Chimo

Defeat has a bad reputation. Those who fall quickly become a thing of the past. Those who lie on the ground see the world from below. Perhaps the second place can still rejoice. But the fourth is already punished by life.

Yet losing has its own beauty. When the spotlight turns away, life makes room for quiet colors. And those who manage to see them can achieve a life of great abundance.

But then there are the crooks. The impostors and blusterers who lay their hands on the throne. Those who rise without effort, without skill, and at best with the sweat of cunning. The good-for-nothings who carve their way through with smoke and mirrors. They see the field from behind, but their boldness takes them to the finish line in a taxi. They could have accomplished something of their own.

So this is about a clone. The issue with imitators is actually banal. Riding on the coattails is not forbidden, and everyone should be able to enjoy dupes. On the other hand, clever folks like those from Cuba could also just create their own scent or at least apply a new brushstroke in the copying workshop. Instead, they decode the DNA of well-known perfumes with pliers and clamps and brew them up again.

That Le Male is the blueprint is evident from the first spray. It is a sweet-spicy overdose of mint with lavender and vanilla. The original is a bit sweeter, the imitator a bit spicier. There seems to be a hint of tobacco. But after just 20 minutes, hardly any difference can be discerned. Cuba Gold is just flatter and less clever. It lacks clarity. And the surprise of a real discovery, anyway.

The homoerotic gesture of Le Male was a big deal back then. It reached the masses and could be smelled in clubs and at supermarket checkouts. Even today, the scent is still respectable. However, its spectrum has aged a bit. A bit like a tattoo that one hastily got before the Love Parade.

Why so many still copy this scent is obvious. Like the box shifters of discount stores, you can still make good money with it. It’s easier than taking a risk.

But like with all imitation products, there remains a stale feeling. Dupes are like painting with watercolors and eventually blurring the tones in the paint box. Clarity is lacking, the prism of colors is covered by a veil. Le Male, despite its minty-vanilla sweetness, has these clear peaks, as if the fragrance notes are fanned out. You don’t have to like it, but it is interesting. This scent here is just a petty thief.

“And why do you put yourself through this and even write about it?”

“I don’t know either. I wanted to write something about the beauty of losing. And now I at least know that gallows birds can never fly.”

There is a wistfulness in perfumes that resides within their essence. They depart the moment they come to us. When their beauty is particularly great, they die long ago like flowers in a vase. They say goodbye into the air. Perhaps this is the melancholy I often feel here. We want to hold onto it.

When I sprayed this fragrance for the first time yesterday morning, I immediately knew that it wanted to refuse this tenderly beautiful sorrow. It communicated that from the very first moment. A strange presence outside and a confusing satisfaction inside set in. I walked under trees, and it was there. I sat at my desk, and it was there. I stood at the supermarket checkout, and it was there. Dinner, brushing my teeth, reading. Again and again, presence. The scent waved at me, and sometimes it snapped its fingers like in school during a pressing request to speak.

It was a conquest of space, and on top of all that, another experience added itself. It was the encounter with a hybrid being. For Casino Elixir 2.0 is not just a fragrance, but two. It crosses two well-known perfumes as the result of a laboratory possibility. Aventus and Baccarat Rouge 540. One can almost see people in white lab coats chuckling because they have succeeded in confusing us.

First, there is this convex silver accord that we know from Aventus. Quickly, the familiar currant fougère spreads out with the brushstroke of a Third Hand Smoke that clings to smokers' clothes. But one can hardly believe it, more and more this medical cotton candy from Baccarat Rouge pushes into the picture. And so one stands there in a sometimes interesting, sometimes confusing bipolar olfactory experience.

I immediately wondered whether this is refined or a horror clown from the chemistry set. And I am not quite sure if this fragrance was also responsible for waking me up at 2:49 AM last night. It was definitely there. I almost looked to see if a red balloon was lying under the bed.

It is both a blessing and a curse with Dua fragrances that they gift us their intrusiveness. It is certainly interesting that they are so clear. They separate the colors in the paint box very controlled. There is no splattering around that allows mixed tones to sneak in (or even that strange watercolor brown we know from kindergarten). The company's concept seems to be sharp separation from the chromatograph. It is the digital high resolution of well-known perfumes. A flawlessly reproduced image in which the contrasts and colors have been cranked up. It is a bit like on an iPhone when you turn the photo filters too high.

At the same time, they do not skimp on the fragrance materials. It is not particularly expensive to pour a larger sip from the ingredient vat into the flacons, and surely therein lies the success of the brand. One wonders at the same time why the manufacturers of the originals are often so reserved.

Perhaps it is because this calculated high dosage can also be oppressive. It is quickly too much of everything. A colorful neon advertisement. Do you want that?

In the end, I learned something. When I applied a normal Eau de Toilette after showering today, it came to my mind. Perhaps it is quite simple.

Restraint is smiling. Show-offs grin.

On a day in 1897, a man stands on a street and films a scene. You can find the colored clip on YouTube. The images are surprisingly tender. We see adults throwing snowballs. They jump and throw, reaching again and again into the snow, constantly finding new playmates and covering new backs and coat collars with the white powder. It is so innocent and pre-modern, such a fabulous and immensely colossal fun, that one becomes quite still. Silent like the film itself. They do not know that they will still experience the bloodlust of their era, which will consume the earth beneath them. They throw snowballs. It is the time of innocence.

Kiton Men has always felt to me like this scene: cheerful and pre-modern and a bit outside of current events. The fragrance seems to come from a world where one could still find a flower in the buttonhole here and there, where men wore suits in everyday life (as much as was possible in their social classes) and in a rare moment of exuberance could suddenly become immensely cheerful.

The fragrance starts with pleasant bergamot, embedded in an unsweetened pineapple. Above all, however, Kiton Men is surrounded by a soft floral aroma that can turn a guy into a gentleman, well-meaning and quiet. It feels so polite and courteous, so exceedingly classic and without a dandy-like attitude, that one almost falls back into the centuries. The scent has nothing ostentatious or flashy about it. It is never calculating. And before the flowers might possibly break through inappropriately, it already dims the emerging color palette with dryness. This is elegantly old-fashioned. A pleasant companion.

And it is simply honest craftsmanship. On the packaging, you read no chemistry set, but only a few ingredients. The fragrance does not perform daring pirouettes, but accompanies you as reliably through everyday life as a pocket square. And even if the big compliments are missing, simply because the effects are lacking, it may seem boring, where it is actually beautiful.

And yes, boredom. It has a bad reputation. Yet it grants us its great arc beyond fleeting attractions. It is as slow and time-lost as an uneventful winter day. The fragrance tells a bit about that, about slow gestures and silent waiting. But it also tells that suddenly something can happen. This encounter in the street, where people come together and throw snowballs. Nothing has worked towards it, nothing makes noise in between. It is just as the fragrance is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaYfi-A7xY0

On parfumo, I learned a word I had never heard before: mailbox scent. It is apparently a perfume that you quickly throw on when you don’t want to just head out. It has to be effortless, within reach, and without the worry that it might run out. Still, it should be nice enough that others nod as you walk by.

So this scent is a mailbox scent. You spray it on and dash down the stairs, and in the hallway, a sporty freshness spreads that shouldn’t offend anyone. If the mailman is still hanging around downstairs, he thinks: Aha, someone has showered. When the older neighbor from the ground floor stands in the doorframe, she murmurs: Finally, the cleaning crew. And the kids on their Bobbycars smile because an aquatic super grobi just zoomed past them.

It is pointless to try to locate a fragrance pyramid, as it is pure synthetic. When the people from the Zara marketing department came into the lab and rambled on about “lemon,” “alpine violet,” and “orange blossom,” the lab coats laughed themselves silly. Yes, their glasses fogged up and they had to wipe the tears from their eyes. “Cardamom!” Hahaha. “Amber!” Hahahaha. “And here, watch out: PATCHOULI!” HAHAHAHAHA!

Even on the way home, they chuckled, causing people at the bus stop to shake their heads in confusion.

But wait, dear mailbox-goers. The scent is fine. It is silvery-fresh, lemony-bright, and spreads a tickling nautical vibe around you in the colors of the old Fa advertisements. Azure soap, really. And it has an impressive projection. The longevity is also good enough to last until the DHL delivery person rings the doorbell in the afternoon, grumbling about the third floor, even though it smells so controlled-clean up there.

By the way, the guys from the lab would never spray this scent on themselves. They know that what’s sloshing around in their steel containers is just a fragrant compromise for impulse buyers. The guys from the marketing department, on the other hand, like to spritz themselves in the evenings with the test bottles they’ve taken home. “Alpine violet and orange blossom,” they say then. “That really works well.”

On September 17, 1859, Joshua Abraham Norton crowned himself Emperor of America. The former businessman strode through San Francisco in uniform, with epaulettes and a peacock feather, and was allowed to dine for free in restaurants. His decrees were ignored by the American Congress, and he failed to abolish it. The Republican and Democratic parties, which he wanted to ban, also opposed his grandiose proclamations. But when he died a few decades later, 30,000 people lined the streets.

Emperor Norton I was a ruler without mercy. Known throughout the country and somewhere between a fool and Napoleon. But what does this have to do with Aventus?

It's quite simple. I have always wondered whether Creed's most flamboyant majesty merely pinned on the insignia of power or if Aventus is indeed divinely inspired. Impostor or nobleman? Is the combination of birch tar, blackcurrant, and pineapple a stroke of genius or a banal lucky hit? Is Aventus truly great, or was the scent simply in the right place at the right time?

That Aventus aimed to win great battles was clear from the start. The scent is indeed inspired by Napoleon Bonaparte, as stated in a press release from Creed. And they quickly borrowed his attributes of "masculinity, strength, power, and vision." A self-proclaimed king of war, it continued, of peace and love.

So the marketing department had already done a great job. But to be honest, the olfactory claims that followed were somewhat boastful. For example, the blackcurrants come from Corsica, where Napoleon was born. But aren't dark fruits found everywhere? And then Creed went even further. The birch refers to Louisiana, which once belonged to Napoleon's empire. But that is truly bizarre. Because France sold Louisiana to the USA in 1803 for the equivalent of 251 million dollars. Far from a conquest, it was Bonaparte's bargain days. Ouch.

But in the end, it is the scent that must convince. And Aventus is undoubtedly well-made. It is not the result of laboratory accidents, but a fruity chypre interpretation that approached an unexpected note. The pineapple combined with blackcurrant and that peculiar third-hand smoke is modern and sophisticated.

And the success speaks for the fragrance. Because it certainly cannot be attributed to the marketing fireworks that Aventus became Creed's biggest blockbuster. What I like most about Aventus is its convex, flamboyant presence. The first minutes after spraying are as flawless as the silhouette of a silver sports car. The citrus-fruity accord is beautifully balanced with a herbaceous-leathery note. And not much more is added, remaining quite strict in form and somehow floating between modernity and classicism. Then the scent is also cushioned by soft musk and enhanced by ISO-E-Super and proportioned Ambroxan, providing a spatial conquest. It is coolly orchestrated.

Certainly, the projecting presence is one reason why Aventus is so well-received. Consequently, you can encounter the scent everywhere, in art galleries and large dance clubs, in office elevators and at supermarket checkouts. And you can indeed wear it and believe that you have a unique characteristic. That is quite an achievement.

So what remains? Aristocrat or show-off? Perhaps it can be said this way: Aventus is the first emperor who was democratically elected. It was a vote with the spray bottle. And it is still a remarkable reign. But how the ruling years of Aventus will ultimately be assessed - that is something historians will have to decide.