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Jasmine and Pine

Image from page 100 of "The Illustrated annual register of rural affairs and cultivator almanac for the year .." (1855)

Another gem from the stash of decants I received from Joanna is vintage Devin cologne by Bernard Chant for Aramis (1978). It was a FiFi Award winner that year, which was well deserved. I've never even heard of it, and wasn't really drawn to even trying it before I got on this roll of trying out masculine scents. But when I finally did, I was in for a most pleasurable ride, and a long-lasting at that as well.

Devin is that fabulous meeting point between resinous and green. It may seem familiar to us residents of the 21st Century; but back in the day when green icy florals and soapy Chypres reigned supreme (No. 19, Ivoire, Private Collection) this must have been an original.

Whenever I got out of the rustic village and visited my grandparents in their modern Tel Aviv apartment, I would be treated with the most luxurious bath in my grandmother's best tradition: foam bath in her blue bathtub. Into the warm running water (ours had to be boiled stove-top in a kettle!) into which my grandmother would drizzle generous amount of an acid-green fragrant liquid from an emerald-coloured plastic bottle to create rich lather the consistency of meringue. I would build mountains of this cream on top of my head and pretend to lick it off like ice cream. Naturally, it smelled of pine needles in the most heavenly way. And that fresh-yet-sweet, resinous scent is what the opening of Devin smells like to me.

Its body reveals sweet galbanum resin, which while still green smells unquestionably sweet, and more like a confection than something you would put in your salad (FYI: galbanum oil smells like parsley on steroids), and there is pine-y yet balsamic frankincense that extends the evergreen notes and melds them seamlessly into the obvious undercurrent of amber that's flowing underneath. If you pay close attention you'll also notice there is quite a bit of jasmine hidden in the heart, harmonizing these seemingly unrelated elements of evergreen forest and frankincense and sticky amber. Later on, spicy notes of cinnamon and cloves emerge as well, but they are not obvious at all - they just add warmth, and also an aldehydic lift to the composition. They are rather light in both dosage and character.

While the sweetness places Devin in a rather feminine territory of amber orientals, there are also other elements that make it also masculine, besides the lovely pine. There is a dry leathery base note, hint of dry, acrid oakmoss, dry cedarwood and phenolic herbs (thyme, artemisia). Compare that with Obsession though (armoise, tagetes), and you'll notice that the two are alarmingly similar not just in smell but also in their notes. The ending note is a smooth, natural vanilla-amber, a surprise for a masculine, and even more so surprising is how un-boring it is. Ambers can easily become flat and redundant. But when true vanilla absolute is used, and some contrasting elements such as dark patchouli (even if in the tiniest amount), this can't be farther from the truth.

Devin is one of those rare things: a masculine fragrance with absolutely nothing about it I do not like.   With so many of them there is a phase I wish I could fast-forward through or skip altogether (the top notes in Polo green, for example, are a bit much and I wish I could lower the volume a bit until the dry down begins to kick in). Each phase in its progression is delectable, yet calling it a crowd pleaser would do it injustice. It's unique and to me seems ahead of its time, a precursor for Obsession (1985) and predicting modern, unusual fragrances that choose to treat the note of galbanum as a rich, incensy or even foody manner rather than the bracing cut-grass and soap that Yohji (1996) and Incensi by Lorenzo Villoresi (1997). Serge Lutens' much later Fille en Aiguilles (2009) has a similar structure, only here galbanum resin is replaced by the jam-like, resinous-sweet fir absolute.

Top notes: Bergamot, Pine, Artemisia, Lemon
Heart notes: Jasmine, Carnation, Thyme, Cinnamon
Base notes: Galbanum Resin, Frankincense, Amber, Leather, Cedarwood, Patchouli 


Orange Skin

Orange Desert

Cuir d'Oranger by Miller Harris intrigued me greatly the moment I sampled it at the flagship boutique in London. The memory of it haunted me until I was able to procure a decant some years ago. And it is much later that I got around to really sit with it and experience its personality uninterrupted. In retrospect, I realized that it is really its similarity to Feuilles de Tabac that intrigued me in the first place. But Cuir d'Oranger is nowhere near as complex and fascinating. I also misread the name as "Cuir d'Orange" (without the "r" in the end), which would mean leather and orange, rather than bitter orange tree and leather. So unlike others, I was not at all disappointed that it smelled like leather rubbed with orange skin.

The opening is that of dried, cured tobacco leaves soaked in aldehydic orange oil. There is only a blink of green from petitgrain (the leaves of the bitter orange tree), and then you notice the violet and cedar character of ionones diffusing warmth in the middle and softening the appearance of jasmine, which juxtaposed with patchouli could have come across as a hippie concoction from the 70s, but in reality is so subdued and is just there to create more body and bridge between the dry, woodsy tobacco theme in the base and the oily, waxy aldehydic top notes. At the base the dried tobacco leaf note is amplified with patchouli and vetiver notes and only the merest hint of tonka bean or coumarin, to offset the tobacco flavour and give it a more palatable taste.

All in all, Cuir d'Oranger is the more sophisticated younger sister of English Leather: less soapy, less coumarin-y, and with more accent on the orange zest rather than its leaves. The orange in question is a sweet orange at its most waxy, oily, aldehydic self, paired with a super dry tobacco and woods base, and a subtle floral softness in the heart. The orange blossom is only a suggestion, while the violetty notes of ionones creates a statement that is delicately forceful but definitely powdery, green like tomato leaves and clary sage, and along with the vetiver and patchouli alludes to the tobacco leaf as it changes colours from green to brown.

Top notes: Aldehydes C8 (Octanal) and C10 (Decanal), Sweet Orange 
Heart notes: Orange Blossom, Jasmine, Orris Butter, Ionones
Base notes: Tobacco Leaf, Patchouli, Vetiver 

Other reviews of interest:
The Perfume Critic

Equipage (Vintage)

Leather Pleasure

Crackle of a whip, oiled saddles, shiny boots being broken-in on horse manure and cedar wood chips. Few smells bring so many other images, sounds and textures to mind as leather scents do. And Equipage got all of these plus its own refined, aristocratic touch of carnation and tobacco.

In this genre, Equipage is more tobacco than leather, with a sweet-spicy opening of nutmeg and allspice, a voluptuous carnation body that makes it equally dandy-esque and gypsy dancer. Images of a carnation tucked into a waistcoat pocket conjured simultaneously with Carmen rolling up clove cigarettes in her wide skirts. And once she sells the cigars, we're back to gentlemen territory where everything is polished, woodsy and unfloral. The carnation clears room for vetiver to shine as the heart note in this fragrance for a rather prolonged period of time.

Equipage in its vintage formulation (a generous decant I received from Joanna, one of the very few perfumista in my neighbourhood) is both silken and acrid, sweet and dry/phenolic, and brings to mind both pipe tobacco and a horse-stable tack-room. Although I've seen many other notes listed in literature on this fragrance (such as bergamot and rosewood and perhaps some other herbs) I'm not really feeling them in this particular specimen. Perhaps they have dissipated or they are so well blended that they are barely noticeable.

The dry down is that of cured tobacco leaf and only the slightest hint of carbonileum gives it a phenolic underscore. Equipage is elegantly dry, warmly sensual and musky with well-aged patchouli, and naturally sweetened with tonka bean. The latter gives it a finishing touch of rolled-leaf cigar that has been extinguished and left for later enjoyment - and forgotten. That should be long enough so that the acrid ashtray notes have dissipated completely, as you'll fortunately find non of these in Equipage... The perfumer is Guy Robert, who is also responsible for the masculine beauty of Monsieur Rochas and Gucci pour Homme.

Top notes: Nutmeg, Allspice
Heart notes: Carnation, Vetiver
Base notes: Tobacco Leaf, Isobutyl Quinoline, Patchouli, Tonka Bean 

Other reviews of Equipage - both contemporary and vintage:
Perfume Shrine
The Non Blonde
Bois de Jasmin
Now Smell This
Basenotes (members reviews)
Basenotes (discussion about vintage vs current formulation)


Bolt of Lightning

Highway 52 Storm Cell - Two and a Half Minutes Lightning Strikes

JAR's so-called Bolt of Lightning* begins with a shower of contemporary fruit: that clean burst of freshness you get when you shampoo your hair with some kind or another of trendy fruit – Pomegranate? Papaya? Osmanthus? And there is also a green aspect, making the beginning smell like a more sophisticated rendition of the trendsetter (and mother of them all fruity-floral shampoos) - Calyx.


Underlining this is a murmur of tuberose, coy by comparison to the grand dames such as Carnal Flower or Fracas; but very true to form if you’ve ever smelled the true absolute: It’s got that green, mushroomy undercurrent that is a little powdery and understated yet so creamy and addictive. In addition to that - narcissus absolute, which seems to be the theme for me this year.

From there, the third stanza is that of dry woods and musks with a hint of moss.

Like the other JAR perfume I’ve experienced (Ferme tes Yeaux) it’s very dense, richly composed, and the overall direction is a bit unclear which makes it mysterious and difficult to decipher. Its apparent there is a high percentage of naturals in there. Which makes me think I should charge a lot more for, say, Treazon, which is 34% tuberose absolute… But then, I'm not an ornate jewelry designer from Paris, and my bottles are not etched with the pattern of lightning flash.

* My understanding is that this is not the name of the perfume, but rather the eponymous fragrance of the brand. In my opinion there is nothing lightning-like about it, and the only reason I used an image of lightning for this review is because I could not find photos of the bottle that were not copyrighted.


Old Spice

Old Spice.

My grandpa died on my 13th birthday. I was too young to understand that it was going to happen, even though he was sick for about a year prior to that. He was in his early 60s, and much too young to leave us. And even though I still feel that I know him too little, there are certain things that make me feel like I know him quite intimately. There are certain things that no matter how adults try to hide, little children notice and are able to interpret later when they grow up enough to understand what was said, or what was exchanged in glances between overprotective parents or secretive relatives. Old Spice to me is one such key to reach out to these memories and reconnect with his never-dying spirit. 

Old Spice was launched when my grandfather himself was 13 years old. Maybe he worn it for his Bar Mitzvah, though I highly doubt it: life in Israel/Palestine under British Occupation was very frugal.  My grandmother told me that back in those days, his family had only two sets of clothes - weekday work clothes, which were washed and hang to dry every night, and another white shirt of Shabbat. That's it. 

Two years later, when my grandfather was a mere 15 year old boy, World War II erupted. Assisted by his sister, the eldest in the family of boys (like myself) he forged his age to 16 so that he can join the British Army and fight the Nazis and their allies, mostly in Italy. In 1944, he joined the Jewish Brigade and continued fighting Mussolini's fascist army all the while also saving Jewish survivors and refugees who escaped the Nazis, and helped smuggle them to Israel/Palestine and other safe lands.  

Old Spice.

I doubt that there was a spare moment for dousing oneself with Old Spice in those days of war, and my grandma's recollection also does not include Old Spice until after they married. So perhaps the saying is true - and if it wasn't for Old Spice, my aunt and my mother would have never been born, and neither would me and the rest of my brothers and cousins. SmellyBlog would have never existed, along with many other things - some good ones and some not so great.  It's really hard to tell without entering a time machine, isn't it? 

But what I do know for sure is that if it wasn't for my grandfather, I would know nothing of Old Spice, or men at all. I remember his bottle of Old Spice aftershave standing in my grandparents' bathroom. I was puzzled by the ship and sails on the bottles, and what does it have to do with spice, anyway? I was just as intrigued by it as I was by my grandmother's flacon of Shalimar, whose faceted blue stopper I would look through at the now-distorted blue world... To a girl who lived in a wild village with a stepfather that looked like Blackbeard himself, and a mom who never bothered to shave her legs or armpits or anything (not that she needs to, really) - the ritual of shaving was truly an exotic thing. 

I would wonder what is that bottle made of (its opaque shiny white glass looked like porcelain to me); how to open that bottle, and years later, when I finally did - I found the scent surprisingly familiar and comforting. It reminded me of traveling to London with my grandparents and visiting ancient ships and museums. It reminded me of sharing a hotel room with them that looked just as the hotel in Charade looks like, and marvelling at how late the light is still out in the summertime. Just as it is now as I type this in another Northern city - in Canada. 

My grandpa always made a point of shaving every time before he visited us, or if we came for a visit. He was travelling a lot, and must have been deeply hurt when as a little toddler I would recoil from his face if he had as much as a day-old stubble.  For a little child this feels quite unbearably rough. He was such a considerate person that he kept this habit even though I grew up and overcame this sensitivity (to some extent...). And he continued to shave for me every time I was allowed to visit him  in the hospital, in that agonizing, tragic year in which he was fighting pancreatic cancer and I was watching my baby brother who is ten years my junior in Tel Aviv all summer. 

Years later, that very brother, who my grandmother says looks so much like my grandfather did  in his youth, inherited the Old Spice bottle from the oldest brother, who inherited it from our grandfather. My little bother was the only one who really adopted that fragrance as his own. And when he ran out, he found more in Canada when he was living with me. He was 21 years at the time, and had worn it deliberately and enthusiastically in every form available – eau de toilette, after shave, body spray, deodorant, soap, you name it. It made the whole house smell like Old Spice and when he went through the whole ritual so to speak we were both sedated by all the clove and allspice in there. 

As I write this, I occasionally sniff my wrists, which are carefully doused with Old Spice's newest packaging (which you can see in the photos). It is no longer a splash bottle, but a spray of the cheapest kind. But I still like it. The writing is all in red, and so is the boat - which is much smaller. But the bottle still manages to stay true to its opaque white design - but not it is most certainly plastic of a creamy white rather than the bluish-grey milky white of yore.  

The scent is heavy yet heavenly. Familiar yet fantastic. Comforting yet seductive. What first comes to nose is cloves and allspice. So no wonder why it's called "Old Spice", right? Mystery solved! It's also sweet and carnation-like. A true spicy-oriental of the grand type. Yet there is also something very uncomplicated about it, which makes it so wearable and delicious. For a scent so inherently associated with barbershop and masculinity, it's a bit surprising how much bouquet there is in there. Although it's hardly what I would call "floral" - there is an unmistakable rose, jasmine and carnation at the heart, which really rounds it off. It's also surprising how sweet the base is, complete with vanillin and heliotropin. Really not what we've learned to consider "masculine" in our day and age. Drugstore fragrance or not - some things are simply priceless. The smell of my grandfather is one of them.

Top notes: Orange, Lemon
Hear notes: Carnation, Geranium, Jasmine, Rose, Cinnamon, Cloves, Allspice
Base notes: Coumarin, Vanilla, Heliotropin, Musk
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