Noël au Balcon (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Somebody at Bond could learn something from Antoine Maisondieu's Noel au Balcon. My main problem with the Bonds I've tried is that they acquire a potpourri or Yankee Candle effect, which is the ultimate hex in niche. Despite the number of expensive aroma chemicals or talented noses you put behind it, a fragrance that resembles potpourri will defy the odds and smell cheap. Why? Because rarely does any one element stand out in potpourri. Its smell is usually quite spineless, a mere assemblage of abstractions, essences of woods and mashed florals converging into a bland miasma, a sort of featureless olfactory cloud. Yes, it may smell rather nice for five minutes, but eventually one of two things happens: your nose tunes it out, or you get a headache and leave the room.

What distances this ELDO scent from that bad association is Maisondieu's balancing act between sugar and spice. The pyramids at Giza come to mind. They are built in two layers, granite and limestone. One is radioactive, and the other insulating. Together they form a mysterious machine. Maisondieu's electrical core is a super-aromatic clutch of patchouli, chili, labdanum, neroli, caraway, and cinnamon. Alone, these materials would likely go well together, but would "bind" into a formless odor of no distinction. The fresh sweetness of neroli, cinnamon, and labdanum would not rise above the vibrating patchouli, chili, and caraway, and the result would be formless energy.

But with an outer insulating layer of animalic sweetness and fresh fruit, suddenly NaB becomes a lovely fragrance. The natural skankiness of honey directs and contains the flow of the spices, while the bright juiciness of peach harnesses the florals. The result is something immediately gratifying and truly timeless, a technical triumph of perfumery. This brand tends to irritate me with their gimmicky and overly-synthetic fragrances, but wearing this one has been a pleasure.

Iris 39 (Le Labo)

Before I die, I will own a bottle of this. I remember my first wearing of Dior Homme quite well, applying it and thinking, "This is not how I want my iris to smell." Despite knowing what I didn't like, I had a hard time figuring out what could have been done differently. Was it too sweet? Too "fruity?" Too much labdanum? Not enough iris? Today I'm wearing Iris 39, and those questions are intersecting with something an acquaintance told me about it: "It's better on men." Sure enough, this is an iris composition that should knock Dior Homme off the shelf and smash it to bits. Once you experience it, you realize there's just no comparison.

It is simply beautiful. The top accord of ginger, civet, iris, and patchouli is even and penetrable, its balance perfect, its rafters of spice, skank, powder, and herbal earthiness second to none. Hailing from Firmenich, Frank Voelkl displays incredible skill in his work here, leading me to believe his relatively obscure portfolio is the only thing keeping him from being a household name. He is responsible for Zirh's Ikon, a somewhat well-known masculine of designer-grade quality that holds its own against better things, and hey look, he even sold a formula to Guerlain! Ultimately his work for Le Labo will be his calling card, and Iris 39 is not as easily overlooked.

What I love about it is how its arresting top notes sidle gently into a plush blend of super-powdery iris and discreetly-sweet violet, a seemingly interminable glow that becomes warmer, rosier, and even more expansive with time. It becomes obvious throughout the day that a pert lime peel note was also integrated to maintain lift, and keep the potentially dead-weight iris from dragging. There's true genius to be found here, but wearing this isn't a tiring intellectual meditation. It's just incredibly enjoyable, a sense of calming elegance that any self-confident man or woman can embody, if their minds and noses are open to it.

Yohji Homme (Yohji Yamamoto)

I suspect the ad above is for the re-release of Yohji Homme, but my review is for the original formula, which unfortunately is all I could get my hands on. It's unfortunate because time has worn away much of the scent, and I think I can only smell about a quarter of what used to be there. Those with the new version may not identify with the descriptions I give, so my apologies if this review confuses you. You're probably better off with the new version, as you are with most reissues and reformulations.

This fragrance gets a lot of hype, which of course started with Luca Turin. To read his review, one would think Yamamoto's fougère is a real "game-changer" in the fragrance industry, and incomprehensibly beautiful to behold. I'll agree with him that this fragrance is worth most of its hype, as it is unique and very well made, with thoughtful precision put into its peculiar and affecting arrangement of anise, lavender, geranium, carnation, coffee, and coumarin. As with fragrances like Cotton Club and Azzaro Pour Homme, I'm sure the box of Yohji lists ingredients like linalool and coumarin in succession. Oddly, it reminds me of the aforementioned scents. The coumarin shows up early and adopts a malted tone, while lavender and anise are nearly impossible to pair without conjuring Loris Azzaro's masterpiece.

For fans of coffee notes, Yohji delivers. The note is very lucid and a little burnt, but also very subtle and discreet. It never attempts to dominate the proceedings, like the one in A*Men does. That makes it a little more enjoyable than any other coffee note I've ever encountered in perfumery. Sadly, none of this lasts on my skin. Within thirty minutes the fragrance is overtaken by a lithe arrangement of musks, most of which I'm anosmic to. Either that, or their dosage is so meager that it would take a pint of this fragrance's base for anyone to smell it. For people crippled by chemical sensitivities who cannot smell lavender and coumarin notes, I recommend staying away from this fragrance (and Cotton Club and Azzaro PH, for that matter), but the rest of you should give it a shot if you haven't already.

And The Real Catastrophizing Begins.

I have to comment on something I read today. Colognoisseur.com recently published an editorial about impending IFRA regulations that, if implemented, would "ban three substances from being used in perfume; two of the molecules found in oak moss and tree moss, and a lily-of-the-valley chemical called Lyral." The article continues:

"There are an additional 12 molecules and 8 naturals which would be severely restricted in concentration and require labelling on the perfume it was contained in."

So by reading the numbers (and grammatical errors aside), you would think the title of the editorial would be something like, "More Restrictions In Store," or "Three More Substances To Be Banned." Instead we face the painfully dramatic question, "90 Days 'Til The End Of Perfume?" I see a few hundred terrified Japanese people fleeing the great IFRA Godzilla as I type these very words. The end is coming, folks. Break out the big guns. Someone call Mothra. The apocalypse is nigh. We're all gonna die.

The editorial goes on to discuss how the IFRA's supposed studies on these supposed allergens are scientifically unsound, with size-deficient testing populations that lack control groups, etc. This is all very interesting, and from what I can tell the points are all quite valid, particularly if you're a chemist working in the industry who wants to know exactly why these bans and restrictions are to be enforced. However, four sentences poked out of the fray and bothered me:

"An even bigger flaw is the idea that it’s really only 23 molecules, so what? If these single molecules are restricted and banned it will have a ripple effect throughout many more raw materials. A natural oil is not a single molecule it is a combination of as many as hundreds of individual molecules. Any one of which could be identified as one of the 'bad 23' which would then make that natural oil unusable as well."

This is where the "IFRA catastrophizers" repeatedly lose the thread. The assumption is that great perfumery relies on "cornerstone chemicals," those mystical Jenga block substances that would collapse the whole tower if removed. This also supposes that the synthetics currently on the market were not created to replace naturals that were already banned years ago. The Colognoisseur editorial states definitively that only one synthetic, Lyral, will be banned, and only two partial components of real oak moss and tree moss will join it. Oak moss and tree moss are all but banned already, so I don't know what the big news is supposed to be here. Specific materials are not named in the piece, so it's anyone's guess what these molecules are. Perhaps they're mentioned elsewhere online.

If you take into consideration that there are literally a few thousand materials occupying contemporary perfumery palettes, the loss of two moss components and one synthetic seems incredibly mundane. Add to that the simple fact that IFRA-compliant moss substitutes are already being used in high-end perfumery, and one really has to wonder what all the fuss is about. The current formula of Mitsouko contains no moss at all, yet smells wonderful, like an old-fashioned mossy chypre.

"But what about the restrictions, Bryan?" I can hear it now. Oh, how awful it is that they're restricting, restricting, restricting. Maybe losing high concentrations of these twenty other substances would tilt the balance away from what perfumers are used to, but then again, maybe not. Former perfumer Glen Brechbill's extensive listing of typical perfumery materials cites countless materials at the perfumer's disposal. The list goes on, and on, and on. Losing twenty of them might send ripples through the list, but even if another fifty or sixty molecules are effected, that still exempts at least a thousand materials, and likely much more than that. I couldn't for the life of me count the number of substances Mr. Brechbill has listed.

To even ask whether the end of contemporary perfumery is upon us because three molecules are being banned is beyond ridiculous.

Preferred Stock (Coty)

Ten years ago I smelled this cologne at a CVS and thought it was the worst thing on the market. I was like that about drugstore fragrances back then, not really considering that there's more than just "college cologne guy" juice out there. Here I am, a little older and a little wiser, and I've revisited Preferred Stock with a new nose. Like with Jovan Sex Appeal, Coty went ahead and put a little blurb on the box:

"For the man with a sense of style - Preferred Stock. A sophisticated blend of sandalwood and vetiver with a citrus twist. It's what preferred men prefer."

This fragrance is currently the most expensive masculine by Coty, priced at $25 - $27 for 2.5 ounces at discounters. You can get one ounce on Amazon for about $15. Distribution of Preferred Stock has been scaled back, with limited quantities at retailers, and for a while there I couldn't figure out why. Had it been discontinued? No, stores in my area continuously re-"stock" it. I bought a bottle to find out if there is more to this drab little thing than meets the eye.

The answer to my price question is in the fragrance itself. This is a mellow aromatic fougère with relatively high quality synthetics for a Coty scent. It's about on par with Sex Appeal, but I feel it's even a little better. So let's pose this basic question about Preferred Stock: Does it smell good? The answer is yes, it smells very good actually. You're really getting more than you paid for with it. The composition is tight and smells natural, the note separation is pristine, and the balance is perfect. It starts off with a soft citrus and lavender accord of fizzy grapefruit, mandarin, and lemon, with just enough dihydromyrcenol to lend it a Drakkar effect. It's fresh and clean, yet dry and accented by a leathery element that never fully takes form, yet always remains close to the lavender note.

Give it about ten minutes, and a dirty patchouli note emerges, flanked by juniper berry and sage. Eventually the sage/juniper accord overtakes the patchouli and melts into dry tonka and vetiver, with the vaguest hint of synthetic sandalwood and a discreetly earthy musk. The whole affair is so well composed and aromatic that I really don't know what to make of it. Nothing smells cheap, downmarket, "fuzzy," or generic. Longevity is impressive at five hours, and sillage is considerable enough to warrant judicious application. Preferred Stock is a cologne from 1990 that was named as a throwback to Coty's own 1955 Preferred Stock fragrance and toiletry line for men. I'm glad they brought it back, and glad I came around to it. This stuff is good.

Cool Water Into The Ocean (Davidoff) - "Men Always Smell Like Deodorant"

The other day at work a young woman of twenty-two casually mentioned that "Men always smell like deodorant, their cologne all smells kinda the same." I probably wouldn't have heard her say it, if she weren't a classic brunette with nerves of steel (in my line of work, having steady nerves is a big plus). So beauty and strength were talking here. I tend to key into her thoughts, whenever she randomly vocalizes them. This particular thought was an old standby though, something I've heard a few times before from women. One of my exes said the same thing to me when she smelled Green Irish Tweed wafting off my collar. She wrinkled her nose a little and looked bored as she said it: "Why do men always smell like sport deodorant?" I know, I know, but trust me, it's one of many reasons why I broke up with her.

Do we smell like deodorant all the time? Are the world's men little more than blue-jeaned sticks of underarm protection? Where there's smoke there's fire, and in this case there's some truth to the charge, although I must point out that many men consciously avoid dabbing "The Water Of Joe." You girls out there can blame Paco Rabanne and Drakkar Noir for starting it, and you can thank Lauder's New West, Davidoff's Cool Water, and Quintessence's Aspen for changing the entire scent dichotomy around. It used to be that fragrances had complementary deodorants, but once the truly contemporary stuff hit shelves in the late eighties, the deodorants and their namesakes were indistinguishable from each other. It was novel and refreshing for a few years, and then the nineties made it cliche. At this point it's become a question that women ask, somewhat rhetorically: why?

My guess is that it's a strange social evolution, something that took a few hundred years to develop, based on female responses to male grooming practices. For centuries men have tried their hand at alluring women with their personalities and their personas. Ladies, you know it all too well - our smiles and pick-up lines are our personalities, and our hygiene, odors, and fashion senses are our personas. Based on your responses across generations of acceptance and rejection, the cards have fallen into place, and the last hand has been dealt. Guess what? Somehow you steered us directly into smelling "fresh" and "clean" and amazingly nondescript. If you didn't like us this way, we would smell like bacon and chewing tobacco instead. That brings me to Cool Water Into The Ocean for men, a beautiful little reboot of the original CW, with a salinated tomato leaf and basil top note, the original lavender/apple/violet heart, and closing credits of minty herbs and musk. Ain't life grand?

Cinnabar (Estée Lauder)

Cinnabar is an oriental that reads as a balsam-and-spice incense composition, closely related to Lauder's own Youth Dew. It's been a long time since I smelled Youth Dew, but my recent sampling of Cinnabar immediately reminded me of something I'd smelled before, and when I read up on its history I found that indeed, Youth Dew "evolved" or "morphed" somewhat into Cinnabar - or perhaps a more accurate way of describing their relationship is to say they got "smooshed" as a marketing tactic that Lauder tried out in the mid seventies.

As you can see in the picture above, there was a point in the fragrance's earlier history where Lauder printed the names of both scents on the box, defining Opium's competition as a "Soft Youth Dew Fragrance." It's hard to say why this was done, but one theory is that they created this to appeal to Lauder buyers who wanted something similar to Youth Dew, but more modern. Lauder played it safe by giving the fragrance the brand name of "Cinnabar," perhaps for those who wanted a sense of departure from the older oriental in the line. They seemed to want to have it both ways. It's a bit of a mystery really, and gets more fully hashed-out on I Smell Therefore I Am.

The current fragrance is a reasonably natural balsam composition, with dark-green resins framing a crisp incense on a dry amber base. There's a pert citrus lift to the woody notes on top, and a genteel duet of sandalwood and benzoin on the bottom, with a subtle melange of cinnamon-dusted floral notes connecting them through the heart. Cinnabar more closely resembles Opium EDT nowadays, and I think Opium is more complex and perhaps more unique (Cinnabar smells a bit "standard" and reminds me of Lagerfeld's relatively unadventurous masculine orientals), but I couldn't easily choose between the two. This fragrance isn't really my thing, but it remains a beautifully-constructed classic that every oriental enthusiast should try.