Chizza

Valentine's Day 2024 in the home of a perfumer requesting anonymity:
"Shahaatz," whistled Eggo36, "Happy Valentine's Day! Unwrap the present once!"
"Is it Mon Cheri? But not already bitten into, please?"
"Much better. I've already eaten the chocolate thingies."
*Unpacking*
"Oh...a perfume...wow...great...Labdanum 4 Love. Sigh."
"Yeah, awesome, right? Labdanum because you smell like honey and resin, like Winnie the Pooh to me! So in female, with a different figure, pants and now not the one from Blood & Honey! You're so calm? So much in ecstasy? Let me be your piglet, that's enough thanks for me!"
"..."

Labdanum 4 Love actually has a very strong, palatable, resinous entrée; it immediately smells strongly woody, but also of tart honey. The woody notes seem very fresh, as if resin is seeping out of a freshly cut tree wound or mingling with it.
Cocoa makes an appearance: soft powder dusts the scene like a kind of homage to a white winter Christmas. The cocoa is slightly oily and tends towards earthy notes. Patchouli not only touches, patchouli penetrates the nucleus of the fragrance like a formidably thrust spear.

There is no question that Siam benzoin, often characterized by its chocolaty aroma and balsamic nuances, contributes to the effect of Labdanum 4 Love. What is also noticeable, but only after a certain amount of time, is the sandalwood. We are all familiar with the pungent and penetrating smell of cheap sandalwood. Here we are offered the high-quality version; pleasant, underlining the other olfactory facets. Noble, velvety-warm, soft-woody; the patrician among woods.

Only the oud needs to be printed on milk cartons. Indian oud, so powerful, aromatic, expressionistic Indonesian oud or leathery Thai oud - none of these have been seen. It may be that the relatively quickly emerging base may consist of these. Unfortunately, however, this would only amount to caricatures of these ouds, like part six of a movie series.

The Duftkumpels are not a jovial group of good friends, they are not even a group because there is actually just one man behind them. The products are usually sold via eBay, with more and more fragrances gradually appearing. Some of them, like this one, are very limited. The best-known works were created together with Hans Georg Staudt, while the more limited works appear to have been created independently.
Labdanum 4 Love is a success, but becomes increasingly flat towards the base and also quite quickly. All the ingredients around the balsamic, chocolaty part are strong. However, the transformation to a powerful and oud-heavy core is only partially successful. This is certainly not due to the raw materials themselves, which are of high quality. The transition itself is like the eye of a needle. The camel still comes through, the ouds only very idly.

Whether you indulge in the art of barista or not, it's like cigarettes and their smell: there are probably more lovers of the smell of coffee than of coffee itself, even though this hot drink is extremely popular in all its variations. I myself was recently on the verge of turning back on the highway after reading that the coffee machine in the office had broken down. These days, it apparently needs a technician to fix it and until he arrives... But I digress: a coffee smell that isn't driven by the sugary or milky element, that doesn't come across as sweet, well, I've very rarely had that. And when I did, it was in other places. Somehow, with Mocha Valentino, I insinuated that the process would be similar. I was wrong about the fragrance.

Mocha Valentino is perhaps the olfactory coffee creation I've been waiting for. From the very first moment, there is this typical aura of this drink, but without just smelling of the beans. No, the entourage is lavish, but there is no milk, sugar or caramel. Of course, vanilla is present. This completes the overall effect. Nothing more.
Not for nothing is part of the name Mocha. According to the coffee nomenclature, this is a coffee that is refined with chocolate, giving it a bitter-sweet aroma. That's what it smells like here too. But not only that. A balsamic, decelerating facet combined with a sublime, hesperidic freshness lends Mocha Valentino depth and diversity. It becomes pleasingly unpleasant, if I may describe the work in this way.

But the development does not end there. Full-bodied woody tones, almost like smooth oud, evoke warmth. The resinous melange is viscous, creamy and altogether palatable. This creates a harmonious structure in combination with the mocha aroma. Mocha Valentino is underpinned by soft green earthy impressions.
In a nutshell: Mocha Valentino is wonderfully composed, catchy and yet created in such a way that you have to appreciate resins and wood to love this coffee. Sfumato counteracts its own name here. Nothing is blurred here; Mocha Valentino is clearly arranged.

(with thanks to Floyd)

Robert, the Yeti, had a new business idea. He often heard (voices) saying that he had a nice smell. How could he manage to always emit such pleasant scents? So he became obsessed with the idea of releasing a perfume one day. It was just as well that he kidnapped various people during his last foray, only to cook them later and eat them with relish. One man, however, constantly lamented that the world had lost his talent for perfume creations. Let's call him Steorg Gaudt or Gaudi-Georg. In any case, the following dialog ensued:

"Me Rooobääärt. Yeti. You make perfume for me. Everyone smells like me."
"Uh, like blood from all the corpses here? Or like civet? That's what it smells like here...Did you put this in Duschdas bottles?"
"Do it or I'll eat you."
"Yes yes yes, it's ok, so normally I arrange a few appointments for a bespoke...so is it something along the lines of perverse Prin creations with urine, sperm, blood and so on? Or would you prefer something a little more pleasing? Something more traditional with an animal twist or something? Or rather a scent like a Robby Bubble sparkling wine? Something along the lines of Erba Pura?"
"You talk a lot, maybe you'd rather eat."
"Well, I'll get started. With both arms, if the shackles could come off? I have lots of ingredients in my little village where you could do some magic. Could we go there? You just pretend to be Babsi, my stepsister on my mother's side, nobody will notice. But then I'll be spared."
"Okay."

This is where two fragrances come together that I know individually, which are relatively diametrically opposed and, to put it simply, have been blended. Naturally refined and the like. The spectrum ranges from citrusy-fresh notes to directly smoky oud-animalic. You find yourself in an olfactory hidden object; in this case saffron, accompanied by musky notes and subtle almond. Then there is the oud sextet and various animalic additions. It smells leathery, tart, smoky. This combination with tangerine, orange and the like is extremely exciting. Hesperides wilt, burn up like the sun, impressions of deep reds and autumnal colors appear. This facet of Yeti is dominant and also very strongly constructed.

The ouds do not outdo each other, do not create too many edges, but like a kaleidoscope, they create a multi-layered unity, shimmering in all kinds of resinous and woody notes. Balsamic nuances also contribute to this. These round Yeti off, providing a kind of full-bodiedness, but you should not be put off. From time to time, the sublimely extreme style overflows, a hint of autumnal-animalic redness wafts past, the intensely fragrant citrus peel almost provides a harmonious and cozy overtone.

The citrus facets gradually fade away, Yeti becomes more racy and spicy, the moderately impetuous animalic and oud melange of the first few moments transforms into a peaceful, olfactory lake. The nucleus of this creation becomes apparent and remains so, the extroverted essence also becomes more mature and withdraws.

What is the conclusion? Two fragrances, which the perfumers thought were not good enough on their own, combined for whatever reason and the result is a work that finally brings out the qualities of the individual components. A perfume reminiscent of the archaic MGO releases. Sometimes it really does seem like a mosaic. Perfection through the big picture. Perhaps a plea for fruitful cooperation, for a fundamental togetherness.

Civet friends: do you feel the same way? Have you only ever had a hint of civet in your fragrance? Without any pithy, crunchy additions, but rather only vanilla pudding, fruit basket or pre-diabetes fragrances at the start? No more questioning looks as to whether you've showered or whether it's supposed to be like this?

I have the solution here: leave the fruit basket in the job advertisements, here a fragrance evokes what you really want to be: animals. Dirty, animalistic, garnished with green. Because you raced through the undergrowth like a wild boar on the hunt for your female counterpart; this impression must also be olfactory. You pigs.

Our friend Georg Selleck has launched something here that will make you feel fresh under your blouse, a fresh breeze fluttering through your chest hair. After it has grown within minutes and you can put your toupee back on your head. I've counted: even my feet now look like a mountain gorilla from Rwanda!

But enough platitudes, let's get the moustache out of my teeth for a moment: yes, we've got classic herbaceous from the good old days that I never got to know. I'm young, not all of you. But take comfort: in the eyes of my children, we are all ancient. Including the animalistic Triple Crown, you almost go broody. In the test, I had to quickly leave the meadow next door at the farmer Hubert's after seeing the gleam in some of the animals' eyes!

I have known civet very well since an acquaintance became a hobby perfumer and obviously has a soft spot for civet. In the sense of all you can eat. This one - 1981 by MGO - smells exactly like that. Brutal from time to time, sometimes disguised by tarragon and friends. I'd like to say it's becoming more harmless. And yes, successively you get run over less within seconds. You have ten seconds before your brain realizes what it's smelling.

If you like that and find Kouros, Antaeus too soft or some pseudo-ouds not fecal enough: you'll be helped here. Then 10/10 is also in it, for many others diametrically opposed to 0/10. 1981 is nevertheless well realized and multi-faceted, one must attest.

Myriads of cocoa grains trickle down sparklingly as cocoa dust swirls upwards, meeting in the middle for golden-radiant, warm-resinous wing beats, uniting to form a kind of sintering column; persistent and yet very fragile, constantly fading and appearing anew. Shimmering around the symbolic light, this fragrance develops further facets. Resinous nuances and damp wood evoke a balsamic heaviness that feels diametrically opposed to olfactory lightness.

In Roman mythology, the goddess of light merged with Juno, probably the most respected goddess in terms of rank. Like this, the first phases merge into a new fragrance, even if the bulk may simply represent the development of the oud. The eagle wood used here merely provides the foundation. Especially the beginning with the spicy entree, where cardamom and cocoa harmonize wonderfully.
The aforementioned resinous facets are then married with camphor. This creates fresh aspects, minty moments like in After Eight. Only with oud instead of chocolate.

Mineral-animalic ambergris gives us further facets, making the dusty, harsh-green element appear rounded and full-bodied. Dark wood, here soaked up like a sponge, in its most beautiful form. Lucina bathes this attar in light in all possible colors of the oud spectrum at ever new angles of incidence. Elegance, perfection, beauty.

More than two years ago, I wrote a few words about the extrait. I liked the fragrance, very much indeed. I can neither elevate the Attar above the Extrait nor do I want to place it below it. For this reason, I am not comparing the two. Sure, you can in terms of depth, sillage and so on. Both are successful, and I'll leave it at that.

Just one last word: anyone who judges oud fragrances by generalizing should try an Attar like this one to broaden their horizons. Perhaps one or the other will then follow Faust:
"If I say to the moment: Linger! You are so beautiful! then you may beat me in fetters, Then I will gladly perish!"

In this sense: I accept the bet on behalf of Mephisto.