Ramon Monegal Mon Patchouly: Jasmine in Big Boy Pants

I resisted the Ramon Monegal line for a long time, for several old reliable reasons. The fragrances embody two emerging trends I'm not that eager to embrace - the ever-escalating price point of niche perfumery, and the  overabundance of choice presented by a start-up brand, which can give the impression, right or wrong, of trying to be all things to all people. I suppose all of this might have been mediated by instant love for the scents themselves. But it took me a while to come around to some of the Monegals I now regard as favorites. I went back repeatedly to smell them, and it's probably less accurate to say they grew on me than it is to say I grew into them.

Mon Patchouly is my favorite, by far - though Kiss My Name, a Carolina Herrera-esque fruity tuberose updated with hints of incense, isn't getting kicked out of bed any time soon. When I first smelled it, I was told Mon Patchouly was the brand's biggest seller, and I could see why. At the time, it somehow reminded me of the best mass market masculines - simultaneously familiar and unusual. Each time I came back to smell the fragrance, it surprised me, because while it's very well done and has something referential in it I can't define, it's even more unusual and singular than I initially gave it credit for.

Essentially a well blended study in patchouli, jasmine, and geranium, Mon Patchouly is classified as a Woody Oriental. I don't know why, when I first smelled it, I also thought it was pretty soundly masculine. True, there's some kind of barbershop after shave strain in the fragrance, but these days, I have trouble imagining many men I know wearing it. Like Insense, by Givenchy, it's a little more floral than most men unaccustomed to niche perfumery would feel comfortable wearing. It's constantly threatened with emasculation by that floral influence. That jasmine, however perverted by patchouli and geranium, is ultimately pretty gender bending by mainstream standards.

The patchouli cants things in the direction of classic masculines, but the jasmine is still front and center, singing "I feel pretty" - half in baritone, half in falsetto, like the breaking voice of a teenager who's just started growing facial hair. Mon Patchouly is more skirt and tie than even most niche "masculines" I'm familiar with, no matter how much the geranium underscores the masculine coding. This is all beside the point, unless, like many men out there, you feel a little vulnerable when gender distinctions start dissolving into hazy, free-floating halfway points. For this reason, a scent like Mon Patchouly is even more attractive to me than a wonderful smelling fragrance would otherwise usually be. I like a little anarchy in a scent, especially when it's smuggled in under a frilly skirt.

One thing I look for in a fragrance that costs more than I think it should is tenacity. After that, projection. Mon Patchouly is impressive in both respects. Too impressive (read: oppressive) for some. The customer reviews on Fragrantica alternate between unmitigated love and outright repulsion. I always forget how much some people despise patchouli, even when it's scrubbed clean and smoothed of all rough spots in the lab the way it tends to be these days. Yet it isn't just the patchouli, I suspect. The combination of jasmine and patchouli here is just below well worked out (another reason I like it, but also possibly why some can't tolerate it). Had it been what I felt was thoroughly worked out, I doubt the combination would have retained its slightly off-kilter appeal for me. Worse, for some, that strangeness never wears down into something less strange, which might be why more than one person has compared it to Mugler's Alien and Angel. Admirably, Mon Patchouly bucks another current trend, front loading the formula, which eventually, inevitably, tends to end up in the same banal territory the last fragrance has settled for. If you want to scrub Mon Patchouly within the first ten minutes, you might as well go ahead and do it. It won't be rewarding your patience any time soon.

The presiding combination of jasmine and patchouli - even an apparently squeaky clean patchouli and an indole-free jasmine - has a slight, if delicate, whiff of grunge to it.  This could come from some other player in the mix. I don't discern the alleged oakmoss, but with oakmoss restricted to within an inch of perceptibility, that's at least no surprise. Still, I can't pinpoint amber, vanilla, or olibanum either. Never mind. However exactly it does it, for something which seems to be playing such a familiar tune, Mon Patchouly veers off in some usually uncharted territory. I'll leave the question of whether or not that journey is worth the price of its ticket up to you. Currently, the Monegal line runs $185.00 for a 1.7 ounce bottle. This bottle, by the way, is quite the chunk of glass, reminding me more of a concealed weapon than anything a fragrance might come in. I smelled Mon Patchouly at Luckyscent.

Contradictory/Contrarian Thoughts

1. I've discovered that I really like fragrances I'm discouraged from even sniffing by reputable sources. Michael by Michael Kors smells like roasted gardenia and tuberose to me, spiced a little, and that's a good thing. It dries down in a wonderful way, lasting just about all day and then some. Boucheron Trouble doesn't smell too sweet or pedestrian to me. It smells rich and slightly woody. Kelly Caleche isn't a bore or even a letdown. It makes a pretty definite statement to me, with its vegetal iris and peppered disposition. Jean Paul Gaultier is supposed to be headache in a bottle, whereas for me, it has restorative properties.

2. What is a dandy fragrance? I used to think it was a rose a guy could get away with wearing. Now I realize that the fragrances which get called dandy-worthy are typically anything the guy in question likes but which is popularly regarded as feminine and therefore requires some justification or mental adjustment to wear. In this respect, every perfume I own which is meant for women (and I have a lot) is a dandy fragrance. I don't think wearing a so-called feminine requires justification. It's an act of social sabotage, which is justification enough. You make it your own, and if you stop worrying over it, and wear it with confidence, people stop judging it separately from you as being either appropriate or inappropriate. You own it. What could be more appropriate? The other day a homeboy came in to smell the Bond No. 9 fragrances while I was standing there. He had on Louis Vuitton sneakers, chunky gold jewelry, and was more put together than most of the women I know, and he was worried that the No. 9's he favored were considered feminine. He looked to the women behind the counter, who all liked different No. 9's, to tell him whether or not he should be caught dead in his favorites. Enough said?

3. I'm not sure what I think about the alleged masterpiece Beyond Paradise. There, I said it. Sometimes I think I love it. Is that a figgy sort of green in there, or just a gardenia and jasmine sucker punch? Wearing it today, I'm drunk on it. Smelling it a month ago I thought the naff lollipop bottle suited it perfectly.

4. I love Givenchy Insense. It seems harder and harder to find the older bottles. Online they're always "out of stock". I found some at a local discount store and purchased, even though I had a small bottle at home already. Before I ever smelled it I was told that Insense is a male floral. I disregarded the fact that it smelled anything but floral to me. Maybe if I focus I can smell the magnolia and the muguet, but I would never call this girly or even anything less than robustly masculine. More bewildering still, Michael Edwards classifies this as woody - floral musk. What am I missing? Top to bottom, I get that mentholated green note, part galbanum, part eucalyptus. It's almost as butch as Estee Lauder Alliage. I'm told this is the lentisk (aka mastic tree), a small evergreen shrub of the mediterranean region. And yes, the part waxy, part oily qualities of muguet and magnolia suit it well. But, really--musk?

5. What's going on at Sephora? Granted, their stock was always pathetic, but at one time, just under a year ago, they carried Cartier, Hermes, and any number of items I haven't seen on their shelves for months now. We're getting new stuff in, they told me, when I asked why they were rearranging their shelves and things started to go missing. They were just making room, they said. Now the masculines and feminines, once on opposite sides of the room, are on the same wall, and both have been laughably condensed. No more Jardins de This or That. No more Baiser du Dragon or So Pretty. But if you're in the market for Fresh Sake or Burberry Bland, this is the place to go. I used to dislike Sephora. Now I know I hate them.

6. When I first smelled Santa Maria Novella Nostalgia I thought, yes, it does smell a little like Bulgari Black. Then I got home with the bottle and actually conducted a side by side comparison. Nostalgia is nothing like Black. And it blows it out of the water, as far as I'm concerned. I've also since come to realize that Nostalgia lasts with impressive tenacity. In less than two weeks I went from liking and admiring this fragrance to loving it all out of reason. On sale: One slightly used bottle of Bulgari Black. Make an offer.

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.