Mosaïque 27 87 Perfumes 2023

An overly ripe strawberry!

Oh man I finally got it. This perfume opens up with a pungent fruity smell. In the notes it gets listed as plum but it’s more like this incredibly ripe strawberry to me. My mum used to make fruit punch with strawberries and when they float around in this punch bowl for a couple of days the sweetness is wonderful, just like this fragrance.

That fruitiness holds on for hours on end, not really making way for the other notes, which is a shame. Only when smelling my clothes the next day some of the leather shines through. Had that been a bit more prominent from the start it would make this a no-brainer for me. Right now I’m not so sure I’d like to smell like a punchbowl all day long, however much I love the smell of that. Just a tad too gourmand for me.

Actually, I wanted to enrich my collection with Café Tabac for quite some time, until Mosaïque came to my attention. The almost year-long desire to acquire Café Tabac was immediately redirected and thanks to the Souk, it was also executed right away. But what led to this? Here is the subjective, yet objectively attempted comparison.

Both are already fruity and infused with tobacco in the opening. Café Tabac opens with a slightly sour fruit (I think from apple & mango, possibly also bergamot); here the fruit is zestier and livelier, while the plum in Mosaïque is more dignified and the sweetness makes it duller, heavier but also silkier. The leather is immediately present, in a clean version, washed with Persil but still there.

As it develops, Mosaïque clearly adds patchouli, giving it that earthy, dirty note while the velvety, heavier fruit remains. Café Tabac behaves lighter and fluffier, with beeswax, caramel, date, and the light "clean" woods being more prominent; these prevent it (despite the tar, Peru balsam, and oak moss) from descending into the dark and earthy.
Patchouli and the oak moss (which is especially more dominant in Mosaïque than in Café Tabac), mate, and the leather give Mosaïque that subtle earthy heaviness (which I personally really like) while the light and gourmand notes in Café Tabac (even if they are not distinctly present on their own) keep it lighter and more aromatic.

Later on, Mosaïque reveals roasted cocoa, adding more softness and smoothing out the edges, but they are still there, lurking in the base and tickling the nose when you get close enough; a hint of greenish always shines through. Café Tabac unfolds into a wonderful mélange. There are no edges in the classical sense; the notes balance each other perfectly, it is like liquid gold made of tobacco, wax, spice, and the dark notes like Peru balsam, oak moss, and tar perfectly balance the gourmand notes, ensuring that there is never an excess in that direction.

Imagine it like amber: Café Tabac is this beautiful, polished, shiny amber sparkling in the sun, while Mosaïque is the angular, unpolished amber that still contains some forest and earth.

you have always wanted to learn the art of mosaic making. now you have the opportunity. here, in the heart of barcelona. with a teacher whose mentor learned from gaudí himself.

she begins by randomly scattering all the clay pieces, mirror glass shards, and stones she intends to use over the approximately 3 square meter area: she takes a handful at a time and carefully spreads the colorful mixture, as if she were sowing seeds.

when you ask her what she is doing, she simply says: “trust!”

when she is finished, she picks up each piece and positions it exactly where it landed. and instructs you to do the same. a completely chaotic, aimless jumble of colors and shapes emerges. random at its best.

you wonder. how does she plan to create something meaningful from this chaos? a picture, a pattern… something recognizable, tangible? something that allows beauty to emerge through a quiet, inner systematics?

in the next step, she shows you how to calculate and mix the right amount and consistency of the base material. the chaos of clay and shards (sorry, that just had to be. a little reminiscence.) lies behind you on the floor as you stir.

you turn around. and you can hardly believe your eyes. what you see is pure beauty. the clay pieces are no longer scattered chaotically across the surface but have arranged themselves to form the most beautiful pattern you have ever seen.

how is that possible?

**

mosaïque starts for me with a very finely drawn, delicious mandarin in a strange sweet cabbage-dried plum combination. hm, sage with sweetness I’ve encountered in a fragrance before and I thought back then that it was a misstep in the spice rack during leftover cooking.

inside me is a wondering, eyebrow-raised question mark. what do you want to be, you strangely interesting creature? and why would one throw together such a oddly seeming mix of notes (this apparent incongruity, by the way, prompted me to test it), to then, yes, what, achieve? supposedly, einstein said: one doesn’t need to understand the world, one just needs to find their way in it. well then.

I am tempted to write off the fragrance.

and then, wait… what is that? a hint of tobacco breaks through the weird mix, laying underneath and giving a sort of direction to the chaos along with a more recognizable patchouli. a tenderly bitter foundation beneath the warm plum spice sweetness. exciting! I like this. then later, when moss joins in, everything becomes straightforwardly cool, almost fresh.
I begin to settle into this interesting combination and perhaps even like it.

and then, later... another unexpected twist!

in the dry down, the fragrance imperceptibly transforms into a very pleasant yet restrained, warming-cool cream. the clear, straight power of the tobacco/patchouli/moss team remains (thankfully) and keeps a delicate(!) sweet, cozy, and indescribable cream in line. I still have this mixture as a gentle hint on my hand the next morning. and I like it.

in my nose, aside from the mentioned notes, there is neither roasted cocoa nor honey, neither mate nor any other identifiable single essences. but that doesn’t seem important to me at all. the overall artwork is what matters, the unique and idiosyncratic connection that all the notes enter into.

my conclusion: I am surprised. and hooked. what a fine and artistic fragrance! I like its transformability, its unpredictable drama, its opaque complexity. I like its overall very gentle, calm, warm-clear radiance, without having any idea how it does that. I have no idea where and in what mood I would wear it. but that doesn’t matter. it is beautiful!

the first 27 87 fragrance that has reached me. and then right away like this :)

I am curious how the fragrance experts among you perceive it.

edit: I have been wearing this chaos-born beauty for three days straight now. and I don’t want anything else. I am amazed.