Bogart (Jacques Bogart)

The house of Jacques Bogart was established by Jacques Konckier in 1975, many years before its acquisition of Balenciaga in 1986, and Ted Lapidus in 1998. Konckier's stated vision for the brand was "I create only for men." Bogart's 1975 eponymous debut had been, until recently, their flagship scent; it is apparently discontinued. Jacques Bogart has always been a European concern, with its main distribution channels snaking through the central and eastern regions of the old continent and across the Middle East, only appearing in the USA via the secondary grey and eBay market. Bogart, dubbed "Signature" after the pen-and-ink graphic on its box, is often likened to another major European export of the time, Paco Rabanne pour Homme (1973), but I think it's a little more accurate to view it as the European progenitor to a popular American mainstay of that groovy era, Halston 1-12, which was released the following year. 

Halston 1-12's resemblance to Bogart is obvious from first spray, as they share a similarly bombastic opening accord of desiccated citrus, green galbanum, lavender, pine needles, and mastic resin, but Bogart's notes are filtered through more than just the soapy linalool of Roy Halston's scent. Max Gavarry and Vincent Marcello's collaboration on 1-12 was a unification of Marcello's mastery of the agrestic chypre (Lauder's Private Collection) with Gavarry's unique take on lavender and vetiver (Puig's Estivalia), which resulted in an erstwhile barn burner of a chypre-fougère hybrid. Their other Halston chypre, Z-14, was an early "clubber" (Studio 54) frag, while 1-12 competed with "mature" colognes like Royal Pub, Kanøn Man, and Grey Flannel to win over the Republican Wall Street types who quietly bankrolled these brands and demanded something in return. 

Perfumer Maurice Maurin nodded to this conservative segment of American fragrance culture with an aromatic fougère body on a rawhide leather chassis. The distinguishing feature of Bogart is a finessed accord of phenylacetic acid (dank sweetness), Atlas cedar oil (fetid woods), and trace isobutyl quinoline for an unassertive animalic base under otherwise clean greens. Bogart is like a cool breeze through a wilderness in late summer, after the funk of high heat has dissipated, with traces of deer and beaver gently lingering on its trail. Some reviewers mention the inclusion of dimetol, but Maurin may have also tinkered with trace amounts of dihydromyrcenol, which is perhaps why many link Bogart to Paco Rabanne pour Homme. Combined with dimetol, DHM creates the same nuanced herbal freshness found in Acteur, Maurin's 1989 brief submission for Azzaro. Bogart is unusual for the brand in that it is the only Bogart frag that lacks bombast; it smells demurely green, leathery, and dry, and recedes instead of reaching out. Patchouli and oakmoss complete its far drydown, with cedar-centered woods growing only slightly funkier, and I appreciate the somber woody-green aura of this stuff.

That said, I actually prefer many of Bogart's contemporaries over it, and find its staid personality a little too reserved for my liking. If you were to ask me which is better, Bogart "Signature" or One Man Show (1981), I'd have to point to the latter. It's cruder, yes, but it's also crisper, grassier, muskier, and all around more distinctive and, frankly, more fun. Still, Bogart "Signature" is a worthy olfactory callback to an era when men in suits and ties commuted by train to New York City for twelve-hour workdays, indulged in expensive martini lunches with their attractive female secretaries, then boarded the seven o'clock express home to their wives and young children in Groton.

Silver Scent (Jacques Bogart)

Grapes, Gum, Orange Blossom, Bacchus

I've done my best to ascertain why they named it "Silver" Scent, but I've come up empty. I'd like to say that it was their "silver" anniversary, but 2006 is not 25 years after 1975, so that doesn't wash. There's nothing silvery about the smell of Silver Scent, so its name and the story behind it remains an impenetrable mystery.

Methyl anthranilate is a naturally occurring chemical in Concord grapes, and I love how grapes smell. Additionally, MA is found in oranges and neroli, two things that also smell great, so finding it in such singular abundance in a fragrance is interesting. When I was a small child, I was briefly obsessed with a pearlescent black plastic necklace that my grandmother gave me to play with. I'll never forget one particular summer afternoon of fidgeting with the beads and marveling at how their colors shifted depending on their angle relative to the sunlight. Silver Scent is the olfactory incarnation of that necklace. It's a blast of black grape soda in the first fifteen minutes, followed by the neon of an expensive grape-flavored bubblegum from the 1990s. But then, an hour in, it shifts to subtle nuances of Joop! Homme, a distinct shimmer of off-white orange blossoms that add a retro floral glow. Bend down to tie my shoe, and it's purple candy again. 

I've seen some reviews that denigrate Silver Scent as simplistic, linear, one-note. It does play one simple tune, but it plays it with an affecting innocence that lingers long enough (and loudly enough) to elicit suspicions of disingenuousness, like the chronically-caffeinated coworker who always blurts "Awwwww!" when someone gets engaged. At its core, this is a decadent fragrance, steeped in the richness of amaranthine fruits and the cheap dessert wines rendered by them. Only a person who has achieved enough in life to enjoy it could wear this and understand what it's saying, a trait typical of the most seasoned among us. Perhaps that's what they meant by "silver" after all.

One Man Show Emerald Edition (Jacques Bogart)

One of the neat things about being a collector is finding "rare" items, and perfume collectors are especially driven by scarcity. I've been on the lookout for One Man Show Emerald Edition since its release 8 years ago, but for whatever reason it's always been tough to source. Apparently Emerald was initially a Dubai exclusive, then trickled into Europe, and eventually got swept into the grey market, which the Bogart Group uses to unofficially distribute its wares to the continent. Recently a few inexpensive bottles appeared on eBay, and I was on it. 

Emerald Edition is an unusual one. Corinne Cachen has been in the game for a while now, and has at least one foot in the "old-school" world of green, spicy-woody frags. See Montblanc Presence (2001) and Avon Surreal Garden (2007) for just two mainstream examples. Emerald opens with a lick of sugary sweetness that is swiftly overtaken by a rush of what smells to me like a "sandpaper accord" commonly found in pre-millennium masculines: ginger & white pepper-adjacent elemi resin (150-180 grit), sage (sclarene), and the most bitter rendition of methyl heptine carbonate (violet leaf) Cachen could possibly use. Violet flower appears in an abstract and very contemporary form, resembling Mancera's Aoud Violet a bit for at least twenty minutes or so, but then a potent nutmeg and desiccated coumarin emerge, lending earth-hued shadow to the grey-green fog. Still spicy, a little woody, a little green thanks to the lingering violet/violet leaf aspect, and with that sclarene really piercing through everything, Emerald settles on dusty nutmeg and a dry-resinous tapestry of violet, cedar, salty musks, and Bogart Group's version of Akigalawood.

One thing nobody mentions is there's ethyl maltol in this fragrance. It's blended in so carefully that unless the juice in the atomizer stem was allowed to get old enough (as in my bottle), you won't smell it clearly save for during the first one or two sprays until the stuff balances out. I'll end with this: Emerald Edition is worth seeking out if you're a hopeless lover of green and agrestic masculines from any decade, and if you're okay with smelling like a 51 year-old man who just stepped out of 1997. This particular Bogart won't turn heads or be remembered, but it's definitely a mature and serviceable men's offering, and I'm glad I have it, if only for how hard it is to find these days.

Revisiting the 1980s Fragrance Not for the Kids: One Man Show (Jacques Bogart)

Keep out of Reach of Children

There's something militant about One Man Show, Roger Pellégrino's 1980 creation for the middle-shelf brand of Jacques Bogart. The battleship grey box. The olive green glass bottle, with even greener fluid inside. The way the brand's signature "b" glistens in brass like the cockade on a Russian soldier's cap. It all spells "Not for Children," as if Bogart execs wanted to convey a sense of inherent danger to anyone unprepared for what happens if you carelessly depress the atomizer. 

I used to dislike this fragrance, but time has a way of wrestling men into submission, and after many recent developments in the fragrance world, I find myself face-down on the mat. Back when I had things like Kouros and Krizia Uomo to turn to, One Man Show was a pointless exercise in olfactory crass that lacked the compositional genius of the former or the material focus of the latter. If I wanted an animalic fougére fix, the animalis (civet, tonkin musk) of vintage Kouros was impossible to beat. For rich woods, look no further than the photorealistic cedar base of Krizia Uomo. Back in 2012, I wrote: "The calibration was inspired but simple, of equal parts pine and oakmoss, styrax and castoreum, incense and geranium, all tuned to a high-pitched shrill. It smells weirdly majestic . . . " And I agree with me—it certainly did smell weirdly majestic, but also intense, raw, rugged, and a bit scary, like the problem-drinking teacher who grips your arm a little too tightly after breaking up a schoolyard disturbance. One Man Show wasn't for the young'uns. 

Today, Kouros is neutered and all but discontinued, Krizia Uomo is a dinosaur, and where can a guy go for a classic, early 1980s animalic punch in the nose? Come back, One Man Show, all is forgiven. I purchased a 100 milliliter bottle on eBay last month for $14.88, and I received it in a box stamped with an October, 2016 batch code—or maybe a 2006 batch code, since these codes tend to repeat every ten years. It came with a little dried-out and empty tube of aftershave balm, and from what I've heard they're always dried out, so naturally one must figure there's an obsessive-compulsive thief out there sitting on a vat of stolen One Man Show aftershave balm. The box warns: HIGHLY CONCENTRATED, and the bottle's black plastic atomizer sticks out from its cowl like the barrel of a gun. The text, "Jacques Bogart Paris" is printed in black, as if stamped, "Fit to Serve." 

With some trepidation, I sprayed One Man Show for the first time in 14 years. I was hit with a bright burst of aldehydic greens, followed by a grassy accord of what mainly smells like basil, artemisia, galbanum, and a particularly harsh bergamot note that recalls the skanky citruses of past classics like Moustache and Aramis, except here it competes with all those grassier tones. There's also a hint of civetone, but there's an even stronger hint of castoreum, which foretells what is to come. The first ten minutes smells the most like Krizia Uomo, minus the obvious lavender and fougére elements, but as the castoreum note steps forward, this changes. The focus here isn't on cedar, although there is some cedar tucked away somewhere. No, this fragrance is about the musks. Animalis, castoreum, a surprisingly restrained wink of textural civetone, all blaring together in that familiar New Wave masculine "powerhouse" way that only something from 1980 can manage. 

It's impossible to spray this stuff on and not immediately think of Phoebe Cates in a leotard. Fragrances like this were designed to bring out the inner animal in a man. It makes sense that the person who brought us Macassar and Gem would channel all the lusty stink of post-disco machismo into something as brutish and raw as Bogart's second masculine release. I've read from cognoscenti that current iterations of this formula neglect the animalics and naturals, but if so, my nose must be unaware of it, because this 9 (or 19) year-old bottle smells plenty old-school, natural, animalic, and mossy to me. There's no moss listed on the box, but if you know what it smells like, you know it's in there. Maybe they just, eh, forgot to alert the IFRA of its presence. 

Does this stuff scratch the itch left behind by those other lost masterpieces? Kind of. Look, the further out we get from the 1980s, the more this sort of thing dazzles, even when it's as crudely done as it is here. Pellégrino perfected the animalic citrus accord in his later and much more refined Versace L'Homme (984), and if you squint with that one, you can sort of see the resemblance to One Man Show. I can settle for this fragrance when I want the animalic snarl that I used to get from Kouros, and it'll work in a pinch when I wish I had the piney-green ambiance of Krizia Uomo. But the rough edges of this monstrosity are such that wearing it will be an exercise in cringe-inducing caution. Don't want to get hurt, and certainly don't want to hurt others. 

I work with a few people born in the 2000s, and spending more than 30 seconds around something this virile and overtly sexual might traumatize them. Lock the bottle in a safe, and memorize the combination. Little Johnny's not old enough to shoot yet. 

Witness (Jacques Bogart)

"Another View Of The World"

Stylistically, Witness is an embodiment of early nineties poise, a complex structure replete with evergreen balsams, lavender aromatics, and a crisp cedar base. It bears similarities to Aubusson Pour Homme and Balenciaga Pour Homme, but unlike its congeners, which celebrate artful contrasts between green and musky notes, Bogart eschews pungent musks, favoring instead a more staid arrangement of cinnamon, fir, incense, and woods. The result is something that lacks animalism, and smells much darker and drier than expected, but is nonetheless quite good.

The nose for this scent is Dominique Preyssas, who according to Fragrantica authored Jaguar for Men, an aromatic fougère that preceded Witness by four years. I've heard that Thierry Wasser co-authored Witness, but can't confirm it, though the wonderful Art Deco bottle design is credited to Joel Desgrippes, the genius designer for Revillon's French Line and Kenzo's Jungle, both packaging masterpieces. It's interesting that the color scheme for Witness' bottle is identical to Aubusson's, and I wonder if Desgrippes did both. My personal feelings for Witness (the perfume) echo those for Balenciaga and Aubusson, and I'm certain that Bogart's interpretation of this theme is the most "oriental," and also the most "mature." The key is the incense.

Witness' mossy cedar base isn't far removed from that of Krizia Uomo, but a haze of cool, smoky incense focuses my nose on the lushness surrounding it. Gentle nuances of old-school lavender, basil, artemisia, geranium, sandalwood, and jasmine are lifted by quiet aldehydes, lending charm to what could have been a woefully dated formula. The blend is subtle and a bit sweet, the ingredient quality is high, and the balance between spice, greens, and woody amber is flawless. As with Aubusson, I briefly get an abstract apple pie effect in the first minute of Witness, but once the cinnamon segues into artemisia, the gourmand impression goes with it.

If (and only if) you enjoy this style of fragrance, Witness is something you should add to your collection. It's vintage Bogart, and thus is stylistically superlative and very well made. I have yet to encounter anything less by this brand. One should note that it's a bit of an acquired taste; nectarous accents are woven into heady classical accords in a manner that might, if you are unfamiliar with this approach, seem too unconventional and "out there." It may be difficult to determine the appropriate occasion for Witness.

To me, this sort of thing is good for casual Fridays at work, and weekend nights out on the town. It may not be suitable for black-tie dinner parties or first dates, but it's perfect for deal-closing phone conferences and gallery art shows, pairing well with wool sport coats and Chardonnay-fueled conversations about touch and form.

Furyo (Jacques Bogart)

More Perfume Economics 101: when in doubt about the value of a discontinued scent found online, visit your local hole-in-the-wall brick and mortar store and find out what it's really worth. I'm not talking Perfumania chain stores or even your typical mall island kiosk. I'm talking an independently owned and operated shop that carries a wide range of fragrances in both gender categories. I'm lucky enough to have two near my house, and when one comes up short, the other invariably delivers. The fragrance in question today is Furyo by Jacques Bogart, another lovely ambery fougère from the late eighties. It was wisely placed just under Lapidus Pour Homme on the Leffingwell chart, although to me it calls to mind Joint by Roccobarocco. It definitely shares the same vibe as Joint, smelling of rich musks and spiced woods.

Ebay sellers are attempting to get no less than $100 for three ounces, with the cheapest bottle (one ounce) currently up for $66.99. I've been parsing Ebay for a few weeks now, hoping a three ouncer would show up for less than seventy bucks, but no luck. Fortunately I was able to snag that same size here in CT for $34.97, and yes, it's "vintage," with a slightly tattered box and an ingredients list naming only SD Alcohol, fragrance, and water. My receipt is something I should try to sell on Ebay, particularly to the jerks who want to get $100+ for Furyo.

Let's not beat around the bush here - Jacques Bogart is not an upscale fragrance brand. Their scents are lower middle shelf, generally cheaply made, but made with love. I expected Furyo to be boisterous and fairly well balanced, but also expected to encounter some degradation in quality, as I did with Joint, and as I have with pretty much every vintage scent that I've smelled. Furyo is indeed boisterous at first. There are rich cinnamon, honey, musk (possibly real civet), and wormwood notes that hit the nose, but I sense there was once a stronger lavender and some distinct citrus, both missing from my juice. Within thirty seconds its floral heart, velvety and bittersweet, emerges and wows me. I can tell Furyo has become a bit condensed with age, its heart phase making a premature appearance, but at least it smells smooth and elegant, a truly stunning musky fern.

Like Joint, Furyo is a very focused fougère. It's not linear, but after drydown it doesn't make any sudden moves. I definitely like it much better than Joint, although I do like Joint. Unfortunately Roccobarocco's fougère possesses a strange mustiness that threatens its balance a bit before everything deflates into a disappointingly cheap laundry musk of sorts, but Furyo never smells musty, cheap, or deflated, although it does become pretty tame and even a little soapy the longer it sits on skin. Several reviewers have commented that they smell a similarity to Kouros in Furyo, as in Joint, but I don't get the comparison in either scent. I'm beginning to think that the similarity exists in a certain type of musk that I must be anosmic to. If there is a family resemblance, I simply can't smell it. If I had to link it to something else from its era, I'd say Furyo smells similar to Zino by Davidoff.

I think Furyo is a lovely fragrance, and definitely worth seeking out for fans of old-school musky fougères from the eighties and early nineties. It broadly fits into the same category as Kouros, Balenciaga PH, Zino, Vermeil for Men, and even Aubusson PH, as Furyo has a very noticeable touch of sweet red apple. I'll add that I enjoy smelling this on myself, but I would enjoy it even more on a beautiful woman in her late twenties or early to mid thirties. Of all the brusque "manly" ferns, this one is the most gender neutral, with rose, jasmine, and carnation comprising its core structure. This is a casual but dignified perfume that I'm very happy to own and wear, especially because I was fortunate enough to find it for less than forty dollars.

If I can do that, so can you. Get off the internet and get back into brick and mortar stores if you're looking for discontinued frags. You have nothing to lose, and potentially quite a bit of money to save.

One Man Show (Jacques Bogart)

In 1996, Azzaro released Chrome, its landmark '90s masculine, and took the Cool Water concept one crucial step away from fougère-dom, and into the territory of conceptual perfumery. The concept was "metal." Chrome exhibited all the typical characteristics of a fresh fougère and citrus chypre, married them, amplified its perpendicular musks to blaring levels, and voilà! A shiny metallic perfume that made teenagers and twenty-somethings smell like R2D2. Mission accomplished.

The only precedent for such a horrendous concept (and fragrance) is an obscure niche release from 1980 named One Man Show. Jacques Bogart, on the heels of its successful Bogart Pour Homme, which is an ambery fougère in the Zino/Rabanne axis, attempted to modernize the flagging genre of masculine chypres, and envisioned a world where men smelled of rusty metal, tree resins, and raw incense. It was to be the ultimate meeting of declined Utopia and vengeful nature, all in one powerful scent. The calibration was inspired but simple, of equal parts pine and oakmoss, styrax and castoreum, incense and geranium, all tuned to a high-pitched shrill. It smells weirdly majestic, with nosehair-singeing pine top notes concentrated into unrecognizable proportions, and redolent of tarnished aluminum sheeting and rusted steel plates. This lengthy opening stage is unremittingly caustic and synthetic, yet also irresistible and quite compelling.

The drydown consists of a simple incense and cedar accord, and possesses a distinctive austerity seldom seen in '80s masculines. It is here, around the ninety-minute mark, that One Man Show clearly reveals itself to be a polite EDT after all, and not a hairy-chested powerhouse. The growl in its beginnings rumbles down to the relaxing patter of vetiver leaves rustling in a twilight breeze. Only hints of the cold metallic note remain as nature reclaims its territory. 

This fragrance is odd, charming, and full of well-executed synthetic forms. You may or may not smell the resemblance to Chrome, but you'll definitely appreciate an unusual and well-made fragrance while wearing One Man Show. On another note - I have no idea why it was given such a tacky name, but I like how it provides garish contrast to the otherwise-sobering Eastern-European package of muted greys and blacks. Someone over at the Jacques Bogart company has an interesting sense of humor.

Façonnable (Jacques Bogart Group)

In the '90s smelling fresh was everything, and the decade's noses were so devoted to freshness that they conjured fresh fougère/oriental hybrids that in no way resemble Green Irish Tweed, Cool Water, or Acqua di Gio. Façonnable for Men is one such fragrance - it was among the decade's first floral/amber/musk constructions to imbue the air with dense clouds of warm sweetness. This brand of plushness, ambery floral sweetness incarnate, was nice enough for three or four years, but eventually wore out its welcome. 

A compellingly fresh "fresh" fougere, Façonnable hits skin with a pungent blend of sweet orange zest and floral notes. The scent's sweetness factor blurs itself dramatically in under five minutes, and its jasmine, rose, ambergris, and sandalwood never truly separate and step forward. Its middle phase resembles nutmeg, although it's chemical and not very spicy. I don't know why, but something about Façonnable reminds me of Himalaya, Creed's famous fresh oriental for men. Façonnable's amber is very soft, friendly, and saccharine, much like Himalaya's. But unlike any Creed, Façonnable winds up smelling spare and white-musky within a few hours, with every aromachemical nakedly evident.

This fragrance isn't bad for the budget-conscious guy. It's kinda-sorta dated, very lively and charming, and I'm not one to wax nostalgic about the '90s, but Façonnable brings back some good memories. It's the olfactory expression of an innocent - or perhaps not so innocent kiss on the cheek. Just use it sparingly.