracotta sponge-wiped wall.

One of my favourite fairy tales (as it is one of the most lyrical and dramatic) - the motif of which exists in slightly altered form in many variations throughout the world - is that of the only sister of many brothers who are transformed into birds by a curse - and only that sister can free them from this curse only by doing a work that is as difficult as it is long. In the version of the Brothers Grimm - the most popular in this country besides that of Hans Christian Andersen - an evil queen transforms the sons from her husband's first marriage into swans. The curse can only be broken when her youngest sister makes a shirt for each of them out of starflowers (in Andersen's case, nettles), while she is not allowed to speak. In the end the swans will save her sister from being burned at the stake - and because she was not quite finished, the youngest of them will keep a swan's wing on her back.

The fairy tale of the princess and her brothers enchanted in wild swans takes place over long distances in dark forests - whether Germany, Denmark or England, it is almost indifferent - where the princess searches at the foot of tall trees for those star flowers from which she has to knot the swan shirts. They are impenetrable and untouched, dark forests - but neither dark nor eerie. While reading I always imagined her walking barefoot and in light-coloured clothes torn by thorns over sun-drenched moss, a basket with the precious load in her arms. How she sits in the pale moonlight in the fork of an ancient oak tree, working the delicate stems of the flowers into a fabric - full of concentration and calm, but without sadness or bitterness. And the scent of this silent work - the echoes of the forests of the north, the enchanted swans and the shirts of starflowers I find in Jo Malone's English Oak & Hazelnut.

His name leads us a little bit on the wrong track, because he doesn't have hazelnut in the sense of 'Nutella' - even if the 'green hazelnut' mentioned in his ingredients already tells us that. Instead, there is a hint of honey or beeswax - and fine roasted aromas like wood cracked in the sun, which then darken and ripen, as it were - in a maximum medium intensity typical of Jo Malone. There is the moss warm from the sun, the tiny white starflowers, the rustling oak leaves in the wind - is perhaps even the beating of swan feathers over a distant sea. Despite the cedar and its inherent southern flavor, English Oak & Hazelnut is not a Mediterranean scent, but lacks macchia and pine resin. Instead light summer woods. Wild strawberries. Golden moss and dry fir cones

Conclusion: Nordic mystical summer woodland. Without Nutella. Instead with enchanted swan princes and shirts made of starflowers.

I know: in anthropological-philosophical (and pretty much every other respect) being is much nobler and more desirable than having. And yet sometimes it is the having that is just so much more fun. And one that I would really like to have - in the sense of 'owning an original bottle' - is Guerlain's Parure. Not because I want to wear it myself. Not because his flacon is so beautiful. It's simply because I want to have it. Because it's high art and a piece of perfume history. And a caress of the nose

Although I am a convinced representative of 'everyone should wear the fragrance he or she likes' - no matter whether he or she happens to be labelled as a ladies' or men's fragrance (and I practice this very consistently myself): I cannot imagine a gentleman to be parure. So ingratiating and melting, so calm and serious and so receptive is he - like the strings of a cello fading away in a lightless room, full of damaged softness and delicate grace, like dark golden summer evening sun on gently quivering peach skin.

Peach - fruits in general - are very clearly perceptible, but in a completely different way than is known from contemporary 'fruit scents'. Voluminous. Incredibly precisely arranged. Parure is a demanding fragrance from the very beginning, which promises knowledge if you get involved with it. One cannot really get involved with it at all - its course lures the nose like a floating light deeper and deeper into its olfactorically unbelievably densely woven timbre of nocturnal blossoms, sweet and bitter fruits and sienna-coloured wood.

Parure is Guerlain's tribute to womanhood. Far more than Mitsouko, Jicky or L'Heure Bleue, all of which can be worn well by (daring) men. Even more than the recent, sometimes missed sugar water from the pen of Mr. Water. Parure lies down on the skin like a whisper, is a dove and a snake at the same time - and tells in polished Guerlainian language (which is far too short to describe 'Chypre' here) what it means to be a woman. One who once had it in his or her nose, never lets go.

Conclusion: 'And we have forgotten what bread tastes like. How trees whisper. How the wind caresses. We have even forgotten our name.. So the Halfling Sméagol tells how the 'treasure' changed him after he had taken violent possession of it - and the cursed creature Gollum made him. Perhaps not so bad after all that I don't have this one here - Parure, the godfather among the chypres of Guerlain - the one who is able to make you forget what bread tastes like. Whisper like trees. Like the wind caressing.

A few days ago I told you here in my blog 'Antiquing USA' that I like to rummage around in so-called 'antique malls' in the United States - and that between old rocking chairs and hand-sewn trousseau underwear you can also come across more or less well-filled perfume bottles that are often available for little money. And that - despite my noticeable curiosity and out of concern for my suitcase and its future smell - I did not take any of the many pretty bottles with me in the end.

The one I held in my hand for the longest time (out of subjective pleasure and out of interest in perfume history - not so much because I really wanted to wear it) was this one: Câline by Jean Patou, still uncommented to my astonishment. And because its contents - despite its age - were almost perfect, because it cost almost nothing, and because its bottle was one of the few that closed reliably, I almost regret not having 'imported' it - if only for the reasons of perfume history. Because Câline is something special

Among the fragrances of his cohort, it was probably nothing special at the time - rather, today it seems like the archetype of a women's fragrance of his generation. What is special, however, is that fragrances of this kind are hardly available today - those that are still being produced have often had to be reformulated, sometimes considerably, due to changing olfactory regulatory requirements - and the few original ones that can still be found in places like this have mostly been knocked over, which is hardly to blame after a good fifty years.

Câline is reminiscent of a mature, amber-coloured dessert wine: the firn of history and an emerging sherry tone cannot be ignored, but it is still perfectly recognisable in its essence. The characteristic dialogue of aldehydes and dignified, serious flowers marks a women's fragrance from the third quarter of the last century - powerful and melancholy, and, yes: ingratiating and loving. And as formal and wonderfully anachronistic as a starched cloth napkin. And simply more class than paper.

Conclusion: while writing, I was once again sorry for the small bottle of Câline left behind in the American Antique Mall. Because if it is not taken away by anyone in the near future - and this is to be expected - it will finally be too late for its contents. He does not deserve that.