Baux

Recently, I was with the Pope. But he had no time because Obama was there too and wanted to pray with him for Ukraine. Therefore, a cardinal, who was older than my grandpa (and my grandpa is dead), conducted the mass, but reacted to the prompts of his prompter as promptly as Maren Gilzer to glowing letters. Nevertheless, he remained just a cardinal and therefore did not receive my Holle-01 sample, as I had promised it to the Pope. However, I did get the opportunity to try out a bit of the probably most exclusive fragrance product from Holzminden myself.

Holle 01, as is known, presents itself as a very versatile perfume and should therefore be tested in various scenarios. The base scent is a hint of ethereal freshness, which many vaguely categorize as a fresh laundry scent, which does not do justice to the complex olfactory mixture of a laundromat. The following protocol will demonstrate this:

3 PM, cruising altitude over Northern Germany
Holle forms a pleasantly clean personal scent cloud around my assigned 0.75 square meters of Easyjet. This helps against the smell of fear sweat from the aisle and the wafts of coffee substitutes served by the flight attendants. However, the screams of children let Holle 01 through.

6 PM, Rome, 18°C, light cloud cover
Holle 01 is settling in.

7 PM, Hotel
In the room, Eau de Laundromat pushes the balance between freshly made bed and stale air in the more favorable direction. However, airing out helped too. While dining in Monti, the future Holzminden fragrance classic takes a backseat to the smell of pasta and Barolo, as it should.

9 AM, Trevi Fountain
I smell Anita Ekberg rising from the water, but I do not throw a bottle of Holle into the basin.

Churches (various)
Holle 01 pairs well with incense. First thoughts of a flanker.

11 AM, queue in front of the Vatican Museums
While waiting, you meet new people. I could have sold five bottles of Holle 01, instead, I learn the Japanese versions of various I’ll-slap-your-fingers-if-you-don’t-move-them-fast-enough games, all of which are gentler than their European counterparts and possess a subtle eroticism, until a young lady enlightens me: "Normally. We play with the knife." Maybe my perfume saved my skin here. Or it was due to the strict weapon control of the Swiss Guard.

12 PM, in the Vatican Museum
There are bathtubs here where you can swim laps. This has nothing to do with the scent, but I wanted to mention it. Furthermore, you were allowed to photograph them, which you cannot do in the Sistine Chapel. There, the fresh Eau gave me space, room, and leisure while gazing at the ceiling (going after 5 PM helps too). Holle 01 smells of the silence that is regularly demanded by the staff with a piercing SCHHHHHHHHHH.

7 PM, back at the hotel
I don’t feel or smell sweaty, yet I shower anyway.

1 PM, under an orange tree on Via della Consulta.
Fleeting thoughts of another flanker. Obama drives by to the Quirinal Palace. Carabinieri describe the detour to be taken with their assault rifles.

3 PM, CampoMarzio70 (branch at the Pantheon)
I test some of the exclusive scents on paper, am not very impressed. I politely decline the offer to test one on my own skin. After all, I am already wearing Holle 01. The perfume is not known, but it shows curiosity. I refer to the Holzminden fragrance house and the strict limitation. Moreover, I express my personal opinion that this is the beautiful sister of Serge Lutens' "L'Eau." If I had had a second vial now, that would have been the moment when I would have distributed samples in a perfume shop.

After a few days back in my own apartment. Unlike in the hotel, no one had washed and aired the beds here during my absence. Both could be remedied. Exhausted, showered, and splashed with the last drops of Holle 01, I fell asleep in that feel-good aura that feels just as good at home as it does out there in the world.

Biagiotti sounds like a seasonal limited edition chocolate ball from Ferrero. But that doesn’t matter, just as little as the fact that the TV commercials regularly fell below the already mediocre level of advertising at the time (She gently bites his earlobe). Let’s set aside the rather dreadful creations of the house (Roma and everything for men), and we find a perfume that is fully rooted in the 90s, that decade in which people wanted to distance themselves from the extreme exaggerations of the previous one. The result was a certain indecisiveness, a stylistic mishmash, but at least an effort towards a romanticized naturalness.

Inevitably, this led to a fruity oriental. While Lancôme had already launched the defining scent of the time six years earlier with Trésor, still featuring targeted exaggerations that had survived from the 80s, such as the intensity of apricot, Sotto Voce is more balanced and - well - quieter. Peach, vanilla, and an undefined floral bouquet, all in harmony. Quieter here certainly doesn’t mean silent. Sotto Voce is a shouted whisper that everyone hears and is meant to hear. True restraint would only be learned by the world years later.

It may not smell like high art, yet it has a simple persuasive power akin to culinary delights like rice pudding with apples and cinnamon. Nevertheless, the very idea of the scent already deters many perfume fans: Just take nice fruits, nice flowers, and vanilla - done. This naturally alienates anyone who, as a matter of principle, rejects fruits, flowers, and vanilla, because it might smell like a young woman. The obvious always carries a hint of the ordinary.

Still, the combination remains equally trivial and beautiful, not only, but especially for those who collected formative scent experiences in clubs, at parties, and on balconies back then. The nose ultimately kisses along.

At 20, young men are usually just assholes. I know this because I was once 20 myself. Firstly, boys at that age think they know everything, and then they also think they know better than everyone else. But that's not the problem. The problem is that young men often don't smell good - unless they hang out at Parfumo. At least when it comes to perfume, most 20-year-olds have terrible taste. This is particularly tragic because men tend to not develop their taste in beauty products any further or even develop one at all. They wear what everyone else wears. The stubbornness of the young only transforms into the laziness of the old. They usually don't have good taste either, but they do have a woman. With a lot of luck, one who is at Parfumo.

You don't have to believe me when I say that One Million smells bad, even though I've now reached an age where you really know everything. Just use the thing between your eyes for help. (The thing between your ears wouldn't hurt either.) Or - and this is the much easier option - you can believe me and get a joker. This one: Spicebomb. Admittedly, Spicebomb can't do many things: It doesn't smell like chewing gum, Christmas market, glue, cotton candy, candy, or laminate. But it smells exactly like what all men ask for when they enter a perfume store: fresh, fruity, spicy, masculine, it's supposed to be noticeable, but not overwhelming. Unfortunately, these men are then sold Boss Bottled - Boss Bottled Night if they were looking for a scent for the evening.

You can save yourself the search now. Not only because I really know better than someone who wants to sell you Boss Bottled, but because Spicebomb is truly the perfect joker. It smells youthful, but can also be worn by a person without a beer belly even in 50 years. It smells elegant, but also goes well with jeans and a T-shirt. It works in the office as well as in the disco. Women like Spicebomb (34 out of 40, two were sick). You will simply smell good - of fruity-citrusy spice, warm, with a subtly leathery masculine note underneath.
It also has the real advantage that not everyone is wearing it - at least not yet. To keep it that way, you can simply answer the question of what you’re wearing with “the one from Boss” and pretend to have the exact ignorance that is expected of men regarding perfume.

The only point of criticism might be that it's a bit boring. But then again, so are men at 20.

There is nothing worse for individualists than hype. Just yesterday, we were throwing our iPhones in front of the subway, and today we have to shave off our full beards. And, particularly for perfume enthusiasts, every so often half of the collection ends up in the drain because at least three other people own the same scent. Once innovation has worked its way up to trend status, it can't be long before everyone, really everyone, has something like that in their lineup.

But rejoice, the Oud hype is already over. We will still lament it for a while when a new Oud fragrance comes out, just as we groan every time about yet another fresh scent, even though fresh fragrances have long been a thing of the past, and one can only muster so much outrage as a child of the 70s, for whom Dad eventually stopped smelling like Dad and started smelling like Cool Water. With some distance from the product wave that has just washed over the market, we can again explore the classic, the captivating, the successful that initially fascinated us. Even more, the time is now ripe to also take stock of all the junk that has bloomed and withered in the meantime.

After innovators and copycats have had their fun, and the cake has been distributed and eaten, one might think there is little left to do. What was ahead of its time has now been reformulated (M7), the classics have become tiresome (Rose + Oud), and while one can be enthusiastic about the extravagant, it cannot be worn (Fetish). The question remains for perfume houses like Creed, why they have not had an Oud in their lineup until now. The answer is quite simple: Creed does not like Oud. And Creed is not alone in this. Many people find the stuff annoying, and not just because of the hype.

What Creed presents here is therefore truly innovative. The wheel or the Oud has been reinvented: It is Oud for people who don't like Oud. The benchmarks are understatedness and modernity, and everything that somehow seems oriental has been stripped away, so the classic rose theme was the first to go. Now, one cannot simply eliminate it without a replacement, because without the floral-dark soapiness of the rose, Oud comes across as rather exhausting. The entire range of substitute combinations was already explored some time ago by Montale, without really being able to convince. Creed has opted for a practical best-of blend that aims to balance a bit of freshness, but with depth, which is achieved by a citrusy opening, a bit of soapiness, but creamy and without laundry detergent associations, and a non-floral floral note. Underneath, the actual theme plays the main role all the time: Oud and wood. The agarwood here does not dominate with a loud noise but integrates itself, remaining recognizable, but as a soloist in a high-class ensemble and not as a star with a bit of playback.

Contrary to what the name might suggest, Royal Oud is not an Oud fragrance in the true sense, but rather a perfume with Oud. More important than the distinctive scent of this ingredient are its elegant creaminess, its unfashionable modernity, and the sovereign variation of a theme that was already considered played out.

The loneliness and isolation of the individual, which are often noted in our times, strikingly coincide with the overcrowding of public spaces. Those who do not lock themselves at home find themselves as part of a crowd. We do not live in cities, but in metropolises, and the people around us, they make noise and stink.
It’s time to shut oneself off, to give one’s own sphere the necessary hardness. What headphones are for the ears, sunglasses for the face, is Serge Lutens’ L’Eau for one’s own olfactory aura. What we do not smell does not concern us, and we perceive hardly anything other than subtle freshness. Who wants to smell in this world? So one remains in the harmless non-perception of the environment. Living room to spray, because ultimately adventure is just a romantic expression for difficulties.
Those who managed well with this perfume-centricity in the first round can look forward to a sequel. And what could be more logical in the isolation logic of the fragrance concept than a flanker that ultimately is nothing more than creative navel-gazing.

Hardly anything remains other than a self-quote, because broadly speaking, perfume was invented to appear attractive and appealing to others. To develop into a work of art, it therefore requires a considerable dose of decadence in the spirit of the times. For not only does the perfume not care how others perceive it, it wants to be the opposite of the ordinary attractant. Where we used to think about going-out scents, here we are faced with a go-away perfume.
However, without becoming olfactorily offensive. This is about polite distance, not chemical defense. In this regard, L’Eau froide leaves its predecessor far behind. While the latter conveyed the security one might feel when locking oneself in a freshly cleaned bathroom, the reinterpretation completely frees one from this world. The L’Eau release concept can be found at Serge Lutens in the sacred space, by taking up the incense theme and bending it in one’s own sterile direction. The note itself is innocent. It is its concrete design and interpretation that rob it of warmth and mystique. What in CdG’s Avignon is owed to pure mimesis, here falls through scratchy coldness. In the effort to lift the wearer from a world of sweat and stench, any sense of the environment is also muted. This is intentional and conceptual, but it does not make it any less gruesome.