NotAmused

1882 - The Royal College of Music is founded in London and Geo. F. Trumper creates the last Cologne of today's Trumper Collection. The development from the dust-dry Marlborough to the balanced Astor leads here into a sweet-spicy scent with a good radiation.
It starts off herb-spicy, lavender and juniper have the scepter in their hands for a short time, but after half an hour at the latest they are overrun by a violent load of jasmine. This develops so well on my skin that I can already isolate it clearly in Astor, here at Curzon it completely dominates the remaining components in the middle section.
Also the base later is rather sweet and resinous for me, in any case unisex, if not more female.
The whole thing around it is difficult to grasp, which is probably due to the amount of ingredients that can be taken from the small print on the package. That here was not reformulated, one recognizes by the oak moss and tree moss listed there. Coumarin is also quite high. Everything in modern perfumes is unthinkable.
In my opinion, this fragrance is great for the Advent season. Rudolph with his red sniffing nose will definitely find his way to you.

Astor is the third oldest Cologne in the Trumper Collection and the fourth oldest Cologne from Geo still available today. F. Trumper (Wild Fern has a spray bottle and does not belong to the collection, but dates from the same period). To make the timeframe more tangible: Astor is as old as Cologne Cathedral. This was also completed in 1880, but the history of its 600-year construction phase is so horrible that I don't want to go into it further with such a beautiful fragrance.
If you look at Astor in the context of the Trumper Collection, you can say that this is the first time that a clear scent with partly playful elements appears. With the Curzon, which appeared later, this is even more pronounced, but Astor, in my opinion, strikes a much better balance between matter-of-factly reserved and surprisingly friendly greetings in between and also has fewer ingredients. But one by one,
Astor is a Splash-Cologne and should be used in the same way. I had two samples and filled one of them into a (of course meticulously cleaned) spray bottle, which turned out to be a mistake. I have no idea why, but from the spray bottle it smelled different, quite sharp and the course was somehow "broken".
When I took the sample directly from the tube and dripped it directly onto my wrist without rubbing, I immediately and almost alone said hello to the caraway. Immediately citric notes were added, the bitter orange is clearly perceptible, the lemon somewhat more reserved for me. The whole thing results in a wonderfully balanced, spicy citric top note that has completely surprised me and does it again and again.
In the further course the caraway remains present, as soon as the hesperid notes fade away, the jasmine steps into the picture and gives it a beautiful sweetness without making the composition sweet. Every now and then a little cloud of the finest Chinese jasmine tea bounces from the shirt cuff, which always makes me smile. The sandalwood now becomes increasingly perceptible and creates in the later course together with the restrained, but fixing ambergris a great warmth.
Astor manages with just a few ingredients and gives everyone enough space to be noticed. One can probably assume that these are also of largely natural origin and that the composition was not reformulated. This did not fit at all into Trumper's traditional philosophy. And that's what you smell. It's not like that anymore. This water is so old that it could also come from another star, which is why I always internally call it "astrum". In any case, I like it very much and it is already reserved for the next Cologne purchase.

Trumpers Marlborough, like Wild Fern, dates back to 1877 and is therefore probably one of the oldest still original scent creations that can be bought today. And with this one one notices this now for the first time also clearly. While Wellington from the year before still came along cheerful-citric-spritty and Wild Fern seems a bit melancholic-romantic, here the fun ends! This is clearly and objectively about a single topic. Wood. Stored, cleanly processed, bone-dry wood to even logs. And by bone-dry, I mean absolutely dust-dry. I don't know a drier men's fragrance. If you want to get an idea of the scent, you must not think of modern wood scents, which would rather represent freshly cut wood, or the romantic idea of how wood should smell. Warm and aromatic-spicy. No. There's no such thing here. Leave the carpenter's workshop and walk behind the house in the woods, where the master of the house has piled up the large stacks of wood for the winter. Go to the oldest, driest, where here and there a few small lichens and some moss hang on the logs. Put your nose in a small space and take a deep breath! It smells earthy, dry, rather cool and of course woody. But without that sweetness and resinousness. It's really extraordinary.
If you are enthusiastic about something like this, you should urgently order a sample of Marlborough.

1877 - In Hamburg, Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss found a shipyard on the Elbe island of Kuhwärder (today Kuhwerder) with a rather *rausper* restrained occupancy rate. Asaph Hall discovers the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos, Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake is premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre, and Trumper's Barbershop produces two new colognes in the UK capital under Queen Victoria. Marlborough and Wild Fern. The latter shall be governed by this Article.
Of course I put the test to the test in connection with the test of this classic. Out into the garden, behind at the water under the big alders and birches, there he grows: wild fern. It has a very special quality, which is probably the reason why it never appears in perfumes, even if they are called something with "fern". He doesn't smell. If you rub it between your hands, it smells like cut grass. But even that only briefly and weakly. When I crouched now there, with my fern, at the brook, under the trees, and a slight anger came over me, the solution to the riddle suddenly crept into my nose. Wild Fern does not smell of fern, but of the place where it grows. Herbs, represented by the clearly emerging rosemary and lavender of the top note, which begins with a little spiciness, but quickly becomes round and pleasant. The coolness of the shadow under the large trees is given by the subtle floral notes, the cracked bark is clearly represented by the tree moss and the earth by the patchouli.
This together results in a wonderfully drawn picture of a shady spot at the edge of the forest, which passes by much too fast according to the usual length of time spent there.
But luckily you can extend this Cologne in contrast to the rest in the countryside simply by replenishing

Now that I have found the currently still available old scents from Geo. F. Trumper, I would also like to write something about everyone. I preferred Eucris from 1912 personally as well as here, but now it goes on chronologically.
Wellington dates back to 1876. 142 years ago. In this period of historicism, architecture and art were more backward-looking and oriented towards older styles. And at Curzon Street number 9 in Mayfair/London, Trumpers Barbershop was opened a year earlier. But I digress.
Although Wellington is the oldest trumper scent, it clearly smells the most modern to me. It also stands out clearly from the "Trumper Collection" because it is the only non-woody one among the four. I will spare myself any comparison with other waters here, since Wellington is clearly the older of the presumed twin fragrances, and it should therefore be said, if at all, that this other one smells like Wellington and not the other way round.
After I opened the rehearsal, "Take two lemons!" shot through my head. It smells wonderful of lemon candy, but without being sweet. And that for a respectable 4 hours and more. I've never experienced that in such perseverance. Also there is not this tinny note here, which sticks to some citrus scents after a few hours of fading. Wellington remains pleasant/pleasing until it slowly decays. The radiation is quite restrained. You can practically hardly overdose it, which invites to shake the bottle properly.
The floral heart notes are for me only suspectable and from the musk in the base I notice nothing.
All in all, I find Wellington to be a fresh and cheerful summer fragrance without any aquatic impact. And that's something completely new these days!