Konsalik

Since I grew a thick beard at an early age, it was easy for me to visit clubs at the age of 16, 17 years without being bothered, where one of me would have had no business to go. At the beginning of the 2000s, the corresponding metal and gothic scales still had a quite distinct scent signature, which I (precocious as I was) perceived primarily within the vital sphere of young women in torn, black tights. The smell ("fragrance" one may hardly call it) of relevant one-dimensional patchouli perfumes has thus saturated itself with indelible associations in this phase of imprinting: The excitement of going out on the weekend, which is only half allowed; the gathering of the "gang" at the tram stop; the dance floor storming to Iron Maiden and Co.; the sweaty conversation with the at least six years older girl at the bar, which you wouldn't be able to get to anyway; the hot ears when it worked out against all odds; the melancholy when you stepped out of her apartment for the last time after half a year...

In short: Patchouli for me is not hippie and unisex, but young, feminine, dark and bittersweet-painful. That's why I always thought that I could only like fragrances with dominant patchouli, but never wear them. The many benevolent reviews and statements on Harry Lehmann's "Singapore Patchouly", which emphasize the decency of the composition, have nevertheless led me to blindly test it.

The first minute after spraying on, a sweet-alcoholic and at the same time spicy-woody chord delights, which makes me think of older single malts matured in sherry barrels (Glendronach, anyone?), before the classic patch cocktail of forest soil and bark mulch makes its first appearance and lasts until the end. Nevertheless, the overall impression remains multi-layered, amber-coloured and radiant throughout the entire fragrance (I can certainly understand the comparison with Ricola made by the previous speaker Gelis). I cannot say exactly which components are responsible for this comparatively distinct liveliness and spice brightness, which very skilfully contain the patchouli note without overlaying it; a problem that is not uncommon with Lehmann fragrances. Apart from a tiny musk and fougère tone, I think I can also see some incorporated aldehydes in the background, which lighten the composition and give it a slightly waxy enamel. Although its durability is by no means exceptional, it shows a linear degradation typical for clay, i.e. the fragrance does not suddenly change to a skin-tight breath after two or three hours. Beautiful!

So I can like AND wear patchouli, because my heart, which is prone to melancholy, remains (almost) unstormed.

"We were at this new place yesterday. They now also offer molecular cuisine."

"Oh, what was it?"

"We just had a snack from the little lunch menu."

"So?"

"Yes. There was NATO sandwiches."

"Excuse me?"

"Liver sausage barbed wire on pumpernickel grenades in butter camouflage. In addition an accompanying olive gas attack and forks dipped in fir resin for the culinary bivouac feeling."

"Well, how was it?"

"Interesting. A synaesthetic experience."

"I mean: Did it taste good?"

"I don't know."

-----

Don't worry, I don't plan on doing clumsy molecular kitchen bashing. That would be quite 2010 on the one hand and unfair on the other: this branch of creative cuisine certainly still has its right to exist today. The small dialogue is merely intended to point out the dangers of creativity that has degenerated into an end in itself, which, having become stupid out of sheer feasibility, goes on in unrestrained combinatorics without ever considering a well-formulated goal apart from crooked metaphors.

"Ile Pourpre by Les Liquides Imaginaires has a similar problem. The combination of dry dark earthiness with cold sweet berry fruit (ice wine from the sparkling wine cooler) fits well in theory to the eponymous "purple island", on which wild, night green vegetation alternates with exotic, alien fruit stock. However, this connection always remains rational, without really inspiring the imagination of the smeller. The picture does not self-adjust and thus seems strangely clever and constructed. This is probably also due to the quite common modern base, which shimmers through the earthy-fruity undergrowth after only a short time and makes one think more of an office than of a mystically dazzling island in the distance.

I'm not saying an artificially heaped island can't have any appeal. But it is a rather technical and landscape attraction and not a genuine olfactory-imaginative one. Therefore, I recommend to anyone who feels addressed in theory by the purple temptation to sample a few milliliters before he or she commits to a longer-term (and not quite cheap) holiday on this island.

You may know it: you are overwhelmed by a scent, write down little scent notes, consider the ground plan of the review, cursory look through the listed notes and opinions of colleagues - you notice: It's all been said, actually! Not a nuance that you have already put into words with tender pride of discovery in your heart and that has not already been captured in any form by your previous speakers and brought very vividly to virtual paper. At the same time, however, you are so enraptured by the perfume in question that you have to vent your enthusiasm somehow. Lehmann's Ode to the Whole of the Citrus Family is to the highest degree such a case. This "definitive edition" of the citrus theme (the Director's Cut on Blu-Ray with bonus material, so to speak) is by no means a simple scent, but it reveals its deep layers willingly, without changing from nose to nose or even wanting to stimulate controversial discussions.

So this contribution is not so much an "original" review, but rather a commented anthology of some extremely accurate observations of my esteemed previous speakers.

"dark orange bitter orange on dark green meadow" (FvSpee)
"Harry Lehmann has designed Springfield with a penetrating, juicy, aromatic-spicy citrus scent [...] Round lemony notes combined with a bitter orange peel" (Parma)
"A soft, citric start tells a small, everyday story of sun-ripened lemons, with a delicate, mildly sour aroma, fragrant, bloody, without any penetrance. By the way, there are some very fine illustrations of the little tree itself, of its flowers, its leaves, of trunk and wood and of the land in which it has its roots."(Ttfortwo)
"Schnuppernse ma - dit is lemon pure. Aba ebent so ne janz, janz natural lemon. [...] He's singing in green. In son Sommerjrün" (Fittleworth)
"The durability of EdP is 5-6 hours ernom for an often volatile citrus chord." (OhdeBerlin)

That's the way it is. There, and no other way. However, I perceive the flower and spice notes, which are also frequently cited, rather as being woven into the "lemon meadow" theme: the "Lehmanniade", which I claim to be the case, is shown here in the field of tension between aldehydes and a darkly spicy earthiness, which in turn goes well with the lemons on the one hand (waxy peel) and the rooted grassiness on the other (earth halt). No extension of the image, rather a deepening.

Regarding the typical clay man (but for a citrus fragrance untypical) shelf life of 8+ hours, I have to say that Mr. Lehmann was able to tell me during my visit to his shop that the fragrance concentrations of his perfumes are always at the highest limit of what is usual for the respective category (EdC, EdT, EdP). So it is no wonder that some of his eau de colognes loosely press eau de toilettes from other manufacturers against the wall. And an eau de parfum like "Springfield" can therefore be assumed to have a fragrance concentration of at least fifteen per cent. Whew! This should also explain the clear film "Springfield" leaves on the skin.

When I think of the name "Springfield" (born 1985) I naturally think of the Simpsons - especially of the "classic" seasons of the 90s, before the still unfinished descent into insignificance began (American critics like to speak of the "zombification" of the series). The old seasons, on the other hand, are among the best that television has to offer. In an episode from this time, an old lemon tree is stolen from Springfield, whereupon a bitter dispute breaks out with the rival neighboring town of Shelbyville. At the end of the episode the tree stands again in its old place, on a green hill. Grampa Simpson tells the children of the city, gathered around the trunk of the tree, about the ancient times when lemons were the sweetest fruit there was. And even if this scene is certainly not connected with the naming: The picture fits perfectly to this simply wonderful fragrance.

Four years ago, the previous speaker Cappellusman certified that Varon Dandy was a close relative of the old Austrian Grandseigneur fragrance par excellence, Knize Ten. Not only the fact that we are obviously dealing here with a variation of one of my favourite fragrances, but also the fact that this should not be a tired, late imitation (1924!) made a test inevitable. No, a blind buy! Almost eight euros for 100ml work in consideration of the promise like mockery, lower smell concentration back or forth.

Unfortunately, the old, roundish flacon design doesn't look too good for me anymore, but the reduced-edge version doesn't look bad either. The plastic cap reveals a classic splash device framed with a metal ring (imagine Old Spice with minimal opening). It's also an Eau de Cologne, so why not the cold punch in the hollow hand?

So is Varon Dandy really a fragrance twin to one of the great classics of the twentieth century? No, he might not be a twin. But indeed, a close relative. The substructure, the base, the two surrounding "air" is very similar, almost identical. But the decor - I don't want to talk about "top note", because it lasts almost to the end at Knize - is not. What with Knize the infinitely elegant, brandy rose together with stone fruit compote, is here an ethereal-alcoholic note, which reminds me, not only because of the origin of the house, of Spanish Hierbas: gentle, green-spicy background anise sweetness. Somewhat more angular, but also quite elegant (thanks to an indefinite, "serious flower", as Mrs Konsalik would like to add). Among them was the same, strict, slightly birch-tar-like leather association chord, with which the idea of leather was evoked at that time (and unfortunately hardly any more today). In the base, which begins on me already after about an hour, finally a soapy leather musk note emerges, which I also appreciate in other fragrances - see my comment to Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme. I can't put it any other way: I'm impressed! Bravo!

With all the nobility less exalted, somewhat more angular, "touching" and quite reserved in durability: Not quite the Privy Councillor, but perhaps his domestic servant. On weekends, they say, he even uses Varon Dandy as aftershave. After all, his salary is enough even for this wasteful use.

Is there a "Lehmanniade"? Many of the fragrances from Harry Lehmann, which I have been able to smell so far, have a constant core chord for my nose, which - sometimes quieter, sometimes louder, but almost always perceptibly resonating - creates the relationship of the Lehmänner, similar to the famous "Guerlinade", which (still?) can be found in all fragrances of the house Guerlain. I am not capable of deciphering, but I think that a combination of moss, aldehydes and grassy-fougère-like notes regularly forms a nucleus around which the sometimes very different Lehman scents were composed. The impression conveyed in the background is always a very soigned one and a bit more decoupled from the world and the present. A well maintained manor house - which also makes the unisex claim of Lehman fragrances plausible to a certain extent. Not only the Grande Dame lives in such a house, but also the Grand monsieur. Even the formally feminine looking Lehmänner can be worn by self-confident gentlemen by their somehow strict core fallen out of time; conversely, the same applies to the more masculine fragrances for free ladies.

Also with "Verité" I mean to be able to make out this - in the truest sense - "brand core" in variation. Especially in the first hour all sorts of bitter ferns and garden herbs lie over the mysterious dark red underground. When these have distorted, it becomes warm and austere: the seriousness of real eroticism. A cinnamon-patchouli dual on warm vanilla, which never becomes "cuddly" or cosy due to consciously used floral notes and remaining aldehydes, no: Verité remains aggressive, fixes the opposite. Promise and threat at the same time. Wait a minute, why am I writing so awful?! Do I publish penny novels now? "Tender robbers, anthology in large print"? Got a real heartbeat (no kidding!). A truly remarkable perfume, with deeper vanilla and floral notes, that makes me think of Cartier's "Santos" as a slightly more feminine, femme-fatal-like version, almost on a twin fragrance level in the last third. And one that really briefly blocked my analytical distance.

Then I scroll through the previous comments to find out the approximate age of the fragrance.

Hm...

Oh!

Wui...

Very old so, one of the early Lehmänner.

Roaring Twenties in Berlin? Fits.