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Point du Jour by Serge Lutens (2024)
Cleanliness is an interesting proposition in perfumery – against the usual impression of removing in order to make clean, a ‘clean scent’ must add – this is its unique and paradoxical logic – and is the manner in which all fragrances must operate. Point du Jour by Serge Lutens is…
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Sotto La Luna Gardenia – Tauer Perfumes (2014)
In Sotto La Luna Gardenia by Tauer Perfumes, a bit of the literal is denied to make way for the phantasmal. The white floral heart of this fragrance forms a rhapsody of sensations. Here an earthy, musky, buttery, and vanilla-tinged gardenia note is sprinkled in moon dust, a cosmic glitter…
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Un Jardin à Cythère by Hermès (2023)
In this gardenscape, the leaves on these trees and plants and these grasses and grains neither flutter nor rustle, whilst cooling contrasting shadows are absent, and the sea is without its coastal waves. There is neglect for the wilderness that capably coexists within the Edenic. It is a scent without…
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Synthetic Jungle for Frederic Malle (2021)
Synthetic Jungle has the benefit of soft spokenness, of confident and crisp laconicism, at times smelling as if it has invented a new shade of green through techniques of careful composition and arrangement.
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Fragments (July 2021): Frederic Malle, Chanel, L’Occitane, Robert Piguet, Heeley
Une Rose by Frederic Malle (2003) ★★★★★There is a moment in Une Rose where it is like a smudge – like rubbing an unctuous paste of rose between the thumb and forefinger. It is decadent and rich, a sumptuous stain of fatal red that swirls into vertiginous darkness. Une Rose…
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Ekphrasis: Towards a Fragmentary Writing (June 2021)
I have had my transformation – if you could even call it that (in its proper sense). What has happened is a desire to write once again, but to write differently. To write in a way that I feel does justice to capturing not only the experience of perfume, but…
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The Lion in the Room: Le Lion by Chanel (2020)
The elephant lion in the room: Le Lion’s connection to Shalimar. As long as Shalimar (Guerlain, 1925) exists, and continues to be produced, there will be components of Le Lion that feel superfluous. But if I take this strict line of thought and extend it to its conclusion, many perfumes…
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The Postmodern ‘Oriental’: Fate Woman by Amouage & 1969 by Histoires de Parfums
Preamble For months now, I have wanted to weigh in on the latent discussion regarding the use of the world <Oriental> and all of its progenitors. However, such a discussion must begin with an admission of guilt, for I have used these terms far too easily, without any recognition of…
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Phtaloblue by Tauer Perfumes
The claims that I made on the Men’s Biz website bear repeating, and in fact, they are worthy of further elucidation: What’s apparent is two things: Tauer has made a stylistic shift, now reinventing classic genres (viz. Les Annees 25 Bis), and has spent his time perfecting the warm water…
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Oh, Binary! Gold Man by Amouage
Take this line by Susan Sontag as a starting point: “[w]hat is most beautiful in virile men is something feminine; what is most beautiful in feminine women is something masculine.” What does this mean, and why does it matter? I think there’s something of a Postmodern slick to this line,…
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Olfactics 