Smnbkr

Carlisle. I'm glad you're around.

I first met you in the cold Paris winter of 2019. You came highly recommended to me from several directions.

At my first Parfums de Marly sample, I sheerly overlooked you. Not that your appearance was unremarkable. No, not at all. Resplendent and elegant, you stand there in your dapper black outfit, and everyone who sees you instantly knows your resounding name, too.

You smell powerful. You smell arrogant. Decadent. Straight forward. No compromise, either black or white. Yes or no. Like Karl Lagerfeld. You own the world, but you don't have to do anything for it.

You smell like 1001 Parisian nights. Intangible. Beautiful. Mysterious. Full of light, at the same time dark as the blackest night. Quickly there, taking everyone's breath away, and immediately gone. Not looking for attention. And yet you always get it.

You smell like the perfect complement to a black suit. Not a dull business suit. A high-fashion suit. Dior Homme, Comme des Garcons, Ann Demeulemeester or Les Hommes. High dad-killer collar, like Lagerfeld. One or two pieces of silver jewellery, slightly wider trousers, tattoos on the hands. Casual elegance.

You smell like someone who's quiet. Who doesn't say anything. Doesn't need to say anything. His mere appearance leaves everyone with their mouths open. Who moves slowly. No hurry, no time pressure. Time is relative to him anyway. What's the rush? The world adapts to him, not the other way around.

Impressions that try to describe you. That try to somehow capture you, make you explainable. Doomed to fail. You need to be smelled in order to be judged. Though you don't care about the judgments anyway.........

blue sky
sometime at noon
22 degrees in Paris
light wind over the city
Jardin du Luxembourg
a few girls
a few boys
Strolling
easy living
savoir vivre
A scent in the air
what is it?
everybody's looking
where is it coming from?
everybody's looking around
who can that be?
the blue horse
nobody sees it
everybody notices it
casual presence
only briefly galloped past
already gone again
everyone smiles
just an impression
that moves so much
thank you Percival
for these moments

Part 4 of the Parisian perfume stories about the now 20-year-old protagonist from Germany, who does a voluntary social year in Paris and passes the time with perfume tours through all arrondissements, leads us again near the Jardin des Tuileries.

After he could already leave in the Parfums de Marly boutique his "scent mark" and it has meanwhile even managed that the two very nice Verkäuferhyänen communicate with him in the local language, because he had so often and emphatically tried the French, he now headed for the MEMO boutique located right next door. Shocked by the wonderfully furnished shop (really true, google that one or go there) and the artfully designed fragrance bottles he found, he didn't notice the sales hyena present that day at first. When she came up the (as well as everything else) wonderful spiral staircase from the warehouse, he was almost a bit startled. However, she turned out to be more of a cuddle cat, addressing him in hyena-untypical soft French, and giving him the time and space he needed throughout his stay.

Our protagonist had gone to the boutique entirely unprepared, and so every perfume had to be tested out.

So really wanted to agree to him first none. The "Lalibela Oud" was too feminine for him, the other fragrances somehow too colorless. The "Irish Leather" he should discover later still for himself; on this day, however, he did not attach any great importance to this fragrance. In the end, there were actually only two untested memos left: "Marfa" and, for some reason, "African Leather". This was the only scent he had ever heard of anywhere. "Marfa" appealed to him immediately. Very distinct tuberose accord, soft, cuddly scent; parallels to "Soleil blanc" by Tom Ford that could not be overlooked (or smelled over). Yes, he liked this one very much. Very very even.

Why he bought it (3 Travel-Atomiser for 90€) after about five minutes, although he only knew the top note, I can't answer you today. He did it, however. Ran to the metro with an uneasy feeling. Smelled again and again at the test strip. And knew when changing trains at the world-famous station "Châtelet - les Halles" that he had made a mistake. He liked this perfume, yes, quite. But he didn't want to smell like that. At that moment, he established for himself a description for a certain kind of perfume: great scent, but only as a room scent. One should not smell so rather.

What now with this newfound certainty. In any case, do not unpack the new acquisition. He would not get the money back, however, also. At most a voucher. Or, however, he would be able to make an exchange. But against what. He didn't like any of the fragrances from the house. Merde!!!! The first perfume mis-purchase. It happens to everyone, he told himself. But he also knew that it needn't have happened. Listlessly, he looked again at the sample from the shopping bag of "Memo", sprayed "African Leather", the only fragrance of the house not yet tested, on the wrist, and went dejectedly to bed.

He woke up at 2:40, because he urgently needed to go to the loo. He went briskly, and was almost back in his room, when he opened his eyes a little wider. What was that pleasant smell? He sniffed his wrist..... and saw the predatory cat. Graceful, elegant, graceful. Sharp claws, but only when she has to. Calm, but also deadly loud when she must. Inconspicuous in the high steppe grass, but unmistakably fast and murderous on the hunt. And yes, I am still talking about the scent. Rather, I'm talking about the scent experience that the 20-year-old FSJler had that night in the west of Paris.

The morning after, he wanted to test the fragrance again... but he didn't need to. He was still perceptible on the wrist, had hardly changed, and still left him speechless. He set out at the next opportunity, and traded the beautiful, but for him intolerable room scent for a new pet. A dangerous pet. A cat he could also go out with. No, with whom he must go out. Who needs her run. Her territory to perform. Who needs little to do to gain respect. Her mere presence is enough. Who strikes deadly in the hunt. The no prey escapes.

Merci, Memo, for a pet in a class of its own. For a beastly good companion, which only at the beginning a little too much the claws out, only to make then ten hours plus the desert decadently unsafe.

African Leather

the only predator in Paris

Do you know the Ladurée store on Rue Bonaparte at the corner of Rue Jacob in Paris? If not, put it on your "to-do list" for your next stay (if it's not booked or at least planned yet, I urge you to do so quickly :-) ). So I can't get past the thematization of my boundless love for the ville lumière in this review, and to be honest, I don't want to. How I make the connection to "Herod" by Parfums de Marly, released in 2012? Listen carefully...!

At the time, our protagonist had been living in Paris for only a few weeks. He knew about niche fragrances relatively well, and had made a few visits to the Jovoy boutique at the Tuileries (also on the Paris list, s'il vous plaît), where he surely made everyone within a ten-meter radius allergic to perfume forever on the long metro ride home. So he decided to turn to the flagship stores of Parisian niche perfumeries, and chose the Parfums de Marly boutique as the first. The reason for this was once again Jeremy Fragrance, who (yes, really) was still a kind of god of the perfume world for our protagonist at the time. His constant, mantra-like repetition of the "Layton" scent from this house had achieved the effect desired by the YouTuber, and drove the 19-year-old FSJ student into downtown Paris once again on a cool late October day after work and the gym. Dressed in a down jacket and Nike sweatpants, slightly sweaty and not really wealthy, he must have left a dubious impression on the vendor hyena next to the fragrance table; but he didn't really care. He wanted to test now absolutely once the so highly praised Marlys. On y va...

Started with the fragrances from the "Arabian-Breed" series. Flakontechnisch is really Champions League. Mercedes-Maybach. House in the Hamptons. Black and noble, they stand there in rows and rows, waiting to be tested. Unfortunately, none of these luxury steeds could stand up to the nose of the protagonist, and so, apart from "Oajan", which could be a nice room scent, nothing remained in the memory. It was a different story with the fragrances he had written down on his list. Layton, Pegasus, Godolphin and Herod convinced him so much in the boutique that he asked the sales hyena to give him bottlings of all four scents, which she did, surprisingly willingly by hyena standards. The way home was started satisfied, not least because of the convincing performance in French, which was by no means self-evident at the beginning of the year in Paris.

"Herod" was not to take long to completely captivate the protagonist. It was the much-described "love at first sniff". Warm, soft, gourmandig (he did not know this expression at the time, but smelled exactly what he would describe today so), slightly sweet, subtle tobacco note in the background. What a smell. "Oajan" without room scent feeling. Woody-tobacco Layton (which should also convince him, but more on that in another chapitre) with gourmand feeling. The cinnamon note reminded him, oddly enough, even if there were neither olfactory nor gustatory similarities, of a macaron special edition from the aforementioned world-famous pastry shop he had once received as a gift. He had to have it, the first really expensive niche fragrance of his life. So he bought it one afternoon on short notice in the very boutique where he had first met and smelled it. Price-wise, it was beyond good and evil at the time, and beyond anything he considered adequate for a perfume at the time. He had probably never heard of Roja, Xerjoff and Tiziana Terenzi. ?

The first outlet he allowed him on a dance evening with the French girlfriend already mentioned in the review of "Grand Soir" and her then partner in the "Panic Room", a small bar with integrated techno cellar in the 11th arrondissement east of downtown. After two compliments (not counting those from his two fellow dancers) on the small dance floor, he knew he had made the right choice. He registered it only in bits and pieces; it tended to be a quiet companion on his skin.

To the conclusion of the beautiful celebration evening on a small green strip near the Metrostration "Filles du Calvaire" still a few cigarettes were consumed and about God and the world, Paris and about the French progress of the protagonist schwadroniert. He, however, did not smoke a cigarette. He had already had his nicotine-free tobacco dose. And what a.....

Like the wonderful "Grand Soir" I smelled this fragrance for the first time in my unforgettable year in Paris, and, also like the king of amber fragrances, there is a nice little anecdote from the city of love. But in turn...

We write the winter of 2019. Any virus was far away, cold and dark it was nevertheless in the French capital. At the end of November said year, a then 19-year-old, German lad for lack of social contacts set out on one of his countless perfume tours through all quarters and arrondissements. But this time, instead of his usual rummaging through the much-loved little boutiques like the beautiful "Nose" in the second arrondissement or the Parfums de Marly boutique near the Tuilierien, he was thinking bigger. Christmas was coming, and perhaps that conscience was drawing him to the beauty section of Galeries Lafayette for a second time. He took the RER to "Auber," threw himself into the early pre-Christmas fray, and took the escalator up to the second floor. Arrived in the olfactory paradise, he did not know where to put his eyes at first. Parfums de Marly? He knew them all. Creed? Not his cup of tea. Stephane Humbert Lucas? Wonderful fragrances, but too expensive. So he tested himself through the Le Labo counter, and when he could not find anything usable there except the top dog Bergamotte 22, he decided to turn again to the works of art of Monsieur Francis Kurkdjian.

At the "Grand Soir" he stopped short, paused and smiled briefly. He didn't need to test it. He knew enough (See review of "Grand Soir" by me). So he walked on and stopped at the then newest fragrances, a fragrance double pack. Immediately, a dutiful salesman jumped up and introduced him to the bottles as twin "Gentle fluidity" fragrances; a gold, more feminine, and a silver, more masculine version. The young man, who is usually not upset by aggressive salesman hyenas, tested both fragrances to feed the predator.

The golden edition was indeed too feminine for him, he paused at the silver one. "Stop. Wait a minute. Haven't I smelled this fragrance fifty million times? Don't I know it?" These questions circulated in his head as he turned away to focus his attention on other scents. But he failed. "Gentle fluidity silver" on the MFK test card asked him a thousand questions he didn't know the answer to. He was nervous, didn't know where to go with himself. So he walked out of the fragrance paradise onto the busy Boulevard Haussmann, went into the metro station, and was almost about to board the train home when he encountered the scent again. Not on a test strip, but on a living man. A man about 1.75 m tall, colored, French, in his mid-forties, to be precise. Wearing a navy blue suit and gray coat, he stood there, waiting for the train, oblivious to the effect he was having on the 19-year-old boy. He was sure: this man is wearing "Gentle fluidity silver" by Maison Francis Kurkdjian, no doubt about it. And not only that... he wears it well. He wears it confidently. He wears it uncomplicatedly. He wears it suavely. He wears it at ease. He wears it a little more arrogantly and eloquently than everyone else. He wears it the way it should be worn. Gentlemanly...

Let me abbreviate my story here. Our protagonist stormed back into Galeries Lafayette that very late afternoon to purchase a silver-white, 75-ml bottle of the fragrance discussed here for not quite small money. He has not regretted it to this day. Why?

Because this fragrance is so little, but at the same time so much. He comes unspectacular, dishonest and without much trara therefore. He does not wear thick on, keeps a low profile, and knows with understatement to convince. Which impression he nevertheless makes with those who go into his haze, I have described above enough. For me, it is THE everyday fragrance. Period. A fresh-woody, yet somehow in its own way subtle-attractive Immergeher. Whether him office, at dinner or with his children watching movies on the couch; the situation where "Gentle fluidity silver" does not fit, must still be invented.

Chapeau, Monsieur Kurkdjian, for a fragrance that is the definition of wearability. Spray on twice, go off, and live his life. It does not get more uncomplicated.

GFS