What Does a 280 Year-Old Book Smell Like?

One of my great passions is antiquing. I enjoy finding new shops and poking around forgotten treasures in search of that one thing that is actually worth something, and genuinely "antique" (100+ yrs old). 

Last Sunday I was at a massive indoor market in Bridgeport, and happened across a bookseller's stall, way in the back. It was manned by a middle-aged British woman but stocked by a guy who was likely enjoying his weekend on a yacht somewhere. I scanned the shelves quickly, my eyes programmed to find one thing: calfskin binding. They had a hit in under a minute, but it proved to be a nineteenth-century book, which is a big thumbs-down for me. Nineteenth century books, though real antiques, aren't old enough. I kept scanning, scanning, and ten seconds later, hit number two. This one was entirely calfskin, not just a partial with bare boards like its Victorian neighbor, and I knew as soon as I pulled it that I'd hit the jackpot. The Brit didn't know how to read Roman numerals (a little weird), and when she called the owner, he didn't know what she was talking about, and just threw a generic $100 price tag on it. Sold!

The book is an original Dublin edition of Jonathan Swift's letters to the people of Ireland, compiled by George Faulkner in 1742 (several letters in the book are separately dated as having been published a year earlier.) It contains his famous protest against William Wood's copper half-pence, penned under the pseudonym, M.B. Drapier. Faulkner was a friend of Swift's, and had several editions of his letters published over the course of the eighteenth century, but few are as ornate as mine, which is full of intricate wood cuts of bucolic scenes gracing the chapter pages. Although the title is worn off the spine, the condition of the binding and pages is otherwise flawless. Holding the book, it almost feels like it's brand new, which is bizarre, given its age. The only things suggestive of antiquity are the shape of its spine and the light scuffing of its leather. Someone told me it might have been recently rebound, but its front cover has a library stamp bearing the name and family crest of Jonathan Lovett, Esq., of Liscombe Park, Buckinghamshire. It was in his collection, and still bears his crest -- and he died in 1770!

Aside from its condition, the thing I love most about the book is its smell. Its calfskin cover is gamey and a little sweet, its note of barnyard mixed with something like dry leather, and its laid-paper pages are so musty that I catch whiffs without even opening them. Part them ever so slightly and rest your nose in the valley, and it's just heavenly old paper and woodblock ink, an aroma that I doubt could be replicated in a lab. The unique smell of an eighteenth century book is one that predates the Industrial Revolution, and conjures images of men in small shops with panel after panel of woodcuts, and with letters shuffling everywhere as they align text by hand. My 1792 edition of Hugh Blair's sermons, which was published in America (different spine and binding technique) looks its age, but smells equally good, save for the chemical leather glue the idiot that sold it to me used in a rushed patch-up job. These books smell of the sands of time, and it takes a seasoned nose to appreciate that. To many folks they probably just smell of mold.

My aspiration is to find a seventeenth or sixteenth century book for a reasonable price. Once you pass the 300 year point, it gets significantly harder to find quality. Most of the books that predate 1701 are in rough shape, with loose pages, loose and detached cover boards, and god knows what going on in their spines. Ebay is a surprisingly good place to look, with a few obvious counterfeits here and there, but also a significant number of real articles in varying states of decay. Schilb Antiquarian is another (much pricier) place to browse. If and when I get lucky, I'll keep you all informed.

Nicole Miller for Men (Nicole Miller)

There are a few versions of this fragrance floating around out there. That's the bad news. The good news is that people generally feel the same way about all of them. The funny news is that nobody feels any iteration of Nicole Miller for Men is any great shakes. 

My bottle is a four-ouncer I grabbed at Burlington for ten dollars, and at that price I don't expect much. Released in 1994, NMfM has been through at least five formulas, from the original (presumably under Miller's brand), to Riviera Concepts, to Parlux, to Luxury Brands, to the bottle I have by Sheralven Enterprises, distributed by Kobra International. Naturally everyone calls Sheralven's version junk, which would mean something if you ignore the reviews of the last thirteen years.

People have been complaining about this one as far back as 2009, claiming its longevity stinks and its notes collapse into a cheap blur. I think going back that far takes you to the Parlux formula, and complicating matters further, it was manufactured in both the USA and Canada. The USA version gets lambasted, while the Canadian stuff is praised. This all falls in line with expectations of how old (and relatively outdated) "vintage" masculines should be discussed in the wider fragcomm. 

Anyway, my bottle is brand new, and how does it smell? It's surprisingly good. I get a sharp burst of honeyed red apple in the top note, which quickly mellows into a highly-blended woody-amber, through which are bits of dry lavender and wood notes, vaguely similar to sandalwood and very stale pine. There's a hint of sweetness, which I guess is the vanilla note, but I get the familiar hay-like buzz of coumarin in there as well. 

It smells like a fruity "fougeriental," graced with a deceptively simple structure: a lucid apple note on top, a basic and very dry woody-amber with a subtle lavender anchor, and a musky/woody foundation. I get whiffs of a pleasant, woody-sweet base a couple hours after application, so I'm happy. It reminds me most of Cigarillo by Remy Latour, although that one is richer and noticeably better. Still, I've encountered pricier frags that are less agreeable than this.  

Nicole Miller's signature masculine was released at a time when trends for the men's market were shifting away from the eighties tradition of woody orientals, but it smells like a holdover from that era. Sniff it, and be instantly transported back to a decade when people still used rotary phones and lunched at Sbarro. 

Wildbloom Vert (Banana Republic)

Some "green" fragrances evoke another color, something like flamingo pink, or a cross between an equally flamboyant pink and chartreuse. Wildbloom Vert's packaging suggests the fragrance is a bitter-green wildflower affair, when in fact it's a very fruity shampoo floral with a couple of juicy, borderline gourmand notes, and a handful of soapy pink floral whatever-ness. Given this, you'd think I'd be pretty "meh" about it. Not so: I like it.

Wildbloom Vert is the second flanker of the original Wildbloom, and was released in 2012, a year after the debut. I haven't smelled the other Wildblooms, but assume they're all a variation on this pedestrian theme of artificial froot-flavor notes. This fragrance reminds me of Cabotine, almost as if that scent were updated, and is almost a pass, yet for some reason its crisp delicious red apple note and the whole rosy bushel of chemical nonsense under it wins me over. The sweetness of the apple, which is mated to a massive pear note, and with a bow of vaguely green sappy notes around them, just feels happy and approachable. It's by far the least impressive Banana Republic fragrance I've encountered, but it still hits the mark it aims for and smells comfortably familiar and forgettable.

That said, this is a feminine I'm not inclined to wear. If I want pink and grey floral tones, I can wear Peony & Peppercorn or Chelsea Flowers. Those are a bit more focused on the floral, and less so on the fruit. But consider this the perfect gift perfume, something so mainstream and attractive that few women would reject it, and most would probably enjoy it and seek out more bottles. There's plenty of room in the world for challenging frags, but likable fruity-florals like this one have their place, too.

Cool Water Sea Rose (Davidoff)

Davidoff is a quality brand with several masterpieces under its belt, many of which are on the masculine side of the aisle. Most of their feminine offerings are simply not as good. Cool Water Woman was a tepid fruity-floral that was amiable enough in 1996, but now smells a little cheap and flat. That it garnered many flankers is unsurprising, but Sea Rose (2013) is arguably the most banal of them all. 

It smells rather like the original CWW in the first minute, an overexposed and very shrill accord of sour citrus and super-synth pear, which is blended into the familiar "aqua" notes of Calone-like nineties molecules that no longer interest people. Think of any shampoo. It takes about five minutes for the off-notes to dissipate, and then the fruitiness resolves into something akin to rosy peony. Frankly, I find it a bit weak, dry, and nondescript, like a unisex sport fragrance. But heck, the pink packaging is as girly as it gets. 

At the eight hour mark the floral element vanishes, and all that remains is a laundry musk that leaves your shirt and skin smelling clean. So, yeah . . . boring. I can appreciate what Aurelien Guichard was going for here, and imagine his perfumery brief had a very limited budget. But Sea Rose is the olfactory equivalent of an airplane movie: mindlessly amusing, forgotten immediately upon landing.  

Metal Rain (Banana Republic)

Banana Republic will go down in history in ten or twenty years as being the last great designer perfume house, thanks to its Icon Collection. So far everything I've smelled from the line has been terrific. Metal Rain, an elusive fragrance retail-wise, is no exception. 

Many liken it to Silver Mountain Water, but it's closer to Millésime Imperial. Metal Rain reminds me of Club de Nuit Milestone. It uses Symrise's highly diffusive Ambrocenide, a sister chem to Ambermax, also comparable to Firmenich's potent and ambery Norlimbanol, and it emits a fruity-melon vibe paired with a woody-violet thing, like a "lite" version of GIT, only it's damper, darker, wetter. It's a kaleidoscope of muted pinks, purples, and greys on an overcast day. Its stark drydown makes me wonder if some perfumes are designed by men, for men, to appeal to men, and not appeal to women. Food for thought.

However, in keeping with the SMW tradition, much of the emphasis is on a tea and (pissy) currant accord which is deceptively difficult to do right, though Banana Republic manages it by using good materials. Where other clones get fixated on sweet berry, Metal Rain is more nuanced, and all the better for it. The nose behind it is a mystery, but whoever it was did a great job. Now, if only I could find Grassland . . . 

Palo Santo (Cremo)

In 2022 it has become clear that spending hundreds on niche fragrances is passé. It's not that the quality isn't there, because it is. It's that you can get close to the same level of quality at a fraction of the price, and the general public won't notice or care about the cost differences. If you poke around you can find a $25 EDT that closely resembles a $200 EDP, and is actually easier to use and more desirable for being so inexpensive. Such is the case with Palo Santo by Cremo, the brand's dupe of Le Labo's Santal 33.

With a brand like Cremo, which targets the men's drugstore shaving and grooming demographic, one expects a middle-ground standard to be met. Their stuff should smell good enough, but there isn't a high expectation that the grade will transcend your premium shampoo with its material quality or longevity. I'm not predisposed to liking anything Cremo has to offer; a few years ago I tried one of their shaving creams and found it to be the most obnoxious chemical goop I've ever had the displeasure of using. Not only did it do a poor job on skin, but it also clogged my sink. It was with trepidation that I tried Palo Santo, which is currently the only Cremo EDT on sale at my local Walgreens. I am pleasantly surprised by it, as it's a decidedly worthy "niche alternative."

Cremo was smart in making Palo Santo. Instead of resorting to a more mainstream precious wood like sandalwood or guaiac, they opted for the lesser known holt of the South American Bursera graveolens tree. It's harvested from naturally-felled branches, often used as incense and in witch doctor remedies, and smells like a cross between Australian sandalwood and most varieties of North American pine. It possesses a distinct lemony-piney quality, but also has an underlying smoothness. By centering the scent on this complex woodiness, Cremo was able to take two excellent halves and conjoin them into something genuinely pleasant and easy to wear. There's the crisp-woody astringency of papyrus, the brightness of lemon juice, and a surprisingly lucid traditional vetiver accord in the first minute of wear, reminiscent of Guerlain Vetiver. Very good indeed.

The vetiver hangs around for at least thirty minutes before opening up and becoming much more expansive, with accents of pine, sandalwood, and eventually palo santo wood, albeit in a hushed tone in concert with the rest. Eventually the fragrance adopts a creamy quality, and a subtle gardenia note is detectable in the far dry-down. Palo Santo smells surprisingly natural for something at this price point, and its vivid nature bears five hours before tapering off into a light skin scent (budget constraints were mercifully limited to concentration, not composition). Classy stuff, and perfect for summertime.

Qaa'ed (Lattafa)

The funny thing about frags from the UAE is that there's usually a Western connection to their more popular stuff. They seem fond of copying and spinning off successful designer fragrances from Europe and America, which makes it difficult to distinguish the quality offerings from the drone clone crowd. In the case of Qaa'ed, the dilemma is especially ironic: this is ostensibly a clone of a clone, a variant of Icon Absolute, which is a variant of Oud Wood. Fortunately I'm not familiar with either of those two, and can interpret Lattafa's scent through my own lens. (It's possible Lattafa merely copied Dunhill's packaging.)

Qaa'ed is one of the best gourmands I've ever smelled. This is a sweet spiced oriental, but it's extremely well made, and I can't find anything wrong with it. It's known for its heavy reliance on cardamom, and indeed there's a buttload of natural cardamom in the top and early drydown, but to me the prominent note right out of the gate is vanilla - thick, rich vanilla. Hovering over it are soft layers of cinnamon, saffron, and sandalwood, but I also get a clear frankincense note and Catholic church vibes, which tempers the sweetness and imbues Qaa'ed with a mystical feel. The blend of incense and charred vanilla creates an olfactory illusion of a strange fruity flavor, almost like nag champa bubblegum, an effect most noticeable in high heat. It would all be too much for me if it weren't so well composed. Note separation is pristine, yet everything coalesces into a silky-smooth and carefully balanced accord. It's skillfully done, there's no arguing that. 

Eventually, at around the four hour mark, the smoky candy shop vanilla with its edge of burnt caramel overtakes the spices, and the far drydown is an aromatic vanilla experience that feels timeless and exotic. Echoes of cardamom and incense hang in the background, reminders of the beauty that preceded this comfortable base. Everything about Qaa'ed is good, and the materials used are excellent. Where other spicy orientals lose clarity and muddle out, Lattafa's creation retains its dry beauty for the duration. Lattafa succeeded in making Qaa'ed about ageless elegance, no easy feat for any brand. This is a great all-season fragrance, and I look forward to trying more from this house in the future.

Fresh (Dunhill)

Can you believe I've been writing this blog for ten years now and have yet to review a single Dunhill fragrance? That review happens today, with Dunhill's Fresh. For whoever was waiting for it all this time, here it is. Be glad, because this is an interesting fragrance. 

There are many reviews written for Dunhill Fresh. Many of them address the same points, from various angles. This is Fahrenheit's kissing cousin, this is a "fresh" fragrance (truly shocking), this is a "green" fragrance (also shocking), this is an aquatic (not really), this is dull, safe, synthetic, etc. I agree there is a bit of Fahrenheit here - a good bit, actually. I like it a little more than Fahrenheit because there's a much lighter gasoline note, and it's less dense than Dior's composition. Yes, it's fresh. Yes, it's grassy-green with all that mint, sage, lavender, and coumarin. Yes, it's a bit familiar, and it's synthetic, because really, let's get crucial here, this is a derivative masculine.

To quibble a bit with the average assessment, I'd point out that Fahrenheit has a tightly-knit accord of honeysuckle and hawthorn, both of which add to the high-pitched petrol note that made it famous. Fresh shares only the honeysuckle, and eases out on the throttle, leaving no exhaust behind. It also shares something in common with Creed's original Silver Mountain Water. While one can wax poetic for hours on the myriad possible notes in the base of Dunhill's scent, I think it prudent to note that the woody violets that own the dry-down are the same or similar to the aroma chemical that smells of printer ink in SMW. Kinda has a glossy magazine paper vibe. Its far dry-down yields something akin to a blend of Cashmeran and Iso E Super, with maybe a hint of Ambroxan in there as well. A smooth and slightly buzzy woody smell that is far nicer than I expected in a cheapie like this.

But the review that I agree with most is by basenotes member chet31:

"I get a bit of a barbershop vibe from this, this scent would not have been out of place with one of my Dad's old aftershaves. There is a bit of Bengay to it on dry-down, but I don't find it objectionable. I don't hate it, don't love it, a sideways thumb seems fair. 

I agree with this assessment almost to the letter, although I admit I haven't used Bengay in years and wouldn't know its smell if it slapped me. Despite the similarity to Fahrenheit, Dunhill Fresh smells like a very good minty-green aftershave with an intensely watery violet leaf base. It's like a failed flanker of Fahrenheit, like if Dior had reinterpreted the acetylenic esters aspect into an Aqua Velva top, upheld by an oddly murky green-woody foundation. This inhabits an alternate universe in which Fahrenheit is what men splash on after morning sessions with their Gillette Techs. 

Still, it leaves me wondering what they were aiming for, because obviously it wasn't the barbers chair. When you name a scent "Fresh," it leaves little to the imagination, except the word on the box seems tinged with irony. Actually, I'm wondering what the brand is aiming for in general. The main reason I haven't gotten into Dunhill is that its eclectic selection and spotty reputation make it difficult to know which fragrance represents the house. Is it the retro-mod ambery 51.3N? Is it the apple cognac of Custom? The more obviously barbershop Dunhill 2003? The dusky woods of Dunhill Pursuit? The fruited tobacco-vanilla of Desire? 

These fragrances have ambition, but never quite reach any of their goals due to Dunhill's tight-fisted accountants. I like to joke that a Dunhill frag costs the same as a pack of Dunhills. There are tons of favorable reviews for their masculines, but I've done enough reading to notice that a sizable percentage of reviewers find ample use for adjectives like "cheap" and "safe." Dunhill Fresh does little to cut against that, but hey, it smells good enough for regular wear, isn't unforgivably cheap (quality of materials is fair), and is modeled after an institutional masterpiece by an upscale designer. Maybe I should leave the hypotheticals for another day, and just stick to this one: got a light? 

Black Pepper & Lime (St James of London)

I guess I haven't learned my lesson, because I'm back to review another British fragrance. For those of you who are new here, I wear it pretty visibly on my sleeve: I generally dislike English perfumery. Their stuffy and excessively dandified style is anticlimactic. There's no passion, no romance, no danger. They like their starched citrus and spice colognes, those Brits, and God Save the Queen. Their dull-as-dishwater citrus and spice goes well with their bubble and squeak, and it's gone by the last bite.  

St James of London is a midcentury barbershop house that was recently revived when someone bought it and retooled its range for twenty-first century sensibilities. There's the requisite nod to environmentalism; every fragrance is alcohol-free. There's the spiffy packaging, all blocky color fields and clean lines, with regal fonts on embossed boxes, as safe and "classy" as it gets. And there's the fragrance names, which simply tell the buyer what they will smell like. St James has opted for the "natural" approach, boasting of aromatic oils and earthy blends. So Black Pepper & Lime should be, by their metrics, a simple pairing of the two notes, with both smelling as realistic as possible. 

I expected the composition to be pepper-forward in the top notes, with the spice easing back after a few minutes to reveal a woody lime. I hoped the lime would hum along for an hour or two before fading into a woody (zesty?) musk. Maybe it would get powdery, or maybe it would just disappear completely. To my surprise, the polarities are reversed; BP&L begins with a blast of lime, very bright and acidic, and that lime note is all there is for a while. Great, except it doesn't really smell like lime. It smells lime-like, yet there's an unnecessary and nondescript sweetness undergirding it. This scent is supposed to be barbershop, yet manages a very non-barbershop lime. Strange choice.  

Just when I'm beginning to think the carrier oils are the source of the sweetness, the fragrance reveals its true nature to be that of a generic woody amber. The citrus fades off and the black pepper appears, smelling better than the first act did. Fair enough, but the amber gets stronger when the pepper fades, and after an hour I'm left with a very cologney-baloney and contemptible blah. The smell of Mr. Blue Jeans. Of a mall island with a half-asleep Pakistani guy reading a newspaper. Of a fraternity open house at three in the afternoon. I can achieve this effect by blindly grabbing any random discount masculine off one of the lower shelves. I don't need to spend forty dollars on it. 

Elie Tahari Eau de Parfum (Elie Tahari)

Occasionally I happen across an inexpensive fragrance that is as good as any luxury perfume, and it raises the question, how? As in, how can something that costs less than twenty dollars square off with a two hundred dollar scent? What happened in the marketing maelstrom that sent this piece of gold to the bottom? How does a forty-five year-old brand succeed in every way except in capturing the intended audience? Or was the target demographic really everybody and anybody? 

I'll never know. What I smell is a well-conceived tea floral that is better than Creed's Asian Green Tea and a far better bang-for-buck than Tommy Girl, with materials and accords that are on par with Acqua di Biella's Ca' Luna, Goutal's Duel, Lauder's Beyond Paradise, and altogether reminiscent of Biehl Parfumkuntswerke's criminally forgotten pc01. When I think of "tea floral perfumes," I think of the diversity in the world of tea. There are so many different teas that one is hard-pressed to fully understand how much this genre encompasses. It's made a bit easier by the simple fact that market testing has its upsides, and most companies know that people are unlikely to recognize anything that isn't a blatant spice monster chai, a delicate gunpowder green, a citrusy Earl Grey, a smoky oolong, or your run-of-the-mill orange pekoe brown leaf. Fully two-thirds of tea fragrances aim for bagged Lipton, and Elie Tahari opted for 3-5 minute green. No surprises there. 

What is surprising is the synergism the fruity-floral notes share with the tea. Take pear, a note that is a mere click away from apple in most frags, yet in Elie Tahari's scent smells of Doyenné du Comice, that prince of pears. With the delicate papery greenness of tea, the two notes adopt a warmth inherent to neither on their own. Their magic is carried on a saccharine breeze of magnolia blooms, peony blossoms, a whisper of violet (not obvious), and a musk drydown like picnic satin covering green grasses underfoot. Everything is separable, yet when I relax my breathing it all coheres into a lovely bouquet that radiates without feeling loud or synthetic. Reader, you don't know what you're missing.

3 AM (Sean John)

There are some notes in perfumery that are inextricably associated with specific time periods, and fig is forever linked to the nineties. It's difficult for me to smell fig in fragrance without thinking of Tyra Banks, Honda Preludes, Jewel songs, and late night reruns of The X-Files. The familiar smell of woody sweetness just takes me there. 

Ilias Ermenidis, the nose for Givenchy's long-discontinued Greenergy, Halston Catalyst, and Tommy Bahama Very Cool for Men, was tasked with a fig brief that would consciously sidestep the nineties and embrace the current age, and in this regard I think he succeeded. Where something like Ferragamo pour Homme laces a sweet fig note into burled woods, the same accord in 3 AM is treated with the deft light-handedness of an effervescent classical citrus cologne. Where Dune pour Homme aimed for the artistry of Postmodern installation, 3 AM aims for the spartan architecture of Greek revivalism. Where Good Life strove for cushy clouds of sweetness, 3 AM aims for minimalist spice. Any recollection of the pre-9/11 world has been carefully sanded down and interrupted by a newer 2015 angle that is itself rather retro and pre-Covid at this point. 

3 AM's reputation precedes it; I've been reading that this is a surprisingly good fragrance, and was inclined to find a smaller bottle for a blind-buy. I concur with the accolades - this is a good fragrance. Its fizzy top accord of synthetic petitgrain, geranium, bergamot zest, fig leaf, coriander, and pink pepper is green and kinetic and pleasing to wear. An interesting feature of this fragrance is that it doesn't really change, but rather it transitions in intensity and segues into a more relaxed chord of cardamom, fig leaf, fig fruit, geranium, petitgrain, and soft woody musk. The only "top note" is the pink pepper, which scales back drastically after the first few minutes, leaving all the other players intact and fairly linear. Two hours in, and the echo of fig, petitgrain, geranium, and musk remain, humming softly (i.e., weakly) from skin, and perhaps a bit more noticeably from fabric. It behaves like an after-shower summer scent, a "modern" cologne composition that isn't meant to extend through a workday or compete in a nightclub. Its gentle unisex nature is welcoming and cheerful. There's nothing to hate here. Its light earthiness even makes it a worthy alternative to your typical minty aftershave, and lends it a barbershop quality. 

Don't expect 3 AM to be a longevity monster or sillage beast, as it would take half the bottle to wring any more than four hours out of it, but if you're fine with a sheer reinterpretation of 18th century woody-citrus splashes, it fits the bill. Also, don't expect a blatant citrus "freshie" here. The bergamot is dry, pithy, and outweighed by other green notes, so the tedious convention of the usual citrus is absent. In fact, I find the pink pepper is "juicier" in nature than the actual fruits. The whole thing smells reasonably natural, doesn't "fuzz out" and lose balance, and is sure to be a crowd pleaser. Women love stuff like this, for better or worse. Last point: 3 AM has the best atomizer in the business, one that behaves like the gas cans of the fifties. A little weird, but I'm not complaining!