MarcMo

Ah, 2015. A great year. Nothing against 2020, that year was of course... unique, but 2015? No, this 2020 doesn't come close to a 2015.

It's been almost six years since I "discovered" the site we all love and dedicate ourselves to so diligently. Back then, on the second day of Christmas 2014, I had no idea about perfumes or the discoveries that were to come my way. Not that I would call myself a scholar today, certainly not. But I have been able to gain experiences thanks to this site; all my first conscious perfume choices can be traced back to what I read here. But why this, my first, comment on a perfume now?

Quite simply: this was my first critical engagement with other opinions I had read here. I had already made blind purchases of fragrances I had come across here. Among them were some of my favorite scents (A*Men Pure Malt, Virgin Island Water, Tobacco Vanille, or even Chergui) and some fragrances that I initially tried to convince myself I liked, but just couldn't warm up to (The Dreamer or Rochas Man).

But Dior Homme was the one fragrance that confused me. Back then (December 2015) as today, it was in the Top 25 men's fragrances on the site, and I had heard its name mentioned with reverence in countless videos. "Wow," I thought, "this is it. The one fragrance you still need." So I checked directly at Notino, back then still iparfuemerie: 80€. Uff, after VIW and Tobacco Vanille had already taken a toll on my apprentice salary, that was a hefty price tag. Especially during the pre-Christmas season when I had gifts to buy. So I did something that was extremely unusual for my then-self: I didn't buy the bottle blindly online, but drove with a buddy to Bremen, 80 kilometers away, to "sample" the fragrance there.

Said and done, we both cruised in the Opel Astra to the Hanseatic city, headed straight to Douglas, yanked Dior Homme off the shelf, and onto the test strip - Baaah. Was that supposed to be it? Was that supposed to be number 13 of the best men's fragrances? If that was the peak, I didn't even want to smell the underlying plateaus.

Lipstick in a dark wooden box, covered with a powdery glaze, as thick as it could be.

I was so incredibly disappointed, 10€ for gas wasted, now it could only mean heading home. No, I didn't want to smell like that; I was physically repulsed. It smelled to me like the wooden makeup box of an elderly lady.

Fortunately, my buddy convinced me to stay a little longer; he needed some jeans and wanted to browse the stores next door. I actually just wanted to go home, but after all, it was his car. So we wandered through the shops. And I quickly noticed it: when applying the fragrance to the test strip, a few spritzes had landed on my wrist. I remember it like it was yesterday: I tried to wash it off with some water, rub it away, erase it. Anything to get it off my skin; I was sure I had found my personal scent nemesis.

But Dior Homme, Mr. Lipstick, knew better. He didn't want to give up, didn't want to let me go; he knew that a forced relationship in this case was the best for everyone involved. And no matter how much I resisted: he started to appeal to me. The harsh opening gave way to a delicious heart and later a base note that brought me to my knees, a warm veil enveloped me, and I couldn't stop smelling my wrist.

I left my buddy standing in front of the fitting room and bought my first bottle of Dior Homme five minutes later. It was the first time a fragrance had simply overwhelmed me, had made me rise against it, only to then take me in with a long, cozy embrace.

I often and fondly think back to that winter day five years ago. Every single perfume back then surrounded me with a certain magic that I now have to manually remind myself of after experiencing so many different scents. Never before and never since has a fragrance emotionally grabbed me like Dior Homme on a moderately cold winter day in 2015. I have never been able to perceive the top note exactly as I did back then. And yet this scent is always associated with that moment in me.

Thank you for the years together, Mr. Lipstick.