04/17/2024
Efey
2 Reviews
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Efey
Very helpful Review
7
My first (fragrance) love
[Very intimate review / All names (except my own) of the people appearing in this text have been falsified]
It was a cold afternoon in late November last year when I received a message from a number I didn't know. I wasn't really interested in perfume at the time and didn't know that this short message would be my personal key to the door of the fragrance world.
"Hey Efey," it said, "we haven't heard from each other for almost ten years now and I just wanted to ask you how you've been. Best regards - Marie."
I closed my eyes. "Marie...", I thought to myself "...my God, it's been a long time."
Images played out in front of my closed eyelids.
Time jump: 2014.
I saw myself descending a long stone staircase and heard familiar, sombre sounds coming closer to me with every step down...until I entered the first hall of the underground.
A dreamy-sounding violin mingled with the buzzing of an electric guitar. Men in black velvet shirts and women in floor-length, black lace dresses danced a wild round dance. I walked on, looking for someone, feeling a little unsure but cozy as I walked through the corridors of this underground, when suddenly a 17,000BPM boom beat rattled around my ears behind a corner, while a distorted voice yelled something into the microphone. I saw glowing neon lights and a small group of people stomping away uninhibitedly to the beat. I carefully squeezed my way through the steel-capped figures with their dreadlocks glowing in bright neon colors and entered the last hall.
A gentle but invigorating guitar sound kissed my eardrums, accompanied by a smooth 80s synth. There was a certain melancholy in the air. "Pictures of you" by "The Cure" was playing.
People danced here with their eyes closed. Marie was standing in the middle of the dance floor, almost floating from one leg to the other. Her long blonde hair with black strands fell down her dress. She glanced at me and smiled.
I smiled back, breathed in. And smelled that scent...that one scent...sweet...soft...behind it that familiar gothic, but not penetrating, but cuddly and there was still...there was still...there was still...
"Hey Dad, what are you dreaming about right now?" - I was startled and pulled out of my daydream by my daughter: "Oh, I just remembered something," I said, somewhat irritated.
There it was again, still lingering in my nose...that smell I noticed in that gothic disco in the early 2010s...I had to find it.
An incomparable ambition suddenly took hold of me. I wanted to find it, the scent that reminded me of my time in gothic discos, that I associate with black kohl around my eyes and with such familiar sounds.
Patchouli was definitely there, I was sure of it... Maybe just any patchouli scent.
In the days that followed, I was obsessed with the thought of finding this scent...I stormed drugstores and perfumeries endlessly in the hope of somehow smelling that familiar scent again. I raided the Christmas market and sniffed countless patchouli oils until I felt sick and even visited several incense hippy stores in the hope of finding the object of my desire.
No such luck.
Frustrated, I shuffled through the wintry city, with more different samples of patchouli on my skin than an entire gothic disco, but without the smell I remembered. People gave me a wide berth and my silage tore a patchouli chasm in the ground behind me.
"I think I'll go for a swim tonight," I thought to myself... "Maybe I'll find something at LUSH that comes close to the right direction."
Numb and smelly, I entered the store. I was immediately approached by a (very attractive) sales assistant who asked me if I was looking for anything in particular.
"Something with patchouli," I replied.
The sales assistant grinned at me briefly.
"That's what I thought," he said with a grin, "As a bath bomb or as a perfume?"'
"You have perfume?" I asked, irritated and raised my eyebrows.
"Yes, of course!" he replied, turning around and pressing a small bottle into my hand, filled with an amber-colored liquid.
Lord of Misrule Perfume I read on the small bottle in the salesman's hand.
"It's something for you. You can see that straight away," he said confidently, "May I?"
A little embarrassed, I presented him with my forearm. He sprayed once.
Synapses were firing. Swirls of memories formed into intertwined images of light, darkness and cigarette smoke, as if a movie was being played far too quickly in front of my closed eyes. Broken fragments of glass were combined in the tinkling pepper that tickled my nose to form a sweet mosaic of vanilla.
When the movie ended within a fraction of a second, I saw a still image. Marie stood on the dance floor and smiled at me. Then a cloud of sweet patchouli. Not overwhelming, but soft. Everything blended into a gentle, wild mix. Prickliness, sweetness and heaviness. Dominant without being overpowering. Sweet without being really edible and peppery without being too harsh.
Marie reached out for me in my head.
A tear rolled down my cheek.
"Yes...", I gurgled out of my dissociation to the sales clerk, "I'll take it."
I didn't need a receipt.
Lord of Misrule Perfume was therefore the fragrance that led me into the world of fragrances through a wonderful and at the same time sad memory of my youth.
So it is perhaps difficult to evaluate it objectively, but for me it makes the best of what these three simple ingredients are capable of. It reminds me of times when everything was simultaneously melancholy and yet light, when we bought a bottle of whisky, threw away the cap and felt like the kings of the world. For me, it has a youthful royalty, melancholy and connection.
Today, I apply Lord of Misrule Perfume to my skin on cold rainy days and breathe in memories. Then I dance with Marie through the underground, to "The Cure", while we grin at each other and are sure at that moment that we are exactly where we belong.
Rest in peace old friend.
"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel"
-The Cure - Pictures of you
It was a cold afternoon in late November last year when I received a message from a number I didn't know. I wasn't really interested in perfume at the time and didn't know that this short message would be my personal key to the door of the fragrance world.
"Hey Efey," it said, "we haven't heard from each other for almost ten years now and I just wanted to ask you how you've been. Best regards - Marie."
I closed my eyes. "Marie...", I thought to myself "...my God, it's been a long time."
Images played out in front of my closed eyelids.
Time jump: 2014.
I saw myself descending a long stone staircase and heard familiar, sombre sounds coming closer to me with every step down...until I entered the first hall of the underground.
A dreamy-sounding violin mingled with the buzzing of an electric guitar. Men in black velvet shirts and women in floor-length, black lace dresses danced a wild round dance. I walked on, looking for someone, feeling a little unsure but cozy as I walked through the corridors of this underground, when suddenly a 17,000BPM boom beat rattled around my ears behind a corner, while a distorted voice yelled something into the microphone. I saw glowing neon lights and a small group of people stomping away uninhibitedly to the beat. I carefully squeezed my way through the steel-capped figures with their dreadlocks glowing in bright neon colors and entered the last hall.
A gentle but invigorating guitar sound kissed my eardrums, accompanied by a smooth 80s synth. There was a certain melancholy in the air. "Pictures of you" by "The Cure" was playing.
People danced here with their eyes closed. Marie was standing in the middle of the dance floor, almost floating from one leg to the other. Her long blonde hair with black strands fell down her dress. She glanced at me and smiled.
I smiled back, breathed in. And smelled that scent...that one scent...sweet...soft...behind it that familiar gothic, but not penetrating, but cuddly and there was still...there was still...there was still...
"Hey Dad, what are you dreaming about right now?" - I was startled and pulled out of my daydream by my daughter: "Oh, I just remembered something," I said, somewhat irritated.
There it was again, still lingering in my nose...that smell I noticed in that gothic disco in the early 2010s...I had to find it.
An incomparable ambition suddenly took hold of me. I wanted to find it, the scent that reminded me of my time in gothic discos, that I associate with black kohl around my eyes and with such familiar sounds.
Patchouli was definitely there, I was sure of it... Maybe just any patchouli scent.
In the days that followed, I was obsessed with the thought of finding this scent...I stormed drugstores and perfumeries endlessly in the hope of somehow smelling that familiar scent again. I raided the Christmas market and sniffed countless patchouli oils until I felt sick and even visited several incense hippy stores in the hope of finding the object of my desire.
No such luck.
Frustrated, I shuffled through the wintry city, with more different samples of patchouli on my skin than an entire gothic disco, but without the smell I remembered. People gave me a wide berth and my silage tore a patchouli chasm in the ground behind me.
"I think I'll go for a swim tonight," I thought to myself... "Maybe I'll find something at LUSH that comes close to the right direction."
Numb and smelly, I entered the store. I was immediately approached by a (very attractive) sales assistant who asked me if I was looking for anything in particular.
"Something with patchouli," I replied.
The sales assistant grinned at me briefly.
"That's what I thought," he said with a grin, "As a bath bomb or as a perfume?"'
"You have perfume?" I asked, irritated and raised my eyebrows.
"Yes, of course!" he replied, turning around and pressing a small bottle into my hand, filled with an amber-colored liquid.
Lord of Misrule Perfume I read on the small bottle in the salesman's hand.
"It's something for you. You can see that straight away," he said confidently, "May I?"
A little embarrassed, I presented him with my forearm. He sprayed once.
Synapses were firing. Swirls of memories formed into intertwined images of light, darkness and cigarette smoke, as if a movie was being played far too quickly in front of my closed eyes. Broken fragments of glass were combined in the tinkling pepper that tickled my nose to form a sweet mosaic of vanilla.
When the movie ended within a fraction of a second, I saw a still image. Marie stood on the dance floor and smiled at me. Then a cloud of sweet patchouli. Not overwhelming, but soft. Everything blended into a gentle, wild mix. Prickliness, sweetness and heaviness. Dominant without being overpowering. Sweet without being really edible and peppery without being too harsh.
Marie reached out for me in my head.
A tear rolled down my cheek.
"Yes...", I gurgled out of my dissociation to the sales clerk, "I'll take it."
I didn't need a receipt.
Lord of Misrule Perfume was therefore the fragrance that led me into the world of fragrances through a wonderful and at the same time sad memory of my youth.
So it is perhaps difficult to evaluate it objectively, but for me it makes the best of what these three simple ingredients are capable of. It reminds me of times when everything was simultaneously melancholy and yet light, when we bought a bottle of whisky, threw away the cap and felt like the kings of the world. For me, it has a youthful royalty, melancholy and connection.
Today, I apply Lord of Misrule Perfume to my skin on cold rainy days and breathe in memories. Then I dance with Marie through the underground, to "The Cure", while we grin at each other and are sure at that moment that we are exactly where we belong.
Rest in peace old friend.
"I've been looking so long at these pictures of you
That I almost believe that they're real
I've been living so long with my pictures of you
That I almost believe that the pictures are all I can feel"
-The Cure - Pictures of you
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