Dark Passage: A Limited Edition Fragrance by Andy Tauer

For the next 25 days, Dark Passage, a limited edition fragrance by Andy Tauer made exclusively for the Woman's Picture series, will be available here.

Dark Passage is a film noir fragrance, and is presented as part of a new series in the Tableau de Parfum/Woman's Picture project called "Snapshots".

Packaged in 7ml enamel atomizers and available in limited edition quanities, the Tableau Snapshots are smaller in scale, providing Tauer the opportunity to experiment with new ideas. The snapshot fragrances are hand held, and seek to preserve fleeting moments in time.

Dark Passage is being presented for only the next several weeks as part of the kickstarter campaign for ONLY CHILD, a mother/daughter noir in the tradition of Mildred Pierce and Now, Voyager starring Grace Zabriskie (Big Love, Twin Peaks) as a mother searching for her vanished daughter. ONLY CHILD is the second feature film in the Woman's Picture series. We start shooting it in April.

I was always resistant to do a kickstarter fundraising campaign in the past, but this time I wanted to do one, as long as I could do one well. When I say well I mean a campaign that includes true incentives, rather than well-intentioned "thank you's" alone. When I started looking at kickstarter campaigns before building our own for ONLY CHILD, I was surprised to see that people didn't offer more for donations. After all, you're asking people for help. If you're making a film, you're creative, nine times out of ten. Why not pull together all your creative resources and come up with something that really thanks them?

Andy and I came up with a lot of incentives for your average person who can do without perfume but loves film. But we wanted to do something extra special for people like us who love fragrance. I was so happy when I first smelled Dark Passage, because in a sea of mass marketed banality I knew it would feel special, smell special, be special, and few things feel that way anymore. We would be forever grateful if you helped us out with this film. Like Woman's Picture it deals thematically with perfume. I make these films for you. I really do. If you like them I know I did good. But in addition to our gratitude and making a good film we want to offer you something else in return.

Dark Passage contains patchouli, cacao, birch tar, and iris, among other things.

Inspiration:

Noir films are typically black and white. Dark Passage isn't quite so polarized, but it contains equally bold contrasts. The wonderfully rich, refined patchouli used by Andy in the fragrance is something to behold, at once earthy and clean shaven. Birch tar and cacao move this patchouli theme in interesting directions, evoking the open road and the small town diner, steaming cups of coffee on a formika countertop, bright sun coming in parallel lines through window blinds, crisscrossing a dim room with their highly keyed stripes. DARK PASSAGE is both femme fatale and private eye, a happy union between feminine and masculine.  It speaks in Lauren Bacall's smoky baritone and regards you with Bogart's level gaze.

Andy Tauer has made the fragrance available this one time and this one time only in an effort to help raise the kickstarter goal for ONLY CHILD and help get the film made. After the campaign, Dark Passage, like a fugitive character out of noir, will never show its face again.  Please check out the kickstarter page to see what other things are available for your donation (hint: an exclusive soap built around tuberose) and comment on the page if the mood hits you. With any donation above 15 dollars you'll get an online link to Woman's Picture, our first film.

Note: surprises are coming there in the next week or two, including a sneak peak sniff opportunity or two.

More on Eau Du Fier

What I love most about Fier, I think, is its oddball piquancy, a totally unexpected spark of citrus which makes no rational sense but smells so good--and so right--that it seems practically inevitable. It also endows Fier with the effervescent booziness of a bubbly gin fizz. Fier reminds me of other favorites--Kolnisch Juchten, Etro's Palais Jamais, Le Labo's Patchouli 24, and Santa Maria Novella's Nostalgia among them--all of which have something to do with tea and/or birch tar. The associations are vehicular: I get leather upholstery, petrol fumes, and rubber, primarily. But Fier doesn't shock me much. A friend of mine smelled it, smiled, obviously pleased, then screwed up his face and asked why someone would want to smell that way. Why do people want to have sex, I answered. Because it feels good. It certainly isn't pretty, or comfortable. Maybe it's the company I keep, and for others sex is something like a Lazy-Boy recliner, worn in all the right places. I smell Fier, and other birch-centric fragrances for that matter, and my mind goes somewhat sybaritic. It conjures complicated pleasures, not all of them sexual, though some are decidedly base.

Spending a few days with Fier, I decided that what at first seems like an unlikely addition to the Annick Goutal line-up isn't really all that out of character. Goutal's masculines have always been pretty unusual. Think of Sables, which smells of sugared burned leaves and woods. "Vetiver" takes a rustic approach to its signature note. Even Eau de Monsieur slants further away from a traditional masculine than its opening notes lead you to believe. Those fragrances date from the eighties. In the last several years, Ambre Fetiche , Myrrhe Ardente, Encens Flamboyant, and Musc Nomade have continued that trend toward the slightly unconventional. More unusual are the distinct differences between Goutal's male and female sensibilities.

I find Fier a more realistic day to day wear than Nostalgia and Palais Jamais, both of which are a little too robust for the polite society of office cubicle and water cooler. Nothing too shocking here. Just pure pleasure. That citrus really tempers the birch in unexpected ways. I imagine this is what Bond No.9's Wall Street was meant to be, and might have been, if cucumber and seaweed hadn't talked pretty to it.

The attached picture is from an article on neolithic birch tar bark once used as chewing gum.

Annick Goutal Eau de Fier

You’ve heard the expression, Sexy Ugly, right? I use it plenty to describe a person who is not conventionally beautiful or handsome but there’s just something...some sort of charisma, twinkle in the eye, strut or sex appeal that you can’t deny? I categorize Benicio del Toro, Denis Leary, David Duchovny, Milla Jovovich and Uma Thurman as Sexy Ugly. When you pull apart the features of these individuals, they might not be attractive, but as a whole, a sum of their parts, it all works, and you find them quite attractive.

Annick Goutal Eau de Fier is Sexy Ugly. Eau de Fier (EdF) is a blend of some of the ugliest stuff in perfumery; the tarriest birch tar, rubber, smoky, smoky, smoky tea and some citrus and a touch of fruit (if you’re looking for it). Eau de Fier is not conventionally pretty, nor is it perhaps acceptable for the office, if you work in a corporate suited-up environment, but I’m so attracted to it that I just can’t keep my hands off the bottle.

Eau de Fier goes on sheer, but it lasts for days. I find it an odd juxtaposition of sheer and potent; you might not realize it’s still there, but it most certainly is. I sprayed it on a male friend of mine, on his arm, and a bit got onto his sweater when he rolled his sleeve back down. I smelled it on him until he washed the sweater. Eau de Fier just doesn’t quit. It is a tenacious sexy beast.

If Bulgari Black is not your thing because it smells slightly rubber-y then you should stay away from Eau de Fier. EdF is hardcore. It is shocking that EdF comes from the house of Annick Goutal, who, for the most part, create charming, natural and conventionally pretty fragrances. I don’t know how EdF got out the door, because this, THIS is the most avant-garde fragrance I’ve ever smelled (yeah, yeah, Tubereuse Criminelle starts off shocking but it settles down, becomes tame and pretty after 30 minutes). EdF is something you’d expect from Comme des Garcons, I'm thinking of their Tar.

As far as I know EdF is discontinued making it impossible to find, and this makes me want to cry. Surely EdF wasn’t selling like hotcakes, but I wish AG would continue making a small supply for perfume aficionados, oh, maybe, 250 bottles per year or something. It should never cease to exist. EdF needs to exist, it needs to represent it’s end of the perfume spectrum, the end where horrific beauty that can be imagined. Eau de Fier smells like fresh lapsang souchong tea leaves. Very smoky tea leaves, over scorched leather and rubber. It begins with a burst of citrus, which never entirely vanishes, but gets pushed aside by the more aggressive smoky tea, tar and leather. About a half hour in an apricot-like fruity note emerges (guessing osmanthus) and this stays until the far dry down. I think it’s magnificent.

The Non Blonde recently reviewed Eau de Fier and Bois de Jasmin also reviewed EdF a few years back. Proof that I’m not alone in my lunacy :-)

Notes: bitter orange, osmanthus, salt flower, clove, tea, and birch tar

PS: I could not find a photo of the bottle anywhere, so the above pic is a collection of their masculine bottles, which is the same as their Eau de Fier bottle.

Patchouli 24 (and J'ai Ose)

I stared at the description of Patchouli 24 on the Le Labo website for almost a year before purchasing a bottle. I love patchouli, though I understood from various reviews and customer comments that it was hardly the most pronounced note in the composition. I love birch tar even more, and 24 was said to be an overload of the note, so stinky strong that its inclusion forbid anything but a love or hate reaction. People talked of scaring their co-workers out of the room, then out of the building. Relationships ended. Dinner plans were canceled. Mother-in-laws got off the fence. By all accounts, it seemed like something for which I would definitely fall on the side of love.

The problem for me was complicated. The perfumer behind 24 is Annick Menardo, and, as anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm a fan. Her fragrances tend to have good lasting power, and some of them approach greatness on a level that many modern perfumers don't even seem to know exists. Here's the thing. The lady loves vanilla. Bulgari Black is worshiped in certain circles for its tea note and a pronounced rubbery splendor, but on me it smells, after an initial impression of complexity, like one of those skimpy deserts they put on your plate in aggressively expensive restaurants, daring you to complain (thereby declaring, when you do, for all the world to hear, "I am determined to be gluttonously obese and must balk at the tiny little piece of whatnot you're trying to pass off as a proper sugar fix. Hit me!).

I'd also read on many of the blogs that after its outlandish birch tar opening, 24 simmered down into a smoky vanilla, lasting the duration. I had problems reconciling all these descriptions, but I wasn't about to slap down 135 bucks for another jar of refined vanillic goodness. That I was ultimately willing to take a chance is a testament not to my resignation but to my irrational, logic defying love of birch tar.

I was hoping for something along the lines of J'ai Ose, a relatively cheapo, probably majorly reformulated bastardization of a possibly once great perfume. I can't help it. I love J'ai Ose. I'd bathe in it if I could. It's a wonderfully attractive composition that I couldn't at all figure out for the first several months I owned it. What was it--a chypre? A leather? A wood? Doubt kept me from wearing it, worried what kind of impression I would give off with something I couldn't even figure out myself.

24 was a massive disappointment, and I say this with all due respect to Menardo, because I recognize that it is essentially a wonderful fragrance. It's just not what I wanted, nor anything for which I particularly feel a need. It does in fact dry down to an abundance of vanilla--smoky, to be sure, but vanillic. The birch tar is still there, but so sublimated to the vanilla that it simply feels like a new slant on the note. "Burned vanilla!" And wonder of wonders, it at first didn't seem to last all that impressively. Maybe, I thought, le Labo actually just sucks. (Please don't write me nasty letters. I've since tried Iris 39 and put that unfair suspicion to rest).

One conclusion I drew from the experience is that, bad reformulation or no, J'ai Ose is hands down the best smoke leather I've come across. After spending a week with Patchouli 24, I went online to buy a quarter ounce of J'ai Ose pure parfum, which, in J'ai Ose world, goes for as little as 35, and feels like a million bucks. J'ai Ose ("I dared") was created in 1977 for the house of Guy Laroche, whose first perfume was Fidji. The fragrance feels much older than it is. It has a lot in common with floral leathers like Chanel's Cuir de Russie and Jolie Madame, though it smells smokier than either (and by smokier I mean blackened, i.e. charred) and less floral by far. Supposedly, the notes for J'ai Ose are jasmine, bergamot, vanilla, vetiver, musk, and sandalwood. I don't smell any of that, and find it very hard to believe there isn't birch tar in the mix playing a pronounced, even presiding, part. One never knows where these pyramids are coming from, or how figurative they are. Out of whose ass do these things get pulled?

I now realize that I had Le Labo Patchouli 24 all along. I had what I hoped it would be, anyway. Had I known that J'ai Ose was my holy grail birch tar fragrance, that much sought after burnt wood, I would have stocked up on it and saved myself much money. I should also add that, trying Patchouli 24 again last night, I was surprised by how long it stuck around on my skin. It's perfectly lovely, but not my cup of smoke.

Put Another Blog on Fire: Eau des Iles

I'm sure Eau des Iles has its roots in several other fragrances (I've heard tell of L'eau de Navigateur) but I'm not sure I've ever smelled anything remotely like it. I'm a latecomer to Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier, having just tried Camelia Chinois earlier this month. That perfume reminded me of a Barney's fragrance I once really dug and still own, with the addition of a smoky petrol note lurking underneath an otherwise chipper green amiability. I liked Chinois so much that I scanned reviews of the line's other fragrances to see what might interest me, and Iles seemed an obvious choice, with Parfum d'Habit running a close second. What sold me were comments referring to Iles' smokiness. It was also compared to wood wine barrels, cigars, and meat rubs. What's not to like?

I'm always on the hunt for a good smoke scent, though I understand others are just as eager to run from it. Kolnisch Juchten is a good example of the category for me, as are J'ai Ose and the John Galliano room spray produced by Dyptique. All have a cured leather sensibility that really appeals to me, something about which takes me into a nice headspace. J'ai Ose is one of my favorite fragrances of all time (and a real undiscovered gem), a sublimely unisex blend of florals and birch tar which is at least as well done as Lancome's Cuir and in my opinion far superior to most other cult leathers (Reve en Cuir, Cuir d'Iris, et al). Like Kolnisch Juchten (German for "Russian Leather"), J'ai Ose smells of the hearth and the outdoors, conjuring mercurial trails of bonfire smoke.

Because I had only these fragrances to go by, I unconsciously expected something along their lines, so I wasn't prepared for Eau des Iles, which is in their camp but burning a different kind of wood. It could easily become my holy grail smoke scent, but there's more to it than that. Under the smoke are coffee, spices, and green notes. This dry smell is similar to the fragrance produced at my local coffeehouse, which roasts its own beans, a slightly resinous coffee aroma, as if coffee were taking a cigarette break. Add to this labdanum, frankincense, myrrh, and ylang-ylang. Perfume Shrine's profile of labdanum is worth quoting:

"It is balsamlike, with woody, earthy, smoky, and even marshy undertones. Some even describe it as ambergris-like, or leathery and honeylike with hints of plum or oakmoss after a rain. Usually it is referred to as ambery, but it is mostly used to render leather or ambergris notes..."

This is a good starting point for a description of Eau des Iles, as well. It would seem that labdanum ties all of the fragrance's disparate influences together, blurring their individual start and end points. If there is galbanum in the base notes of Iles, as I've heard, it's used with unusual subtlety. I've also heard tarragon. I wonder if the absence of birch tar and the addition of labdanum makes it seem simultaneously kissing kin to my favorite leathers and worlds apart. One of the things I appreciate most about Iles is its resistance to easy classification. This is a softer, woodier, foodier smoke than J'ai Ose and John Galliano. It's certainly smoother, more refined than Kolnisch Juchten; both are savory, but Kolnisch seems slightly undercooked by comparison. Jean Laporte created Eau des Iles in 1988, after leaving L'Artisan; thus, perhaps, some of the comparisons to L'eau de Navigateur (1982), which also makes use of a coffee accord. The dry down brings in a little bit of the barbershop and the fougere, a powdery aftershave which makes more sense to the nose than the mind. Iles is said by some to be too challenging to wear. Me, I've yet to find a fragrance too challenging to wear, including Secretions Magnifique (though that comes closest, admittedly), so I'm probably the wrong person to judge. No question, it's an uncompromising, no nonsense fragrance. I'm not sure that means it takes no prisoners, or whether some might feel incarcerated in its presence. For me, if this is a life sentence, I'll gladly serve it.

Sonoma Scent Studio, Fireside Intense & Ambre Noir: Reviews

A few days ago, on MUA, a poster suggested that everyone would have a bottle of CK Obsession if it were under a Lutens of Malle label.

This statement got me thinking about under-appreciated and lesser known perfumers. The perfumer that immediately came to mind is Laurie Erickson of Sonoma Scent Studio. Laurie is brilliant. Every single fragrance I’ve tried from SSS is gorgeous. I’m not exaggerating. A few months ago I fell in love with Champagne de Bois and Wood Violet. This week I tried Fireside, Fireside Intense, Winter Wood and Ambre Noir. All four scents floored me.

Fireside Intense is a smoky woody leathery masterpiece. Here’s the story behind Fireside and Fireside Intense, in the perfumer’s own words:

“Sometimes in the fall and winter when I step outside I'll feel the sudden rush of cold air touched with woodsmoke from a neighbor's fire. I associate the scent of burning woods with the cool season and also with crisp summer nights by the campfire when I was young (our parents treated us to wonderful camping trips each summer). From first sniff, I’ve liked the smoke-tinged, spicy scent of guaiacwood and the outright woodsmoke of diluted birch tar. I wanted Fireside Intense to be a bottled reminder of the scent of an outdoorsy campfire. Fireside is a slightly sweeter version without the leather notes for those who prefer a sweeter smoky scent.”

Fireside Intense is a realistic and linear fragrance. When I put Fireside Intense on my wrists I turn into a freakish huffer. It smells so good. On a chilly autumn or winter day it is the most refreshing, brisk, outdoorsy and natural aroma. The addition of smoke and leather make it nicely butch (or masculine) and dry. I feel like I’m sitting by a smoldering campfire – sifting through the charred wood logs with a stick. I tried both Fireside and Fireside Intense and the leather in Intense makes it kickin’. I love the smell of Fireside for myself but I imagine it would smell amaaaaazing on a guy.

Fireside Intense notes: Indian sandalwood, Himalayan cedar, Texas cedar, guaiacwood, nagarmotha (Cyperus), birch tar, myrrh, leather and agarwood.

~*~

Ambre Noir is a truly dark amber. Ambre Noir focuses on labdanum so this is not a syrupy sweet amber in the least.

Here’s the story behind Ambre Noir, in the perfumer’s own words:

“I love labdanum and wanted Ambre Noir to highlight it. Working with labdanum resin is a delight to the senses: it's a thick golden resin with a wonderful musky, woodsy, amber scent and is beautiful after it is diluted with alcohol and filtered. I held the vanilla in Ambre Noir to a minimum and added interest and complexity to the labdanum with incense, moss, leather, and woods. I wanted the darkest, richest, smoothest woodsy amber with incense and a hint of leather.”

Amber is one of my favorite notes, and I usually like almost all amber perfumes, even the sweet ones, such as Serge Lutens Ambre Sultan. Ambre Noir is a luxurious treat. It is smooth as buttah and the woodsy quality stands out nearly more than the amber itself. For anyone searching for a dry woody amber this is it.

Ambre Noir notes: Labdanum absolute, amber, rose, olibanum, myrrh, vetiver codistilled with mitti, oakmoss absolute, aged Indian patchouli, Texas cedarwood, sandalwood, castoreum.

Bravo, Laurie Erickson, you’re an amazing talent!

Monk by Michael Storer: A Review

This is a long overdue review of Monk. Michael Storer has six fragrances in his line and Monk is my favorite. I like all the others, too (Kadota & Stephanie are my two other faves), but Monk is the one for me.

Here are the listed notes from Mr. Storer: Birch tar oil, frankincense, civet, musk, cocoa absolute and sandalwood.

I smell much more than the above list of notes. I also smell a smoky tobacco and leathery note which is just sublime. The musk has an ambery edge and if I really really focus I can detect the cocoa absolute but you wouldn’t notice this unless you read the notes. The cocoa absolute is probably what gives Monk is easy-wearing appeal. While it’s dark, sensual, gothic and musky, that cocoa note adds a smidgen of sweetness that rounds it out and makes it easily wearable and not truly a weird gothic creation. To me, Monk seems like a very modern take on old classics like Bandit, Tabac Blond and Cabochard by Gres. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bandit, Tabac Blond and Cabochard, but these aren’t the perfumes I wear to the office or on a day when I need to consider others. Monk manages to simultaneously be a perfume I can wear anywhere, yet still maintain it’s slightly unusual and musky aroma. Monk is a well-blended fragrance, none of the notes stick out obtrusively over the others, and it’s a smooth and balanced smoky/musky/leathery masterpiece. Monk, like most musky fragrances, wears pretty close to the skin. Congrats to Michael Storer for creating a gorgeous fragrance that is unusual yet completely wearable. And at $82 for 2 fl oz, Michael Storer’s fragrances don’t break the bank and that is always appreciated.