Mikadomann
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Mikadomann
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A moment of intimacy and sensuality
I think it's the beginning of a journey...
I owe the fragrance ticket that enabled me to make the first leg of this journey to the generosity and wealth of knowledge of a wonderful Parfumo. Therefore, this comment is dedicated to Can, and with respect and deep gratitude.
Those who read my reviews and statements know that I often approach fragrances in images. The associations help me better understand scents and work them out for myself.
This particular scent also immediately created images in me. But this time it was different.
In the first second, a movie scene came to my mind. And even more than the scene, which I actually only superficially remember, the image of the character and the image of the actress who plays it arose before me. This scene and the image of this actress opened up the fragrance to me.
The movie I am talking about is "Carol", the actress is the beautiful Cate Blanchett. In a scene at the beginning of this movie, she enters the toy department of a department store.
As she does so, she exudes an intangible elegance. She wears a long, brown fur coat, black underneath, a red scarf, on her blond and laid hair a red cap. And she wears leather gloves in her hand. In a close-up shot of her placing these gloves on the glass sales counter, it quickly becomes clear that this accessory is yet to play a significant role.
And it may even be these gloves that first came to mind when I first smelled the fragrance.
A few minutes later, before leaving the salesroom, Carol will turn around to give the saleswoman, as well as the audience, a breath-taking moment of feminine elegance and distinguished nobility.
And that is exactly what Tabac blond is to me: elegant, distinguished, noble.
To make one thing clear:
The fragrance is not for me a fragrance for ladies. He is also not androgynous. He is what the person wearing in is.
I had briefly considered juxtaposing the female character with a male counterpart. It would be men from literature: Forsyte, Gatsby, Swann.
But Cate Blanchett doesn't need a counterpart.
I keep the scene, which may well be found in a trailer on the net, in my head and so find the scent again.
The leather gloves, the fur. In many scenes of the film, the main characters smoke, both women.
Indeed, the scent is smoky.
But it's not smoke in the classic sense, not a blue haze in a smoky room. Nor is it the well-scented pipe tobacco.
It's the smoke in a spacious and dignified hotel lobby, showing itself in a beam of sunlight coming in through the large window, where it curls. White, shimmering, and carried not by nicotine but by tobacco.
This smoke, this note of tobacco is in the fragrance from the beginning and remains the prominent note almost all the way to the end.
The leather that I find indescribably beautiful in this fragrance is the soft leather of frequently worn gloves. They are soft suede gloves, perhaps deerskin.
And even though there are very delicate, barely perceptible hints of animalic notes (I couldn't decipher which component in the pyramid is responsible for that), but then the leather is underlined mostly by a clean, beautiful creaminess. Vanilla and amber are responsible for that creaminess.
For me, this is the key to the art of this eau de parfum.
It is as if you have captured in the composition exactly the moment in which the lady removes the glove from her well-groomed creamed hand. It is the exact moment and I have the impression that I perceive this scene not with my eyes but with my nose. It's as if a director is guiding my nose very close to that hand. And in that moment, smoke, gently creamed skin and the last hint of soft leather come together for me in a wonderful chord.
So it's not the scent of the gloves that are leather. It's the scent of skin that has slipped off a glove made of leather and has a residue of that scent lingering on it.
What I have described as slightly animalic is the skin, the human, physical about the scent a blend perhaps with the tiny beads on the wrist of a clean body on a warm day. In this moment, Tabac blond succeeds in translating a fragrance experience into one of intimacy and sensuality.
The fact that the garden carnation is rated so prominently here surprised me at first. But I believe that it is precisely this note that is responsible for the fine, noble.
Because indeed, the fragrance is in the background - and towards the end, almost in the very last minutes increasingly - floral. I perceive the clove, however, never strong.
It introduces the fragrance and it ends it. It always accompanies in the background, never plays for me in the foreground. I would never think of calling this fragrance floral. It would always be smoky for me. But no matter at what point: at the beginning, when the fragrance is smoky, or at the end, when it becomes creamy: The clove always highlights the best part of it. Perhaps that is what leads some people to classify the fragrance as a women's perfume.
It is my first truly classic fragrance from this traditional house. With the first spray, I knew I had found a fragrance that would stay with me for a long time. He has triggered a passion in me and made me curious about the very classic fragrances.
A few days after trying the fragrance, I contacted the house in Paris.
I ordered the eau de parfum and asked for the perfume at the same time.
The somewhat awkward explanation unfortunately did not help me.
However, with the Eau de Parfum I received a sample of the perfume. Today I know that my question had apparently arrived exactly a few days before the release of the new formulation of the perfume.
I have since compared the two formats. I don't want to open a category of better or worse at this point. That is not in my nature. They are both wonderful and unique fragrances. Besides, I also lack the knowledge, the history, the comparison, the olfactory education that would allow me to make an astute comparison.
Perhaps the floral note in the new formulation is stronger towards the end. The fragrance pyramid would suggest that, and supported the thought. At first I had only with the new perfume, but later also with the older Eau de Parfum a very quiet, associative memory of the florality of Xerjoff's "Opera". Never as loud or as exuberant, of course. Perhaps readers can support me and get to the bottom of this idea.
I believe it is the beginning of a journey...
A journey that will take me to the classics. In the meantime, I have tried "Pour un Homme de Caron", "Yatagan", but also "Jicky" and "L'heure bleue". I have the impression as if I rediscovered my passion for fragrances.
This journey is just beginning.
I am happy if readers of this post support me with hints on worthwhile intermediate destinations.
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Not a planet! - A favorite of the gods!
"Ganymede [...] is the third and largest of the four Galilean moons [...]" (Wikipedia)
"Ganymede, also Ganymedes is in Greek mythology a son of the Trojan king Tros and Callirrhoë [...] and the "fairest of mortals". He was loved by Zeus." (ibid.)
This must be how this fragrance came to be:
On the rock, half awake, half asleep, lies Ganymede.
Through heavy lids he sees how the noonday sun, in playful complicity with the silver leaves of the olive tree, paints patterns on his skin, as if its rays were light brushes and the shadow of leaves paint, which it dabs and throws and swirls.
His smile, which a moment ago was of his own beauty, falls dully from his lips, and sleep overtakes him in the midday heat.
On his skin on forehead and breast run glittering pearls; leaving, drying in the warmth, white traces. Were he to taste them, they would be salty - and sweet.
In his dream he sees himself standing on the white beach. Looking out to sea and into the distance. Far and far beyond still. He sees what all lies beyond it all. What to discover, what to fight, what to conquer, what to love and his feet stand firmer now in the sand.
Then he hears a rushing and a blowing in the distance.
A hundred storms seem to combine into one.
Then the clouds cluster, pile up, and join into the dark heavy cloth. Surround him. Blowing around him. Lay themselves over him.
Then there's silence.
Then he wakes up.
Then he lifts his eyelids.
On the stone, very near the eagle. His wings still spread from mighty flight and the last breeze still sounds rustling in his feathers.
Neither of them is startled. They don't need to be.
He is. And he is. Beautiful. Both.
Young manhood of one. God-kingly strength of the other.
Deep are the bird's eyes, and his gaze is on the man.
He leans on one arm, sinks his gaze into the bird's, and with a careless movement rises from his stone on which he has rested and dreamed.
Then he stands there.
And as if the movements of the two were one, the bird opens its wings and closes them around the man, encloses him, encloses him. And holds him. And time. And time. And time goes.
Then he opens his wings.
"Why are you crying, Ganymede?"
"Because from now on I'm a man."
"And why do you weep, Zeus?"
"Because from now on I don't want to be a god."
And both tears mingle on the ground.
That must have been how this fragrance came to be.
"Ganymede, also Ganymedes is in Greek mythology a son of the Trojan king Tros and Callirrhoë [...] and the "fairest of mortals". He was loved by Zeus." (ibid.)
This must be how this fragrance came to be:
On the rock, half awake, half asleep, lies Ganymede.
Through heavy lids he sees how the noonday sun, in playful complicity with the silver leaves of the olive tree, paints patterns on his skin, as if its rays were light brushes and the shadow of leaves paint, which it dabs and throws and swirls.
His smile, which a moment ago was of his own beauty, falls dully from his lips, and sleep overtakes him in the midday heat.
On his skin on forehead and breast run glittering pearls; leaving, drying in the warmth, white traces. Were he to taste them, they would be salty - and sweet.
In his dream he sees himself standing on the white beach. Looking out to sea and into the distance. Far and far beyond still. He sees what all lies beyond it all. What to discover, what to fight, what to conquer, what to love and his feet stand firmer now in the sand.
Then he hears a rushing and a blowing in the distance.
A hundred storms seem to combine into one.
Then the clouds cluster, pile up, and join into the dark heavy cloth. Surround him. Blowing around him. Lay themselves over him.
Then there's silence.
Then he wakes up.
Then he lifts his eyelids.
On the stone, very near the eagle. His wings still spread from mighty flight and the last breeze still sounds rustling in his feathers.
Neither of them is startled. They don't need to be.
He is. And he is. Beautiful. Both.
Young manhood of one. God-kingly strength of the other.
Deep are the bird's eyes, and his gaze is on the man.
He leans on one arm, sinks his gaze into the bird's, and with a careless movement rises from his stone on which he has rested and dreamed.
Then he stands there.
And as if the movements of the two were one, the bird opens its wings and closes them around the man, encloses him, encloses him. And holds him. And time. And time. And time goes.
Then he opens his wings.
"Why are you crying, Ganymede?"
"Because from now on I'm a man."
"And why do you weep, Zeus?"
"Because from now on I don't want to be a god."
And both tears mingle on the ground.
That must have been how this fragrance came to be.
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Hell!
Nuit de Bakelite
I am fascinated by this fragrance now for months.
I have been trying to write a commentary on this fragrance for months.
For months now, I've been trying to put my associations into words.
For months I have been collecting keywords.
For months they've been slipping away.
To hell!
Well, so be it!
Just take that and do with it what you will!
It would never have occurred to me that this fragrance could smell like bakelite.
Of course it didn't. That's because Bakelite is a fully synthetic plastic that is manufactured industrially. It is odorless.
Maybe it's not so hard to depict nature in a fragrance. Everyone knows what a forest smells like. Many know what a cat smells like. But how do you transpose something that doesn't smell at all?
There are two things that clearly contribute to my perception of the scent I want to describe. They are
1. the comments and statements of the other forists and it is
2. the name of the perfume chosen by the artist who created it.
I have never been the first to describe a fragrance here. I have never blindly tested a fragrance without knowing its name.
"A fragrance for ladies and gentlemen" ... For all three genders.
Remarks of the others make impression on me. They co-determine my own impression that I gain from a fragrance. They plough the ground on which my associations fall and prepare it for my own images. It is exactly the same with the name of a fragrance.
I feel tremendously comfortable with this fragrance. It allows me to be a lot more.
I often wonder if the theme hidden in the name of a perfume was there first, and if the artist was trying to translate that theme into a fragrance.
Or is it the other way around? Did the artist create a work of art to which she now gives a name that best captures her olfactory impression?
You can't make odorless things smelly.
Rarely, I think by the way, has a name suited a fragrance as brilliantly as it does this one.
Nuit de Bakélite. Bakelite night...
When I describe a thing, I often start by describing its surface. When I translate a thing into smell, I may be translating its surface.
When I wear this scent, it feels like my shell is hard. I'm not made of Teflon. But when I wear the scent, I don't reveal my personality so quickly. It's a fragrance that keeps my secrets.
A bakelite night: Is without shadow. Creates strong outlines. Creates clear outlines. Is blue. Is green. Is metallic. Like the shell of a beetle. A beetle made of plastic.
I play mahjongg. Not the game you play on the computer to kill time that works like memory. I mean the wonderful game that was famous in the twenties and that has its roots in China. Today most of the tiles are made of plastic. The more beautiful games are made of fine wood. The first old games were made of ivory. Later then the stones were made of Bakelite.
I'm fascinated by this scent. Alienates me from me. Scent makes me think rather than feel.
Some perfumers are designers.
Some perfumers are artists.
Some perfumers are wizards.
Some perfumers are sorcerers.
I would never wear that scent on a date... But I would wear it on a date!
The music that goes with this fragrance is rattling. It speeds up, edgy, angular, whips. The notes describe the sound, not the melody. Suddenly it goes off and the lights come on and all the alcohol is dumped out on the floor.
You can tell exactly when something is special.
When you played the game in the twenties, you could lose a lot of money at it. In the big metropolises, people played it in the back rooms. Long cigarette holders. At dark tables. Lacquered. The wood of the tables-and the fingernails.
"Here's five marks. Go to the supermarket and buy me five kilos of love for it!"
"You can't buy love!"
You can...
It remains something artificial. Even when you look for help in the images of nature. Do I think of flowers by the scent? Anthuriums, perhaps. To me, one of the most unnatural flowers, if that even exists.
If you're lucky, you can still find one of these among antiques. You can feel the difference between plastic and bakelite quickly
"The world that is moons." Rilke
The Bakelite game pieces are spread out on the table and shuffled. When the tiles bump into each other, a sound is made: a bright click that in China has been compared to the chirping of sparrows. Mahjongg is called the "sparrow game" there.
The scent pyramid doesn't help me at all. I smell angelica, too. But what good does that do? I think all the ingredients only serve to create a flat surface that a dewdrop, rain, or bead of sweat would run down.
I remember a painting. A portrait of an expressionist. The woman's face red. Nose and chin pointed. Hair black like a triangular tower. Deep circles under her eyes. Lips shaped like lightning. If the painted woman had worn this scent, her face should have been painted green.
When fingernails over plastic cats, you can break off. When fingernails glide over bakelite, you feel as if you could dig them into the plastic and little moons would be left behind.
The surface of old Bakelite doesn't feel as cold as our plastic does today. It's cool in the hand and quickly becomes pleasantly warm and then there's something waxy about it.
The scent is a shape-shifter. A shape-shifter on my skin. He uses it as a projection screen for himself. In that way, it is the most egotistical fragrance I have ever worn.
Now I'm sure. It must be distinctly easier to bottle a walk in the woods than a craggy, angular lump of plastic.
There's no love story being told here, and there's no passion. Cool attraction, perhaps... But that will be gone tomorrow.
The first impression is a little smoky. But that's already the gentlest association.
The light shapes the surface. Bakelite does not shine. It is rather, as if the material swallows the light and throws back only the rest of the light, which it keeps left.
The surface shimmers. If there were a word: candle-cold...
The men have no hair on their chests. They have no hair at all - anywhere. They're shaved - all over. But this isn't about skin either. More like white, stiff linen. No: the stuff the shirt is made of must be more artificial.
I still smell that scent on me days later. On my hands and on my clothes. In my car. And whenever I smell it, I think: It's still there.
The amber night has seeped into its own darkness. Here is the ballroom in artificial light. Men with their hand on the ladies' knee and their eyes on the waiter's lips. Ambre Nuit would be laughed out of here.
You don't wear this flower in your buttonhole. You wear it in your belt buckle.
The knight does not wear armor of steel.
Now with all that, do what you will.
After all, the scent does that too...
I am fascinated by this fragrance now for months.
I have been trying to write a commentary on this fragrance for months.
For months now, I've been trying to put my associations into words.
For months I have been collecting keywords.
For months they've been slipping away.
To hell!
Well, so be it!
Just take that and do with it what you will!
It would never have occurred to me that this fragrance could smell like bakelite.
Of course it didn't. That's because Bakelite is a fully synthetic plastic that is manufactured industrially. It is odorless.
Maybe it's not so hard to depict nature in a fragrance. Everyone knows what a forest smells like. Many know what a cat smells like. But how do you transpose something that doesn't smell at all?
There are two things that clearly contribute to my perception of the scent I want to describe. They are
1. the comments and statements of the other forists and it is
2. the name of the perfume chosen by the artist who created it.
I have never been the first to describe a fragrance here. I have never blindly tested a fragrance without knowing its name.
"A fragrance for ladies and gentlemen" ... For all three genders.
Remarks of the others make impression on me. They co-determine my own impression that I gain from a fragrance. They plough the ground on which my associations fall and prepare it for my own images. It is exactly the same with the name of a fragrance.
I feel tremendously comfortable with this fragrance. It allows me to be a lot more.
I often wonder if the theme hidden in the name of a perfume was there first, and if the artist was trying to translate that theme into a fragrance.
Or is it the other way around? Did the artist create a work of art to which she now gives a name that best captures her olfactory impression?
You can't make odorless things smelly.
Rarely, I think by the way, has a name suited a fragrance as brilliantly as it does this one.
Nuit de Bakélite. Bakelite night...
When I describe a thing, I often start by describing its surface. When I translate a thing into smell, I may be translating its surface.
When I wear this scent, it feels like my shell is hard. I'm not made of Teflon. But when I wear the scent, I don't reveal my personality so quickly. It's a fragrance that keeps my secrets.
A bakelite night: Is without shadow. Creates strong outlines. Creates clear outlines. Is blue. Is green. Is metallic. Like the shell of a beetle. A beetle made of plastic.
I play mahjongg. Not the game you play on the computer to kill time that works like memory. I mean the wonderful game that was famous in the twenties and that has its roots in China. Today most of the tiles are made of plastic. The more beautiful games are made of fine wood. The first old games were made of ivory. Later then the stones were made of Bakelite.
I'm fascinated by this scent. Alienates me from me. Scent makes me think rather than feel.
Some perfumers are designers.
Some perfumers are artists.
Some perfumers are wizards.
Some perfumers are sorcerers.
I would never wear that scent on a date... But I would wear it on a date!
The music that goes with this fragrance is rattling. It speeds up, edgy, angular, whips. The notes describe the sound, not the melody. Suddenly it goes off and the lights come on and all the alcohol is dumped out on the floor.
You can tell exactly when something is special.
When you played the game in the twenties, you could lose a lot of money at it. In the big metropolises, people played it in the back rooms. Long cigarette holders. At dark tables. Lacquered. The wood of the tables-and the fingernails.
"Here's five marks. Go to the supermarket and buy me five kilos of love for it!"
"You can't buy love!"
You can...
It remains something artificial. Even when you look for help in the images of nature. Do I think of flowers by the scent? Anthuriums, perhaps. To me, one of the most unnatural flowers, if that even exists.
If you're lucky, you can still find one of these among antiques. You can feel the difference between plastic and bakelite quickly
"The world that is moons." Rilke
The Bakelite game pieces are spread out on the table and shuffled. When the tiles bump into each other, a sound is made: a bright click that in China has been compared to the chirping of sparrows. Mahjongg is called the "sparrow game" there.
The scent pyramid doesn't help me at all. I smell angelica, too. But what good does that do? I think all the ingredients only serve to create a flat surface that a dewdrop, rain, or bead of sweat would run down.
I remember a painting. A portrait of an expressionist. The woman's face red. Nose and chin pointed. Hair black like a triangular tower. Deep circles under her eyes. Lips shaped like lightning. If the painted woman had worn this scent, her face should have been painted green.
When fingernails over plastic cats, you can break off. When fingernails glide over bakelite, you feel as if you could dig them into the plastic and little moons would be left behind.
The surface of old Bakelite doesn't feel as cold as our plastic does today. It's cool in the hand and quickly becomes pleasantly warm and then there's something waxy about it.
The scent is a shape-shifter. A shape-shifter on my skin. He uses it as a projection screen for himself. In that way, it is the most egotistical fragrance I have ever worn.
Now I'm sure. It must be distinctly easier to bottle a walk in the woods than a craggy, angular lump of plastic.
There's no love story being told here, and there's no passion. Cool attraction, perhaps... But that will be gone tomorrow.
The first impression is a little smoky. But that's already the gentlest association.
The light shapes the surface. Bakelite does not shine. It is rather, as if the material swallows the light and throws back only the rest of the light, which it keeps left.
The surface shimmers. If there were a word: candle-cold...
The men have no hair on their chests. They have no hair at all - anywhere. They're shaved - all over. But this isn't about skin either. More like white, stiff linen. No: the stuff the shirt is made of must be more artificial.
I still smell that scent on me days later. On my hands and on my clothes. In my car. And whenever I smell it, I think: It's still there.
The amber night has seeped into its own darkness. Here is the ballroom in artificial light. Men with their hand on the ladies' knee and their eyes on the waiter's lips. Ambre Nuit would be laughed out of here.
You don't wear this flower in your buttonhole. You wear it in your belt buckle.
The knight does not wear armor of steel.
Now with all that, do what you will.
After all, the scent does that too...
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From rum pot and furniture care
Coffee round. Toupeed hairstyles in colors between light blue and Snow White black...
"Anneliese, take rumtopf to the ice cream!"
"Oh, Resi, it already smells so much like alcohol... It's strong, isn't it? I still have to drive."
"Take it, Anneliese! There are only dark fruits from the garden in it."
"Oops! Oh, God! The couch... Will it come out?"
"Don't worry about it! Just don't rub it now! I'll use leather conditioner. I got it from HaRa."
"Yes, but then the apartment smells for days afterwards. You can't get it out of the room."
"Oh, I actually quite like smelling that..."
"Then you have the cream!"
...
That, or something like that, is how I imagine the scene would be if I were to figuratively describe the scent of Alexandria II...
At the first of foolish five sprays, I was already completely shocked. Why did I keep spraying? I don't know!
For many here, this fragrance is apparently something very special!
Therefore, I say in advance: everything I write is entirely subjective. I also think I have an inkling of what is so intriguing about this fragrance. Nothing of what I write should doubt the justification of the enthusiasm of most in the other comments...
Still...
Some of the previous commenters and annotators, also critical, describe their impression with the term "medical".
I know very well what they mean. For me, I'll narrow it down again and describe it as strong alcoholic.
But that's not the smooth alcohol of a liqueur, nor is it the scent that describes the variety of herb-based liquors or fruit brandies.To me, it's more like the pungent alcoholic note that strong grooming cleaners or cleaning products possess: Eben furniture polishes, leather conditioners, spot cleaners.
"Fleck-weg! The cleans and maintains. Now with even creamier fragrance"
At this point, people then often ask if a sample might be tipped. …. No!
I have rarely, ever had such a strong initial defensive reaction. Again, when some commenters write about wash-off compulsion, I have an idea of what is meant. The pungent scent - to write of the smell would now be too negative - actually goes with me on the nasal mucous membranes and lays on the tongue.
I had already prepared myself for a day with a headache. And I'm really, really not sensitive.
Linen shirt, cashmere sweater, down jacket... The nose at the crook of the arm smells the scent as if nothing lay between the skin and the olfactory organ.
I leave the house ... and the scent becomes more pleasant.
It's almost as if the scent needs the air to breathe itself. Like a wine that stings in the glass, freshly poured in the nose, but after 30 minutes becomes softer and velvety. But quite yes also here: the spontaneously noted association of alcohol.
But I now know what is meant, if the fragrance is described her enthusiastically...
For a short while, I think, maybe I need to be more patient. Maybe I'll still find favor...
The scent surrounds me all the time. Again and again it flies into my nose. When I turn my head, when I lower my face, when I brush through my hair...
I hesitate to speak of penetrance. ("It's your own fault!", I hear you say. "Five sprays! By Xerjoff! By Alexandria!!!"...)
As soon as I walk back into the apartment, the scent gets to me. But that's not the intensity or the sillage. It's the scent itself that's crowding me.
I barely have the scent of roses in my nose. For me, the oud dominates.
Lavender? Possibly. Amber? I imagine that to be softer.
Rarely do I compare fragrances with each other, because I often think that they are very independent compositions that you can describe against the background of your own perception, but rarely stand up to comparisons...
Here I venture, knowing that I will be met with much opposition.
I love wearing Guerlain's Santal Royal.
At moments, Alexandria II reminds me of it. But in the fragrance of Guerlain, the composition of rose and oud is more harmonious, forms there a great arc, seems tuned, balanced.
I have written two detailed, enthusiastic comments on two Xerjoff fragrances: "Accento Overdose" and "Opera".
There, the floral notes, the exuberance, the lavishness really grabbed and gripped me. Alexandria does not succeed.
Possibly I rather like the bright, fruity, really floral at the brand.
Although I also like edgier fragrances in principle, this one is too rumby for me, perhaps even a little too rowdy.
Towards the end, the fragrance then becomes softer. He gets something creamy. But even this is not the creaminess of desserts or of fragrant skin care, but just the cream for leather care. And also in it is alcohol.
Whether kings really smell like that, I don't know. If, then it would have to have been the Egyptian Pharaohs... Maybe.
But: I don't have that connection.
The scent may not connect to a person at all for me.
It remains "in itself." He is a fragrance without humanizing.
For me, it alcohols away. He alcohols in my nose, on my tongue, in my esophagus and in my head.
To speak of disappointment would be wrong. ... But I don't like it.
"There's a knock..."
"There you are, my dear!"
"Good afternoon, ladies! Good day, Aunt Anneliese!"
"This is your Sebastian? My God, he's grown! And chic! With a rose on his lapel! How old is he now?"
"Thirty-six already! ... Jura...!"
"Ohhh! You're so proud! You can tell by the kids how time flies."
"Sebastian, take Rumtopf!"
"Mommy, it smells so..."
"WATCH OUT! Oh, Sebastian! Now don't sit on that spot! Now you got all the furniture cream on your pants!"
...
"Anneliese, take rumtopf to the ice cream!"
"Oh, Resi, it already smells so much like alcohol... It's strong, isn't it? I still have to drive."
"Take it, Anneliese! There are only dark fruits from the garden in it."
"Oops! Oh, God! The couch... Will it come out?"
"Don't worry about it! Just don't rub it now! I'll use leather conditioner. I got it from HaRa."
"Yes, but then the apartment smells for days afterwards. You can't get it out of the room."
"Oh, I actually quite like smelling that..."
"Then you have the cream!"
...
That, or something like that, is how I imagine the scene would be if I were to figuratively describe the scent of Alexandria II...
At the first of foolish five sprays, I was already completely shocked. Why did I keep spraying? I don't know!
For many here, this fragrance is apparently something very special!
Therefore, I say in advance: everything I write is entirely subjective. I also think I have an inkling of what is so intriguing about this fragrance. Nothing of what I write should doubt the justification of the enthusiasm of most in the other comments...
Still...
Some of the previous commenters and annotators, also critical, describe their impression with the term "medical".
I know very well what they mean. For me, I'll narrow it down again and describe it as strong alcoholic.
But that's not the smooth alcohol of a liqueur, nor is it the scent that describes the variety of herb-based liquors or fruit brandies.To me, it's more like the pungent alcoholic note that strong grooming cleaners or cleaning products possess: Eben furniture polishes, leather conditioners, spot cleaners.
"Fleck-weg! The cleans and maintains. Now with even creamier fragrance"
At this point, people then often ask if a sample might be tipped. …. No!
I have rarely, ever had such a strong initial defensive reaction. Again, when some commenters write about wash-off compulsion, I have an idea of what is meant. The pungent scent - to write of the smell would now be too negative - actually goes with me on the nasal mucous membranes and lays on the tongue.
I had already prepared myself for a day with a headache. And I'm really, really not sensitive.
Linen shirt, cashmere sweater, down jacket... The nose at the crook of the arm smells the scent as if nothing lay between the skin and the olfactory organ.
I leave the house ... and the scent becomes more pleasant.
It's almost as if the scent needs the air to breathe itself. Like a wine that stings in the glass, freshly poured in the nose, but after 30 minutes becomes softer and velvety. But quite yes also here: the spontaneously noted association of alcohol.
But I now know what is meant, if the fragrance is described her enthusiastically...
For a short while, I think, maybe I need to be more patient. Maybe I'll still find favor...
The scent surrounds me all the time. Again and again it flies into my nose. When I turn my head, when I lower my face, when I brush through my hair...
I hesitate to speak of penetrance. ("It's your own fault!", I hear you say. "Five sprays! By Xerjoff! By Alexandria!!!"...)
As soon as I walk back into the apartment, the scent gets to me. But that's not the intensity or the sillage. It's the scent itself that's crowding me.
I barely have the scent of roses in my nose. For me, the oud dominates.
Lavender? Possibly. Amber? I imagine that to be softer.
Rarely do I compare fragrances with each other, because I often think that they are very independent compositions that you can describe against the background of your own perception, but rarely stand up to comparisons...
Here I venture, knowing that I will be met with much opposition.
I love wearing Guerlain's Santal Royal.
At moments, Alexandria II reminds me of it. But in the fragrance of Guerlain, the composition of rose and oud is more harmonious, forms there a great arc, seems tuned, balanced.
I have written two detailed, enthusiastic comments on two Xerjoff fragrances: "Accento Overdose" and "Opera".
There, the floral notes, the exuberance, the lavishness really grabbed and gripped me. Alexandria does not succeed.
Possibly I rather like the bright, fruity, really floral at the brand.
Although I also like edgier fragrances in principle, this one is too rumby for me, perhaps even a little too rowdy.
Towards the end, the fragrance then becomes softer. He gets something creamy. But even this is not the creaminess of desserts or of fragrant skin care, but just the cream for leather care. And also in it is alcohol.
Whether kings really smell like that, I don't know. If, then it would have to have been the Egyptian Pharaohs... Maybe.
But: I don't have that connection.
The scent may not connect to a person at all for me.
It remains "in itself." He is a fragrance without humanizing.
For me, it alcohols away. He alcohols in my nose, on my tongue, in my esophagus and in my head.
To speak of disappointment would be wrong. ... But I don't like it.
"There's a knock..."
"There you are, my dear!"
"Good afternoon, ladies! Good day, Aunt Anneliese!"
"This is your Sebastian? My God, he's grown! And chic! With a rose on his lapel! How old is he now?"
"Thirty-six already! ... Jura...!"
"Ohhh! You're so proud! You can tell by the kids how time flies."
"Sebastian, take Rumtopf!"
"Mommy, it smells so..."
"WATCH OUT! Oh, Sebastian! Now don't sit on that spot! Now you got all the furniture cream on your pants!"
...
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Woke up in the arms of a satyr, a faun..
Woke up in the arms of a satyr, a faun...
Your sheet-roofed beds are not my thing!
Nor your cushions in the narrow bunks you crawl into when you are lonely and devote more effort to hiding them - even from yourself - than to surrendering to them and becoming real.
My bed is the moss. My pillow is the leaves
I won't need your blankets. I want to see!
Last night in the clearing, you saw me. And I saw you
As I lay there. And you were terrified. Not just at the sight of me. Because I am beautiful. Beautiful, even if - no: because my goats feet and my horns alienate you. These and my fur
Last night in the clearing you smelled me - even before you saw me. I know it.
I saw you turn away. How you wrestled with yourself. Between repulsion and fascination, you were. You turned away and yet you sensed that scent, that smell.
And when you came closer to see what it is, and when I raised my upper body, supported on my arms, and when you ran away, I knew you would come back.
And you're here. So fast
By my bed there are no roses and no lilies. That's not my thing
But I like to make flowers bloom for you. Deep purple ones with yellow veins in their fleshy petals. Very close to the ground where the mushrooms grow. They only open in the dark. When the sultriness of the day turns into the sultriness of the night. When next to the moon the scent of this flower with its waxy sweetness marks the night. Threads of its milky white juice attract the insects. They settle down on their goblets and drink from the juice like nectar. Their wings are iridescent green and their buzzing is dull. Eventually they fall silent. For the flowers never let go of them.
Does the smell beguile you? The damp leaves, the flowers and the moss? The mushrooms - also the decay?
If all this is so, how much so I! br />
There you are. Close to me. So close
Breathe on me! Do you smell what I smell like? Not soap or tepid water. This is something for your heroes. I smell like skin and fur, which is everywhere you touch. Soft, very soft in this place. And hard in this bristly part. Drops of resin in it, stuck together from the trees I rubbed myself against. And in the beard on my chin, honey from the combs I drank from. Smell that? My breath close to yours. After the vanilla oil from the pods I tore from the bushes. Herb, because without sweetness. ...and the wood and bark that I chew just to pass the time. I smell of body and all that he is and what he takes and what he gives. ...tallow and oils
Love is not my thing. Lust: I'm good at that!
I'm closing in on you. I lower my head. And as I lower it, one of my horns will touch you, just where you're most sensitive. At your side. The tip of the horn goes over your skin. Down your flank and down your belly and down where your belt would be. Are you trembling?
Put your face against my cheek, in the crook of my neck, against my ear, in my neck
Smell the flowers I rolled in. Smell the fruits I crushed and whose juice I drank Smell the herbs I played between and rubbed myself with And smell the animals in whose dens I lay Smell the rain in my wet fur Smell the traces of all desire. My lust.
And if your lust then tears you apart, it is only because you are lost in a powerless fall in the night-black sky and at the same time your fingers claw into the damp mossy ground and because roots grow from them, which keep you on the ground, keep you here with me. And as you fly and at the same time become one with the humus, you will call words into the trees that you do not know.
And an overwhelming fragrance will carry you. From flowers, from trees, from juices, from animals, from wind and grass, tanned, anointed, from sweat and smoke.
In the morning in your bed between the rumpled blankets. You'll smell him, still. Gently now, a little airy, harmonious almost and almost lovely
Between the rumpled blankets - and you know:
That night, it was the arms of a satyr, a faun...
Your sheet-roofed beds are not my thing!
Nor your cushions in the narrow bunks you crawl into when you are lonely and devote more effort to hiding them - even from yourself - than to surrendering to them and becoming real.
My bed is the moss. My pillow is the leaves
I won't need your blankets. I want to see!
Last night in the clearing, you saw me. And I saw you
As I lay there. And you were terrified. Not just at the sight of me. Because I am beautiful. Beautiful, even if - no: because my goats feet and my horns alienate you. These and my fur
Last night in the clearing you smelled me - even before you saw me. I know it.
I saw you turn away. How you wrestled with yourself. Between repulsion and fascination, you were. You turned away and yet you sensed that scent, that smell.
And when you came closer to see what it is, and when I raised my upper body, supported on my arms, and when you ran away, I knew you would come back.
And you're here. So fast
By my bed there are no roses and no lilies. That's not my thing
But I like to make flowers bloom for you. Deep purple ones with yellow veins in their fleshy petals. Very close to the ground where the mushrooms grow. They only open in the dark. When the sultriness of the day turns into the sultriness of the night. When next to the moon the scent of this flower with its waxy sweetness marks the night. Threads of its milky white juice attract the insects. They settle down on their goblets and drink from the juice like nectar. Their wings are iridescent green and their buzzing is dull. Eventually they fall silent. For the flowers never let go of them.
Does the smell beguile you? The damp leaves, the flowers and the moss? The mushrooms - also the decay?
If all this is so, how much so I! br />
There you are. Close to me. So close
Breathe on me! Do you smell what I smell like? Not soap or tepid water. This is something for your heroes. I smell like skin and fur, which is everywhere you touch. Soft, very soft in this place. And hard in this bristly part. Drops of resin in it, stuck together from the trees I rubbed myself against. And in the beard on my chin, honey from the combs I drank from. Smell that? My breath close to yours. After the vanilla oil from the pods I tore from the bushes. Herb, because without sweetness. ...and the wood and bark that I chew just to pass the time. I smell of body and all that he is and what he takes and what he gives. ...tallow and oils
Love is not my thing. Lust: I'm good at that!
I'm closing in on you. I lower my head. And as I lower it, one of my horns will touch you, just where you're most sensitive. At your side. The tip of the horn goes over your skin. Down your flank and down your belly and down where your belt would be. Are you trembling?
Put your face against my cheek, in the crook of my neck, against my ear, in my neck
Smell the flowers I rolled in. Smell the fruits I crushed and whose juice I drank Smell the herbs I played between and rubbed myself with And smell the animals in whose dens I lay Smell the rain in my wet fur Smell the traces of all desire. My lust.
And if your lust then tears you apart, it is only because you are lost in a powerless fall in the night-black sky and at the same time your fingers claw into the damp mossy ground and because roots grow from them, which keep you on the ground, keep you here with me. And as you fly and at the same time become one with the humus, you will call words into the trees that you do not know.
And an overwhelming fragrance will carry you. From flowers, from trees, from juices, from animals, from wind and grass, tanned, anointed, from sweat and smoke.
In the morning in your bed between the rumpled blankets. You'll smell him, still. Gently now, a little airy, harmonious almost and almost lovely
Between the rumpled blankets - and you know:
That night, it was the arms of a satyr, a faun...
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