Tabac Blond Caron Eau de Parfum

I think it's the beginning of a journey...

I owe the fragrance ticket that enabled me to make the first leg of this journey to the generosity and wealth of knowledge of a wonderful Parfumo. Therefore, this comment is dedicated to Can, and with respect and deep gratitude.

Those who read my reviews and statements know that I often approach fragrances in images. The associations help me better understand scents and work them out for myself.

This particular scent also immediately created images in me. But this time it was different.
In the first second, a movie scene came to my mind. And even more than the scene, which I actually only superficially remember, the image of the character and the image of the actress who plays it arose before me. This scene and the image of this actress opened up the fragrance to me.

The movie I am talking about is "Carol", the actress is the beautiful Cate Blanchett. In a scene at the beginning of this movie, she enters the toy department of a department store.
As she does so, she exudes an intangible elegance. She wears a long, brown fur coat, black underneath, a red scarf, on her blond and laid hair a red cap. And she wears leather gloves in her hand. In a close-up shot of her placing these gloves on the glass sales counter, it quickly becomes clear that this accessory is yet to play a significant role.
And it may even be these gloves that first came to mind when I first smelled the fragrance.
A few minutes later, before leaving the salesroom, Carol will turn around to give the saleswoman, as well as the audience, a breath-taking moment of feminine elegance and distinguished nobility.

And that is exactly what Tabac blond is to me: elegant, distinguished, noble.

To make one thing clear:
The fragrance is not for me a fragrance for ladies. He is also not androgynous. He is what the person wearing in is.
I had briefly considered juxtaposing the female character with a male counterpart. It would be men from literature: Forsyte, Gatsby, Swann.
But Cate Blanchett doesn't need a counterpart.
I keep the scene, which may well be found in a trailer on the net, in my head and so find the scent again.

The leather gloves, the fur. In many scenes of the film, the main characters smoke, both women.

Indeed, the scent is smoky.
But it's not smoke in the classic sense, not a blue haze in a smoky room. Nor is it the well-scented pipe tobacco.
It's the smoke in a spacious and dignified hotel lobby, showing itself in a beam of sunlight coming in through the large window, where it curls. White, shimmering, and carried not by nicotine but by tobacco.
This smoke, this note of tobacco is in the fragrance from the beginning and remains the prominent note almost all the way to the end.

The leather that I find indescribably beautiful in this fragrance is the soft leather of frequently worn gloves. They are soft suede gloves, perhaps deerskin.
And even though there are very delicate, barely perceptible hints of animalic notes (I couldn't decipher which component in the pyramid is responsible for that), but then the leather is underlined mostly by a clean, beautiful creaminess. Vanilla and amber are responsible for that creaminess.
For me, this is the key to the art of this eau de parfum.
It is as if you have captured in the composition exactly the moment in which the lady removes the glove from her well-groomed creamed hand. It is the exact moment and I have the impression that I perceive this scene not with my eyes but with my nose. It's as if a director is guiding my nose very close to that hand. And in that moment, smoke, gently creamed skin and the last hint of soft leather come together for me in a wonderful chord.
So it's not the scent of the gloves that are leather. It's the scent of skin that has slipped off a glove made of leather and has a residue of that scent lingering on it.
What I have described as slightly animalic is the skin, the human, physical about the scent a blend perhaps with the tiny beads on the wrist of a clean body on a warm day. In this moment, Tabac blond succeeds in translating a fragrance experience into one of intimacy and sensuality.

The fact that the garden carnation is rated so prominently here surprised me at first. But I believe that it is precisely this note that is responsible for the fine, noble.
Because indeed, the fragrance is in the background - and towards the end, almost in the very last minutes increasingly - floral. I perceive the clove, however, never strong.
It introduces the fragrance and it ends it. It always accompanies in the background, never plays for me in the foreground. I would never think of calling this fragrance floral. It would always be smoky for me. But no matter at what point: at the beginning, when the fragrance is smoky, or at the end, when it becomes creamy: The clove always highlights the best part of it. Perhaps that is what leads some people to classify the fragrance as a women's perfume.

It is my first truly classic fragrance from this traditional house. With the first spray, I knew I had found a fragrance that would stay with me for a long time. He has triggered a passion in me and made me curious about the very classic fragrances.
A few days after trying the fragrance, I contacted the house in Paris.
I ordered the eau de parfum and asked for the perfume at the same time.
The somewhat awkward explanation unfortunately did not help me.
However, with the Eau de Parfum I received a sample of the perfume. Today I know that my question had apparently arrived exactly a few days before the release of the new formulation of the perfume.
I have since compared the two formats. I don't want to open a category of better or worse at this point. That is not in my nature. They are both wonderful and unique fragrances. Besides, I also lack the knowledge, the history, the comparison, the olfactory education that would allow me to make an astute comparison.
Perhaps the floral note in the new formulation is stronger towards the end. The fragrance pyramid would suggest that, and supported the thought. At first I had only with the new perfume, but later also with the older Eau de Parfum a very quiet, associative memory of the florality of Xerjoff's "Opera". Never as loud or as exuberant, of course. Perhaps readers can support me and get to the bottom of this idea.

I believe it is the beginning of a journey...
A journey that will take me to the classics. In the meantime, I have tried "Pour un Homme de Caron", "Yatagan", but also "Jicky" and "L'heure bleue". I have the impression as if I rediscovered my passion for fragrances.

This journey is just beginning.
I am happy if readers of this post support me with hints on worthwhile intermediate destinations.