Floyd

Every now and then you wear eyes like oxen. The retinas so supple and thin, you can almost see through them. Black streaks of tar then smear your vision, tears of greasy oil in dark brown, tired and leathery in the morning. The first flowers open their silken skin beneath glistening veils, scattering their spores of white clay and the dust of blossoms into the light in the leaves. Soon the paperwax captures them, wrapped in saddle soap, losing their lanolin through floral colors deep into the noon. Through a dry glass of glowing ambers you gaze at the mist of pheromones, the warm haze over breathing animals, the sweet dewdrops in their soft furs with the tiny earthy remnants.
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Russian leather is generally understood to be the finest and softest form of 'Jucht'-Leather, which has been tanned with wood bark and rubbed with birch tar oil. The Russian word ‘Jucht’ comes from the Persian term for a ‘team of oxen’, as the cattle hides were tanned in pairs.
Russian Adams has created a new, more refined version of Cuir de Russie II. As opposed to the first garment perfume version, not listed here, which contained raw birch tar, he toned down the leather and birch tar in favor of floral notes in the heart and more prominent deer musk in the base in this version. Therefore it seems to come closer to the original meaning of Russian leather, namely its particularly soft form. Although there is the typical dark, subtly animalic leatheriness of castoreum at the beginning, with a subtle hint of birch tar smoke, all kinds of floral aromas soon emerge underneath: silky jasmine, fresh green violet leaf, sweet violet blossoms, which eventually become creamier and then waxy in blue lotus, taking on a distinctly soapy character with deer musk, which develops from fine soap towards lanolin and earthy-sweet musk pheromone, slightly underscored by delicately smoky amber and balsamic Choya Loban.
Despite the strong initial projection, the bottom line is that this is much more wearable and less challenging than the first version, has a more refined finish, and, for me, has the character of a timeless classic from the high school of perfumery.

(With thanks to Seejungfrau)

Be secretive and noiseless. They must not see us when we go into the betel nuts. Into their caffeine, the bitter and resinous, the dark rustling of cola leaves, green herbs on berry bushes, carbonic acid in molasses. Crackling we remember from childhood days. When we sprayed sparks with clove nails. Flying on their smoky wisps. With wings of thin shreds of animal skins. Through a hinoki wood membrane of cool, bright mists. Stealthily following the tarred threads. Through fine fibers of nutgrass roots, pulsing their way through the earth like veins in dark tobacco leaves. To lose themselves again in incense. In myrrh, which weaves some bitter almonds as tart as traces of rubber from tire sand on bark sticks smoking down on the ground.
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At first, this Don Morisco plunges the anonymous Fraghead deep into bitter betel nuts, as dark as if one were feeling one's way through the black sediment of an intoxicating caffeinated drink, almost molasses-like due to galbanum resin. Only gradually do tart green mate leaves become visible at the edge, a fruity currant emerges, distant associations with cola herbs arise, the crackling above the surface, which the cloves pierce with bitter sharpness. Prickly juniper and tar soon form delicate wisps of smoke that, like a long, thin bridge under the moonlight of the currant fruit, lead to thin, worn, animalistic leather scraps (beaver musk, civet) over slightly sour, earthy nut grasses. Hinoki acts like a light green background glow, a northern light. Down on the ground, you can find subtle dark tobacco, incense-like oud chips covered in rubbery myrrh, creating a bitter almond note with tonka bean.
This Don is versatile, sometimes more transparent and smoky-spicy, other times darker, more impenetrable, bitter, but always discreet in its projection over several hours.

(With thanks to PerfumeAl)

What we think of when we think of earth. Where we come from, where we are going. Back to our steaming roots. To the rain beneath the wet autumn grass. The acrid smoke above scorched herbs. The darker brew, the healing tinctures. The sunbleached clays, almost white. The mud that the rivers wash over it in the rushing days of the great monsoon. Wood that rots in it, like tanned skin. Mulchy and leathery, turned into petroleum, terpenes and gasoline. Over thousands of years. Twas ever thus. Connected to us.
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Gulabsingh Johrimal from Delhi is one of the oldest traditional fragrance houses still in existence in India, the country where the foundations of perfume production were probably laid over 5000 years ago. Since 1816, Gulabsingh Johrimal has been producing attars, oil essences, and perfumes, among other things, using time-honored methods. The products have an effect like forces of nature that reach far back into India's fragrance memory.
The history of Ruh Khus, the distillate from the vetiver root, which is said to have calming, antiseptic, antioxidant, and antibacterial effects, among others, goes back even further. The roots are distilled in a complex process in a copper cauldron sealed with a clay-saturated cloth and heated with cow dung and wood.
“Ruh Khus No. 1460” unfolds almost all the facets that I have come to know from sweet grass root so far: First, there are the light green, pungent, cool, sour grassy notes, which soon become more moist and earthy, the roots seem to ferment in a very light-looking clay. Dark, almost bitter-smoky herbal tinctures soon become apparent, followed by mud, petrichor, mulchy-soft woods, which at times appear somewhat leathery. In this phase, the scent is reminiscent of some high-quality oud varieties. Finally, the typical petroleum and gasoline terpenes come to the fore in the base. There are always new facets to discover, with different images of nature appearing again and again, clear to moderate in their projection and enormously long-lasting.

(With thanks to Snoopyelfi)

The sea off Merauke has gone. Bent and weary like an old man, it breathes its breath over decaying shells and the earthy mud on the nighttime beach. It dreams of cocoa from dusty clay, which begins to sparkle like liqueur and weaves some fine threads of skinny leather, thin as gossamer. Butterflies made of dark coffee spores have become entangled in it. They blow their spicy, glowing flutter over the roasted brown loamy soils, where driftwood made of soft bark loses its tears and finally itself.
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Romanian Marius Pana from Jinkoh Store produces his high-quality extracts and attar blends of wild and organic ouds by hand and mostly in very small batches.
The ingredients for “Sunset in Merauke” were just enough for 55 bottles. It may take several attempts to find your way around its brittle, almost unapproachable nature. First, there is the archaic scent of ambergris, vaguely reminiscent of Areej Le Doré's Al Ambar. Anyone familiar with the smell of unwashed mussels that are a few days old, or certain stretches of coastline at low tide, will immediately recognize the scent profile. This somewhat unpleasant smell is further emphasized by the indole contained in civet and by musty aromas that are also found in Kopi Luwak, the coffee beans fermented in cat intestines. After a few minutes, slightly tobacco-like notes of ambergris and bitter-dark, initially dusty and later liqueur-like tart-sweet cocoa aromas emerge. The civet unfolds its rather leathery, animalistic facets, which complement the loamy, resinous, subtly smoky incense aromas of Papua oud and the light resinous sandalwood notes. Wonderfully spicy coffee roasting aromas form a rough surface on top, while the earthy cocoa liqueur with the balsamic ambergris in the base creates an appealing depth underneath. The sea of Merauke breathes its diffuse fascination moderately to up close in extra length.

(With thanks to Smellspezial)

Light steals across the far horizons. Freezes bitter orange before it reaches your eyes. A shadow hammers nails into its stony hands. Carnation sparks burn out over Tierra del Fuego, like dust crackling and burning in the air. It ignites the fluff of withered bushes, whose gnarled roots cling to the ground like fingers made of brittle clay. It is barren and lonely out here. The wind drives sharp sands bitterly into the glue webs above the clay.
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The Fueguia 1833 brand was founded in Buenos Aires in 2010 by Julian Bedel and is dedicated to the cultural and natural landscapes of the indigenous peoples of South America: “Cultural and natural landscapes are portrayed through each creation in an olfactory storytelling composed by a palette of exotic botanical ingredients,” writes Bedel on his website. Since the artisanal production process does not involve filtration, the fragrances may be cloudy.
“Tierra del Fuego” begins with a very brief, tart-fresh burst of grapefruit, as if illuminating the horizon for a moment, behind a cloud of dusty, greenish, sharp, bitter-spicy clove aromas. It literally crackles over the dark landscape, which appears dry and loamy. The sandalwood seems to subordinate itself to the clove, merely forming a base of tart wood chips that allows fine weaves of adhesive resin to waft over the soil. This is how I imagine a moment in Tierra del Fuego, moderate over several bitter, tart, and spicy-earthy hours.

(With thanks to Svezenkar)