ClaireV
Helpful Review
5
Cucumberish leather and magazine folds
Famously the signature scent of thousands of young professionals and hipsters in certain areas of New York city, Santal 33 by Le Labo has become a bit of a design cliché as of late - the olfactory equivalent of the Barcelona chair or the man bun. But just because everyone is wearing it doesn't make it a bad fragrance. In fact, it's pretty great, especially if you park your expectations at the door. For one thing, despite the name, I find this to be a predominantly leather-focused scent, with a salty, green cucumberish quality that is almost aquatic. It opens with a powerful blast of chemical violet, sea salt, leather, and that aqueous herbal element, making me think each time of salty vetivers like Fleur de Sel by Miller Harris and Sea Foam by Art de Parfum.
But focusing too closely on the individual elements is of little use here, because the total effect is so forceful that you just have to give yourself over for the ride. Santal 33 is intensely masculine: full of raw, oily leather and balsam, it makes me think of a lifestyle concept store one of those cavernous, white empty studio spaces where they place a tangle of parched white driftwood in one corner and a lone leather couch in the other.
Much later on, in the far drydown, there is the green aroma of dried coconut husks, raw and brusquely woody, and it is only then I see the reference to (Australian) sandalwood. But, in general, this is dry and woody-leathery, not lactonic or sweet.
Whenever I wear Santal 33, I am reminded of that craze for shabby chic that was so popular in the 2010s, because there is something very deliberately 'antiqued' about the scent, like a modern wooden chair exposed to salty sea air to force-age it, whitewashed, and then distressed to give it the patina of age. It's totally faux, but somehow the fauxness of it all becomes part of the appeal.
It reminds me of books, too. In particular in the raw, harsh chemical breeze of salt and Iso E Super whitewashing the grain of the scent, which ultimately comes off as a combination of freshly-tanned leather and newly-printed paper. It is an industrial book smell, one that belongs more to an Amazon warehouse or a newspaper printing room than a library or old book store.
But it's also totally hipster and lifestyle-ish, with a high-gloss finish that is somewhat at odds with the raw, salty leather underneath. One of my favorite reviewers said it best when he called Santal 33 'a cross between the scent of a freshly printed lifestyle magazine and the interiors of a luxury leather goods shop'.
Australian sandalwood
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