Maison Margiela is a Parisian fashion house only 30 years old, which seems to me to be more oriented towards haute couture and piggybacking than the (comparatively!) down-to-earth Santa Eulalia. The founder, Mr Margiela, was Belgian.
This house has also bought itself a fragrance program (which is how it should be), a few individual fragrances ("Mutiny" and "untitled" as far as I can see) and then a series called "Replica" from about a dozen EdTs and a few EdPs. "Replica" does not mean, contrary to what I first thought and contrary to what at least some of the labels (this one for example) suggest, that old scent recipes are dug up and revived (like Anglia Perfumery), but only that certain ideas of situations, moments, environments (like e.g. "lipstick", "campfire" or even "barber") are implemented in scent technology. An idea that, by the way, I don't find quite so original now. The price is not exaggerated unlike that for the clothes of the house and is thus around 100 euros per 100 ml. It is also worth mentioning that there are two "filter" fragrances to the series, "Blur" and "Glow". "Blur" should, if applied additionally, soften every fragrance in the series, "Glow" should, on the contrary, spice up, i.e. make it brighter and brighter. A kind of pre-structured layering. Wouldn't be for me, but maybe someone would.
At the Barber's implements the fragrance idea of a barber's hairdresser suitably and in a very pleasant, friendly and unobtrusive way. I can't provide a detailed analysis, the fragrance is too homogeneous for that, but the spicy, fresh, soapy and somewhat warm notes that are commonly associated with "Barbershop" are all there. Associations such as leather straps for pulling off the razor, pots with shaving foam, powder puffs perhaps, fit into this scent picture without any compulsion.
The scent is (differently than occasionally noted here) very durable, after 8 hours a complex soap-fresh scent can still be perceived very close, and after almost 14 hours, extremely skinny but then, I still feel very fine, very pleasant tonka bean (you can always bait me there). The Sillage, on the other hand, is absolutely moderate; again a fragrance with a pressure relief valve, you can bathe in it and still not bother your fellow men.
At the Barber's isn't a sweet scent from my point of view, not even in the base. It is only suitable, as is appropriate for a fragrance of this genre, for a delicate, spicily integrated warmth, which at best plays over a little into the sweetness. And in the first three hours I always take a slight stink note which I cannot assign to any of the ingredients, I would have suspected something like coriander herb, but find none. But this note is only just strong enough to make the fragrance more interesting and less smooth, it never turns into a really unpleasant one.
And this is perhaps also the strength and weakness of the fragrance: This barbershop is very friendly and tidy, bright and by the way also very modern (although of course with traditional soaps, creams, hair lotions and the like more equipped, and also a few vintage offset pieces from the flea market stand around). It's a really nice scent! But maybe a little bit too smooth and syllabic to really fall in love with him. After wearing it for two days now, I give myself my good old "Windsor" from the Czech drugstore supplier ALPA for comparison tomorrow; I almost think this hairdresser smells just as classic, but has more heart and is of real shot and grain. And there's the haircut at pre-war prices.