ThomC

ThomC

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Bulgarian rose in midsummer
I have been living in Bulgaria for six months now and am literally soaking up this small but historic country. The rose is the national flower of Bulgaria - what the tulip is to the Netherlands. A large part of the world's rose oil production takes place in the 'Rose Valley', south of the Balkan Mountains. A genuine, recognized quality product!
Mauboussin's 'Cristal Oud' fits the bill! It has always been outstanding. Probably the best fragrance for men that Mauboussin has ever put on the market - and the price is a total joke!
I'm not at all fond of oud in midsummer. Nope. It just doesn't fit. Cristal Oud is the big exception. Because rose always works in combination with oud. The way Mauboussin manages to bring the two together tastefully is a masterpiece. Not to mention the wonderfully designed flacon - minimalist, tasteful, elegant, which I would only award to high-price niches. But Mauboussin has always been good at great flacons!
The fragrance is not even complex, it is relatively simple and wonderfully apt. It is immediately present on the skin. The development on sweaty summer skin is interesting! The oud comes in and even becomes a little 'stalky', which in turn is always softened by the rose. A wonderful blend of yin and yang, a constant oscillation of poles. Later on, the mustiness of the oud predominates, but always with an elegant western twist. Everything seems expensive here. How did they manage that? A trade secret. Buying tip? Absolutely. For everyone. For use. To give as a gift. To love.
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Digital is better
I confess, it was love at first sight that led me to make a blind purchase. By that, I mean the appearance of the bottle - I couldn't have guessed how it would smell from the online shop's pages. But this cheapie sparkled at me from the monitor with its charming design from the outrageous 80s. Such style I like: 1985 futurism - everything neon bright, angular, pixelated 8-bit staircase graphics, RoboCop and Disney's Tron, sharp-cold synthpop, heartless drum machines, and the relentlessly inflated digital sound of a Trevor Horn or even Def Leppard's masterpiece 'Hysteria'. And of course, the angular DeLorean in polished aluminum, along with the four-cylinder BMW turbocharger and the coolness of Thatcherism. Yes, that's how pop culture was in the 80s - it was anything but warm, round, analog, and cozy. To break it down: 'Suddenly everything was digital - but nobody knew what that was.'

As a fan of zeitgeist fragrances, I simply had to buy 'Le Coupé'. The mastermind behind this design history lesson: Lomani from Paris. For the small price, they have quite nice things, often old school and a bit out-of-date - which doesn't have to be bad in itself. No matter how the scent turns out - 'Le Coupé' has already scored a hat trick with its appearance.

I expected a bland, meaningless synthetic brew - yet it turns out to be a little surprise, at least a noteworthy success. It sits quite well on the skin, clean and fresh. Initially a bit shrill, then it settles down. A subtle, nicely crafted synthetic lavender, rather round and firm. With the increasing drydown, it becomes fruitier. Reminds me of blueberries and later a hint of ice candies and lavender, with a subtle plastic film tonkabohne. Soft and clean smelling like a laundry at opening time. It never annoys, doesn't smell cheap but also not luxurious. It can pass as an office scent and as a sporty fragrance afterward, but it doesn't smell like you just showered. In any case, it seems - despite its appearance - not at all 80s-brutal. Rather, it wants to hide - its sillage has plenty of room to grow. You could break it down as "blueberry lavender synthetic".

'Le Coupé' is nothing that would reverse the axis of the Earth - but it is solid in its class. It could certainly appeal to fans of 'Prada L'Homme', perhaps also to the Sauvage followers. Definitely to fans of the silver 'Power' by Kenzo. All scents that I naturally feel rather heartless towards because they are very clean.

And yet, after hours, I find myself sniffing again and again at the affordable 'Digital' from France.

PS: After some thought, I realized: There is even a fitting hotel for the bottle of 'Le Coupé' - namely the Ryugyŏng Hotel in Pyongyang - North Korea. It was - listen closely - started in 1987 and is still not quite finished today. It looks just as impressively zeitgeisty from the outside as Lomani's 'Le Coupé'. One wonders what came first: the French perfume or the North Korean hotel?

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryugyŏng-Hotel

The music for the scent ---> Jean Michel Jarre 'Zoolook'

---> https://youtu.be/_x-v8KamefA
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The Yogi Tea® in Autumn
Usually, a perfume goes wrong when it feels like everything is mixed in that could possibly be. Some Arab perfumes tailored for the Western audience are like that, as are some niche brands, and the majority of the nice Rammsteiners, to give a popular example. In them, you find a mishmash of individual components that make the final product thick and immobile. Like pizza from a taxi with a meter-thick layer of analogue Gouda: nice for the primitive calorie hunger at first - but bad for the gourmet conscience by the last piece. Do you want something like that more often? If you love a feeling of fullness, then yes. But with 'BlackSoul Imperial', this thick potpourri fits, allowing this rather unknown French men's perfume to stand up to true greatness. And this scent is strong, that much is clear.

It presents itself almost sweetly, without crossing the line into the feminine realm. On the other hand, it is also distinctly masculine with woody notes that warm and weave through, perfectly matching the changing October trees of German forests. Yes, it has that autumnal vibe of a forest walk and especially that of a cup of warm Yogi tea - the spicy one with cinnamon and milk. Plus star anise and amber. Always incredibly soft on the skin, never piercing. In the drydown, cocoa powder and vanilla. It remains, as always, very distinctive in a Ted Lapidus way. It oscillates between Europe and Arabia and tries to quote both fragrance traditions to 'synthesize' something new from them. And it succeeds. BTW: No, it doesn't smell synthetic. It leans towards a Western-adapted pseudo-Oud at the back end. And that's done skillfully.

An exceedingly intense, broad scent that then - and this is surprising - doesn't really last long on the skin. After three or four hours, it's basically gone. Considering that it is currently being sold as a u20€ cheapie, that's absolutely bearable. Thick gourmand friends for the winding down year we will both be.
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I have never been to Turkey...
A blind buy. Bam. Bull's-eye. And then a quirky, Turkish cheapie from HUNCA, over thirty years old. These are exactly the kinds of stories I love. But what good is a beautiful story structure if the scent itself is worthless? But it is not, and how. A wonderful, harmonious fragrance, a kind of flux capacitor to the eighties. Yet I have never been to Turkey, but deep down I feel like I have smelled it over and over again a very long time ago. Although it was released around 1990, I want to stylistically place it earlier in the eighties. Absolutely.

The bottle? Okay, I’ll give it a pass. Black with gold lettering, somewhat ugly, but typical for its time. Hardly any trash factor. But on the skin, it makes a wonderful impression. Don’t get me wrong: this is not a highly complex luxury scent, but rather a kind of wonderful, hearty lentil stew with bacon and fresh homemade bread and good cheese on the side. An authentic piece for around twenty euros. A real charmer, then, who shuns ostentation but loves continuity.

On the skin, it presents itself beautifully composed. No individual notes stand out; it is a flawless melange. Unpretentious, but broad-shouldered with the mindset of the eighties. The drydown becomes more interesting: it becomes increasingly harmonious, all the individual notes seem to magically blend together. The musk and vanilla peek out the most, but both are very subtle. It does indeed have a Southern European vibe, evoking associations with dry landscapes. It has something warm about it. Like a sultry summer late afternoon by the Mediterranean. Strange scents of people and city. Wonderful.

Its longevity is slightly above average - a re-spray is never annoying. The longer it stays on the skin, the more elegant it appears. Well done, Hunca.

In the well-known category 'For fans of...' the Jagler is comparable to 'Sergio Soldano Black' from 1985 and the pseudo-eighties 'Bogart One Man Show Gold'. To be honest, I have all three on my skin right now. The Jagler outshines them. Any questions?

The Jagler comes across as almost gentle and unlike the countless soap-leather tough guys from the 70s and early 80s, which operate a bit on the 'if you know one, you know them all' principle. The Jagler does not. A great old-schooler at a joke price.
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A Curious One
Oh dear, a men's perfume from 1998. Let's fashionably rewind: It was the phase of the sleek, the heyday of rimless glasses - even outside of doctors and manager types. Men were clean-shaven. Beard, hair, glasses rim, masculinity? Yuck, please no. Back then, everything smooth was a kind of pop culture. They wore their graphite gray blazers and white shirts and their neatly styled haircuts (not too short please - and definitely not too long!). The hype of the metrosexual was still in its infancy, but not yet visible.

Today, this style can be summarized: Oh, please don’t stand out! The brutal excesses of the 80s hairspray shoulder pads were gone, the opposite applied: Smooth. Unisex. Light. Asexual. Subtle. Soft as cotton. Clean. Dotcom bubble. PC with Windows 98.

From this time of the late 90s springs "S.T. Dupont pour Homme" and it is truly a child of its era. But what a one! First of all: I really like it. Because apparently, even in this chlorine-pure style bubble, it was possible to create quite original scents that have survived this time and proved to be timeless.

You can certainly see the origin of this era in the bottle. Cool, clean, minimal. Barely noticeable, a bit of silver and yet elegant like timelessness. One that gets overlooked in the collection but still sparkles like a little gem.

The scent itself is quirky yet stylish - and still a clean scent of its time. Its only cliffhanger is - as my predecessors mentioned - its so-called "muff." I say: yes, it smells. But no, please not like "muff"! I associate that negatively, my impression, on the other hand, is positive.

This scent accord reminds me of freshly fried food in better restaurants. And I mean no nasty meat, but freshly fried vegetables in a batter. There it lies on the plate and smells, not even penetrating, but fine, nutty, crispy, and warm. Fried foods can indeed be divine. Good fat and proper craftsmanship assumed, it turns the neutral into a simple gourmet dish. Belgian fries from good "friteries" send their regards.

I do like comparisons. And this fried note, this one accord, reminds me of Penhaligon's "Belgravia Chypre." This rather celebrated scent also had that funny twist, which we unanimously identified during our checkup as "Belgian fry shop." A great scent by the way. And this one has it too, from S.T. Dupont, twenty years earlier. Applause!

Today, "S.T. Dupont pour Homme" costs next to nothing. Yes, it is technically on the sidelines of all cheapies. I say: buy it now more than ever. A true character piece among the affordable.

The music for the scent ---> the Belgian National Anthem "La Brabançonne" ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9u_Ituu2Q8 )

ADDENDUM: I did a cross-check with Déclaration by Cartier the other day. And lo and behold: I also find that one note distinctly here. Both perfumes are from 1998. Who inspired whom?
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