Cuir Mandarine David Jourquin 2011

I am now cautious when I seem to have significant problems with a fragrance from the very first moment. It is not uncommon for me to later integrate these very fragrances into my collection.

What is not meant here by the shift from antipathy to sympathy is the aversion to certain smells and ingredients. That usually remains with us.
I do not like jasmine. Jasmine almost always smells like carrion to me. I do not like tonka bean. It reminds me of a certain generation of fragrances that I have never liked and that seem too sweet and overloaded to me. I actually do not like oud anymore. I have smelled it so often in recent years that I can no longer count the oud-rose combinations and I react with boredom.

What is meant here instead is a total composition that does not appeal to me at first glance (bad metaphor here, I know), but develops more and more charm during subsequent tests and longer wear. By now, I have a specific, warning feeling when such a change might occur. I felt the same way about Cuir Mandarine.

It started with me receiving a sample, spraying the fragrance with anticipation, and immediately turning away in irritation: a bit too much patchouli, the bitter-fruity mandarin in a peculiar tension with the earthy base, and the tobacco-leather note reminded me, to my chagrin, of a pipe tobacco I used as a young man and that did not agree with me at all. Nevertheless: I would like to smoke a pipe (again) sometime, but I find it aesthetically inappropriate, unhealthy, and unsuitable for my age. That is only acceptable after 50. After all, I will be there soon.

Thoughtfully, I set Cuir Mandarine aside, without integrating it into my sample collection (it would have been lost among 1400 other samples) and without putting it in my reject pile. Instead, I stored it separately in a cabinet where I keep samples that need retesting and to which I feel ambivalent.

In the case of Cuir Mandarine, by the way, tests No. 2, No. 3, and No. 4 followed. The second-to-last test run then brought new results. Suddenly, I liked the fragrance. It was upgraded from a poor rating to 8.0 and now to 9.0. It has since landed on my wish list; a purchase is planned.

It would be interesting to analyze why the impressions described above (too much patchouli in the base, etc.) did not hold but instead merged into a new, larger whole, almost in the sense of a dialectic of fragrance, where the thesis and antithesis of the first and subsequent impressions connect to form a synthesis.

My hypotheses on this are as follows:

Actually (deep down inside), I like patchouli, as I have always had an affinity for the hippie and festival culture of the 70s (I grew up in the 70s). Why not a little more of it?

I like to eat mandarins, I like their smell, and I like their color (childhood, Christmas). Why shouldn’t I enjoy the contrast of bitter-sweet fruit (thesis) and the darkness of patchouli and tobacco (antithesis) (synthesis)?

I have always wanted to smoke a pipe, like its smell, but forbid myself to use it. Why not step out of my comfort zone and pull out my father-in-law's pipe set and light a pipe in the summer along with a glass of whiskey?

All these suppressed desires connect here to form a new, larger whole that I want.

Perhaps it is what I mentioned above: Cuir Mandarine did not repel me, but rather irritated me. Irritation is an occasion for confrontation. A learning process can begin.

The plea for a second chance promised in the headline is therefore directed not only at me but also at all those who tend to make quick judgments. Reconsider your opinion at the end of the day. Perhaps it won’t matter to you tomorrow.