Aura for Men (Jacomo)

This is one of those fragrances that hits differently depending on how experienced you are with obscure zombie brand masculines from the eighties and nineties. If you're not that guy, then trying Aura by Jacomo, which was released in 2000 and authored by Henri Bergia, will feel novel and interesting. As evidenced in reviews by prominent members of the fragrance community, like Lanier and Rich Milton, this is a striking fragrance that smells of a corner in Paris, or of manhood incarnate. I must say, though, I'm a little surprised neither reviewer mentions how grossly anachronistic it is. Aura smells good, but about fifteen years too late for what it offers, and certainly doesn't impart a Y2K vibe. 

A look at the lesser-known reviews shows a pattern: words like “spicy,” “green,” “airy,” “fresh,” and “citrusy” come up again and again. Most don’t tie the scent to anything concrete, and that’s fine; not every fragrance needs a direct comparison. But then I wear it, and it doesn’t take long to realize: Aura is essentially a remix of three earlier scents -- Davidoff for Men, The Dreamer by Versace, and Vermeil for Men (also sold as Guepard), with Vermeil being the closest match. It's worth noting that when it was released in 1995, Vermeil for Men was itself outmoded by about ten years. Aura opens with a bright, fairly clean herbal-citrus accord, highlighting lemon, ginger, juniper, and especially sage. Then comes a fleeting note of cigarette tobacco, dry and subtle, but unmistakable.

After ten minutes, the destination is clear: fermented tobacco leaves. This is an unlit cigar -- like standing in Flatiron’s Eataly between a barrel of olives and a working torcedor. His leaves are spread out on the table; he’s clipping, ripping, rolling. A small box for discarded shake sits inches away, and now and then he tosses something in, releasing a rich whiff of brown leaf. Aura strongly resembles Vermeil for Men -- in fact, it reads as a much lighter, fresher version. They’re close enough in scent that you wouldn’t need both; one will do. What sets Aura apart is its smooth sandalwood base, which settles in an hour and carries the cigar accord through a full workday. Very nice stuff. Crap bottle, though. 

My Spring Picks

May is the loveliest month. It's not too hot, sometimes even cool outside, with occasional showers coloring everything forty shades of green. And man oh man, do I like me some green - the greener the better.

This month I've used a steady rotation of all the greenest stuff in my arsenal. Mind you, I consider anything with heady florals and herbs to be green, as well as pure greens featuring citrus and grasses. The season for green is surprisingly short - by August I've switched to muskier fare. But it's beautiful while it lasts. The past two weeks have seen repeated applications of the following:

Tsar (Van Cleef & Arpels) - Simply an amazing fougère. Such gorgeous bergamot, lavender, artemisia, oakmoss, and many other dark, spicy green notes. It's more refreshing than a walk through a forest in the rain.

Sport Field (Adidas) - This is Creed Green Valley Lite. A pop of lemon and ginger, then hours of air conditioned coumarin playing the grassiest one-note I've ever smelled. Divine, and criminally affordable.

Silences (Jacomo) - Perfect for rainy days. Starts off with a punch of galbanum, and slips through the reeds into flowers and bouquets of cut stems. When I smell this on my shirt the day after, I totally understand the meaning of "true green" in perfumery. This is nature in a bottle.

Sung Homme (Alfred Sung) - A good spicy, soapy, and unerringly green chypre with the soul of a fresh fougère. Nice on Thursdays and Fridays when Irish Spring 2.0 is the desired effect.

Horizon (Guy Laroche) - Bright grapefruit, mint, lavender, crushed herbs, dihydromyrcenol, ambergris, and cedar, all bundled in a seaweedy aquamarine-colored bottle. I don't reach for it as often as the others, but I never regret it when I do. Another good one for the rain.

Brut (Helen of Troy) - White floral powder. Not good for high heat, but when there's still a cool breeze to cut the sun, Brut works wonders, especially with light application.

Pour un Homme de Caron (Caron) - I'm never really sure when to wear this scent. Its frigid lavender top is too cold for winter; the warm and powdery vanilla-musk base is too heavy for summer. Spring is a good season I suppose. Autumn too, but we have Yatagan for autumn. Anyway, you can't go wrong with hyper-realistic bouquets of French lavender. The fragrance for gentlemen, this stuff is.

Just as an aside: Am I the only one who finds Kristen Stewart attractive? My guy friends think she's mediocre, even unattractive. As a movie buff I'm familiar with all the current beautiful female stars, and there's certainly a slew of more traditionally-beautiful women coming out of Hollywood, but I dunno . . . Ms. Stewart has always captured my imagination in ways the other gals couldn't. Although I hate most of her films (except The Runaways), I often find myself watching them just to see how she moves through the frames. The girl's got something going on. Anyhoo . . . thanks for reading.

Thoughts On The Reformulation Of Silences

Silences has always been the ultimate chypre for lovers of green scents. I own an older formulation of it from back when Jacomo sold it in a grey box, and the bottle had a cap to cover the atomizer. I've also worn the reformulation in the glossy black box where bottle, cap, and atomizer are fused into one piece. Between the two, I prefer the first version. It smells a bit softer and better blended than the stuff being sold right now, although the reformulation is not much different. Both are unmistakably Silences; both formulations are remarkably good.

Now comes news that Jacomo plans on reformulating Silences yet again, only this time there is a major overhaul planned. The new Silences will feature a hint of pear and may contain more overtly floral notes than the original. Reactions to the news have not exactly been welcoming, and some folks seem to think that this will be a flanker, not a reissue of the original. This is untrue: Silences is being reissued, not flanked. The stuff of 2012 will soon be the only Silences one can buy.

There's a question as to why Jacomo would take something that isn't broken and try to fix it. The answer to this is always the same - money talks. Evidently sales of the current formula have been flagging, enough to prompt the company to revalue the Silences brand. Sniffing Silences today, I can see how this would happen. It's a very, very, very green perfume. Not fake postmodern green like Green Irish Tweed and Sung Homme. This is classic, true green, galbanum-infused 1970s chypre leaf green. Bitter, chalky, powdery, with understated floral notes running muted pinks, yellows, and purples under a solid mantle of grey-green. It smells like a spring morning in some botanical garden. It's gorgeous, but a lot to take, and definitely not in sync with today's styles.

I can't say I'm looking forward to smelling fruit notes in Silences, and wonder if pear will ruin the timelessly mature ambiance of the scent. But the idea of amping up the floral notes has appeal. With a defined rose, iris, and narcissus holding the heart and base together, the scent will inevitably smell more feminine, less unisex, and perhaps a bit more sexual, less aloof. This has its good and bad points, but if it smells good to the man on the street, then women will buy it, and Jacomo's bottom line will be happy. In which case, we won't have to worry about another reformulation of Silences for a while.

Let's not panic, and see what happens.

Silences (Jacomo, original Parfum de Toilette)

Ever wonder what Van Goh's Wheatfield with a Cypress Tree would smell like if it could be distilled down to a scent? Yeah, neither have I. Silences eliminated that obscure little unknown for me, though. It was one of those odd instances where the answer came before the question - I smelled the original parfum de toilette, and was immediately transported to a secluded field in Arles, with its raw grasses fluttering in a cool April breeze. It was the closest I have ever come to pure spiritual rapture.

I won't pontificate much on Silences because it's the nearest to perfection that a fragrance can get, and my descriptions and accolades cannot add to it. Yes, it's green, and a little floral, perhaps the High Priestess of verdant chypres. And yes, it's unisex, although Jacomo insists it's for women. Funnily enough, the bottle I purchased was in a narrow space between the men's and women's sections of the store, as if the shopkeeper wisely knew it belonged to neither demographic exclusively. 

Funny too, that I happened to try the reformulated version before the original parfum de toilette. I'm not sure what happened with Silences - the new one (in the black glossy box) smells like something straight out of the '70s, very dusty and heavy, while the older one (in the grey matte box) is smooth, airy, and timeless. What's up with that? In the unlikely event that I ever meet a Jacomo insider, I shall ask him or her that very question. Meanwhile I'll float over lush fields as verdant wisps of crisp morning florals fill my lungs. Silences.