Schallhoerer

The Ulrich Lang brand was founded in 2002 by the eponymous Ulrich Lang and has been producing very interesting fragrances in the niche sector ever since. Before that Lang was product manager of Loreal and Amaris for many years. With his own brand, the passionate photographer tries to combine the two areas in the form of photography and perfume. Photography is an influence that runs through many of his fragrances. Be it the packaging, the names of the fragrances (such as Aperture) or the advertising campaigns. The current collection includes 8 fragrances that could not be more different olfactorically.

The Nightscape was released in 2009, comes in a 100ml bottle and an eau de toilette concentration. I would describe the scent as earthy-leathery in this. The perfumer behind the fragrance is German Frank Voelkl. Voelkl is a high-profile perfumer and has a large portfolio of the fragrances to look back on in the process. He is known for his numerous works with Le Labo (Santal 33, The Noir 29) among others. But he has also created, among other things, the in my opinion excellent Roses on Ice by Kilian.

The bottles of Ulrich Lang are all identical and differ only from the sticker on the front, on which we find the name of the house as well as the fragrance. Also in the color of the liquid, the fragrances differ thereby. The bottle is bulbous and slims down a bit towards the top. The transparent cap is made of plastic and gives a view of the sprayer. The cap unfortunately does not feel very high quality, but closes with a click. You can therefore pick up the fragrance when you close it. The sprayer is on an average level and gives out quite a fine spray.

The patchouli as well as the leather are here the most prominent notes of Nightscape. The fragrance opens thereby at the first spraying briefly quite fresh by the bergamot, and while this still delivers its short freshness kick, it withdraws already and lets for my nose directly come through the patchouli. Patchouli can have many facets. From dirty to musty and damp, everything is there. Many people associate the smell of patchouli with a damp cellar, or with bad air in rooms that have not been ventilated for a long time. Here in Nightscape, however, the patchouli is pleasantly earthy, but without drifting into the dirty. It radiates an enormous warmth, unfolds very pleasantly on the skin and forms the foundation for the other notes in the course. With this type of patchouli, a minimal alcohol note also resonates in the background. As if far away in a jazz club someone is sipping a whisky while we are drinking a mocha at the bar, which reminds us somewhat of the warm, earthy patchouli with its light chocolaty aura. This dominant patchouli phase lasts about an hour, then it takes a step back and the second note of Nightscape that sets the tone emerges. Leather. Very soft and pleasantly drawn here. Not a weathered or worn old leather, but to me more like a soft suede that wraps you in a delicate cloak of warmth and security. The patchouli hovering in the background, which also exudes a comforting warmth, allows the leather to fully unfold here. The musk here in the fragrance is not dominant, acting more like a complementary substance that has the main characters' backs and supports them in the important moments. The tonka bean adds a bit more sweetness to the scent towards the end, supporting the already soft leather. And that's how Nightscape ends after a few hours. As if you were wrapped in a suede blanket on a rainy Sunday evening.

Speaking of photography at the beginning, the scent manages to draw that kind of imagery into my mind. A big city with its lights reflected in the rain puddles of the night. Few people left on the streets at this time of night. Taxi drivers pulling another night, hoping that a lone soul will join them. All that is Nightscape to me. That feeling of being lost in a big city and still feeling safe. Protected by the lights of the advertisements from the shops on the sides of the street.

The shelf life of Nightscape is a good 6-7 hours. For an eau de toilette, there is no reason to complain here in my opinion. The first hour is the fragrance thereby in the radiation very strong and then becomes increasingly intimate and skin.

In my opinion, Ulrich Lang has had a great hand with the Nightscape here for a wonderfully great coordinated patchouli leather fragrance. This is a kind of fragrance that does not exist in this fine tuning too often. The individual components are masterfully interwoven and complement each other perfectly. The fragrance stands relatively alone and other representatives of this genre I can not really think of. Because the leather here is so wonderfully soft and not bulky, I could even imagine Nightscape on women. There is no thematic connection to Cuir Beluga by Guerlain, as there is no dominant vanilla in Nightscape. But the feeling of the supple leather is comparable. Here in Nightscape just perfectly brought in connection with patchouli

Aquaten from Bavaria? Sounds somehow not right on paper. But this still relatively young brand has already conquered my heart with 2 fragrances and lent new wind to the genre.

But we first take a look at the bottle. The bottle is cube-shaped, quite heavy and seems from the feel pretty high quality. On the front we have a small fabric plaque with the name of the house as well as the fragrance. The bottle has a nice light blue color gradient. The fabric logo on the front is also a light blue color. The cap feels high quality and with this bottle, the sprayer also completely convinces me. A nice fine dosable spray. This is above average level.

But what good is the most beautiful bottle, if the content is not convincing? But there you do not have to worry here. Because my God, that is one of the best top notes I have probably ever smelled. Everything here is so fresh, invigorating and effervescent that it made me salivate at first. The oxygen accord (whatever it's composed of) makes perfect sense. It's like a breath of fresh air from an open window. The bergamot is so perfectly matched with the fresh and tart lime and backed by something minimally green. I honestly can't get out of gushing at the opening. Here, the distribution between fresh citrusy notes and aquatic notes is so perfectly balanced that everything just seems coherent and absolutely round. If I had to give scores for the top notes alone, we'd have a very clear 10 out of 10 here. This is the kind of top note that just blows you away and leaves you amazed. Now, of course, you might think that we're dealing with a top note blender here. But that's not the case. Even if the scent after the top note cannot completely maintain this masterful level, Lago is still an absolutely convincing scent over the entire course. Through the sage in the heart note, the fragrance gains something green-spicy that combines perfectly with the fresh elements of the top note. The driftwood gives the fragrance in the drydown then the basic base, which also turns out here as in the Monte minimally salty. The musk embeds the remaining notes on a pleasantly fresh cloud and gives the remaining elements enough space to unfold. The ambergris, here probably in a synthetic form rather than ambroxan, gives the fragrance a minimal showery freshness, but it seems absolutely stylish and skillfully used. In general, I have to say that at no time does this come across as usual aquatic-calone accidents. Calone is a chemical compound often used in aquatic fragrances to convey freshness or the smell of the sea. This coupled with an overdose of ambroxan, which is also a chemical compound meant to emulate natural ambergris, often results in aquatic scents smelling like test tube accidents. Both Monte and Lago are clear exceptions. The ambergris is present in both fragrances, but never used in an annoying or overbearing way. Here it is used exactly as it is intended. As a supporting means to fine-tune existing notes.

The durability is at 4-5 sprays at absolutely coherent 7-8 hours. The charisma decreases slightly after 2 hours, but is always perceptible in the closer sillage.

The Lago is thus for me the fresh-aquatic surprise of recent years. In this genre, no fragrance has convinced me so far on the whole line as this from the house Acqua di Baviera. If you want to buy e.g. an Afternoon Swim from Louis Vuitton for 220€, you should try Lago first. Here you get for a 1/3 of the price a fresh-aquatic fragrance with one of the most beautiful and fresh top notes ever. And you get a durability that also deserves its name. While the Afternoon Swim already runs out of breath after 5 hours, you come with the Lago without problems over a whole workday

Matca Naturals is a small indie label from Romania that was founded in 2019 and has settled in the field of "Botanical Perfumes". Here, fragrances are made from 100% plant-based ingredients without any synthetics. Because colleague Floyd and Bloodxclat have already raved here so much and because with tobacco and oakmoss two of my favorite ingredients are contained in one of the fragrances, the decision was made quickly to take this small and still quite unknown brand times more closely under the microscope.

The 10ml bottle is kept relatively minimalist and is decorated only by a textured sticker on the front and side. On this one finds both the name of the house as well as the fragrance.

The Oakmoss Tabac is 2020 appeared. The name is here also program. Oakmoss and tobacco are clearly the dominant tones and colors in this fragrance. At the first spray, you stand directly in front of a dark green wall that blocks your view. The light can only flash through small gaps in the green moss-covered wall. The ground around you seems heavy, damp, and you can't shake the feeling that you might start sinking into it at any second. If you reach out to this wall you can feel the individual fibers of the moss. Slowly they seem to spin around your fingers. Behind the metre-high green wall are flowers whose scent seems to dissolve the bitter and tart moss wall. The trees are lowering now, enveloping the wall and splitting it down the middle. The view is clear, breathing is easier. Now you can see the outlines of the flowers, they are blurred yet familiar. The former wall of oakmoss lies at our feet and the resin of a thousand years drips from the trees. The drops dissolve into smoke and point our way. With tobacco leaves under our feet, we float over the ground, leaving the oak moss behind and following the wooden path out of this green hell. We can breathe again and take one last look back over our shoulder. The green wall has formed again. We stand in its shadow and as the now wooden path shows us the way out, we cannot take our eyes off this monstrous beauty in emerald green. There will come a day when we take the exit. But in the here and now, we want to be back in front of the gate to green hell.

Matca Naturals has succeeded here with the Oakmoss Tabac a beautiful fragrance experience. The at the beginning crushing force of nature in the form of the oakmoss wall becomes more familiar with time. The tobacco takes away some of the force of the green, bitter oakmoss while warming with its bright tones. In the end, everything is held together by woods and a touch of creaminess. Masterfully woven everything together.

The shelf life is 6-7 hours. The first 2 hours, the scent thereby radiates quite strongly from the skin.

Who stands on absolutely natural fragrances with tart, in places at the beginning bitter impact, which will have here his true joy. I will make in the future more and more often these "trips" into the world of 100% natural fragrances. This is like a reset for all the synthetic substances in fragrances, which now come under one.

The hunt for the Cheapie treasures of the perfume world continues. Often I ask myself lately why you spend so much money on expensive niche fragrances, when you can get such jewels for less than a dinner at a snack bar. The Caractère is again a representative of this "hidden Gems" category. In connoisseur circles no longer an insider tip, but many still do not know him.

The fragrance was released in 1989 and Alain Verjus is the perfumer. Verjus is an unknown perfumer to me and I can't associate him with any brands I've heard of. I would describe Caractere as spicy and aromatic. A look at the bottle unfortunately shows us why the fragrance is so cheap to get. It doesn't look very high quality, the design is a bit old-fashioned (which I personally like in a charming way) and the cap is one of the worst I've ever had in my hands. The sprayer is average and distributes a fairly short spray.

As befits a fragrance from this era, the fragrance pyramid is literally filled to bursting with ingredients. Artemisia, bergamot, lemon, basil, garden carnation and castoreum are thereby only short excerpts.

The color of the bottle anticipates the smell thereby wonderfully. We have here a classic old-school fragrance with a strong oak moss impact, which reminds you of a hike through a rainy forest in autumn. At the same time, a few fresh moments serve very briefly in the top notes to take some of the initial brusqueness out of the scent. Through the castoreum and the leather accord, however, the fragrance moves in the drydown again in this tart, masculine direction as you know it, for example, from a Santos by Cartier. The basic character here is relatively bitter and herbaceous and is then somewhat more conciliatory towards the end and ends in a tart-soapy chord which is supported by the leather.

The Caractère uses some of the representatives of this type of fragrances. Be it the creations of Jaques Bogart, Oscar de la Renta (Pour Lui) or the addressed Santos of Cartier. However, in keeping with the name, the fragrance has its own character and does not seem like a mere copy. Given the price (about 10€ for 50ml), you won't make a mistake here if you're into strongly masculine, tart scents of the late 80s and early 90s. However, I tend to see this type of fragrance on wearers aged +30 upwards

The brand Milton Llyod is known for absolutely cheap fragrances that often copy successful fragrance DNAs. The problem with Kouros is actually that the fragrance has been watered down, adapted and ultimately neutered over the years. What was considered an absolute powerhouse in the early 80s is now a mere shadow of its former self. The current formulation of Kouros lacks pretty much everything that made up the old god. Those who know Kouros in its earliest formulations know that we are talking about an absolutely masculine-spicy fragrance with a slight animalic touch. A fragrance that felt like it made your chest hair grow a few more inches. In its original formulation, Kouros was for many the epitome of sexual self-confidence. But for many at the time, it was already too much, as some couldn't handle that slightly uriney note. While I can understand this urinal association, I don't share it. To my nose, Kouros doesn't smell dirty but fresh, aromatic and just like a men's locker room in the early nineties when we were at the indoor pool.

The bottle looks like a cheap DEO from the discount store. On the black front we have the lettering and the concentration, in this case Eau de Toilette. The sprayer is a special feature here. Because it is not a classic pump sprayer, where the fragrance is sprayed by vacuum from the bottle, it is much more a sprayer, as you know it from deodorants. Here, gas is used in the bottle. Theoretically, you can spray out the entire contents of the bottle by pressing the sprayer. The perfume mist is very fine and even. Just look that you confirm the sprayer only briefly.

The Man Silver actually smells like the Kouros from the late 80s and early 90s. You have a classic aromatic spicy scent here with laurel, artemisia and sage in the top notes. In the heart notes we have cinnamon, coriander, bergamot and clove and then in the base vetiver, patchouli, honey, leather, amber and musk.

At the first spray comes to you in the opening this mix of all kinds of spices in the nose. It's refreshing, spicy and absolutely invigorating. What makes Kouros is this subtle resonating animalic note from the honey and the musk, which together can create this association to a urinal in places. And The Man Silver doesn't hold back here. Where YSL's current Kouros formulation completely filed down and neutered the edges of the fragrance, The Man Silver really powers ahead here. These partly tart aromatic ingredients like the coriander or clove are perfectly balanced by sweet accents of cinnamon as well as honey. The leather comes in later and gives the fragrance a bit more profile in the direction of masculinity. Kouros is back. How Milton Llyod pulled this off will remain a mystery to me. But obviously they must have gotten hold of the original formula of Kouros. Otherwise I can't explain this almost perfect 1:1 vintage copy. The shelf life is an outstanding 10 hours. For an eau de toilette and this price simply incredible.