Howl Jardins d'Écrivains 2018

Uncommented Scents No. 158
Howl, in German "Das Geheul", is the most famous poem by Allen Ginsberg and shapes the dark, intoxicating tone of Beat Generation poetry in a drastic confrontation with drugs and addiction.
Knowing the background that the ambitious and highly regarded brand Jardins d'Écrivains explicitly invokes, one might expect the worst, only to be confused and yet pleasantly disappointed. Howl is not a wild rampage, not a shrill scream, and not an ambitious avant-garde, but a scent for the notorious gentleman who appreciates simple brush strokes, clear components, and a reduced composition. Sometimes brands manage to create something new with just a few, but newly combined components. Perhaps this is a bit grandiloquent, but Howl is at least on the way to something traditionally new or a new tradition.
Essentially, I smell lavender, which sets the stage but stubbornly lingers, cinnamon and tonka in the heart, which I often don't particularly like in fragrances because they can come off too spicy and too sweet in combination, but here they work very moderately with the lavender. That works. The base simply smells woody ambry, without me being able to specify it further, as the scent merges into a gentle unity. That's really all there is to it, but it doesn't need to be more, especially when a scent represents something that I would cautiously euphorically describe as having good style. It fits perfectly with a tailored jacket (not bespoke tailoring), perhaps with English check (Prince of Wales would be an option) or tweed (Harris wouldn't be necessary, but it wouldn't be a mistake either), preferably with leather patches on the sleeves, as the scent is housed in a leather casing - and if so, then why not.

Good footwear goes without saying.