Maai by bogue, pregnant with meaning

I hadn't planned to write about Maai. Highly praised, this recreation of a classical chypre by Italian artisan house bogue appeared in many of the Best of 2014 reviews I had read. From the descriptions and the notes it looked like a winner, and I was fairly disappointed that it didn't work for me. But as I rarely write negative reviews, I simply made a few remarks to perfume friends and moved on to sampling something else. And then a few days ago, while dusting the bookshelf in the bedroom my eyes fell on the Anselm Kiefer catalogue of last year's grandious exhibition at the Royal Academy.

And I then remembered that I had initially intended to use one of his paintings as a starting point for a review about Chypre Palatin by MDCI perfumes. These days I have the memory of a small sized rodent/goldfish/fly so that post never happened, but then a train of associations started and it lead me back to Maai.

But first, let me be a bit tedious and express my thought about Anselm Kiefer: Considered as one of the most important living artists, his ouevre is steeped deeply in German culture/history. His use of Nazi iconography and his, let's say, tendency for the bombast makes him a difficult choice. There are references to the war, mythicism, blood and soil, Wagner, death and decay, and a dark forest or a bleak field are never far away. Many of his paintings have taglines and scribbled notes on them, leaving you under no doubt that here is an artist who has something to say! Bedeutungsschwanger - we call that in German  - pregnant with meaning.

I realise that it seems that I'm not exactly selling him here, but I do actually adore his work. His canvasses are gigantic in size, and often oddly decorative in a graphic/reduced palette sort of way. I feel a resonance and strong sense of connection when I see them in real life. I also feel incredibly German, and I'm unsure what to make of that. The exhibition at London's Royal Academy was eerily beautiful and evocative. But would I want to live with one of his works? Never mind the questions of affordability, practicality and insurance - the answer is: No. His art radiates a heaviness and intensity that I would find troubling and irritating around my personal space.

I would very much prefer to be surrounded by the works of other, less angst ridden Germans, Gerhard Richter and especially Sigmar Polke spring to mind. The latter was given a massive retrospective at Tate Modern at the same time than the Kiefer was on. Polke made fun of the world and himself ( yes, Germans do have a sense of humour...) via his art and although he didn't shy away from difficult subjects, he handled them in a way I find much more palatable.

So all this to tell you why I didn't like a perfume? Well, sort of. When I tried Maai again I   knew it would make an even better match for Kiefer's forests and fields. Composed like a back to front version of Chypre Palatin, this one offers no comfort. The forest it evokes is not a place I'd like to be any time soon. It might lure me in with all this cold freshness but I'm  aware that there is something hidden. A troll, using this particular aftershave to cover his scent before he has me for breakfast. The oakmoss/musc phase lasts forever on my skin and when the perfume eventually develops into something a bit more floral and soft I am almost exhausted. This is intense, retro and BIG perfumery. And like Kiefer's paintings, I very much admire the way it's done. My skin feels just too small to wear it.

For more perfume focused reviews of Maai I point you towards:

http://www.cafleurebon.com/new-perfume-review-bogue-profumo-maai-by-antonio-gardoni-sexy-beast-chypre-fragrance-draw/

http://bonkersaboutperfume.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/turning-japanese-and-fithy-anomaly.html

http://yeoldecivetcat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/bogue-profumo.html

And if you want to read up on Anslem Kiefer I recommend this article from the Guardian:

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/sep/12/anselm-kiefer-royal-academy-retrospective-german-painter-sculptor



Images in order of appearance: 
Aschenblume, 2004 
Böhmen liegt am Meer, 1995
Parsifal III, 1973
Winterland, 2010

Ragu

If you google the words "Ragu recipe" and read everything that comes up at least 4 pages in, you will find yourself puzzled and probably slightly frustrated. While for many of us a ragu, or Italian meat sauce, is the ultimate comfort food, the steps leading to this simple pleasure are slippery, because EVERYONE has an opinion and they all differ. What type of meat, wine, or no wine, red or white, stock or no stock, milk???, passata or puree, how much celery, and how many bloody hours does it need to simmer? 

People swear that theirs is the one and only, handed down from a long line of ancestors since the beginning of the Italian Renaissance, found in barely legible recipe books hidden away from Barbaric hordes during the siege of Rome.... you get the gist. And then there are the modern preachers of innovative cooking, like Heston Blumenthal and his molecular disciples. They ask you to use sous-vides here, and dried ice over there, to pulverise your meat and to explode your toms, just for the fun of it.

Needless to say that in this household we have our own, ultimate version. Developed over a few years, tweaked to perfection. Our perfection, that is. Because the beauty of a ragu is that it makes you feel at home, save and at ease with the world. Whatever is needed to achieve your personal meat sauce heaven is allowed. (Having said that, the idea of putting milk in it is  of course just plain weird!)

Interestingly, not many perfumes actively seek out to smell of savoury dishes. All the gourmand scents I know cater to the sweet toothed amongst us and there is a fair amount of fragrant love for alcoholic beverages, but a scent that smells of cooking is a rare thing, indeed. It therefore takes some guts to call your creation "Italian meat sauce" and Ragu by Gabriella Chieffo, certainly is an unusual scent, not just for the name.

My visual interpretation of Ragu, by Gabriella Chieffo

Ragu opens with a burst of orange and pink pepper. And quite some burst it is. Fresh, tingly and aromatic. And then the perfume seductively asks you if you want some more pepper with it, grinding the mill before you even had a chance to answer. Now it's the black variety - strong, direct, and not taking any prisoners. At this stage the fragrance feels dry, sharp and even a  bit grainy, be aware that if you don't like pepper you will not enjoy this ride. After an hour or so on my skin, other spices come to play, mainly nutmeg and cloves, and their deeper, sweeter aromas give the perfume now a gentler and more feminine touch. It mellows, presenting itself in a different texture now, far creamier, and rounder. I cannot really detect any tomato notes in the perfume, but there is  a fleshier, juicier aspect to this stage of the scent and it more and more feels like a good ragu sauce has just come together. The final phase of the perfume involves leather and woody notes and a slowly simmering solidity takes over the earlier bursts and bubbles. In terms of colour it wasn't easy to pin down, Ragu delights more in its textural aspects, but I've decided to stay with mostly red and earthy hues to emphasise the warmth the fragrance offered me. Nice. Very nice, and more than a bit more-ish. 

How and where to wear:

In the privacy and comfort of your own space.

 

An old couple on holiday: Pomegranate Noir and me

I am just back from 2 weeks in Thailand and the cold weather is really biting. Post holidays blues - here we come... But I won't bother you with Cry me a river tears about feeling the lack of light, warmth and sand, don't worry. Instead, I'm trying to concentrate on the good things about being back in London, and those are: the cats, good friends, and perfume. Not that I didn't bring decants and samples to keep me entertained, far from it, but wearing perfume when it's hot and humid didn't come very high on my daily routine list. While we stayed in the northern city of Chiang Mai with temperatures in the high 20's, pleasant enough and even cooler in the evenings, I did manage to apply perfume and even a bit make up, but over the course of 2 weeks and a location change to the island of Koh Phangan, standards did slip very quickly. When you shower 3 or 4 times a day perfume really isn't all that practical, and in the evening strong DEED overpowered any other scents.

But there is a scent that I have worn on and off during all our trips to Thailand so far and a bottle of it will never be amiss in the suitcase: Jo Malone's Pomegranate Noir. First sniffed and bought before boarding a plane to Bangkok at Heathrow airport, then worn in Chiang Mai (yes, we like the city a bit and go there almost every year) it has become my go to perfume for Thailand. There isn't anything in it that justifies that. No lemongrass, lime, hot tarmac, sticky rice, ylang ylang, fish sauce, sea salt, coconut, orchid, ginger or chili notes. PN has spice and freshness, but they're firmly rooted in the Northern hemisphere. Objectively, that is. For me, it's the fragrance of Thailand simply by association and conditioning and a spritz can transport me back there in an instant. I have never bothered to read up the notes for it, and now I couldn't possibly tell you what it smells of, which is, I suppose,  a bit weird on a blog  about perfume. 

As for the colours: They have to be taken from a holiday snap, of course. 

Thai squid boats representing Pomegranate Noir by Jo Malone

How and where to wear:

.................

Seven Veils by Byredo

Byredo, the Swedish perfume house was one of the first niche brands I encountered and sampled in full, thanks to the generosity of the Byredo staff at Liberty. I already wrote about M/Mink, which is one of the most daring scents I've ever smelled. Today's candidate is a much more wearable choice. Seven Veils. It bursts open with an abundance of colour and spice - a marvellous ouverture - and then leaves me alone with a rosy heart that's neither here nor there, and falls exhausted onto the cushions as a creamy vanilla.  The sillage is stronger and darker than the smell on skin, a dance of seven veils, indeed. But you won't lose you head over this. A floriental that pretends to be far more dangerous than it actually is. Pretty though...

Seven Veils by Byredo, the picture

How and where to wear:

Belly dance class in North London

Puredistance Black, and other colours

     First things first: Happy New Year. 

I haven't posted anything for a while, a fact for which I can partly blame an over indulgence in all things Christmas and Kuscheligkeit. But my absence from perfume and the blog was also for another, rather different and  unpleasant reason. After trying out a new scent I had developed a severe skin rash. Both arms and hands were covered in itchy little bumps. My skin is always super sensitive in winter, but this was something new and unexpected. And also worrying. Not wanting to risk a full blown perfume allergy, I decided not to try any new fragrances for a while, sprayed any old favourites only sparingly on scarves and clothes, and kept the cortisone creme nearby. I'm glad that it went away and everything seems to be fine now, but I will probably be a bit weary about new perfumes and use less delicate areas of my skin for testing. The last scent I did test (not the one which gave me the rash) and wanted to write about was Puredistance Black, of which I had won a sample from the lovely Vanessa of bonkers about perfume. 

Puredistance, a Dutch fragrance house, had released the scent in 2013 with some rather unusual marketing. "Do not try to pick out notes and dissect, just emerge and enjoy." Not their exact words, but in essence that was what they wanted us to do. Needless to say, it annoyed a few people. Nobody likes to be told how to enjoy a perfume, me included, but for two reasons this didn't bother me all that much. 1.) It was a gift, 2.) Sometimes I like to create an image for a perfume but can't find an interesting angle for writing about it. Black is one of those perfumes. The idea for the image was there right from the beginning, but I failed when I tried to put it into words. And since it's the New Year, and all things New are allowed: I have decided that image only post are fine from now on. You might see quite a few of those in the future. I also want to introduce something like the Colour of the Day, which might not actually be linked to any perfume but just an image to illustrate my mood and thoughts. This is, after all, a blog about perfume AND colour. 

Today this colour happens to be Black:

My visualisation of Black by Puredistance

The inspiration for the image came from something I learned in primary school many, many years ago: Use waxy crayons and randomly fill your entire page. Then paint a thick layer of black ink top top. Once the ink has dried, use a sharp, pointy tool to draw and scratch away the black layer. The lines will make the underlaying colours appear. Good fun. This simply technique feels like a suitable way to visualise this perfume, which is a bit mysterious, warm and deep. It stays very close to skin and lasts forever. When I scratched at the layer of Black I got sour cherry and whiskey, with a hint of chocolate. (Cheating now, I know...) What you will get might be, no, will be totally different. 

How and where to wear:

Skin scents don't get much deeper than this, surprise those who will get close enough to smell you.

Felanilla, languid and luxurious

Adding a new perfume bottle to your collection is always exciting, but sometimes there is a level of anxiety involved. Will I still like it? What if it smells suddenly different from the sample (has happended!) Was it really worth the money? 

My Full Bottle wish list is usually quite short and also short lived; scents appear on it for a few weeks or months and then get chucked out and replaced by something else. Apart from the odd "bargain" buy, I can wait pretty long before I make a commitment. Last week, the list had Hasu no Hana (longest ever contender, on there for a year, which is no surprise, given the price tag), Atkinson's Odd Fellow and/or Fashion Decree and Parfumerie Generale's Felanilla on it. Thanks to London's Bloom perfumery and their lovely little Halloween game, Felanilla is off the list and on my shelf now. A 28% discount is not to be sniffed at. But as I said at the beginning, receiving a new bottle can be a bit stressful. It has been a few months since I last smelled it. Will I still love it?

My visual interpretation of Felanilla

Thankfully, I do, although it does smell ever so slightly different from how I remembered it. The animalic aspect is not as pronounced as I had previously thought. Not that it ever was a civet feast, but it had an element of strokeable furryness that I can't find for now. It's still there, I'm sure, I just have to wait. What is unmissable in this creation is a wonderfully softened wood base over which a purple iris and a powdery vanilla hover in a gentle embrace. All the warmth comes from the spicy saffron and the wood (banana, according to the note list). Both the iris and the vanilla feel cool and, at least for the first few hours, "refreshing" on top of it. The iris is the first to exit the party, leaving all the fun to a gloriously dry vanilla that makes me want to bite, not lick my wrists. Because despite me not really spotting the animal, it is most definitely hiding there somewhere. Felanilla is a proper grown up vanilla, not one for the kids. Its uncomplicated and simple structure gives it a natural, barefoot luxury feel that I often associate with easy going tropical holidays. Languid, subtle but deeply erotic.

How and where to wear:

A  daybed on a veranda overlooking the jungle. A knackered old fan is doing its best to cool down the hot and humid air. 

Absolue Pour le Soir

Sometimes you don't need many words to describe a perfume. The kinkiest scent around is probably all you need to know about Absolue Pour le Soir by Francis Kurkdijan. Amazing.

My visual interpretation of Absolue Pour le Soir

How and where to wear:

You will be under no doubt once you've tried it.

Elegant hippy: Patchouli 24 by Le Labo

Once a hippy, always a hippy? I do have pictures of me wearing purple, hand died dungarees, a Palestine scarf and about 2 dozen badges showing all my caring for the world's problems. I used to burn a lot of incense, drank gallons of vanilla flavoured tea and liked patchouli. Still do. These days my patchouli just has to be a bit more sophisticated. And Le Labo's creation certainly delivers on the sophistication front. 

My visualisation of Patchouli 24 by Le Labo

What I mostly get from this fragrance is a smokiness that manages to be both wet and dry, stays away from the churches AND the BBQs, and is harsh and soft in pretty equal measures. My friend Nick described it once as sexy bacon, and while I agree that there is an edible element to this, for me it's not bacon. I hate the smell of fried bacon! This perfume far more evokes the image of smoked chestnuts. And because there is a strong leather element coming through it feels like holding a bag of hot chestnuts in a leather gloved hand. Not that the perfume actually smells of chestnuts. That's confusing, I know, sorry for free associations running wild. Patchouli 24 pops up on my skin with a surprisingly herbal patchouli note. A very short Bang! From then on the note stays very silently in the back. Leather, resin and burned woods take over. Wet leaves in autumn fires is another image that comes to mind, and right now, with autumn finally in full swing, is a great time to wear this perfume. It has earthiness and elegance in perfect balance, and that is what autumn very much means to me. A time for long walks in the countryside but also the best season for indulging in fashion. I have worn P24 during a 4 hour walk in a damp forest in Kent and it did work splendidly on slightly sweaty skin.  The perfume finally settles in a vanilla, which is a tiny bit too sweet for the entire composition, I find. For once, I had wished for the woods to continue. It has remarkable staying power, over 10 hours on me, which doesn't happen all that often. This will probably smell quite different, but nonetheless most delicious on a man.  

How and where to wear:

Guy Fawkes night, here we come!

P.S. I had my finger on the purchase button for a 15ml bottle of this from the Le Labo website. £37.50 isn't cheap for such a small amount, but at least they do offer bottles under a 100ml..... But, dear LeLabo people, do you think it's clever to add the VAT sneakily at the very end, when all the form filling and credit card numbering is done? It's not. 

Whiter than white: Pure eVe by The Different Company

This Pure eVe (pretentious spelling alert!) by The Different Company was originally released as Pure Virgin, a name that probably only Etat libre d'Orange would be able to get away with. They'd make it smell anything but virginal, of course. The Different Company on the other hand, created an extraordinary washing detergent. And I mean that in the nicest possible way. 

Baby powder, whitest musk, a hint of something floral and an almondy aftertaste. This perfume won't allow dirty thoughts, never mind acts but it is certainly very suitable as a cover up. The perfect olfactory camouflage for the urban sinner. Innocence in a bottle. Like most things innocent, it's pretty, but also pretty boring and linear. Purity is an unforgiving concept that doesn't really allow for change and ambiguity. Pure eVe has excellent staying power but whether that's a good or a bad thing is debatable. It is not something I'd like to wear, not even occasionally, but if you like to smell squeaky clean and soft, then this is the scent for you. 

Pure Eve

Going back to the name change I mentioned, I would love to hear the reason. I assume it's something copyright related, but the switch from Virgin to Eve is an interesting one. Isn't Eve the ultimate sinner? The seductress responsible for our rather abrupt dismissal from paradise? May be she should have worn this fragrance...

How and where to wear:

Might come in handy when you're anything But innocent...

Cuir Cannage

I am just back from a holiday in France where the temperamental weather meant that we spent most of our time with eating, drinking and visiting neolithic monuments. Nothing wrong with any of these, of course, but it wasn't quite the summer holiday we had hoped for. Autumn was in the air and that air was strong, as we realised when we attempted to put up a newly bought (and never before tested) sun tent thingy in situ, giving the entire beach a perfect show and testing the strength of our 10 years marriage. But I disgress. 

The lack of hot and sunny weather allowed for more perfume testing than I had originally planned. I am not a fan of wearing perfume on the beach and did therefore bring only a few decants and samples, some of which I then didn't like all that much. This basically left me with a decant of the latest of Dior's  Exclusive Line: Cuir Cannage and I wore it on most days and evenings, until Mael clearly had enough and stated that he was bored by it!

And that came a s a surprise, because Cuir Cannage is not only a very, very pretty perfume, it turned out to be a bit of a shape shifter on me as well. The opening  smelled slightly different on most days, and I can't blame hormones or my nose, Mael recognised that too. Most of the time Cuir Cannage opens with a blast of soft leather, followed by the floral aspect of mostly iris and white flowers. But on other days the floral took over the leather and gave it a run for its money. And on certain mornings I perceived a strange medicinal campherous note. But after these different beginnings, the development of the scent stayed constant. Cuir Cannage is one of those leathers which are so beautiful that you want to stroke them. Figuratively speaking, obviously. But it represents the finest, the shiniest and surprisingly hard wearing leather reserved for the most exquisite gloves. Women's gloves. The floral notes are mostly of the powdery sort, rosy, elegant and quite subtle. The wood comes in form of birch and gives the perfume a strong backbone and acts as the frame to the interwoven accords. Cuir Cannage is a very apt name for this fragrance. The weaving pattern of rattan chairs, named Cannage in French, has become a household design of Dior, used on iconic handbags, jewelry and cosmetic lines. I like to think that it was the pattern itself that inspired the perfumer here. Hard materials made pliable and soft, but hold in a simple structure that gives it strength and beauty. Both ethereal and durable.

My visual for Cuir Cannage by Dior

I used the rattan weave as a starting point for my visual, in combination with a layered purple that can be both feminine and masculine, just like the perfume. Before this holiday I had Cuir Cannage on my ever changing  wish list and I can't really say what has changed, but now I don't feel so sure anymore. It is a lovely perfume, no doubt, but like Mael, I got a bit bored by it. Too pretty for its own good, or too predictable? I don't know. I will give it some time before I empty the last bit of the decant and see what happens then. 

How and where to wear:

I'm not overly seasonal with my perfume wearing, but this is autumn material. Wear it when the coat has to come out for the first time and the gloves go in the handbag, just in case...

The Architects Club

Different cultures have different rules as to what is considered an unsuitable topic for polite conversation around the dinner table. In Germany it's certainly politics, religion and money, in the UK it might be business and sex, I'm really not sure. But I would suggest to add architecture to the list. All art forms can be fascinating and/or devastating discussion topics, but it's architecture that brings out the strongest and often unexpected opinions. Most of my friends are fairly open minded when it comes to modern art or theatre, but throw the Shard or the Walkie Talkie (two new additions to the London skyline) at them and nothing is certain any more. Avid steel and glass defenders sulk stubbornly next to Traditionalists and Brutalism victims will shout down Bauhaus aficionados. People in the UK who yearn for the Good Old Times when buildings were pretty and tasteful, have not only the Prince of Wales, but most of the press on their side. I wonder how it really was in those Good Old Times...? Did Georgian house fronts with their lack of ornamental chichi win public opinion by storm or were they considered plain ugly? And what about Art Deco, the ever popular backdrop to thousands of Hercule Poirot film sets...love at first sight?

Carlos Huber, the creator of Arquiste perfumes and an architect himself, used the Art Deco interior of a hotel bar as starting point for his inspiration and brief to his perfumer. As always with his perfumes he tries to capture a very specific moment:

Fumoir at Claridges

"A group of architects gather for cocktails at Mayfair's smartest Art Deco smoking room. As they settle in the warm interior of dark woods, leather and velvet, London's bright young things burst in, frosted martinis in hand, surrounded by a cloud of laughter, white smoke and fine vanilla." 

The first time I smelled The Architects Club, I was in the company of Carlos at Bloom perfumery in London. Things bursting in with frosted Martinis is a pretty accurate description of what hit me: One of the best Gin notes that I've encountered in a perfume. Frozen glass and a bittersweet metallic freshness. Delicious and promising. On my skin the transformation from cold to cosy happens very fast though, almost immediately after the gin comes the smoke, polished wood and the leather. These elements throw a lively party for quite some time, and on different wearing days different notes became more or less dominant while the juniper notes wafted in and out for balance.  I liked it when the tobacco was stronger than the woods, because the latter isn't a favourite of mine and I don't wear those notes well. But overall I am impressed with the development of the scent. It doesn't just represent a bunch of  intense looking men discussing the finer points of modern architecture; enough frivolity and sensuality is thrown in to keep that party interesting. It doesn't really get raunchy or misbehaved...it's a rather British affair, I find. Dinner jackets will end up with lipstick on the collar, but it doesn't go any further... 

Every party has to end at some time, and this one does with a sexy, sweaty vanilla note after a few hours. It then also becomes a skin scent, rather fittingly. I enjoyed the ride and the party, The Architects Club is an unusual one, and were it not for that woody middle section I would love it that much more. As it is, I find it more on the masculine side.  Like with all Arquiste fragrances you can let your imagination follow the initial idea but if you're not bothered, the perfume speaks for itself and stays  modern  throughout. 

My visual interpretation of The Architects Club by Arquiste

An opportunity to use an Art Deco theme for the visual was too tempting to let pass, so this one is more on the graphic side and the colour palette follows the muted tones of interiors of the period. 

How and where to wear:

Spray it on your nicest silk scarf and book yourself a table at the Air Street branch of Hawksmoore restaurants in London. Best steaks in town in beautiful Art Deco surroundings. Good martinis and if you must, lobster. 

And just because I can: Here a photo of a vanity table in colonial Art Deco style that would make the most perfect backdrop for a perfume collection and that I dream of ever since I saw it displayed in the luggage arrival hall of Chiang Mai airport. (Yes, weird place, I know)

The Odd Fellow's Bouquet, much better than it sounds

I used to be a smoker and I am sure the habit has done unspeakable things to my sense of smell; just how much it improved after quitting was astonishing. It came therefore as a bit of a surprise when I learnt that many a famous perfumer is happily puffing  away the cigarettes. Very few people in my vicinity still smoke, and those who do have taken to sucking on funky looking plastic sticks that glow in the dark, aka vaping. Before those e-fags, the weaning off method of choice often was pipe smoking. It looked ultimately better than lightening up a rollie, gave you instantaneously an air of sophistication and smelled good. Men who smoked pipes (it was pretty much a male domain) were often in their 40's, with grey strands of hair in their beards, a tumbler of whiskey or brandy in one hand, pipe in the other. Wealthy, classy, cultured...that was more or less the image, the Marlboro man with a university degree, after his mid life crisis and just before the younger, second wife (who will, sooner or later, make him give up the nicotine in any form). I was always quite fond of the typical pipe smoker, not least because I really liked the smell of good, slightly sweet tobacco. Still do, but these days I prefer it to be a perfume note and it's been ages since I last saw someone smoking a pipe.

A few weeks ago I met up with Vanessa of bonkersaboutperfume and after lunch we paid a short visit to Roullier White, which happens to be in my neighbourhood. We sniffed here and  sniffed there, and then Vanessa pointed me towards the Atkinsons line, an old school English brand with an impressive 1799 under their name, reworked&rejuvenated like so many other traditional houses. She had heard good things of the brand and was particularly keen on trying The Odd Fellow's Bouquet, a soft oriental tobacco.

My visual interpretation of The Odd Fellow's Bouquet

A sample went home with me, and I have developed a real liking for the scent. My skin often brings out the sweetness in perfumes, and it does so here as well. The first spritz is a gingery cologne type blast with a woody undertone. Nice, classy and promising. Dressy, M. finds and he is right, this is not a jeans and T-shirt scent. Or, it is, if being under dressed is just right. From then on the smokyness takes over and centre stage. This is the softest, most precious tobacco, the dangerous sort that makes you forget health warnings and doesn't stain your teeth. And it brings with it all the benzoin and the amber, creamy, soft and golden. This scent has absolutely no sharp edge, everything melts and flows and wafts in the most gentle way, like exquisite cognac swirling in a glass, leaving honey coloured tears on the surface. After a few hours the flow and the pulse of the fragrance gets a bit slower, but puffs of sweet benzoin are still coming strong, and even after 6 hours I still get the occasional vanilla tinted incense whiff as a reminder. For an Eau de Toilette this is truly remarkable. But I keep wondering whether it is a men's scent; something that usually doesn't bother me at all. I guess it's the strong image of the pipe smoking gentleman that keeps interfering here, because the perfume itself is perfectly unisex. The name doesn't help though. That's probably my only criticism: The Odd Fellow's Bouquet... Seriously?

How and where to wear:

Nice to play with expectations and miss match this gentle sophistication with whatever feels inappropriate. 

Gorilla Gallery, or why I smelled a shop dummy's crotch

It's not going to surprise anyone that I enjoy a bit of media cross over. Visual art, cinema, patterns, performance art, design and architecture, food, music... all these things can play a role in perfume, not only as inspirations for their initial creation, but also in the way perfume houses use them as tools to introduce -and teach about- new releases. A bit of pomp and circumstance goes a long way and we all love to be entertained. That this is by no means a one way street was recently demonstrated by the collaboration between Mark Buxton and Wes Anderson for the "Grand Budapest Hotel" movie and the use of perfume for the "Cheapside Hoard" exhibition in the Museum of London. Multi-sensory experiences go a bit deeper...

Curtain up the for the Gorilla perfume gallery, on show in London's Soho in an underground space beneath the city's coolest record shop:

Perfumes put on show via playful and often interactive installations from a garden shed to a disco environment, a corn circle simulated by a sand picture, a wall comic or headless cardboard dummies. While it is certainly possible to just amble about and read the explanations on display, the whole experience is much better if you take the guided tour offered by one of the lovely and enthusiastic staff. Not only will you learn more about the Death, Decay and Renewal idea behind the show and the perfumes, you will definitely sniff more, because he or she will spray the fragrances in the relevant pages of the little comic booklet you get on entrance. 

This is not really meant for in depth perfume testing (the ink of the print has a strong smell itself and after 4 or 5 different scents your booklet will have acquired something of a bouquet...) but to give a first impression. The fragrances can also be smelled directly on installation objects, including the crotch of a shop dummy which is not only a personal first but also pretty weird. Nice perfume though... 

 

Not all the fragrances were made for production, but will just be there to complement the concept of the show and some are not even meant for using on skin. 

This  is  a not a review post, but my favourites perfumes were Kerbside Violet (clue is in the name), Stayin' Alive, a surprising frankincense and Death &Decay, a powerful lily. Honourable mention to Dear John, a manly but soft cologne.

Altogether a lovely experience. Playful, charming, open to everyone, not taking itself too seriously but meaningful, while showing some impressive perfumery. That it all took place underground came as an added bonus on the hottest day of the year and the booklet with all its accumulated scents made for the most intriguing fan on my 1 1/2 hour unairconditioned bus trip home. 

How and where to go or buy:

The gallery will only be open until the 24th of July and is usually calm during the day, busy in the evenings when there is music, talks and booze. It's on 51 Poland St. in Soho. 

The new scents will be released over the coming months, but can be  bought exclusively either  at the gallery or the new Gorilla perfume shop in Islington. 

P.S. No, I'm not getting paid by them I just really, really  enjoyed myself.

Cologne du Maghreb

I think I mentioned in one of my last posts that I am not looking for refreshment in a perfume, and while that is still the case, I have to agree that a spritz of a well made cologne can be a bit nice indeed. There are a few new and lots of good old candidates on the market, from the cheap and cheerful to the eye-wateringly expensive, but I personally don't see the point in paying a huge amount of money for something that is just a short little pleasure and has to be used in abundance to make an impact. 

Tauer perfumes Cologne du Maghreb is sort of in the middle ground, price wise, and I when I was offered a sample I was very grateful for the opportunity to test it. Andy Tauer created this cologne from all natural ingredients because he believed it didn't need anything else. The result is very much the equivalent of proper home made lemonade: Made of 3 ingredients and a thousand times better than anything you can buy in the supermarket. 

It opens with a wonderful citrus note, not too bitter, not too sweet, not too green, just right and bright and gradually warming on the skin into a more golden orange. There is a hint of what I would clumsily describe as 'dust' which I find unusual and pleasant. Around an hour into wearing a touch of warm, dry wood adds the composition which then stays in a kind of hovering layer just above the skin....and then it's gone. On me, that is. A lot of bloggers describe their ride differently, expressing  great surprise at CdM's longevity. I envy them, because I would very much like it to last longer on me. In all fairness, colognes often require a repeat. And therein lies a certain pleasure. It was the idea of repeating the opening again, and again, and again that finally gave me the inspiration for the visual of Cologne du Maghreb.

Seamless geometric repeat patterns, or Tessellations, are a whole world of wonder. If you've ever looked intensely at intricate patterns and complicated ornaments your eyes got probably lost following the meanderings of eternal ribbons, laces, triangles and interwoven colours. The system behind them is pure geometry and surprisingly easy. (ish) It all starts with a primary cell, the smallest particle of a pattern. This can be a square, a triangle, or, if you are M.C. Escher, pretty much anything. 

The next step is creating a repeatable tile, I used the 4 cells in a pinwheel rotation to form this particular, square tile. Had I chosen a different symmetry, the end result would look very different. In fact, you can create up to 24 different patterns from just 1 primary cell depending how you turn or mirror it. 

Now you can repeat the tile endlessly and you have simple lace pattern. 

For the visualisation of Cologne du Maghreb I chose not to just recreate a vaguely Moroccan inspired pattern, but to capture this rhythm of reapplying CdM by breaking the absolute symmetry of the pattern. You won't be doing a repeat spritz at equally timed intervals, so what will happen on the skin is an overlap of layers at different stages of the scent. The effect can turn a simple structure, may it be olfactory or visual, into a surprisingly complex experience. I certainly enjoyed mine.

My interpretation of Cologne du Maghreb by Andy Tauer




How and where to wear:
A good travel companion, this one. Take it with you when you know that the journey will be long but rewarding.