Aramis Devin: Another Country

I've always loved Devin, but it's so close to Aliage, and the lasting power is so inferior to its older sister, that I've opted out of buying it. Now that Aramis has re-released many of its forgotten classics, some of which were discontinued, I've revisited, and I see my error. If you told me one of my favorite movies was being remade, I imagine I wouldn't be that interested. If you told me the director was making a sequel on the same themes with some of the same actors, I'd pre-order my ticket.

I don't know that Bernard Chant, the nose behind Devin, had anything to do with Aliage. I assume he did, though I've seen Francis Camail listed as the Perfumer. I don't contest that, though the earliest credit I can find for Camail is Eau d'Hadrien (with Annick Goutal). That was in 1981. An Estee Lauder fragrance, Aliage came out in 1972. It certainly bears the woody-herbaceous imprint of Chant, but so does Aramis 900, and I don't know that he did that either.

Devin (1977) was the second fragrance release from Aramis, an Estee Lauder offshoot devoted to male grooming products. Chant inaugurated the Aramis line, in 1966, with Aramis Cologne. Aramis was Chant's Cabochard, her cheeks slapped with citrus aftershave. Aramis and Estee Lauder fragrances are curious in their approach to gender. Azuree, released about five years after Aramis, is its androgynous counterpart. It's as if the man who was Aramis, after dressing in female drag, then put a suit on top of his gown. Aramis 900 is strikingly similar to Aromatics Elixir, a fragrance Chant orchestrated for Clinique. JHL (1982) puts big boy pants on Youth Dew and Cinnabar, classic Lauder feminines, monogramming them with Mr. Lauder's initials.

Aliage was somewhat butch to begin with. It was promoted as a Sport Fragrance, though I'm hard-pressed to come up with a sport women were playing back in 72 which might have lent itself to such a powerful onslaught of resins, woods, camphor and jasmine, a combined effect nearly nuclear in strength. The chrome and glass bottle, with its seventies type, recalls the indoor tennis courts of my youth: curvy modular surfaces, corrugated metals and amber glass.

I picture women in short tennis skirts, hair fixed to their foreheads by sweat, but the ad for Aliage shows a fancy lady perched on the back of an open station wagon, holding what appears to be a polo stick. She's dressed in a herringbone pantsuit, a tweed overcoat slung over her shoulders. Her shirt looks like something a man would wear. I'm not sure a man would fancy her beret, but its jaunty angle doesn't exactly broadcast the girl next door, or anywhere nearby. The look is finished off with leather gloves and ankle boots. A flannel blanket hangs over the tailgate, on top of which: a picnic basket, phallic bread loaf and wine bottle poking out the top. Because ads of this sort are market tested to within an inch of their lives, I take it no room was left for accident here. The message seems to be very much about women's lib and a spirit of emancipation which begins with a mindset and extends into lifestyle.

Interesting that Devin should take such a different approach. While its advertising campaign mirrored that of Aliage in key ways (the outdoors, fresh air, green backdrop) it was practically unconscious by comparison. It was billed as a "country cologne: a rich, sophisticated fragrance that captures the relaxed, unhurried attitude of the country life." I'm not exactly sure what the country life looks like, but Devin seemed determined to articulate it. I've tracked down three adverts for Devin. All show a scruffy male in a decidedly contemplative mood. The setting might best be described as elbow-patch rural. Surrounded by trees, open country roads, and grassy fields, the model seems to be far away (mentally and physically) from the sporting life. Taken together, Devin and Aliage indicate a pretty blatant reversal of roles. While women navigate the playing field, men go out to pasture.

Aliage never loses its bluster. It's a wind that never stops blowing. In effect, it remains active, whereas Devin is passive. Aldehydes make the top notes (orange, artemisia, lavender, bergamot, galbanum, and lemon) shimmer like sunlight through overhanging tree branches. But Devin isn't bright like Aliage, which remains piquant. The middle notes are dense and moody: carnation, cinnamon, jasmine, caraway and pine tree needles. Compare this to the middle notes of Aliage: pine tree, jasmine, caraway, Brazilian rosewood. In Devin, the mixture feels velvety, the lambswool collar of a knit sweater rubbing against your face. The effect is partly cloudy, and none of the ads depicts a sunny setting. Carnation and cinnamon add a spicy, simmering quality. Someone's cooking in the kitchen, somewhere in the distance, but it isn't a woman.

The dry down of Devin is mellower still. The basenotes read like a litany of library aromas: labdanum, leather, amber, patchouli, musk, oakmoss, cedar. Aliage subtracts the leathers and languor, livening things up with vetiver and myrrh. Devin doesn't really remind me of the outdoors, whatever the intent. I see a domestic, if equally solitary, scene; a dark glass of tawny port, leather arm chairs, heavy drapes, vintage books, wood paneled walls, a burgundy Persian rug. It isn't entirely insular. The window provides a view, and is cracked, but only just so. Looks like it might rain. The woman of the house is out there with her polo stick, oblivious to the forecast.

Issey Miyake, A Scent

Several weeks ago, when I was at Saks, I saw a pretty husky guy look up, down, and all around nervously before spraying on A Scent. It was the first I'd heard of the fragrance, so when he asked me whether it was for men or women, I really didn't know what to say, though I generally don't know how to answer that question anyway. Before I had a chance to, he'd covered himself in a cloud of the stuff, so maybe the question was a formality.

I've never been a huge Issey Miyake fan. I like Intense for Men okay. It's good for a kick, though I suspect I'd never wear it. I like F'eau Dissey but can't seem to figure out when to wear it and always want it to last longer or go somewhere else at some point. L'eau d'Issey for women is an interesting calone fragrance, with that salt-water effect Escape by Calvin Klein has. L'eau Bleue is probably the most interesting to me, a sleeper from Jacques Cavallier, part herbal, part coniferous, a little doughy.

I wasn't expecting much from A Scent, so I was very surprised. I'd received a sample of Estee Lauder's Jasmine White Moss, which it resembles, shortly before smelling it. I couldn't picture myself buying Jasmine White Moss--too soft, maybe, or too refined---whereas I was at the cash register with A Scent before I knew what I was doing.

As you might have read elsewhere, A Scent recalls green fragrances past, particularly, to my nose, those which feature galbanum prominently. I smell a history of green in there, with stops at Aliage, Balmain's Ivoire, Chanel No. 19, Givenchy III, and Jean-Louis Scherrer. A Scent is much softer than Aliage, overlaying its punch of galbanum with a significant whiff of jasmine. Brighter and fresher than Jasmine White Moss, it also lasts longer. It has a citrus aspect to it that never really goes away, and somehow feels stronger rather than weaker as it wears. It also gets deeper, and richer.

It was created by Daphne Bugey, the nose behind Kenzo Amour, the DSquared fragrances, and the more recent Kenzo Amour Florale, all of which are equally persistent and weirdly more pronounced later than they at first seem they will be. Amour is one of those scents that seems to have gone away, until it wafts up again. I wouldn't say it's a skin scent. I'm starting to notice bedrock similarities in Bugey's work, relationships which intrigue me, making me wonder at her artistry.

I like A Scent a lot. It has a happy but intelligent feel to it, and if the same guy asked me who it was meant for all over again, I would say the masses.

Will the Real NORELL Please Stand Up?

When I was a kid, Norell was the kind of perfume I expected to see out on my grandmother's dresser, displayed on a gold and glass tray. I wonder what it was about the bottle, or the perfume, that made it seem so formal, made it such an exhibition piece. I remember it being incredibly rich, with smoky galbanum notes and a luxuriant complex of spiced musks, placing it alongside other old time heavies like Dioressence, Miss Dior, Youth Dew, Aliage, and Arpege. I couldn't imagine anyone wearing it without a dinner date or a gala to attend.

Now that I know what was in Norell--in it back then, at least--that doesn't seem like such odd company to have kept. At the time, I knew nothing about galbanum, and really didn't identify it as a green, coniferous note with mentholated overtones. Instead it made perfumes like Miss Dior and Aliage seem impossibly heady to me. Youth Dew was heady too (and made, or so some say, by Josephine Catapano, the same nose who created Norell and Laroche's Fidji). Youth Dew and Norell share a balsamic density which made them seem interchangeable in some way, a dignified secret passed from one bottle to the next. They were the kind of perfumes old women wore to create a line of defense against a younger generation's lack of manners, good breeding, and class distinctions.

Over the past several weeks I've tried various reformulations and concentrations of Norell, all of which, though fairly different in many respects, open on a strong gust of galbanum. Where they differ most is in the dry down. The latest reformulation ($5.99 an ounce at Perfumania) opens with sharp galbanum, radiates quite nicely, then promptly collapses into a muddled, if persistent, amber. Given how low much higher and mightier ilk have stooped during the past decade, fudging around with their formulas and their ingredients, it's a wonder a drugstore standby like Norell hasn't descended altogether into hopeless mediocrity. Just don't go comparing it to the original. Lucky for you, that would be hard to do, as the original is hard to come by, and after so many versions, who would recognize it?

The fragrance was released in 1968 by Norman Norell (he dressed Lady Bird Johnson, Babe Paley, Lauren Bacall, the socialite Hope Hampton and Dinah Shore, among others) and was sold to Revlon in 1971 for 1.25 million. The Revlon formulation would have been what I snuck out of my stepmother's medicine cabinet in high school: still rich, still smoky, opaque and full of stark contrasts, like a strand of pearls against a black wool evening dress. It still had something of a reputation to uphold. In the late nineties, the fragrance was sold to Five Star Fragrances, which also owns the rights to Royal Secret, another perennial el cheapo balsamic bomb (not necessarily a bad thing: see Youth Dew). An attempt was made to market the fragrance back to the young women who must have smelled it on their own mothers and associated it with class, luxury, and a certain overall way of life, a fantasy of affluence. Faye Dunaway, a woman their generation watched mature on movie screens, was made the face of this new good old Norell. The Dunaway formulation smells, like the others, of galbanum up top, pungently green, but this is something of a come on, as the underlying content is lacking in substance and devolves into a hollow, tangy mess; not quite green, not remotely smoky, and nowhere near rich.

It seems to me the closest I'll get to the old Norell is the bath oil, judging by recent revisitations. At about 10-20 dollars an ounce online, the oil is a real bargain, if not an outright steal. For this you get the smokiest, greenest, most balsamic iteration of the lot. It goes on rich and it dries down that way, remaining complex, retaining its density. It smells wonderful, and relates clearly to Youth Dew, which is also available, also smoky and warm, as a bath oil. I imagine the bath oil is close to the pure parfum, though I haven't tried the latter. Norell also comes in a colonge spray. I haven't tried that either. The pure parfum is also dirt cheap, all things considered, and might be worth a shot.

The Scented Salamander lists Norell's notes as: galbanum, ylang ylang, carnation, clove, cinnamon, coriander, vanillic cardamom, musky vetiver, oakmoss, and myrrh. I can't dispute any of these, nor can I smell them individually. Norell is a concerted effect and feels, like Youth Dew, highly concentrated. Myrrh makes rational sense, as does clove and carnation. There's a spicy radiance to Norell. A New York Times Magazine article from 2001 discusses how complex those old perfumes were. Catapano characterized them as "long, like a treaty." She never understood why Norell didn't remain more popular than it was. Maybe she did understand and simply refused to accept the obvious. Comparing Ellena to Norell, for this generation, at least, is like trying to convince someone to wear a heavy boucle coat instead of a gauzy linen wrap on a Spring afternoon.

From the Times article: "Paul Austin, Quest's vice president of marketing and new business development, says that when Norell appeared, it had a lot of presence and character, unlike the lighter florals in America. Perfumers today could never get Norell past the focus groups. 'The green top note is a tough sell,' admits [perfumer Rodrigo] Flores-Roux, referring to the pow of galbanum, the resinous grassy odor that first hits the nose. Austin adds that American women have an aversion to the clove and spicy floral notes at its heart. The aldehydes supported by ylang-ylang dates the fragrance, putting it in a class with Chanel No. 5..."

"It's a silly world," Catapano said, considering what had become of her favorite creation. "It's the best fragrance. And nobody buys it anymore." Chanel has had reason and the wherewithal to reformulate Chanel No. 5 for future generations, translating the fragrance according to changing times. Norell has had no such good fortune.

Scents Guys Aren't Supposed to Wear But Should, If Only to Flip People Who Say They Shouldn't the Finger

Anytime I scan Basenotes.net, I'm always surprised to find definitive statements. This is that, it isn't the other thing, don't try this, that other thing is wretched, your skin will rot, your teeth will fall out, etc. Such declarative pronouncements make no sense to me when it comes to perfume. One person's skin rot is another's salve, really, and if I like Angel, and you don't, why should I listen to your comments about something you feel compares unfavorably?

The things I least like to hear on Basenotes have to do with gender. While I think perfume aficionados seem generally to be forward thinking, their reviews certainly belie some fairly rigid ideas about gender codes. At the very least, most of the reviewers draw a line somewhere, denoting what is and isn't appropriate for one gender or the other to wear. That line is typically drawn at florals, especially soliflors. Almost everyone agrees that, like it or not, a line exists somewhere. But orientals and various other categories of fragrance elicit the same verdict. Of Samsara, one female reviewer noted emphatically: "It is in no way unisex." Even male reviewers agreed. Too floral; wish there was a men's version.

Again, one man's floral, category "too", is another man's "not enough". I wear all of the following. I would love to tell you I don't feel self-conscious when I do. But I can also tell you that I wear them in a spirit of defiance against the legislation of smell. I really don't care what your mother wore. I don't care what my own mother wore. I know what I like. Ultimately it comes down to taste, regardless what those without any will tell you. Go ahead, call me Mama. I can take it.

Following are a list of fragrances considered by many or most to be feminine; not just slightly but definitively.

Samsara

So many people comment on Samsara's tenacity. I have the EDT, which might explain why it doesn't project too far or for too long on my skin. But I do find that scents said to be strong by others read meek on me. All bark, no bite. While Samsara lasts, I love it. Not that it vanishes, exactly. Periodically throughout the day I can smell it. But it doesn't come on strong by any means, particularly not compared to some of the other glorious stink bombs I wear and admire. Ylang Ylang seems to be one of those notes no one can bring him- or herself to imagine on a man. Samsara is said to have a lot of it. Jasmine, itself arguably "feminine", can't help much. Yet, along with these are notes which confuse the picture. Carnation lends a certain bite, a sharp angularity to what might otherwise be soft and cushy. Bergamot and Tarragon extend the fragrance toward citrus and herbal. Sandal, benzoin, vanilla, and tonka aren't exactly the stuff of petticoats and pinafores. Samsara smells closer to male than many masculines I've known, unless by masculine you mean B.O.

Pure White Linen

And White Linen proper, for that matter. I'll never understand why aldehydes are considered the exclusive domain of the ladylike. Pure White Linen has a nice honeysuckle emphasis, complicated by tea notes which veer it off into clean and crisp in contrapuntal thrusts. I wear most of the Lauder fragrances, and own all but Pleasures and its flankers. Cinnabar is one of my favorites. Youth Dew is an old reliable. Spellbound has its detractors but it continues to engage me. Pure White Linen adheres to that school of fragrance where cleanliness is next to godliness and perfume should be smelled not heard. I've never covered my ears when a perfume raises its voice, but I understand the attraction of clean, and Pure White Linen is exemplary of the trend. That said, it harbors hidden dissonance. It isn't, ultimately, as quiet as it seems. Perhaps it's just the faintest whiff of indole dirtying the overall impression. Maybe it's simply the fact that despite its "air" notes, Pure White Linen is anything but transparent or weightless. The pyramids of most fragrances sum up their contents in, say, twelve words or less. This is one of those everything but the kitchen sink fragrances, where grapefruit, cardamom, Granny Smith apple, raspberry and patchouli all hold hands, or jump under the covers.

Kelly Caleche

I have many, many, many bottles of perfume. Trust me. Looking at most of them, you might believe they haven't yet been used. Not so Kelly Caleche, which, after only a few months, is a good inch below the top of the bottle. I love the peppery opening, the crisp iris and the last-forever dry down. I've heard people say it's too tame, nothing special--or, more witheringly, confused. It makes perfect sense to me, and seems pretty bold in some ways on a guy. Soft but not plush, sharp without being shrill, Kelly Caleche wears wonderfully. Some scents require conceptual work before I can see them on a man. I have to work my mind around the idea, and break the fragrance free of its immediate associations. Kelly Caleche read masculine to me from the moment I smelled it. I have an aversion to many of Jean Claude Ellena's alleged masterpieces. They seem weak-kneed to me. I picture everyone sitting around the table to a home cooked meal. Everyone knows the food needs more salt but no one has the heart to reach for the shaker. Kelly Caleche saved me the trouble. I'm convinced that the briefing asked for a feminine, and because Kelly Caleche isn't quite, they colored it pink, just so everyone would know.

Insolence

Some of the stores in the east village sell the most incredible violet candies. They come wrapped in purple foil with vintage lettering. The tablets are dime sized but square and taste of soap and violet. They're curiously dry. They're manufactured by Choward, a British Company, and taste better than anything on Earth. You can buy them by the case for 12 bucks on Amazon, and oh are they worth every penny. One of my most perverse pleasures is handing one to a novitiate. The facial expressions as they chew on the tablet for the first time never ceases to bring me gut-wrenching delight. I find not everyone loves them, obviously--but more for me.

And so it goes with Insolence. Several notes are considered so feminine that to suggest otherwise is blasphemy. Against whom, I don't know. I suppose I'll never stop arguing for the emancipation of violet from such silly restrictions. I love many violet fragrances, Dans tes Bras being a recent addition to the canon. I've also enjoyed Creed's Love in Black, Bois de Violette, Grey Flannel, and Halston, among others. Insolence is in a category all its own. It might be enough for me to say it was made by Maurice Roucel. If not, I might assure you that the fragrance lasts all day, and then some, and projects as impressively. I've yet to smell the EDP.

So many knock Insolence, dismissing it as an ultimately imperfect fragrance, a near miss. They cite the alleged hairspray note at the top, a note I don't get; then again, I don't have much experience with hairspray. To me, there's nothing at all wrong with Insolence.

Alliage

I keep singing the praises of this Lauder. It always seemed perfectly alien to me, neither male nor female, like Daryl Hannah in Blade Runner; indeterminately gendered, hopping all over the place faster than you can put a finger on it. Then I smelled Devin, also by Bernard Chant, and saw, again, what a little sneak Chant was. Aramis 900 smells not a great deal different than Aromatics Elixir. Aramis, Cabochard and Azuree all share more than a little of the same DNA. What distinguishes these from each other on the gender spectrum is often nothing more than real estate, showing how insidious conditioning and the power of suggestion are. Ask yourself how many so-called feminine fragrances might pass unsuspectingly as masculines if they simply crossed the aisle and the packaging changed. I often wonder. Chant seemed to have already made up his mind. His answer: tons.

Love in Paris

Metallic but fruity, a sort of peachy cum apricot note with the properties of a shiny tin roof reflecting the sun. Love in Paris lasts well and smells, on men, vaguely scandalous. Fragranceshop lists the notes as follows: Roses, Peonies, Jasmine, Vanilla, Greens of Violet, Star Anise, Wood, Apricot. The wood is decisive, complicating what would otherwise be more tongue in cheek as a masculine. I find that one note is enough to carry a fragrance across the gender divide for me. Wood, whatever it might be here, is possibly lost on a woman. Your mind smells the rest and the prevailing impression corresponds to expectations. Put Love in Paris on a man, and the wood teases out, popping like a compelling contradiction. It smells femme, but a guy is wearing it, and there's that wood in there too. Hmmm.

Postscript: By teasing out and popping I do not mean what you think I mean, unless you think it's very funny, in which case I do.

Cavemen in Pinafores: Perfume Does Drag

The other day, applying a perfume ostensibly intended for women, I thought, "I really better butch it up today if I expect to pull this one off."

Funny thing, though, how all that works: half way through the morning, I realized the perfume itself provided more than enough swagger. Maybe you know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of fragrance which can come across like Corporal Klinger on M.A.S.H. All the markers are there: the satin, the tulle, the rouge, some lipstick. The hair is curled softly; it just so happens it's growing on the chest.

Like many male perfume bloggers I'm decidedly androgynous in my tastes, and feel strongly that a scent, though it tells a story in the bottle, only reaches conclusion on the wearer. Fragrance colludes with personality, and often works wonders when played against type. A guy in Lolita Lempicka, as Tania Sanchez suggests, can be a startling thing, akin to seeing the same tired movie with an entirely different cast. I'm not averse to wearing the allegedly chronic girly, such as Paris, Joy, or Herrera. What I'm getting at here is slightly different: the scent which mixes messages before one even applies it, and presents an even more complicated story on the skin.

The most obvious choice would be Black Orchid, a scent I, like many others, go back and forth on. Just when I decide it's silly and overrated, it changes my mind. Regardless, it bursts into the room, rattling the glassware. I think back to the first time I experienced it, at Sephora. I sprayed it on the back of my hand and instantly felt as though I'd opened a porn mag inside the Hallmark store. It felt shocking, like Angel once had, so wrong it was right. I admired it the way I admired a drag queen I walked the east village with one Saturday night in the nineties, before the area went antiseptic. You never knew what might happen to you out on the street, unless you were with someone so flagrantly confrontational, in which case you could expect to be egged. This particular drag queen gave it as much as she got it, and seemed fifty feet tall. This was a personality with the power to affect whatever environment it entered, not just interacting with it but altering it. Whatever you think of the dress and the make-up, you have to admire the balls.

Poison is so deeply associated with mile high bangs and Mildred Pierce shoulder pads, so tangled up in a cluster of mental recollections of the eighties (often heightened to the point of distortion) that one easily forgets or is prohibited from seeing at all how essentially masculine it is. Forget the tuberose; to smell Poison is to inhale a strange medley of spices most florals avoid at all costs. Coriander and carnation give Poison a peppery, woody aspect, embellishing the perfume's feminine properties with such a wallop of gusto that the category short circuits. I wear Poison occasionally. Everyone recognizes it, until they realize I'm the source. Then they're not so sure. How could it be Poison? What guy would have the guts to put it on? That slight element of surprise can allow a mental adjustment, enabling one to experience Poison outside its enforced context of era-specific excess and unfortunate-to-tragic fashion misfires.

Like many of the vintage orientals, Bal a Versailles is a bit of a winking Jesus, first uber-fem, then a resounding baritone. Some might say that winking is decidedly coquettish, settling the matter. But Bal a Versailles winks at such a rapid clip that the movement ceases to register. What's left is a kinetic, subterranean interplay between gendered codes and preconceptions. Some say the opening is inarguably feminine. I say nothing is inarguably feminine. Tie as many strings of pearls as you like around the neck of Barbara Bush. Dress her up in dowdy. Tell me she's simply a very straightforward, no nonsense woman, a la Barbara Stanwyck or, less generously, Janet Reno (which opens up another can of worms). I'm still not convinced George Sr. isn't in fact a tranny chaser. Which isn't to say Barbara isn't a woman. Just to say that a man attracted to her has wonky ideas about gender and tastes which, if dissected, might reveal unexpected, category-busting rather than -defining answers. It isn't that Bal a Versailles is beyond gender, but how many distortion filters can you put jasmine and rose through before they start going the other way? Bal a Versailles is the answer in action, working itself out right under your nose.

Spend some time with the oeuvre of Bernard Chant, and you'll start to notice certain similarities, not just between the feminines but between the feminines and their male counterparts. Many of Chant's male and female fragrances are so close in composition that it becomes increasingly difficult to regard the line supposedly separating them as anything but a mental construct. I sometimes wonder if Chant was a conceptual artist working in the field of perfume. It's as though he was engaged in a lifelong experiment. Create scents which resemble each other so closely that to discern gender differences between them would prove a bit like seeing the Emperor's new clothes. The only truly emphatic separation between the galbanum-driven Alliage and Devin are a few yards of marble flooring at Macy's and Saks. Likewise the woody-herbaceous rose of Aramis 900 and Aromatics Elixir, while Azuree and Cabochard lock eyes with Aramis. Was it Chant's project to demonstrate how little tweaking is required to edge a masculine into the feminine and vice versa? The distinctions between his masculines and feminines are so subtle as to imply mere formality. It's interesting to see the male consumer's largely negative reaction to Devin, such that it is (the fragrance remains, like Aramis 900, little known). Alliage, on the other hand, seems better understood. But it operates on a decibel one would consider more robust than a proper feminine. And if you're a guy who likes your fragrances to last, hop on over to the women's department. The only difference that counts between Alliage and Devin, it turns out, is a matter of hours.

Other fragrances which mix the gender codes: Cinnabar, Youth Dew, Gucci Envy, Habanitas, L'Heure Bleue, Chanel Cuir De Russie, Dune, La Nuit, Feminite Du Bois, Angel, Dioressence, Kingdom, Funny!, Caron Infini, Arpege.

Staying Power: Fragrances That Last

Ever notice that the perfumes you spend the most money on often seem to be the least likely to persist on your skin, while the cheapos might outlast cockroaches in the event of a nuclear war? For the past several days, we at I Smell Therefore I Am have been spritzing Habanita, the weird, tarry vetiver of which has lingered so tenaciously that it got me reflecting on other equally virulent perfumes. What follows is a highly subjective list based on my own personal preferences and experiences (or lack thereof) in smell:

Estee Lauder Alliage

I lump this into the galbanum camp. Not every fragrance built around this note possesses tenacity (Chanel No. 19, anyone?) but many do. Galbanum can give a perfume quite a lot of kick; witness Sud Est by Romeo Gigli, Chamade, Diesel (the original), Givenchy Insense, Ralph Lauren's Safari, Trussardi Donna, and S.T. Dupont. All of these wear most of the day on my skin. Of the group, Aliage has the most longevity. It's a totally unlikely fragrance in many ways--so wrong it's right. It goes so far over the line that the line isn't an issue anymore.

Paris

Anything by Sophia Grojsman, really. Even Diamonds and Rubies by Elizabeth Taylor, and 360 Degrees for Perry Ellis. Even Coty Exclamation, which puts other, more expensive rose scents to shame. Grojsman's scents have a linear purity to them. They're dense, with a lot going on, but from beginning to end they remain pretty consistent. They're Russian novels, as opposed to beach reads. They have a certain reputation for excess which is fueled by their full bodied construction and near astral projection. But I get tired of all the caveats involved in the appreciation of Spellbound and Paris and Calyx and all the rest of Grojsman's oeuvre. Like Maurice Roucel (see below) she's a brilliant nose, with a baroque sensibility which will inevitably go in and out of fashion. Her perfumes, however, go the distance.

Tocade

And Iris Silver Mist, and Broadway Nite, and Gucci Envy (a member of the galbanum crew), Lolita Lempicka "L", 24 Faubourg, Insolence, Lalique pour Homme, and Missoni. The closest to Roucel in style is Grosjman. Both create fragrances which, whether gourmand or not, have the aromatic headiness of gourmet food, heavy on the butter and cream. This is one of the things which makes Roucel such a brilliant choice for ushering the Guerlain name into the near future. Like their classics, Roucel's compositions are practically edible, with a cake-like texture you can almost sink your teeth into. That said, Roucel isn't to everyone's taste. Personally, I find his perfumes so addictive and decadent that they literally set my teeth on edge.

Yatagan

Many of the old school leathers hang on for dear life. Cuir de Russie, Knize Ten, Rien by Etat Libre d'Orange, Hermes Bel Ami, and Tabac Blond, among them. They mix a petroleum noxiousness with a sweet, sometimes floral counterpoint. Knize Ten and Rien are a little more hard core. Certainly Yatagan. They also last the longest of the above on me.

Body Kouros

And most of Annick Menardo's body of work. Menardo's hallmark is a vanilla dry down, reflecting a penchant for the elaborately edible she shares with Roucel and Grojsman, whether it be the anisic note in Lolita au Masculin or the almond paste of Hypnotic Poison. Vanilla is certainly tasty, but by the time Menardo's constructions have reached their base notes, they've moved in various directions, more an artful tour of the pantry than a sit-down meal. Body Kouros is her strongest to me.

Insensé: A Review of the Basenotes reviews

Yesterday, I pulled out Insensé again, and was struck, again, by what a fantastic smell it is. I'm happy to report that the reviewers on basenotes.net generally agree, ringing in with only four negative reviews out of 25. Of the remaining 21, only 5 are neutral. These are uncommonly favorable ratios for the famously tough basenotes community.

As JaimeB points out, the name is French for "foolish", "senseless" or "insane". All of these in their own ways seem perfectly apt to describe this fragrance. How foolish of Givenchy to think that a floral for men would perform in the marketplace. How senseless the ambivalent reception by the general male nose when his choices at the time otherwise included watery aquatics and pale citrus nonsense. To me, as apparently to JaimeB, Insensé is insanely, even addictively, wearable.

I generally like Vibert's reviews, which is to say I find myself appreciating his tastes, even when I don't agree with them. I appreciate, for instance, his take on Insensé. He sees it essentially as a galbanum-driven aldehyde for men. Instantly, I see his point, and the comparison to Chanel No. 19 makes perfect sense. "A floral fragrance that remains spare, dry, flinty, and uncompromising from beginning to end," he says. As he also points out, those aldehydes persist into the drydown, steering the fragrance unwaveringly. If, hearing this, you're apt to peg Insensé as a sort of pine-heavy aromatic, make a quick comparison with a cologne like Romeo Gigli's Sud Est, which has none of Insensé's interest in floral accents and illustrates with visceral economy the role florals play in the latter's composition. Vibert detects "bone dry rose" and "stark lavender" deep in the heart of the cologne, whereas I'm not really feeling it. I smell bone dry iris and the oily contribution made by lily of the valley, and enlisting this dynamic duo to screw with galbanum's already resinous head seems a master stroke to me.

Who is Foetidus? He gets my vote as perhaps the most informative of all the basenotes reviewers. He is without question one of the most prolific, with well over a thousand reviews. Where does he come from? What's in his fragrance collection? Certainly not too much patchouli, a note he makes no bones about generally disliking. He doesn't generally seem to favor coniferous to camphorous notes either, and though he makes exceptions, as he does for patchouli, the exceptions are usually based on fragrances which use these notes in ways which temper their bullheadedness, making the durable more delicate. Of Aramis' Devin he says: "I know that it is just my personal reaction to some chemical in it, but there is something in Devin that attacks me with an acid sharp, highly unpleasant and annoying green note that is huge."

No one else on basenotes has Foetidus' capacity to make me reconsider my choices and preferences. Just now, reading his Insensé review, I wonder, is this cologne overrated? I have to remind myself that it is in fact under-appreciated and underrated to the point of discontinuation, so persuasive is Foetidus' literate ambivalence. What Vibert cites as strength, Foetidus sees as liability: "My main problem isn’t the florals," he remarks. "It’s the prominent green that is too off-putting for me. This sharp green is annoyingly common and linear, and the rest of the fragrance is not good enough to make up for that annoyance. Insensé is not a very complex fragrance — it lacks depth and texture, and its mediocrity is aggravated by its linearity." Linearity doesn't seem to bother him so much when it comes to the Diptyque line, particularly L'Autre, which he appreciates; nor does green annoy him so much in Annick Goutal's Mandragore or Lacoste Land. I don't happen to find Insensé particularly linear. The galbanum charges out the gate, to be sure, but it eventually settles into a leisurely gallop through florals. Yes, okay, it perhaps stomps through them, but it stirs them regardless. "The consistent, green sharpness is more aggressive than it needs to be," Foetidus continues. "Its potency possibly imposes a masculinity on the florals, but it also removes much of the potential balance and refinement that it should have."

I'm just going to disregard Wicozani altogether (what do these names MEAN?). How else to deal with someone who detects musk in something as clearly devoid of it as Insensé? Ditto Naed_Nitram, who seems to be to perfume reviews what Andy Kaufman was to professional wrestling. How to take him seriously? When Andy Kaufman broke out into a fight with the cast of Fridays, was that...real...or...? As with Naed, it's difficult to say, and what does performance art have to do with perfume? His entries are entertaining, if often useless as barometers for the fragrance in question.

Castorpollux is another good basenotes read, and I recommend a perusal of his reviews. He inadvertently gets at an essential quality of Insensé: "I used to swim in a pool a long time ago where there was this 'white flowers and grass' garden close to it and at the very end of the drydown, it reminded me of myself being in the pool, with those flowers looking in." Perhaps galbanum's heady nature could be compared to the chlorine in a swimming pool in some ways, though you didn't hear it from me. I happen to like the smell. Along those lines, it might just be more appropriate than it at first seems to compare Insensé to Amarige, as Vialman does. Turin recommends Amarige be worn in the privacy of your own home, with the windows taped shut, so insidious and pungent is its aroma. You might want to keep the tape handy for Insensé as well.

If there's anything basenotes reviewers agree on when it comes to Insensé it's the fact that this is a perfume about which reaching some kind of consensus is probably impossible. You say the florals are heady. I say it's the galbanum. You say it stinks, it goes nowhere. I say it goes all over the place and back again. You say it's loud and obnoxious. I say it might not have to speak so loudly if you'd shut up yourself. A good litmus for Insensé, perhaps even a better one than the arguably more delicate Chanel No. 19, is Estee Lauder's Aliage, which seems to operate on very much the same wavelength as Insensé, a wavelength not everyone can tune into and some hear like a dog hears that piercing whistle only dogs can, and how.

This Week at the Perfume Counter: In which your roving I Smell Therefore I Am reporter makes the marketplace rounds, nostrils flared

I keep going back to the Estee Lauder counter. Do I want Sensuous? I can't decide. I do and I don't and I might and maybe, don't pressure me. Everyone says it smells great for an Estee Lauder fragrance, but I tend to scratch my head at that, and not because it itches. I continue to be surprised at the House of Lauder: this week, by Beautiful. What an incredible, gooey, tobacco rose. Try to convince me otherwise. The more I smell Bernard Chant's work, the more astonished I am. Azuree, Aliage--even Estee, which many consider some kind of mistake. Is it because I grew up smelling the Lauder line that I love the fragrances so much? My mother had a half-empty/half-full bottle of Youth Dew on her dresser. It still might be there. I loved the gold bow affixed to the elastic band. I loved the smell, which seemed so dated it had pushed back into the future going in the opposite direction. I can't remember who had Estee on her dresser; possibly my paternal grandmother. I stood before her bureau smelling from the open bottle, which she displayed on a gilt, mirrored tray. It smelled fantastic then and smells even better now, with an emotional pull to it from accumulated memories. A brighter, more startling cousin to Chanel 5 and Arpege. Its silver cap seemed perfectly apt to me at the time. There was something chilly about it, like iced flowers.

Friday at the mall, the Lauder counter was unattended. A pretty blond came over to help but didn't know whether they stocked Tuberose Gardenia. She did price Sensuous for me, and told me, as they all do, how fantastic it smells, as if, being a guy, I can't smell a difference between, say, Joy and Ajax. Yes, yes, I said, fantastic, fantastic. After pricing Sensuous for me, she left, explaining that whoever usually worked Lauder was, like, in the bathroom maybe and would be back later, presumably in case I needed someone to tell me how good something else smelled. I left and went across the hall to Perfumania, which sometimes requires a great deal of patience. The staff there works on commission and, I'm told by someone who migrated to Macy's, are encouraged to sell, sell, sell. It isn't enough that you buy a bottle of Posion. You must also buy Ralph Lauren Pure Turquoise, and lotion, and here, what about this, and this other thing, and--hello, where'd you go? Someone at corporate believes there's no hope of a return customer at Perfumania--the client walks in, crazed, buys on impulse, then leaves, forever--so why bother with subtlety?

I'd just smelled Cinnabar and wanted to compare it to Opium. I also wanted to know the difference between the three Opium flankers Perfumania stocks, but I've been down that dead end road before. They have no idea. Better luck on the website, which has no pictures for these and offers no clearer an idea. My favorite saleswoman was there (I call her Gladys). She knows I have a problem and need zero encouragement. I'll be back no matter what happens, again and again and again, often several days in a row. If the whole city evaporated in a strange toxic cloud overnight I would still drive over, out of habit, exiting my car, walking directly to the location of Perfumania, without noticing its conspicuous absence, until I stood on its once-hallowed ground or whatever and looked up and was like, oops, oh yeah, that apocalypse thing. Gladys has her tester strips ready in one hand as I approach, a pen in the other. Hello, Brian, she says. What are you buying today? When I leave, Gladys doesn't say good-bye or come see us again. She says, see you tomorrow.

I couldn't tell the difference between Opium and Cinnabar and figured I'd allowed sufficient time for a bathroom break, so I returned to the Lauder counter. It was still unattended, and the blond was gone now, too, but a rather dour young lady approached me, or rather, waited for me to approach her. Did I imagine a tone of impatience in her voice? I wanted to price Private Collection. My sister used to wear it and it smells so-

Yeah yeah, hold on a second, her demeanor said. She was back there reaching around in the display case like a blind woman, and I thought, dare I guide her? She didn't seem like the type who wanted the raft at her drowning moment, unless she could be made to feel she'd found it and inflated it herself. It's right there, I started to say. Yeah, I know, she snapped. I'm just trying to blah blah blah, as if I'd interrupted a delicate procedure and now she'd have to start all over. Hmm, she practically yawned, once she'd extracted the Private Collection. "We have one pocket size and one larger but the larger is a spray and the pocket is a roll-on so your best bet is to go with the larger." I could plainly see, reading the boxes, that both were spray bottles, but didn't point this out. And how much is the Estee, I asked, once she'd priced the PC. Very cheap, it turned out, as the Lauders usually are. I took one of each. Ringing me up, she entered 3333 instead of 33, and was suddenly humble, as if I might run to the bathroom and report her mistake to the Lauder rep.

Other purchases this week included: Michael for men, Romeo Gigli Sud Est, Magie Noire (the old one), and ENjoy. I should point out that of all the perfume counters I've been to in the last few weeks, with the exception of Memphis Fragrance (which is always friendly), Walgreens was the most helpful. Imagine that.

Going Green, Part Two: Galbanum

With its penetrating, pine-like top note and slightly bitter, woody base, galbanum makes green pop, as if one of the green chypres had slapped you hard in the face with a chunk of bundled stems. Galbanum is a gum resin derived from certain Persian plant species grown abundantly in Iran. Its large flowering heads resemble those of fennel.

The essential oil has long been well-regarded by occultists. Alistair Crowley associated the aroma's properties with air, though it just as readily evokes earth. Depending on who you consult, galbanum is said to be a respiratory aide and an augment to psychic abilities. Pagan witchcraft regards it as a protectant. Perfumers, themselves alchemists of sorts, use it to add a certain kind of magic to their compositions. Part frankincense, part vetiver, its leafy terpenoid astringency ventilates the pastures of Carven’s Ma Griffe, Cellier’s Vent Vert, Ivoire de Balmain, Pheromone, Devin, Chanel No. 19 and, most spectacularly, Estee Lauder’s Aliage, which is more gale force than languid breeze.

Ivoire would fall on one end of the galbanum spectrum, Aliage on the other, with Pheromone following closely behind. Ivoire uses galbanum subtly, like its aldehydes, as a bolster to its floral accord. The effect is a rose bush surrounded by crisp, dry hay. Where Ivoire is ultimately arid, still, and slightly toasted, Vent Vert glistens, shimmering indefinitely with activity. Think of a lime rind rubbed into geranium leaves and you begin to apprehend Vent Vert’s effervescent character. Considered by some the first green fragrance, Vent Vert has a slightly raw dissonance, in large part due to galbanum. Chanel No. 19 is the adult counterpart to Vent Vert, smooth and transparent, a green floral quietly electrified by the glow of camphor.

Vent Vert and Ivoire arrange themselves parenthetically on either side of Gucci Envy for Women, which is something of a happy compromise between the two. All three share floral notes: hyacinth, rose, lily of the valley. Famously obsessed over by Tom Ford and Maurice Roucel, Envy's tall, slender bottle reflects the fragrance’s intrinsic angularity. Even the silver cap references something icily metallic within the construction. Envy is hard to articulate, and that metal sheen might strike you as a powdery hybrid of synthetic iris and musk, until you recognize the presence of galbanum, which like eucalyptus whiffs of menthol. Envy is a gorgeously understated use of the note, tart and dry simultaneously.

Don't be too quick to dismiss Pheromone. It's something of a galbanum retrospective, with florals and frankincense and pungent, sharp greens. This is chartreuse green, a bright landscape painted on black velvet in bold, broad strokes. The results are just this side of over the top - but hands down, the apogee of galbanum’s use in perfumery, still unmatched and, amazingly, still around, is Aliage. Like Envy its notes include peach, rose and jasmine, but Aliage bursts into coniferous territory Envy cautiously skirts, possessing a sucker punch of pine, thyme, vetiver, and oakmoss. Simulating a virtual reality of flowers shellacked in Vick’s Vapo-Rub, it’s like nothing you’ve ever smelled, and strangely familiar. Aliage is shockingly inexpensive.

Galbanum is mercurial, effecting compositions in subtly different ways. It smells modern, though, along with aldehydes, it was the previous generation’s equivalent to the fruity accords which buoy contemporary florals to varying degrees and towards often vastly different ends. The smell is intensely, viscerally green, smelling of grass and aromatic weeds and herbs. It penetrates your consciousness and roots there, a vivid inhalation of the great Out There.