Ttfortwo

We were sitting in the courtyard of a ruined fortified castle in the middle of summer in southern France. By the way, I do not want to remember for the life of me where that could have been, but it smelled headache-inducing overwhelming from the thousands and thousands of tiny orange flowers of a picture-perfect shrub with rich green shiny leaves. The scent was intensely sweet and powerfully fruity, and I was entranced, secretly snapping off a little fexer in the hope that I might be able to root it and take it home that way. Until my husband said that the scent reminded him a little of toilet cakes. Bam! Klosteinchen!

And so my relationship with the osmanthus got a mighty crack after only a short time.

And my not overly passionate, yet so far untroubled relationship with Fragonard's "Ile d'Amour", an unspectacular and rather in the fresh direction of going fragrance with osmanthus as a core note, also.

Today I wear "Lost Paradise", Marie le Febvres homage to the unbridled, unrestrained draufballernden fragrances of the 80s with a powerful dose of osmanthus.

It is a very le-febvreske homage and thus: slim, transparent, floating. The fragrance doesn't copy, no, the fragrance describes, and it does so with quiet, melodic words. This is not the 80s-typical pasty, compact brushstroke, instead she inks a feather-light watercolor on wet paper.

I have to admit that I sometimes have a hard time with fragrances by Ms. Le Febvre. Their beauty, which is present without any question, opens up to me more through what I would now like to call an intellectual approach, less through a sensual-emotional one. I feel the same way about "Lost Paradise."

The entrance captivates with a very feathery peachy velvety fruitiness, soft, sunny, delicately sweet, far from the chumming up grumpy compote, which I so many fruity fragrances from the outset offended. Add to that a teeny citrusy sparkle and a bit of herbaceousness, it's beautifully dabbed on in an airy way and prevented from floating away with a velvety golden-yellow ribbon (the jasmine?) thrown loosely over it.

You first have to get it right: to incorporate a riotous note like osmanthus in such a way that it seems downright fragile.

In the course of time, a delicate warmth comes to it, a very soft spice supports the hitherto extremely fragile glassy structure gently from below. The fragrance becomes a little more stable, the colors a little more intense. So the fragrance lingers for a long time, eiderdaunig, quiet, friendly.

And then fades very slowly into this friendly velvet powdery peaceful warmth.

What about the toilet stones? I noticed them, of course; Ottoman-wise, I am probably spoiled for all time. They have me but - and this is a very big compliment for this gentle fragrance - not disturbed.

That's something.

Lehmann lets it crash now and then right with the head notes.

Oud, for example, burrows through a bed of beastly tea tree spice, before he becomes friendly and warm, yes, really muggy. The Lehmann sandal waits with a prominent Wick vaporub top note, Verité lets the inclined Riecher first linger for some time in the back room of a pharmacy, before it broadens to a luxurious vanilla patchouli Oriental.

Toledo's top notes are nothing short of this: Bitter herbaceousness with dry, distinctly medicinal spiciness and a recognizably ethereal note (I'm guessing anise and eucalyptus), with at most medium-present citrusy sprinkles. No lemon, the brightening, fresh, healthy of a lemon is completely missing, it is rather bitter, dried, gnarly citrus notes.

It all mixes together in my nose to form a peculiar, sharp and confusing blend all its own - it smells like Scottish malts, and the kind produced on Islay. I smell hints of gauze bandage, of sticking plaster and of hoof tar . That sounds bad, I know, but it's not like that (this for all those who are now actually already out of the act: stay here, the scent is great, I promise). Because there is also a background malt sweetness and fine powdery fern tones and even now this touch of very soft leather, which will not quite disappear during the entire dwell time.

Lehmann has recognizably not wanted to create a fragrance with easy entry, he has a fortified wall with a heavy gate in front of the Alcázar - or from me also from the Castillo de Guardamur. The gate opens only in slow motion, the top note does not seem to change for a long time.

But of course it does, and very gradually the fragrance becomes warmer, bone dry admittedly always, with a bit of vanilla sweet stuff to soothe. Some cocoa perhaps, dusty and powdery, and a spicy, nose-tickling note, peppery. And always that hint of soft leather.

Floral notes I can not detect, heliotrope I consider of course very possible, but let it - because of its mainly vanilla impression - not as a flower.

I like this heart note extraordinarily. It is warm, dry, delicately spicy and darkly toned. Dense and substantial. Earthy, a bit melancholic beyond, almost heavy-blooded, without being dull or even dull. I would wear it in Toledo - even in high summer, by the way.

The durability is clay-typical, so remarkable - even on my fragrance-eating skin Toledo holds out more than eight hours, on the sweater until the next day.

Also typical of clay is that the scent hardly changes from the full development of the heart note. Sandalwood notes push later a little more to the fore - but otherwise Toledo simply evaporates.

From its midday hour, by the way, Toledo reminds me a lot of Verité. In the next few days I will carry both against each other and see if that can be true at all. I will report.

Inspired by Sniffsniff's worth reading comment, I started to think about Kismet and why I don't wear it, although I find it really beautiful, very beautiful indeed.

Well, I don't wear Shalimar either, at least not in the true sense of the word, i.e. "put it on and get out on the street". But in the home office, for example, I wear the Extrait from time to time as emotional support and to maintain morale, because I find that Shalimar is demanding and edgy and wants to be watched awake, and therefore keeps my mental activity lines nice and high.

Why i came to shalimar: Because kismet still seems to me - no matter how much that is denied in the fragrance twin claims - like the well-behaved half-sister of the smoking and growling Guerlain elderly.

Kismet is round, soft and much softer and certainly not a re-imagining of the old Kismet scent, but an interpretation of the old template with modern means and this in turn brings me to my Kismet dilemma.

The idea "Kismet" smells much older than the design is, it (the idea) actually has an unmistakable vintage signature. Some statements also aim unmistakably in this direction. But: The version is missing a very important part of what makes a real vintage oriental for me, among others the critters. The enigmatic, sometimes delicately grim and angular. Kismet is light as a feather and beautiful, but it doesn't take any risks, everyone will love it, as enchanting as it smells of lemon vanilla tartlets. You could also say it's just a bit boring.

Furthermore, it is disappointingly short on my skin. Well, that's partly my scented skin.

Kismet does not last forever on clothing either, but considerably longer, only then the pretty citric top note is almost completely skipped, as well as most of the floral aspects, and a matt powdery, vanilla veil of scent establishes itself very, very quickly, as it is then long-lasting, but without too much recognition or unique value.

It doesn't work, the relationship " Kismet and me", at least not convincing enough, that's like my relationship with non-alcoholic sparkling wine or (much worse) non-alcoholic gin surrogates. There too I prefer to leave it whole

Now Kismet is relatively expensive, so I don't want to apply it "on the side". For the big moments there are not enough fireworks for me

Yeah, you can interpret rum/benzoe/vanilla like that. Of course you can. So delicate, so floating, cobweb-airy blown, so poppy petal taffeta pleated, one can.

But then what?

Dark Vanilla is so sublime that almost nothing remains of the rum/benzoin/vanilla idea. I considered that my nose is just too coarse for this daintiness, and for sure this is probably no less a part of the problem.

Another part is that I have had the (admittedly somewhat absurd) feeling with many Urban Scents fragrances that I experience the description of a fragrance and not the fragrance itself. Delicate, sensitive and detailed described, wonderful soft words pearl and fade away and in my head a blaszart watercolor is created, gently inked, finest color and fragrance nuances are added. Marie le Febvre tells me with her works of art how fragrances could smell. Just like a Japanese watercolour shows me what a bamboo garden could look like. Or like the melody of Sibelius' sad waltz, which might give a sound to the essence of mourning. As beautiful, moving, touching as all this may be: I am not sitting in a bamboo garden, I am not sad, and I only smell the idea of a fragrance.

This worked for me with some of the scents tested by Urban Scents, with Gunpowder Cologne, with Sensual Blend, with Desert Rose, i.e. with the more delicate, the more delicate plants. That even worked for Singular Oud to some extent.

But it doesn't work on Dark Vanilla, with notes like cannonballs: Rum, vanilla, heliotrope, benzoin. If they can only appear in the mirror, what's left? A whispered scream, the fanfare of Beethoven's fifth - hummed.

This one is also really well done: It's great how the thundering top note is lifted to the light, permeable, transparent and made to float by means of a tack of camphor, of all things.

But then I lose access to the scent. All I can really smell is a delicate vanilla little, just enough to evoke memories, memories of vanilla, memories of benzoin. Also of Rooibos, the idea of the woody-dusty scent of Rooibos arises in my head and I can also imagine very well how Rooibos could smell, will smell, MUST smell in the dark vanilla scent structure - but I don't smell it. It is complicated. And unsettling.

But one sentence on a possible evaluation. Dark Vanilla and me, we are so much strangers that I don't feel like a fair evaluation, also because I don't want to set a chicken eight. Sillage and projection are brilliant in the first minutes, but then they subside so quickly that a seven would still be flattering. Durability? The idea of the fragrance, the vanilla, which actually buries itself in my skin, in my clothes, over a longer period of time, an eight would be appropriate.

But I prefer not to

It's an idiosyncratic mixture.

My first thought was: Surprisingly flowery - where from?

For a few seconds, this impression of a transparent florality remains, then the fragrance begins to expand and becomes dark, yet cool, almost a little minty. Not a summer drink minty, but rather the ethereal herbaceous coolness of cough syrup. Many brown associations: Medicine. Workshop with woodcut. Ballistol. Coniferous tree. Floor wax. Pepper.

He's wearing a lumberjack shirt, the scent, certainly, of plaid flannel, and he's just come from the forest. There is earth on his boots and conifer resin on his hands and hair and he has worked all day, he has oiled and refurnished machines and a delicate fresh sweaty note accompanies him. Not unpleasant, but certainly physical. Later incense is added and an almost sweetish delicate grass note, maybe it's the green fig that I couldn't recognize otherwise. And if so, then rather fig leaf than the fruit.

I cannot understand the leather associations mentioned several times, or - stop! - maybe a little bit and that in the form of leather care.

What impresses me about Marie Urban-Le Febvre's fragrances, as a commonality, as a signature, so to speak, is their transparency. They are heavy and effortless, and they are all very slender.

Singular Oud is also that. Not a heavy bench, not a monolith of a fragrance, but light and floating and finely woven and in this respect it is - although dark and human - a decidedly modern, an urban fragrance.

That's what you have to do with an oudist first, that's why he won my admiration. Even though he hasn't reached my heart.

Last but not least: In keeping with the filigree statement, the sillage is moderate, the projection is moderate and the durability even on fabric - unfortunately - rather poor. That's a pity after all.