Bryant Park Bond No. 9 2007

The older you get, the more past you automatically accumulate. That may sound trivial, and often the past is indeed trivial, but since it is your own past, it still touches you. Some fragrances remind you of moments and phases of life. Depending on which events and life phases they are, the fragrance then has good or less good chances with us.
I received Bryant Park from KingLui in the niche swap game. I bid on it blindly, even though I wasn't at all sure that I would like it. After all, among the Bonds, there are wonderful ones for me as well as abominable ones.
This one was a hit. It seems to me that the expression is still too weak: In Bryant Park, my past, my life so far, condenses. I am tempted to say: Bryant Park - that IS me.
When I took the first spray, it shot through my mind: I know this! I even had it once! I had it for a longer time! And then I thought for days about which fragrance Bryant Park reminded me of, because I definitely knew I had never owned this fragrance. Nevertheless, it still felt as if I had worn it regularly before.

Just yesterday, when I suddenly realized that it reminded me of Tom Ford's White Patchouli, the Aha moments came like a series of toppling dominoes: Bryant Park is a fragrance condensation of my past from puberty to today, and each domino is a remembered scene.

Starting with the first domino: Patchouli. The patchouli in my nose is exactly the patchouli from White Patchouli by Tom Ford. I really have this fragrance, but not for very long. What fascinates me about this patchouli is that it is at the heavenly end of the earthiness scale: Blindingly bright. I know blindingly bright patchouli from other fragrances I have, like Outrageously Vibrant, and I love it there too, but nowhere is it as bright and simultaneously natural as in Tom Ford and now Bryant Park. So I associate many memories from the recent past with this bright patchouli, as I have only recently discovered the Tom Ford with the perfect patchouli. I know patchouli, a bit earthier, but also since puberty. So many dominoes...

In another of my comments, the one on Rosa Nectar by Dua Fragrances, I had already described the tea shop in Hamburg by J. Bryant Park also reminds me of this shop and its atmosphere, as well as Rosa Nectar. The notes of the two fragrances are very similar: Patchouli, raspberry, rose, and amber they have in common. I had written about the soft, natural, and lush rose used in rose teas in my tea shop comment. And it is just as it is in Bryant Park: It reminds me of all the different occasions when I bought and drank this tea with my first serious boyfriend, of our later shared apartment, of our student days. I still buy this tea, now in another shop, to this day. I am still friends with this boyfriend, even though we now each have different partners.
What beautiful memories!

In the Rosa Nectar comment, I wrote that the musk, which reminded me of my Wild-Love-Nerval oil from back then, ultimately became too much for me because it was too overwhelming and overpowering. The same note of Wild-Love musk can also be found in Bryant Park, but much more subtle. Here it is obviously hidden under "amber." In hindsight, Wild-Love musk was my first signature scent. The memories go back to school days, classrooms, break halls, schoolmates, long breaks, forbidden leaving of the school grounds to go to the ice cream parlor....

Raspberry. I must say that what is meant here as raspberry does not appear as raspberry in my nose. I also know this from some other fragrances. Fortunately, I perceive the fragrance material used here as naturally fruity and not as sharply artificial as I have smelled elsewhere. The bright and slightly tart fruit note gives the fragrance a slight edge, which is really necessary so that it does not become too pleasing and perhaps boring - for others. In my nose, my condensed past with its rattling dominoes is of course never boring.
The raspberry takes on the role that jasmine plays in Tom Ford's White Patchouli: the wake-up call. I must say that the raspberry in Bryant Park accomplishes this much more gently than the jasmine in White Patchouli. It is roughly the difference between an alarm clock with a beeping sound and an alarm clock with a favorite song.

The whole is known to be more than the sum of its parts, and so I would like to add another note here, probably created by the lily of the valley: soap.
I love soap. Of course, I have known soap my whole life. In Bryant Park, it is mild and pleasantly scented. I like to be freshly washed and then layer J.'s tea shop with rose tea, blindingly bright patchouli, a few edgy, non-raspberry-like raspberries, and a hint of Wild Love.
That is me. Just as I am. Just as I have always been.

The last domino: Bryant Park. I once went to New York on a student exchange. I remember Central Park. Was I also in Bryant Park back then? I don't know. It was all a lot back then, and I don't remember every name of the places I visited. And already more dominoes fall... I imagine I would have been there....

I will keep Bryant Park. I even did something I almost never do: I ordered a bunker bottle.

"Love of my life, don't leave me...."