AtTheScenter

Mr. K. in half-sleep
grounded yet somnambulant
like prose he picks
resin-heavy dark blooms
wandering between scent and intoxication
+
he hallucinates
sour-tanned tobacco
on sweet smoky leather


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.
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(yes, not a real review, but too long as a statement)

my first Teone Reinthal and I was immediately captivated.
when such a wonderful scent meets one of my favorite writers,
it must inevitably be inspiring.
a truly well-crafted fragrance,
it will surely not be the last from this house.

dark roasted coffee beans, some beans are burnt,
heavy oily moist ebony, when trying to dry it, it got slightly scorched in places,
in the potpourri, the tobacco dries the other ingredients that can't manage on their own,
it absorbs moisture, becoming slightly oily itself, but has a balancing effect,
vanilla also tries to smooth things over, but thus remains in the background for now,
oud serves as a base to hold its companions together,
but gives them the freedom to play,
coffee is clearly the eccentric of the group, everyone dances around it

you really have to like coffee, and here especially not the creamy soft milk coffee,
but dark roasted beans,
it initially comes across as somewhat disharmonious and slightly musty due to the stubborn coffee,
almost as if the beans were delivered in a damp, stained jute sack,
but since coffee is the namesake, one should know what they are getting into
and give it space
after the beans are out of the sack and everything has aired out a bit,
it becomes more conciliatory, but remains dark, slightly smoky, roasted to the point of being burnt,
somewhere between moist and dry, most reminiscent of tropical warmth
later it becomes quite orderly and lets the others join in
in the drydown, it first turns into a cup of cold, stale coffee,
which then gets warmed up again by the vanilla and tobacco,
the oud connects and smooths them out, but keeps everything dark

a beautiful, truly niche coffee scent that I will surely wear more often,
even if it is not quite as harmoniously balanced as my previous holy grail,
when it comes to coffee scents, which I found in origins of the collector by memoirs of a perfume collector.
but if you like it a bit wilder, then you reach for javanese coffee, cheers!

this weekend I tested three fragrances that coincidentally were all quite close to three other fragrances from my collection. the two contrasted here were the most similar.

one of the three tested was mon nom est rouge. right upon spraying, I thought of the unforgettable sideris by maria candida gentile, a scent that has recently become one of my favorites and indeed has the potential to be a signature.
both fragrances are really very similar, and it is even more surprising how alike they are when you consider the richer pyramid of m.n.e.r.
in direct comparison, marginal differences emerge, which for my feeling really only make nuances.
what they have in common is the wonderful unsacral caressing incense and the subtle dry rose.
m.n.e.r. is slightly spicier due to cardamom, cinnamon, and ginger, while sideris is a bit brighter. in sideris, the rose seems slightly fruitier and minimally more present. and although sideris, unlike m.n.e.r., contains no vanilla, it gives me the impression of being slightly creamier and a touch sweeter due to a delicate vanilla note. I believe I perceive a bit more dry wood in m.n.e.r. however, both have the same inviting warm smoothness and are united by the same seductive charm.
mon nom est rouge seems darker and more mystical due to its slightly more prominent spiciness casting a brief shadow of patchouli, while the cozy bright lightness of sideris invites to dance more lightly.
I think m.n.e.r. will have slightly better longevity, but overall they are really very similar, almost as if they were brother and sister, a twin pair, with sideris being the more feminine and mon nom est rouge being the somewhat more masculine part.
I had recently fallen in love with sideris, and after the small 15ml bottle was used up very quickly, I immediately reordered the 100ml. but at the latest when this one runs low, I will probably also add mon nom est rouge to the collection (if it can even wait that long).

the test also included:
rania j. ambre loup which reminded me of franck boclet amber
rania j. oud assam which reminded me of rasei fort the oud caravan
...short reviews/comparisons will follow

the warm smoky room needed to be aired out.
from the workshop next door, the smell of fuel wafted through the cracked window.
now it smelled like smoked gasoline.
fresh air refused to come through the window,
it remained cozy and spicy, some might say a bit musty.
today, no sun wanted to rise, the sky was gray and overcast, it stayed dark.
he nodded off while sitting, the ember of his hand-rolled cigarette scorched the leather sofa.
he briefly dreamed of hashish and poppy, but when he awoke again,
he had forgotten it once more.
he searched for the fruits but found none, they must have rolled under the sofa.
didn't he have a pomegranate lying around?
ah no, it was its thickened juice, not fruity at all, rather bitter and slightly sour.
on the table was a small puddle of some spilled alcohol,
perhaps whiskey, somehow syrupy dried up,
so that the ethereal volatility was missing, it was resinous, dry, and herbal.
he still thought about whether he should burn a piece of creamy sandalwood,
to cover the gasoline leather coal, but he had none left,
so it remained gray-ashy and burnt leathery in the room, somehow stony, mineral-like.
he also thought of black decayed wet wood, as it lay still damp in the forest
and the deer had rubbed against it.
yes, today really should not see any sun,
but even such a lazy day he knew,
to enjoy in the contemplation of the exhalations of various shades of gray and black,
to savor.

in the mid-nineties, at 16 years old in an oriental shop,
a small hidden store in my hometown.
Surrounded by ethereal sounds in an esoterically appealing interior.
Among batik bell-bottoms, fisherman shirts made of Indian linen,
hand-carved wooden boxes adorned with oriental arabesques,
clay ocarinas and darbukas covered with natural skin,
hand-knotted hippie necklaces made of colorful stones strung on a leather cord
and above all lingered the scent of Nag Champa incense sticks,
which came in the blue-and-white box with the red lettering.
Nag Champa, the epitome of spiritual aura and meditative ambiance
and at the same time an alibi scent to hide the other resinous fragrances in my childhood room
from my parents.
Oh how I lived, immortal in my youth, when the days were still powerful
and the endless hours lay before me,
when every minute was still full of life and opened its arms to
dive into their embrace.
I remember
psychedelic sounds under a crystalline sky,
the nights subjected to an insatiable search,
the drive to want to go to every end,
a hunger for knowledge and poetry that never satisfied,
but only grew more eager with every newly discovered morsel.
Sleepwalking between books, poetry, philosophy,
between intoxication and meditation, ecstatic shamanic drumming, guitar and piano.
Sleepless nights, lurking for moments of realization,
in the fight against sleep, as it robbed conscious life time.
And what is it today?
To the time-forgetting and time-forgotten, hardly more than a scent,
yet to the still-seeking, the spirit of a memory
of an all-consuming hunger
and the question of what satisfied it over the years -
or did one simply forget the appetite with the years?
Accustomed to the flow of days, accustomed to the hunger
and understood the wasting away as satisfaction?

Yet now and then, beneath the trickling sand of time,
one finds a piece of ember from old times, covered and guarded by the sand,
one reaches for the embers of the past
and with the breath of memory, one ignites them into a new flame.

Delhi is for me an emotional reminiscence of the times of my early youth, which I
prefer not to dissect too much olfactorily.
At the center stands the Nag Champa of those incense sticks, whose impression
I prefer not to interpret differently in favor of nostalgia.
All other notes from the pyramid are perceptible, they entwine
and support the main note.
But Floyd has already described this perfectly in his wonderful review
and I have nothing more to add :)