DasguteLeben

...was the slogan for Baldessarini, among other things decorated with the iconic face of Charles Schumann. Tiffany for Men, however, is really true, but not simply in a hierarchical sense, for the purpose of promoting a men's fragrance as an olfactory indicator of silverback status in the Horde, but culturally sociologically: as an indicator of belonging to a particular generation of perfumers (and of course there are overlaps between the two fields). To say it, it is completely understandable when a forty-year-old never even gets beyond Tiffany's prelude, but screamingly goes to the next shower and spends the weekend underneath with the root brush to wash away the trauma after a combination of the always blazer-wearing grandfather and the overpowering kissing great-aunt to smell. The powdery, soapy intensity of this top note from another era is as exhausting as the semolina brew wall, through which you first have to eat your way to the land of milk and honey. If an Axe body spray ever tried to smell "sophisticated", that's about what it would do.
Once one has overcome this 15-30 minute phase, however, one arrives in a paradise of classical perfumery art. The powder remains, but recedes, because now spice, wood and oriental sweet notes unfold: cloves, sandalwood, amber notes, tonka. The parallels to fragrances like Creed's Bois du Portugal or even more New York by de Nicolai are obvious and the latter also gives a keyword again: that's what conservative men of the East Coast upper class smell, wearing tailor-made suits or Ivy League styles, reading the Wall Street Journal, being lifelong Republicans and despising Donald Trump as a vulgar upstart (he never forgave them for not having been accepted into the New York elite club, so he's actually anti-establishment). In this phase Tiffany is comparatively calm and discreet, but still present. It works with the concept of a subtle olfactory aura, not with fast effects like the current Niche style; also methodologically conservative/classical. Artistic ambitions are also lacking here, this is dignified craftsmanship in which the artist recedes behind the function of the object. All this leads to the fact that Tiffany for Men on the one hand, in his entire attitude, seems to have fallen out of time like the last representative of paternalistic capitalism, Mr. Grupp von Trigema, in the era of the digital economy. Funnily enough (like Mr. Grupp's approach) it still works quite well: Mr. Tiffany's reserved noblesse makes him much more adaptable than many of the overbooked perfume battleships of the '80s. What remains, however, is the scent for a certain type of man - who buys from Ladage & Oelke, who will always prefer the FAZ to the world, who wears his father's gold watch, and who would never have the idea of flying something called easyjet.

Proust's moments are the avalanches of memories triggered by a smell/taste, when whole buried worlds open up due to the deep connection of corporeal sensory memory and emotion - just like the lost world of Combray is reborn for Marcel from Madeleine and lime blossom tea. Vetiver Hombre is such a fragrance for me, and so is Regia. It is the scent of blossoming trees, chestnuts, false acacias, dissolved in the early summer night air, which is cool and yet carries the memory of the heat of the day. You drive aimlessly through the avenues on your bonanza wheel and suck in this scent; years later you cycle the same ways after drinking through evenings with high school buddies, then fellow students and sometime you are on your way to her at night; again and again you feel fabulously alive in these moments and the perfume nocturne lies for all time over these sedimented memories and brings them back as if all this had only been yesterday.

Regia is mostly described as a traditional eau de cologne, but this memory effect is unique among the dozens of cologne waters I own and have smelt. I have long wondered what is behind it and suspect it is the combination of bitter and sweet citrus notes, herbs and the unique selling point Cassis (the current Parfumo Pyramid does not correspond to Florascent's). This note contributes here its woody-sweet-vegetable and minimal organic-animalic character (the urinary is fortunately missing) and my nose smells in the end the sweet miasma of nocturnal tree blossoms and evokes the magic of olfactory memory, or, as Proust writes: "But if nothing of an earlier past exists after the death of the persons, the downfall of things, then alone, more fragile but alive, immaterial and yet durable, constant and faithful smell and taste will continue their lives for a long time like erring souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, on the ruins of everything else and in an almost unreal tiny droplet infallibly carrying within them the immense building of memory."

As I am currently in an olfactory acquisition phase, I have been tempted to blindly buy this low-end fragrance, which an enthusiast in an Anglophone fragrance forum raved about as a clone of Guerlain's L'Instant Extrême. This only shows again how difficult it is for our culture, which is not deeply connected to the smell, to put scents intersubjectively into words - for the people of the Ongee, whose sensory regime and cosmology is dominated by olfactory, this would be much easier. I smell here neither a secret, nor a seduction, but a conventional, almost modular arrangement of cheap aroma chemicals in a low-cost bun dosage - which, however, benefits the fragrance, because this is how what would otherwise be an olfactory C-weapon attack works, tolerably thin - but unfortunately not really good. The perfume software (don't imagine, such formulas are still designed by humans, which Mark Buxton, among others, already talked about some years ago on the Einstein forum about smell from the sewing box) has here among other things sweet Maltol notes, Ambrox and diffusion effects, so that there is by no means even a hint of classic Guerlain to be felt, but rather the olfactory average of the male proportion of a public transport journey in rush hour. The fragrance pyramid is almost touching. The consolation remains that there are also much more expensive fragrances that do not smell any more sophisticated or precious and sometimes fall behind the temporary secretion even from the construction. Here at least the coherence of price (approx. € 20), quality (drugstore middle class) and requirement (use smell without luxury or individuality) is reasonably preserved. But latürnich needs no one who really loves perfume, something like that.

Contre Pouvoir I do not understand in this case as a counter-power, i.e. an energy wrestling with all its might against another force, but as a principle "against power," as the achievement of its goal and the attainment of greatness through the refusal of power. The triumph of this fragrance lies in its supposed paleness. In it he is similar to Aventure of Il Profvmo, this study of transparent masculinity. Contre Pouvoir, however, is dedicated to the theme of male powderiness. I often don't like powdery scents very much, especially when they tend to be soapy-fougy; in combination with citrus and spice, however, they fascinate me again and again (e.g. in the case of Burberry Brit Men). The accidental Ebay snap of Brecourt therefore unexpectedly aroused my interest (in contrast to the simultaneously acquired, disappointing Calone-Dihydromyrcenol Monster Garrigue from MPG).

The fragrance PR advertises with insignia of classic masculinity: club, cigar, leather armchair, but I don't like that at all. For me, Contre Pouvoir is a dandy fragrance in the Brummel sense: not exalted in baroque style, but unobtrusively elegant, but that right up to the tips. Thus Mme. Bouge's creation becomes an effective shield against fog and sweat, especially in the summer heat, which unrelentingly but unflinchingly exudes its fine iridescent aura of exotic (cardamom-related) citrus, powder and spice and ennobles the wearer with it. This concept of a masculine "skin scent" is much more convincing than some attempts to cover up body vapours with screaming citrus aura. It is always a pleasure when a perfumer does not overdose Ambroxan, but uses it skillfully as a softener and binding agent; despite all the modernity of the notes, the handwriting of this eau de toilette is classicistic at all - interwoven instead of singular, balanced instead of front-heavy, but also no excessively complex development. The citrus component is surprisingly persistent, the fragrance seems to me to be quite linear as a whole, since the heart and base are also immediately perceptible, and even the perhaps clearest single note of liquorice is strongly embedded in the chord. Apart from the cardamom, nothing else stands out here in a really concise way, in full unfolding perhaps the Vetyver interpreted in a contemporary way. This Brecourt fragrance doesn't look like a typical conveyor belt niche fragrance to me, neither from its composition nor from its pricing, but rather like the update of a typical somewhat higher quality designer fragrance of older school - the Van Cleef & Arpels, Cacharels and other pour hommes of my youth. I like that and I will probably have to deal a little more intensively with the oeuvre of Mme. Bouge, despite some harsh judgments of esteemed fellowforists.

Michael Edwards classifies Albi as "rich citrus" and that's how this fragrance comes across to me. The density of the composition is due to the heavy dose of tree moss, which is most brilliantly married to the petitgrain-heavy citrus chord. There is a moment of candied sweetness, but in contrast to comparable fragrances, such as Tova for Men, it remains discreet and does not transform the wearer into a walking piece of candied lemon peel. In my opinion, lavender only plays a supporting role as a light herbal counterpoint to the mossy base, instead of staging itself as a supporting pillar. All in all, Albi succeeds in squaring the circle as an innovative citrus scent that reconciles summer liveliness with masculine-mossy gravitas and citrus freshness with astonishing longevity and sillage. Excellent construction and beautiful to wear.