Drakkar Essence (Guy Laroche)

I can see it now, the entire arc of Drakkar Essence's lifespan, encapsulated in the blink of an eye. This relatively mundane, shampoo-like designer offering is welcomed briefly by North American and European consumers, who find it competent enough to stand beside their bottles of Bleu de Chanel and Bvlgari Aqva, until it is all used up. Then the majority of first-time purchasers decide not to become second-time purchasers, and Laroche's sales figures for this product nosedive dramatically in the fourth quarter. There are some in the fragrance community who actually do like the stuff, and go to buy back-up bottles of it, mostly Guy Laroche completists whose girlfriends wear Fidji on special occasions, but when they get to the department store perfume counter, uh-oh, just kidding! Drakkar Essence is discontinued, sorry.

A couple months go by, and the threads on the online boards have by now lit up with some mild chatter about the scent's fleeting presence on the legit market of "authorized retailers" (in most cases, Macy's), and some wonder where they can still score a bottle at a reasonable price. That's when the grey market retailers on the internet catch wind of the scent's limited availability, and the hawks swoop in to buy up whatever stock remains. Those that are late to the party network on it non-stop until they have at least a few dozen bottles to sell. But of course, when these bottles are posted, their price has been increased forty, sixty, eighty percent. Then one hundred percent. Then two. Those who are actually familiar with how Drakkar Essence smells see the gouging and tell themselves, "You know, it was nice enough, but not worth these prices. Guess I'll have to pass on more Drakkar Essence." Oh to be a unicorn breeder . . .

But those who haven't smelled it yet and who have money to burn - real money to burn - pony up. They take one wearing of the stuff out on the town and decide they wasted their money, so they attempt to turn the loss around on Ebay and, just to sweeten the deal for themselves, jack their asking price about twenty percent higher than what they paid for it. The same hawkers that had a go at it the first time snatch up these second-round rejects, and the number of Drakkar Essences that sell on the Bay appear to be terrific, at exhorbitant prices. Two hundred and twenty-five bucks for three ounces? Sold. Of course, by this point the buyers are just people looking to resell at an even higher mark-up. Like many discontinued perfumes, the sales are between sellers, a fragrance trading hands. The sparse fan base for this fragrance dried up long ago. It's a stunningly mediocre and uninspired arrangement of synthetic mint, citrus, lavender, cheap woods, and white musk, little more than a shower gel at Walmart. But it's discontinued, and it's a successful brand name. You may never score another bottle of Drakkar Essence again. It must be worth a mortgage payment.

Having smelled it, I can save everyone the trouble: it isn't.

Revisiting "Silver" By Al-Rehab

In 1995, the house of Creed broke new ground by creating a perfume that defied classification. It was neither fern, nor oriental, nor chypre, nor cologne, nor aquatic, nor even a hybrid of any of those genres. It was simply a "fresh" fruity scent with strong whiffs of green tea, bitter berries, an odd, blatantly synthetic "ink" note, and clean musks, and its name was Silver Mountain Water.

Another thing SMW defied was gender branding. This isn't a big deal in the post CK One fragrance world however, and Creed considers it a unisex perfume. It's not even alone in Creed's unisex range, either - there's also Original Vetiver, Royal Water, Virgin Island Water, and a few others. Like RW however, SMW is unique in smelling strange and hard to describe. Because of its unusual note pyramid, and its remarkable combination of bitter and sweet, SMW is different enough to spawn a whole group of imitators. These include Hamptons by Bond no 9, Casamorati 1888 Mefisto by Xerjoff, and a little three dollar cheapie called Silver by Crown Perfumes/Al Rehab.

I've not tried the others, but I've owned a 6 ml roll-on of Silver for a couple years now, and used exactly a third of it, I think mostly to testing (I've worn it as my SOTD two or three times). My primary issue with it is that it's ungodly strong and difficult to apply. I actually put the roller on a shelf in the sun in the hope that time and light would degrade it a bit, and recently returned to find it has indeed grown weaker, but not by much. Out of curiosity I spent eight bucks on 43 ml of the stuff in atomizer EDP form, both a travel sprayer and a one ounce bottle. I was interested in finding out if the spray smells different than the oil.

The answer is most definitely "yes."

The oil to me smells much more like SMW than the spray does. Maybe it's the concentrated nature of it, but I get a firmer top accord of citrus, blackcurrant, and metallic "fresh" from the oil, whereas the atomizer is mostly alcohol in the first three seconds, then an overbearing, olfactory fatiguing citrus, and a paler, "inkier" berry note, all infused with an odd, musty smelling musk. The spray is more muted, overall. The biggest divergence is in concentration, with the spray seeming more diffuse and even a bit powdery, while the oil is sharper. I get three hours of noticeable sillage from the spray, before the scent becomes much, much tamer.

What strikes me most about the spray is that it resembles Royal Water more than SMW to me. If you asked me to identify what this scent is a clone of in a blind test, I would sooner guess RW after smelling the spray version. Its bitter, musty, herbal, and powdery characteristics are better aligned to RW's strangely hissy citrus, basil, and juniper berry blend than SMW's brighter tea and currant accord. Royal Water is also incredibly gender neutral, and in some ways I think it should have been called Silver Mountain Water instead of something as tacky as "Royal" Water. It actually smells like silver right out of the atomizer, and continues to smell bitter and a little dirty for hours. Its juniper manifests as a distinctly sweet(ish) purpley note, much like Silver's atomized currant note, but it's not nearly as sugary. All told, despite what might seem like drawbacks to fans of the oil, I like the faded aspect of the Royal Watery Silver better than the roll on by a considerable margin. Maybe I'm just biased against oil.

I definitely wouldn't classify the spray as a viable replacement for SMW, but the oil could easily do the trick if applied judiciously in hot weather. The spray replaces Royal Water though, obviously. The thing that merges all of these fragrances is an acutely synthetic vibe. None of these frags smell even remotely like anything in nature. SMW has that metallic tang to it, and Royal Water has its own metallic note, and a distinctly "perfumey" aura that Silver's spray mimics well. Whenever I consider buying a bottle of RW, the thing that holds me back is its perfumey feel. I'm not sure I want to wear a Creed that smells generically like unisex, somewhat feminine perfume. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of owning a Creed?

But then I smelled Silver again, and realized that the unisex gender-bending potential outweighs that con. There's something fascinating to me about a smell that seems masculine in some ways, and overtly feminine in others. Luckily I don't have to drop a Benjamin on a Creed to attain that level of sophistication (if you could call it that) - all I have to do is wear Silver. It should keep people guessing just as effectively.

Cuir de Russie (Creed Private Collection)

Leave it to Creed to create a dry Russian leather perfume that smells just as fresh and sparkly-clean as Acqua di Gio. When I think of leather, I think of animalic, dusky, dark notes, dusty accords found in old-school classics like English Leather and the original Chaps. What doesn't typically enter my imagination is the idea of "freshness." For fresh, people don't buy bottles labeled "leather." They usually go for those pale blue things with breezy names that every guy and his cousin wears. So it was very surprising to find that Creed put such a concentrated effort into making their own classic leather smell of salty ambergris and sea spray, evocative of a sailor in a leather coat, and the smell of his garment after many hours exposed to rough weather. Not what I was expecting at all.

I consider this fragrance to be styrax heaven, its gloriously smooth, understated animal hide constructed with additional notes of bergamot, pine, neroli, and birch, most of which are evident in the first hour of wear before melding into an inseparable slating of salty dryness. The Russian incense analogies elicited by the heavy use of natural benzoin resins are taken out of church and into the wild, thanks to ambergris and salt notes, yet Cuir de Russie isn't a fragrance I would reach for before a sailing trip or a walk on the beach. While its references to wind and waves are obvious, its woody green notes are very starched and conservative, and the composition reads as a brisk formal scent for uptown dinner parties and executive board meetings. It's fresh, yes, but also quite serious.

Nevertheless, like the aforementioned Armani bestseller, CdR is easy to wear, loud enough to be over-applied, and not entirely "natural" in tone or effect. This is a postmodern leather. Its unisex appeal, quality craftsmanship, and enduring reputation as one of the better Russian leathers to hit the niche market make it worth seeking out if you're a fan of this sort of thing. I was never much for leathers (I'd sooner wear something with strong tobacco in it), but if I were to spot a flacon of this perfume in a store somewhere, I would inquire about it. It's good enough to spend a few hundred dollars on, that's for sure.

Ca' Luna (Acqua di Biella)

When Jim Gehr sent me his perfumes, he also sent me a slew of samples from his extensive catalog of raw materials and synthetics. This has been helpful in familiarizing myself with the intricacies of his work, and the works of others. Above is a snapshot of just some of the materials, which include champaca CO2, cistus labdanum EO, orris root CO2, Omani frankincense resin, jasmine CO2 (one of my favorites), wild Somalian frankincense resin, Palo Santo EO (Bursera Graveolens/heartwood), artemisia EO, civet, Mysore sandalwood EO, Mysore sandalwood SCO2, and New Caledonian sandalwood EO. There were also a handful of synthetics, including alpha isomethyl ionone, bois ambrene, synthetic agar, cis-3 hexenol, coumarin, "Timbersilk," a type of Iso E Super, and a few other marvelous things. My education in understanding these materials has been, put simply, a lot of fun.

The Italian firm of Acqua di Biella is one of those obscure European niche-makers that comes to America pre-prepared with a long, drawn-out history lesson, detailing through decades of narrative how something like Ca' Luna came to pass. Unlike Creed and Penhaligon's, there aren't any palaces of the Legion of Honor, archaic royal courts, or bloody world wars in their story, but rather a typically Italian portrayal of tradition being passed down from nose to nose. After reading its note pyramid, I expected this scent to be exotic, complex, perhaps hard to wear. I wondered if my being of Italian descent would make it a must-have, regardless of its pedigree. I ended up a bit stumped.

All the recognition of notes and accords and quality of oils used could not prepare me for this ghostly, waif-like bastard child of Green Irish Tweed and Fahrenheit, a meager quibbling of post IFRA violet ionones, bare leaf alcohols, and synthetic sandalwood chemicals. The Fragrantica pyramid lists ivy, galbanum, and elemi resins as the top three notes, but I just smell alpha isomethyl ionone, cis-3 hexenol, and whatever clever synthetic sandalwood reconstruction was used in Cotton Club by Jeanne Arthes. Having recently enjoyed Jim's Black Antlers, Pandit, and Nature Boy, I unconsciously developed a gold standard for expensive niche, and a Mendoza line (the line was forged after smelling Guess for Men a couple years ago).

I'm of two minds with this scent. On the one hand, I dislike its synthetic simplicity. For a dollar a milliliter, this stuff should be using a whole variety of 10 carbon alcohols, rich coumarin, octyn esters, and real sandalwood EO. This would make it a smooth woody masculine from the late eighties/early nineties mold, and something I could possibly love. But on the other hand, its sparseness is easy on the nose, and seems to create a subliminal message for the wearer, heard sporadically throughout his day. Its quiet tones make it a pleasantly fresh little thing that wafts up gently through a shirt collar, to remind the wearer that a fragrance is being worn, without ever overpowering anyone at the table.

If you're wealthy enough to afford a bottle of Acqua di Biella, and you buy and wear it on regular occasions, you're the sort of person who doesn't mind splurging on an "after-shower scent" that simply connotes cleanness and good grooming, without getting into the personality of a full-bore perfume. You're probably in your mid thirties or early forties, just old enough to remember Dior's Fahrenheit when it was new, and appreciate that kind of line-cutting individualism, that starkly modern masculinity that embraces sweet floral tones and throws caution to the wind. Yet you prefer to be seen and not smelled. So you wear Ca' Luna, and everyone assumes you're a regular man's man, simply because you smell of almost nothing at all.

Vettiveru (Comme des Garçons, Series 4)

I get a niggling, nagging, persistent issue with high-end vetiver fragrances. Most that I've encountered take the "traditional" road by rendering the note in a crisply rooty, papery manner. They tend to ensconce vetiver's dry linearity in a familiar variant of fresh, citrusy/soapy accords with subtle hints of kitchen spice. That's all fine and well, but quality of materials notwithstanding, it's a style culled directly from Guerlain Vetiver, the gold standard for all things vetiver. Sure, I can get a little extra dazzle out of Malle's Vetiver Extraordinaire, and a heap of additional quality and complexity from Garner James' Nature Boy, but if I want a straight-up old-school vetiver, Guerlain's is nearly impossible to top, and Encre Noire has the market cornered for a good contemporary alternative. Guerlain and Lalique offer the added benefit of being about twenty dollars an ounce without smelling cheap, which is also nice.

My general personal preference is to be engaged by more than two demure notes, but to also limit the unpredictably changeable excitement of complex compositions by finding scents that inhabit a suitably interesting-but-comfortable middle ground. Vettiveru is too conservative for my taste, with a linear drydown that only lasts about ninety minutes before becoming a skin scent. At its price point, it's a tough sell for me. The bright citrusy top is fizzy, fresh, and five minutes later it's gone, the vetiver note having arrived to steal the show. It's a basic, dry, papery vetiver, not significantly different from Guerlain's. So I ask myself, for this sort of thing, why not just wear Guerlain Vetiver? 

In fairness, Comme des Garçons went ahead and switched up the accompanying accord, inserting a very good combo of black pepper and clove where Guerlain has tobacco and musk. It's not enough, really. In the end, the tobacco works better. This is labeled a cologne, so I guess I can't get too worked up over the poor longevity, but I don't see myself buying a bottle.

Manoumalia (LesNez)

In the film Manon 70, Sami Frey, innocently shaving at the bathroom mirror, stumbles into a classic bedpost notch argument with his passive-aggressive lover, played by a lovely Parisian woman with sad eyes, who happens to be taking a bath. In an American film, this battle of the sexes trope would lead to a full score of strained, sarcastic dialogue before collapsing into tired Disneyland kissing, with just enough bare shoulders and soap suds to warrant a PG-13 rating. In a bid to appeal to adults and gain the coveted R rating, the director would ask one of the actors to say "fuck" at strategic intervals that would render the editor helpless. People arguing in a bathroom? The F word? Kissing and the unseen implication of sex in a tub? The only thing that could make us feel even smarter would be for Jim Jarmusch to direct and film the whole thing in faux 16 mm black and white, with the requisite faux graininess intact.

The French have a different view of sophistication. Instead of boring sarcastic witlessness and Hallmark card smoochies, why not have the argument between the two become curt and raw? Why not have the heroine act slighted and angry at Mr. Frey, which would naturally make her irresistible, and draw him to her like a bug to a bulb? Then, just when the idiots across the pond would cue the fake consensual romance, why not shoot a rape scene? Have Mr. Frey push and pry against her resistant body until the sheer pressure of ceramic against flesh forces the helpless woman to submit? Stateside, this would have the ratings board condemning the picture with a triple-X label, to be viewed by perverts only. Perhaps in the hands of a less talented French writer, such a scene would falter in Europe also, but not in Manon 70. When the subtly violent sexual encounter is finished, Deneuve glows in a halo of intense satisfaction and says, "Swear I'm the first woman you've ever raped." End scene.

Manoumalia is basically the olfactory equivalent of such a scene. Its indulgent ylang-ylang explosion is decadent but focused, shrewdly upheld by a gaggle of quieter white floral tones after Anaïs Anaïs by Cacharel. For perhaps two hours, LesNez's perfume seems like a one-trick pony, a gorgeously tired trick, the sweet white soliflore. As the day progresses, the nuances play out, and the complexity of the structure reveals itself, rife with cinnamon, peppery spice, vetiver, sandalwood, lily, and musk. Anaïs Anaïs is perhaps the more American of the two, very direct, sweet, and clean to a fault, but Manoumalia aggresses, overtaking the senses with a rich headiness before tapering down to a resilient sigh. The late Sandrine Videault was a beautiful, charismatic woman, very much a talent of the world, and much like those unforgettable French flicks of yesteryear, her work here haunts imagination and memory.

New Home Ownership, & Shifting Priorities

My mid century mauve & purple tiled bathroom,Unchanged since 1953, save for the vanity. I'm one lucky bugger.

Today at 5 pm I closed on my home purchase, and I couldn't be happier with it. My dream home always had a cozy living room with a mid-century fireplace and mantle, a spacious kitchen with tons of storage space (and a wall oven), a bathroom markedly bigger than any other bathroom anyone has ever offered me in my lifetime, a couple of bedrooms, also markedly bigger than I would ever have expected, a pantry, a finished basement, a half bath that actually works, and a bomb shelter, just in case North Korea develops an air force. That's exactly what I bought, along with the added bonuses of an attached garage and a sun room off the kitchen. The American dream is still alive and kicking. It's getting harder for people to achieve the dream, true, but it's not dead yet.

From Pyrgos will not in the foreseeable future become a "dead blog," but you may notice a significant slowdown in my posting rate, even more so than the slowdown of recent months. It's not that I don't have anything to say. It's just that I don't have as much time to say it, now that I'm busy tackling home projects. My plan is to be pretty aggressive with the cosmetic and interior revisions that I'd like to see, projects that will consume many hours and require hard work on my part. The house is move-in ready and perfectly acceptable to live in "as is," but there are some aspects of the decor that are so retro that even I don't feel them. One example is a massive cornice over the inside living room window, which I'll need to remove, a couple hundred square feet of cheap linoleum that needs replacing, and a built-in bookshelf that I'd like to build on outta there (I hate built-in bookshelves). More intense projects include updating the kitchen, installing security doors behind the garage, and getting the chimney extended above the attic vent. It's all very exciting.

My writing priorities are also shifting a bit. I purchased the house, and not a condo, because I wanted some degree of total seclusion, without noisy wall-to-wall neighbors and the cramped feeling that condos always give me, even when they're a decent size. There is a very large writing project that predates From Pyrgos by seven or eight years that I will be giving my fuller attention to, a task made easier now that I have more room to breathe, and think, and get it all out. I cannot emphasize enough though that this blog will not die - I have a list of interesting perfumes to post reviews about, and several opinions that still warrant their own slots in the blog archive, so if you're a fan of my work here, please don't despair and think this is the beginning of the end. I am a routine-driven person by nature, very much regimented into all that is familiar and fun in my life, and I love this blog. I'll continue contributing to it. I simply may not be able to contribute as frequently as I have in the past, although I will try my best.

I appreciate my faithful readers, and don't take lightly the prospect of leaving them hanging. Several bloggers have done that to their readerships since 2010, without reason or warning, and I feel that's a bit rude. If and when the day comes for From Pyrgos to be fully retired, I will give you all good reason and ample warnings. Meanwhile, please read on. Just know that the next article will be posted from a living room in one of the oldest and best-kept corners of twentieth century Connecticut.

A Useful Bit Of Advice

I just wanted to pass along this article, which quotes Guy Robert. There's no news here, nothing to get in a tizzy over, but these are good points to bear in mind. Oxidation of perfumes is without a doubt a serious issue to consider when buying and owning fragrances over long periods (years, or even decades). Air in the bottle will change things, ever so subtly at first, but given enough time and a combination of other natural factors, like temperature, humidity, and exposure to sunlight, will eventually ruin the perfumer's idea, and create a fragrance very different from that which he formulated.

Cologne du Maghreb (Tauer)

Cologne du Maghreb is an all-natural product, which means Andy Tauer wasn't kidding when he called it a cologne. Seventeenth century continental Europeans didn't have synthetics at their disposal when making perfume, so they relied on simple oils and distillations of raw materials for their compositions. Andy has plenty of synthetics at his disposal, yet chooses to work with naturals as much as humanly possible, the mark of someone who appreciates nature's many gifts. This is a flawless composition, a striking citrus/neroli explosion up front, followed by labdanum-fueled rose and cedar, with the requisite smattering of green herbs, and a hint of clove and cardamom for depth and warmth. It starts fresh and crisp and bright, and winds up with an oriental vibe in the drydown. It's very Chuck and Lyle. 

Normally I take Andy's perfumes very seriously, but I can't help but feel a twinge or two here. This one makes me grin. There is an unintentionally funny edge to the composition, due in no small part to its drydown. At first it feels very "conventional guy," the sort of citrus-heavy aftershavey familiarity found in the medicine cabinets of many American and European men. Its quality is several notches above aftershave, but ultimately this is straight-up citrus, which in 2014 is a no-frills feature. Nevertheless, the man who wears this type of Eau is usually a sane, dependable person that everyone likes having around.

Then it happens: CdM goes all lounge lizard on me. You wouldn't think notes as staid and traditional as rose and labdanum could join forces to become seventies raunch, but they do. There's a bit of Halston Z-14 in Cologne du Maghreb. It's a skunky, woody, sweaty feeling, loaded with imaginary pheromones and clueless cheer. When the cedar cuts in full-force, I begin to think of the movie Ishtar, which on the surface seems like bad news, I know. It's not though, because Ishtar is an underrated masterpiece of eighties comedy, with two bonafide Hollywood leading men delivering laugh after awkward laugh. Lyle Rogers and Chuck Clarke weren't losers. They were just cheesy. But their masculinity was the most virile kind, the stuff of blind chance takers, unwitting adventurers, nothing-to-lose optimists living without a prayer. Anything that channels Lyle and Chuck, intentionally or not, deserves a spot on my shelf.

Nature Boy (Garner James)

If the world were to end, we should look to the perfumers to rebuild our cultures from the ground up, because the good perfumers, at their very best, can capture the beauty and mystery of planet Earth using mere wisps of loving inspiration. Jim Gehr is one such perfumer, but his talent surpasses mundane explorations of notes and accords that typically smell "good" in a conventional sense, delving instead into more challenging territory. Nature Boy is evidence that niche perfumery can be every bit as complex, sophisticated, and memorable as the best examples of designer fragrances. It is infinitely more complex, more legible, and ultimately more rewarding than giants such as Yatagan, Polo, Fahrenheit, or any one of the greats from the seventies, eighties, and nineties. Jim has asked me to not treat him with kid gloves in these reviews, because he can take constructive criticism and run with it. I'm sorry, Jim. There's not a single useful critique that I could possibly muster about Nature Boy. Your perfume surpasses most of what I have smelled, niche and designer, well over four hundred perfumes and counting. Let me tell you and everyone else why.

There is a very distinct evolution that occurs from the time this perfume hits skin, to the furthest part of the far drydown. Before I describe it, let me just list some of the materials used here. Nature Boy's naturals include Mysore sandalwood EO, Mysore sandalwood SCO2, castoreum, Haitian vetiver, Patchouli dark (aged ten years), oakmoss absolute, jasmine absolute, Choya Loban (a pervasive frankincense note), lavender absolute, bergamot mint, and labdanum absolute. Its synthetics include Evernyl, Iso E (Timbersilk), Muscone, Coumarin, Ambroxan, and Celestolide. There are a few other materials, both natural and synthetic, but I should leave some mystery here and just highlight how inclusive Jim was in crafting this formula. Now people may read my gushing, then read this list and say, "Well okay, he has said in the past that he doesn't believe the IFRA restrictions on these materials significantly effect the quality of perfumes in a general sense, and yet here he says this perfume with all these wonderful materials that have been over-regulated by the IFRA surpasses pretty much everything else he's ever smelled. What gives?"

That's a fair observation, and a fair question. What gives is that Nature Boy is a product of near limitless skill. There is no innate desire to please the masses here with a big product for department stores across the world. There is no short-sighted attempt to emulate, to join in the esteemed ranks of names etched in ivory, like Edmond Roudnitska, or Pierre Bourdon. There isn't even an adherence to any basic fragrance structure, be it chypre, oriental, or fern. Nature Boy is a product of introspection, private expression, the need to be different, yet successful. It smells of money, in the very same league as Eau Sauvage and Green Irish Tweed, yet it begins with the skankiest muck note, an odor Xacto-knived from a North American forest immediately after heavy summer rains, loaded with bittersweet damp greens, rich tree barks, stones, mosses, animal shit, and hints of white flowers. Applied liberally, Nature Boy is intimidating, a bit of a green Kouros. Its castoreum is full-throttle, and the labdanum is quite deep and sweaty. Testosterone incarnate.

Ninety minutes later, and a minty floral note emerges from the mud. It is demure, very much present, yet soft and sweet, lightened by something remotely similar to eucalyptus. An hour after that, and there's the Choya Loban, resinous, an intense vegetal green with a spiced evergreen exhale. In conjunction with lavender, it takes on a mild lilac effect for a while, before it rounds out with woodier tones and becomes part of an immense, vetiver covered amber. This note continues to dominate for fifteen hours. Solid. Longevity is incredible, the throw is at least five feet from the wearer, and the wearer can expect to enjoy a weaving in and out of two accords: sticky green incense and mossy, sweaty sandalwood, with just enough herbal freshness from the lavender on one end, and natural labdanum on the other to make it balanced and coherent. No easy feat. You'd think it would smell like a failed test-tube perfume, overloaded with naturals and lacking the spine to make any of its soggy greens sing. Instead it reads as a rich, smooth, textured fragrance, very much a product of unfettered creativity and brilliant calculations. In making something this complex, how did the man know when he had it? How did he know where to stop? How did he recognize this result as the perfect green perfume?

There are of course aspects of the structure that resonate as being "familiar" and aren't necessarily superior to similar elements found elsewhere. For example, the combination of sandalwood materials creates a very lucid, smooth-as-ice wood accord, definitely the best type of sandalwood. Arden Sandalwood focuses on this accord and really makes it shine more prominently, while other fragrances like Cotton Club, Polo Crest, and Green Irish Tweed exemplify the best use of the note. What makes the wood in Jim's scent special is its blending. The moss notes are on the wood. You smell them on the wood. Then you smell the animal funk on the moss, on the wood. Then the sappy resinous raw greens poke up, wafting through air like a humid breeze, and there's just enough sticky pine needle and velvety amber to blow my mind.

You can wear this perfume on a walk with a friend or a loved one. You can wear it to a black tie event. You can wear it to work. Spray it at seven in the morning before you leave for work, then come home at five, walk into your bedroom and into a silvery cloud of residual jasmine sweetness, that ghostly flower that ties the bow on this animal. From the deepest dregs of the Earth, the elements of God and Devil toil in a struggle for their claim on eternity. Nature Boy reminds you of that. We are children of nature, and fragrances like this awaken a yearning to return to Earth and be free.

Dior Homme Cologne (2007, Dior)

Summer is so close that I can smell its farts already. The hot asphalt/ozone smell, which gets skunky when drifts of old sand from the winter heat up on it, and all the fetid, humid vegetal odors that waft from the woods are filling the air I breathe and promising another tedious three months ahead. I'm not a fan of summer, I must confess. It is my least favorite season. There are some perks to it, but I'll take spring and autumn, and even early winter any day of the week. My biggest pet peeve is the problem of wearing fragrance during this season. There are several excellent options, but to me they all pale in comparison to their winter counterparts. Many aromatic ferns smell heavy and congested on ninety degree days, so I avoid them. Orientals are generally a big no. Even chypres seem to crap out by lunchtime. What works? On the hottest days I bite the bullet and just spray colognes with abandon. Their citrus characteristics usually provide some lift, and whatever woodiness remains in their base can sometimes carry an extra hour or two.

Dior Homme Cologne is literally a cologne-like version of the original Dior Homme EDT, a fragrance I do not like. I simply do not understand the appeal of Dior Homme. It is much loved by many a man (haven't met many women who think much of it though), and the press trends positive. I think it's in the same league as Guerlain Derby, a category of "signature" masculines from old brand names that smell dull and stodgy, yet garner endless praise for being what they are - signatures from old brand names. 

It's not cool to dump on Guerlain and Dior. And I get the feeling that guys think it's cool to say that they like a perfume with a "lipstick accord," which is supposedly what makes Dior Homme notable. To me, the lipstick idea isn't well borne out in any perfume, simply because I don't think lipstick has much of a smell at all. DH has a weird, rubbery, makeup-like note in it, but it just resembles iris and synthetic labdanum to my nose. Nothing to get all Woody Allen-in-Manhattanny about.

Then there's François Demachy's 2007 "cologne" version, where he was surprisingly successful at buffing the boring out of the original formula, and replacing it with some old-school freshness. I believe a hint of cardamom (might be the "leather" note) and some extra neroli (likely the extended "citrus" note) are the notes to thank there. Where the original was somber and muted to a fault, the cologne idea translates as being complex but airy, possessing motion and intermittent transience along with longer-term strength and depth. There's a burliness to the Dior Homme engine, that odd mixture of iris, cacao, bone dry herbs, and woods, and every note is pristine and part of a coherent whole here. 

But is it worth seeking out and buying at whatever eyebrow-raising post-Dior price it's going for now? To me, not at all. Hybrid ideas seldom interest me, and fusing parts of a weird postmodern chypre to a relatively conventional citrus-cardamom cologne is predictably less captivating than either of those two parts would be on their own.

For a much better fragrance, I recommend trying Cologne du Maghreb by Andy Tauer. It smells like Heaven in a bottle, and you don't have to suffer past Dior's insufferable infatuation with slate grey synthetic iris notes to feel the sunshine. If I have to deal with summer, I'd rather skip mediocrity and only wear the best.