Love at First Sight!
Do you know that feeling? Not just a casual "Oh, yes, that’s really nice!" No, it’s more like being hit by a bus when it unexpectedly catches you off guard, you first flinch because something comes at you out of the blue, you feel an impact just a fraction of a second later, in your heart and in your head, and then you’re left bewildered, completely at a loss. Ideally, this happens with a dear person and is mutual. Sometimes it also happens with amazing food featuring exquisite spices, or here and there when you’re testing a new fragrance.
With the very first encounter of a Kerosene scent, that’s rather unlikely to happen, unless you have a penchant for black velvet pouches. Let’s leave it at that. The bottle is a mysteriously dark square in solid standard design with a similarly simple cap. Unobtrusive, were it not for the large brass plate on the front, into which the artist is said to still hand-stamp the letters of his label and the name of the perfume. Always a bit crooked and uneven, and that’s what makes it so beautiful.
One spray and you get brushed by the bus. A second careless press on the atomizer and it runs you over. Yes, many have written this and some surely meant it just as much, but it rarely holds true.
Here, you’re enveloped by a very dense and very dark cloud, where some might immediately shout incense and oud. But it shouldn’t be that simple. The two dark companions are certainly part of it. However, there are also amber, woods, and musk, from which all the light and bright elements have been stripped away, like in a black hole, along with all the liquid, until only the extract remains in the form of a dark crystal that you crush and blow into your nose. To slightly soften this Mordor-like impression, a fruity accord can be detected as a faint light in this tunnel, distinctly synthetic like Red-Berry Iced Tea from a Tetra Pak. This may not be to everyone’s taste, but in moments like this in this dark valley, it comes in very handy as it at least tempers the dark notes a bit. However, the fruits don’t last long, and a harsh, almost bitter-torrefied whiskey accent makes its presence known, always surrounded by the dark, smoldering woods.
Once you’ve somewhat recovered from the collision with the bus and wonder how long you’ve been in a coma, you might be surprised, because the scent is still there. Even the next day, distinctly. Very distinctly and still very expressive. It lingers in your clothes, two days, three days. For my part, I apply this scent Scottish-style sparingly to the back of my knees, thus creating a sufficient distance from my own nose, and only softened whiffs of the scent waft towards me.
Call me a macho who hasn’t quite arrived in the here and now, which I can’t entirely deny, but for me, it’s a men’s scent. I don’t know any woman on whom I would want to smell this fragrance, nor can I imagine one. Maybe Grace Jones, although, no! More like a battle-axe-wielding Viking warrior defending her children from a marauding band of thieves in the smoking ruins of her village. But I wouldn’t want to get too close to that woman either. But let’s leave it at that; it leads nowhere. It remains a men’s scent.
At this point, the discerning reader might wonder if one must absolutely have and wear this scent. No. My answer is: No. It’s more of a scent for oneself. Or if you want to maintain a bit of spatial distance from others in public transport, the office, theater, cinema, or family gatherings. The scent is robust, but it also has a certain addictive quality. Similar to a bus accident, you don’t want to see it, but you still look...
Tobacco absolute
Whisky barrel
Red berries
Amber
Musk
Bergamot
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Seejungfrau
Chnokfir
Yatagan
M3000
Mokka
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