loewenherz

Here is a commentary on a forgotten fragrance from the 90s. A fragrance that even back then tended to take second place - in the shadow of those who invented the fresh men's aquatic a good thirty years ago. Some of them are still around today, and the olfactory genre of aquatic fragrances has become a stable force in the world of perfume. Jesus de Pozos Quasar, on the other hand - with its iconic, brute, masculine cogwheel bottle (that's what people thought and did in the 90s) - has disappeared into the mists of time.

I remember well that I always found it comparatively soft, almost dimmed - and not at all brute as a fragrance despite the cogwheel thing. Instead, I experienced a - value-free - gentle breeze in light blue gray - juicy sweetness and calone and a kind of ISO-E super-foreshadowing (which didn't even exist in the perfumery world back then) - peaceful and friendly and free. And that was a lot for a men's fragrance in the 90s and still has and still finds its fans among die-hard nostalgics.

Conclusion: a fragrance from the past that thematizes the sea and the sky without really being clearly blue in olfactory terms, if you can call it that. It has a lightness and weightlessness right on the edge of shower gel freshness (actually slightly above that, but in the 90s you were still allowed to do that) and in my nose and memory it has always been a touch more sky than the blue sea. And these are wonderful memories that it awakens in us Generation Xers - who were young, hungry and free in the 90s.

I have written often and much about my long-standing - mostly and still benevolent, sometimes critical, but always enduring - allegiance to the (perfume) brand Tom Ford. The first time I stood in front of one of his Private Blends cabinets - still new and therefore exciting as a production in the 2000s - my interest in and desire for perfumes began. Azure Lime was the first perfume for which I invested the sum of around 200 euros, which at the time was still just under this amount but still seemed enormous to me. I still have this bottle, by the way, and it is still in perfect condition.

Developing brands (perfume or otherwise) is not easy, however, and it takes innovation and commercial skill - and a good pinch of luck - to keep a brand at the top for decades. And I fear and suspect that the Tom Ford brand has gradually passed its zenith. His acclaimed film debut 'A Single man' and Gywneth Paltrow's legendary white Oscar gown - both peaks of his fame - are long gone, the sunglasses are still on his coffee table book on Instagram on lacquer Ikea tables and are now worn with Michael Kors bags. Sounds pretty over all, doesn't it?

And yet there is still something there, its brand DNA is not yet lost - even in the newer Estee Lauder fragrances. There have been (and still are) aberrations - all with raunchy allusions, most with 'Soleil' in the name - but this one, Lavender Extrême, still knows and uses the olfactory vocabulary of the 'old' Fords. It uses a Tobacco Vanilla - one of his, if not THE crowd pleaser - not dissimilar base and puts a capricious lavender on top that is modern and sexy - and without any connotation of Danish cookie mix on plauen lace, which is definitely a risk with lavender.

Lavender Extrême has everything its critics never liked about private blends. The loud, over-processed, the very American, the slightly ordinary - like a hostess in a mink coat smiling as she poses next to a sports coupé with Svarowski rims. But he has and does it all again with the aplomb of the early years - with Lavender Palm there was a similar lavender scent back then that nobody remembers - he turns the bass up to the max once more. It's exciting, almost spectacular - if you want and can stand exciting and spectacular in the Fordian manner.

Conclusion: once again Tom. Once again good.

Sometimes expectation, disappointment and discovery are very close together - with a new perfume from Hermès no less or no more than anywhere else. The expectation is quite clear - after all, most Hermès fragrances are highly recognizable in terms of olfactory semantics, volume and, in general, their olfactory DNA. Hermès perfumes - for men and women, contemporary and traditional - are usually instantly recognizable, and this one - Barénia - is also instantly recognizable as a Hermès fragrance. A diffuse disappointment follows, because I don't really expect ingredients like those used here in a Hermès fragrance - even though I am of course aware that the vast majority of common fragrance components are nowadays obtained synthetically for economic and ecological-ethical reasons. Nevertheless, Akigalawood® simply lacks any magic. And yet Barénia is, if not a revelation, a discovery - beyond the top note, later on.

Hermès' Barénia begins its journey with a delicate floral lilt - a hint of spring and innocent youth that seems afraid to fully unfold. This initial delicacy seems very controlled, as if contained - and as soon as you think you finally recognize it, it is already over. This is très Hermès - it is dignified, refined, unagitatedly elegant. And yet this slowed awakening, this abrupt silencing is inspiring and interesting - once again (or still) in an established, conservative Hermès manner. Beyond its initial chords, after - let's say: twenty minutes, maybe thirty - it is almost as if Barénia lets go, allows a mature softness and a kind of bitter sweetness that are very beautiful - like a low sun suddenly breaking through the clouds in the evening, giving the beach a moment of golden light before the night begins. All of this happens calmly and gently - and yet it is a barely expected discovery - beyond miracle berry and Akigalawood®.

Summary: In November 1895, the 18-year-old American Consuelo Vanderbilt became the Duchess of Marlborough through her arranged marriage. Although the name Vanderbilt is today the epitome of American Old Money, the industrialist family was considered nouveau riche and common in New York at the end of the 19th century, and evil tongues claim that the ambitious Alva Vanderbilt sold her only daughter like cattle to the highest title in order to improve her family's position. Consuelo barely rebelled and silently accepted her fate - a young girl, sold, silenced, forgotten. It was only later that she found her place and her own story. The character of Gladys Russell in Julian Fellow's highly acclaimed historical drama "The Gilded Age" is modeled on her - just as this fragrance, which is only briefly youthful at the beginning, then gentle, serious, delicate and altogether very quiet - very Hermès in every fiber of its being - bears the traits of Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough, in its essence.

Years ago I once saw - in a castle or museum, I don't remember exactly - a portrait of a lady in a dress made of light, airy silk muslin. She smiled kindly at me, her viewer, and yet looked past me, into a kind of infinity at my back. She was holding a lemon in her hand. I remember that I found this very unusual at the time and therefore asked the museum lady what the mysterious lemon was all about. And she answered simply: bitterness.

In those days, when the beautiful lady had her portrait painted, it was not socially 'comme il faut' to flaunt your unhappiness. It was expected of a comtesse or a lady of commerce - or whoever had the means and leisure to commission a portraitist - to be cheerful in public. Being portrayed with a lemon was the only non-self-compromising way to show how unhappy she really was. That impressed me so much at the time that I memorized it.

Is Chanel's Paris - Biarritz the fragrance for a bitter, unhappy woman? No, of course not. Is it a perfume that invites you to pause and reflect beyond its superficially cheerful freshness and Chanelesque elegance? It certainly is. Named after the legendary seaside resort in the far south-west of France (more so in the late 19th and early 20th centuries than today), it adds a serious echo to these two - cheerfulness and sophisticated elegance - and a look into a kind of infinity. If you let him.

Beyond lively, feather-light citrus serenity and the established 'comme il faut' in every fiber of its fragrant being, it has a subtle, bittersweet tremor - shy lilies of the valley in shadowy ground - like an impatient urge for a caress never received. This makes it interesting, unexpectedly elevating it beyond the expected - beyond hesperidic freshness and the brittle, cognac-colored old tone that is so iconic for many fragrances from the House of Chanel and from the pen of Olivier Polge.

Conclusion: a superficially bright fragrance on its journey from Paris to the southern Atlantic coast. It is accompanied by a delicate, enigmatic sadness - like the painting of that beautiful, nameless lady with the lemon in her hand.

In a casual, relaxed way, I've always liked Tom Ford's Acquas - the ones in the frosted bottles - this one - Costa Azzurra - and the others too. Casual, because the genre of light summer holiday fragrances was never the one I followed Tom Ford for. And relaxed, because - although a few are definitely in my portfolio - almost none of these blue-glowing fragrances have really made a lasting impression on me. And both are wonderful.

It sometimes amazes me when other people tell me that they have twenty really close, very best friends. Apart from the fact that you can't force such close friendships, you have to let life give them to you - maintaining them and letting them grow with us is work. And it is also wrong to assume that every friendship has to be close and intimate in order to be important and good. We need them, of course, but not only that.

We also need casual and loose friends. With whom we occasionally go out for a glass of wine or to the movies - and then part ways again, without crying. Friends we only meet now and again through other friends, with whom we can have a laugh, but with whom we never arrange to meet alone. With whom we spend one or two beautiful summers, but to whom we can then nod without regret when our time together comes to an end.

Costa Azzurra Acqua is such a fleeting, loose friend - in fact, all Private Blend Acquas are - who asks with a wink if you want to spend the summer with him, and who doesn't take offense if he is forgotten down in the weekender at the end of it. Its architecture is approachable and accessible - aquatic, resinous, light - and so is its price (in Ford's terms). You are more likely to 'just take an Acqua with you' than a 'real' private blend.

Conclusion: one for a summer or two. One that you might unexpectedly find in a side pocket of your weekender years later and then remember with a smile: oh yes, that was nice... We absolutely need perfumes like this - perfumes like friends.