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09/25/2020
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Colonial goods XII: Pebbles. A man cologne.
Yeah, cool or: "Pebbles. A man cologne." What a cool name for a perfume! And with real pebbles in it, once plucked from the Hudson River bed by the perfumer himself in the state of New York and hand stuffed into the bottles. No, not anymore, the bottles are probably delivered from India with stones ready in them and the cologne is poured over them. Looks like "On the Rocks", and is - exactly that
Pebble is not a fragrance that suits me. I won't get it. Whatever the reason, it doesn't spark right. But it's a great, absolutely original scent, just like the previous one I covered in this series. And Kiesel is almost archetypal or prototypical, what I was thinking of when I opened this series: A "brown cologne".
On the one hand, it is very strongly rooted in the classic Cologne tradition: Not too long lasting, discreet sillage, strong accent on citrus freshness. On the other hand, however, it has this delicate, light-brown tinge, which does not kill the colognique, but leaves it its place and only complements it. This light brown here is less spicy (clove etc.) or woody, but earthy, almost loamy. From the olfactory tonality, pebble reminds me of Eau de Memo, although the Memo water smells quite different (the light brown dialogue partner of the orange is soft leather there) and although I have fallen in love with Memo and not with this one.
Pebble opens with a slightly creamy and spicy, very special light citric, then shifts relatively quickly (I'm anticipating here) into the mild orange. This is never sour and never superficially fruity, but always elegantly smooth. A certain sweetness belongs to this citric pole from the beginning. If you spray yourself normally, you won't smell it; if you press your nose to your arm, it penetrates strongly (in the beginning it smells more like "A Boy's Cologne", but in the wild you don't run around immediately after spraying with your nose on your arm). With the time the whole thing settles down and the citric pole is, until the end then, most likely to address as mild orange and very tender honey-sweet.
Now to the light brown counterpart. Here, something mineral is already present in the pre-orange, very bright opening (I had a tetsprout, not a bottle, so I wasn't visually influenced by stones, but the imagination can achieve a lot, of course). This soon sorts itself into a very exciting earthy-clayey direction, for which I would blame patchouli, the pebbles and the beginnings of incense and vetiver. This loamy clay always remains pleasantly warm, flatteringly balsamic and a little bit spicy.
Interestingly, it does not become sweetish in the finish, as is often the case in men's fragrances. Michael B. Knudsen, the inventor, has actually somehow managed to nail the tonka bean down rather at the beginning and in the middle. The end (after about three hours) impresses rather dry and tart, the incense should be able to penetrate fully here.
Even though Kiesel is a cologne for gentle men (and doesn't give the wearer and the environment a hard time), I fortunately don't perceive it as fluffy and soft. This is the all-clear, because musk is capitalized here in the pyramid.
* *
Apicius has already said a lot about the company in his commentary below. For those who will not scroll down: Olle Knudsen emigrates from Europe to the United States, where he finds himself in the haze of Broadway and its stars. In 1957, he founds a fragrance house with exactly one fragrance in its portfolio. This one. And that's where he stuffs the stones from the Hudson River. Then the company goes under, Knudsen dies and the fragrance is discontinued
The sequel, which is not available at Apicius, can be read on gravelcologne.com. If what it says is true, a father and his son (Georg and Christian Blessing) both love the fragrance, are sad that it no longer exists and set out to find the rights to the name, the fragrance recipes and the stuff, eventually founding the company anew. The fragrance celebrates resurrection. And because you can't live on a fragrance nowadays, four other fragrances are thrown on the market, in the same design (two in 2019, two more this year).
Where the new company is based is not said, the names of the new owners sound German and the price is given in Euro, also on the English version of the site.
What Knudsen demanded at the time, I don't know, Blessing sen. and jun. want 149 euros for the bottle, both in the company's own online shop and, identically, at ALZD, Bräuninger and parfumdreams, which speaks for a tight sales organization.
* *
As I said at the beginning: No fragrance for me, but for those who want to spend 150 euros on a cologne, find the stones and the company history funny and fall in love with the design of the bottle, at least one sure test candidate.
Pebble is not a fragrance that suits me. I won't get it. Whatever the reason, it doesn't spark right. But it's a great, absolutely original scent, just like the previous one I covered in this series. And Kiesel is almost archetypal or prototypical, what I was thinking of when I opened this series: A "brown cologne".
On the one hand, it is very strongly rooted in the classic Cologne tradition: Not too long lasting, discreet sillage, strong accent on citrus freshness. On the other hand, however, it has this delicate, light-brown tinge, which does not kill the colognique, but leaves it its place and only complements it. This light brown here is less spicy (clove etc.) or woody, but earthy, almost loamy. From the olfactory tonality, pebble reminds me of Eau de Memo, although the Memo water smells quite different (the light brown dialogue partner of the orange is soft leather there) and although I have fallen in love with Memo and not with this one.
Pebble opens with a slightly creamy and spicy, very special light citric, then shifts relatively quickly (I'm anticipating here) into the mild orange. This is never sour and never superficially fruity, but always elegantly smooth. A certain sweetness belongs to this citric pole from the beginning. If you spray yourself normally, you won't smell it; if you press your nose to your arm, it penetrates strongly (in the beginning it smells more like "A Boy's Cologne", but in the wild you don't run around immediately after spraying with your nose on your arm). With the time the whole thing settles down and the citric pole is, until the end then, most likely to address as mild orange and very tender honey-sweet.
Now to the light brown counterpart. Here, something mineral is already present in the pre-orange, very bright opening (I had a tetsprout, not a bottle, so I wasn't visually influenced by stones, but the imagination can achieve a lot, of course). This soon sorts itself into a very exciting earthy-clayey direction, for which I would blame patchouli, the pebbles and the beginnings of incense and vetiver. This loamy clay always remains pleasantly warm, flatteringly balsamic and a little bit spicy.
Interestingly, it does not become sweetish in the finish, as is often the case in men's fragrances. Michael B. Knudsen, the inventor, has actually somehow managed to nail the tonka bean down rather at the beginning and in the middle. The end (after about three hours) impresses rather dry and tart, the incense should be able to penetrate fully here.
Even though Kiesel is a cologne for gentle men (and doesn't give the wearer and the environment a hard time), I fortunately don't perceive it as fluffy and soft. This is the all-clear, because musk is capitalized here in the pyramid.
* *
Apicius has already said a lot about the company in his commentary below. For those who will not scroll down: Olle Knudsen emigrates from Europe to the United States, where he finds himself in the haze of Broadway and its stars. In 1957, he founds a fragrance house with exactly one fragrance in its portfolio. This one. And that's where he stuffs the stones from the Hudson River. Then the company goes under, Knudsen dies and the fragrance is discontinued
The sequel, which is not available at Apicius, can be read on gravelcologne.com. If what it says is true, a father and his son (Georg and Christian Blessing) both love the fragrance, are sad that it no longer exists and set out to find the rights to the name, the fragrance recipes and the stuff, eventually founding the company anew. The fragrance celebrates resurrection. And because you can't live on a fragrance nowadays, four other fragrances are thrown on the market, in the same design (two in 2019, two more this year).
Where the new company is based is not said, the names of the new owners sound German and the price is given in Euro, also on the English version of the site.
What Knudsen demanded at the time, I don't know, Blessing sen. and jun. want 149 euros for the bottle, both in the company's own online shop and, identically, at ALZD, Bräuninger and parfumdreams, which speaks for a tight sales organization.
* *
As I said at the beginning: No fragrance for me, but for those who want to spend 150 euros on a cologne, find the stones and the company history funny and fall in love with the design of the bottle, at least one sure test candidate.
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