Today I describe Monocle Scent Two: Laurel from Comme des Garcons, which was published in collaboration with Monocle, a lifestyle magazine with content mainly on culture and design. The name "Laurel" means laurel. And I must confess that I actually don't really know how laurels smell.
Well, let's see. To be honest, I didn't even know that Laurel meant laurel and I always assumed a name here, so I always have to think of the comedian Stan Laurel, who made me laugh endless times, especially in my childhood, and I still think he (and other comedians of his time like Oliver Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton etc.) but still great today! Who'd have thought the man was a laurel?! D
At any rate, the fragrance is said to have been inspired by a trip to Lebanon and its laurel soaps. It's always nice to experience the background of a scent, isn't it? :)
The fragrance:
The beginning of the fragrance is green and spicy. Besides general green notes I also smell herbaceous green scents like thyme, the other of these notes should be galbanum and laurels, but I can only recommend this here, because I don't really know how they smell, especially with the laurels as described before. Otherwise there is a spicy note of black pepper, which somehow goes well with the herbaceous notes. Then I smell the sweet and slightly spicy cinnamon as well as the patchouli.
Over time, woody notes are added, which become more and more intense. While here one could first speak of general woody notes, with time one recognizes the cedar in them better and better. For me, the sweetness no longer comes from the cinnamon (because it is getting weaker and weaker), but apparently from the indicated violets, which would also explain the slightly powdery note, although the sweetness itself seems more like amber to me. However, one still smells best the green peppery scents as well as the woods, so the general sweetness of the scent is rather low.
A little later, the fragrance remains woody and spicy (but also a little green in the background), and I have the feeling to perceive also a little resinous-smoky fragrances like incense or myrrh.
The Sillage and the shelf life:
The scent is good for a person to smell, not over very long distances, but apparently some people could smell it well on me for a while, with most of the woody notes of it being perceived best.
The shelf life is pretty good with over eight or even ten hours!
The bottle:
The bottle is quite simple. It is transparent and rectangular and has a round label on the front, on which you can read the name and so on. The lid is chrome-plated and cylindrical. Looks to me very puristic and therefore not very spectacular. The rounder bottles of CdG are much more beautiful.
So, Laurel is a fragrance that comes along quite woody and spicy after a green beginning and has become an autumn and winter fragrance for me, which by the way smells quite masculine for me as unisex, which is due to the tart and especially dry-intensive woods and that the fragrance is also rather less sweet. For me, it is not a scent that I would use for going out, but for spraying during the day I find it quite successful for cool days.
Hmph! Unfortunately, I still don't know what laurels really smell like, because all the green notes mixed up quickly at the beginning and I could smell the thyme scent best among them. If someone knows a scent that smells really good of laurels, he or she could give me a hint :)
Of course I could also look outside for laurels, but you know exactly what my plant knowledge is like, especially with plants that just look like leaves to me and could be anything else :D
Laurel
Pepper
Galbanum
Cedar
Cinnamon leaf
Lemon
Patchouli
Thyme
Violet
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