Pascal Morabito Or Noir: fragrance review

There's a wondrous line in Sherlock BBC S2E1 (A Scandal in Belgravia) when Irene Adler marvels at the height of the cheekbones of our eponymous hero, saying "Look at those cheekbones, I could cut myself slapping that face... would you like me to try?". This is in essence the, well, essence of Or Noir, the vintage fragrance by French jeweller Pascal Morabito; a fragrance so sharp and juttingly beautiful, one could cut themselves trying to slap it into submission.

Morabito is famous for his "free floating diamond" launched in 1970, a cube that contained a simple, clear cut diamond, that looked as if it was not suspended, but floating in space. Ten years later he launched the perfume equivalent in Or Noir, the fragrance. Diamonds are sharp and all, and scents do float in space, get it?

Or Noir the fragrance oozes with urban elegance. It's a man-made scent, it's impossible to imagine this aroma in the countryside, or coming from a natural source that you can put your finger on. The mix  of notes, with blackcurrant bud in the top notes to give that tangy feeling and the inky impression of bitter oak moss in the base, is not unheard of, but its aloofness speaks of supreme confidence in wielding those slaps expertly. It's the scent of a professional. The heart of the Morabito's Or Noir is comprised of womanly notes, green florals like narcissus and lily of the valley with budding gardenia, notes which pair supremely with chypre perfumes and leather fragrances.

The magic of the perfume comes from delineating its lineage. This owes a heavy debt to iconoclast Germaine Cellier's infamous Bandit perfume for Piguet from the 1940s, as well as Bernard Chant's masterpieces for Lauder and for Madame Grès in the 1960s and 1970s. But it's not a copy, rather the end of a prodigious line. If you ever happen upon a vintage bottle, don't let it pass you by; getting a cut pounding on this prey is very worth trying.

Manos Gerakinis Immortelle: Treackly Burnt Sugar - fragrance review

The name Immortelle comes from the golden-hued plant of everlasting flowers (immortelle in French) or helichrysum. The scent of immortelle absolute in its raw state is difficult to describe, somewhat similar to sweet fenugreek and curcuma, spices used in Indian curry, with a maple-like facet. Quite logical, if you consider the fact that the substance contains alpha, beta and gamma curcumene. Manos Gerakinis, a niche Greek line that is aiming ambitiously and delivers in sillage and lasting power most admirably, tried to harness exactly this precious oil, the one from everlasting flowers.

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A cross between burnt sugar and dry straw is a rather valiant effort at conveying immortelle's nuanced profile, but the more the immortelle oil warms up on the skin, the more it reveals human-like, supple nuances of honeyed notes, waxy, intimate... It pairs well in chypres and oriental fragrances, where it is placed next to labdanum, clove, citruses, chamomille, lavender and rose essences.

In Manos Gerakinis's Immortelle niche offering, the immortelle accord takes on a sweet and deep aspect, with spicy accents, a dark gourmand. The cinnamon is pronounced, making me passingly think of a Middle Eastern dessert carré. The result is resinous without becoming heavy, nor suffocating, nevertheless. Benzoin, a resin with caramelic aspects, pairs with the rustic roughness of immortelle that recalls the Corsican maquis and Greek insular landscape.

There are some ways in which Immortelle reminds me of Goutal's classic Sables (probably the reference point for immortelle scents, for daring to be the first one seriously highlighting it) and of Serge Lutens's Jeux de Peau with its whiff of toasted bread and its subtly caramelized notes. People who love L de Lolita Lempicka and Frederic Malle Musc Ravageur might also find in Immortelle a trusty ally for their moments of daytime sensuous abandon.

The Manos Gerakinis brand has an official website by that name, where all the shopping options are mentioned clearly with international presence in the Middle East and Russia.

Parfums Berdoues Arz El Rab: fragrance review

Ginger has a peculiar quality of appearing at the same time fresh and fiery. It's got an energizing zing to it, which is great for giving lift and energy to compositions that would otherwise remain dull and/or maudlin. Its shared facets with citrus make it a wonderful addition to classic eau de cologne compositions, elevating them to a quirky refreshment for summer wear, as exemplified by Origins Ginger Essence. Its classical inclusion in gingerbread gives warmth and comforting nuances in cooler weather fragrances, which recall those evenings spent by the fire nibbling on said cookies. Ginger's allusion to Far Eastern cuisine, where it's also very popular, is another culturally rich pool of pleasurable referents.

My favorite ginger fragrance falls rather far from either of those categories.
Parfums Berdoues Arz el-Rab can't be said to be particularly fresh or cologne-y, nor is it a gourmand ginger scent. Instead it has a gauzy feeling of canopies atop a wooden four-post bed made out of solid, polished wood, a tiny bit dusty. It's comforting, but it's a whole other comfort association. The ginger is allied to a tiny citrusy facet which dissipates almost upon spraying; the energetic blast is vibrant for the first hour or so, with the ginger holding first violin role. What follows possesses the starched quality of a subdued and low-key scent of woods and fluffy iris, with no metallic contraptions. It's as if one is actually invited to rest their wary body atop that four-post bed surrounded by pencil shavings. I happen to like pencil shavings (the classic Virginia cedar wood smell) and this bodes well for me personally. Pencil shavings recall academic pursuits and ginger provides that needed energy boost that academic pursuits would need, so it's a good mental match.

 More masculine or unisex, at the very least, rather than traditionally feminine, at least as defined by the presence of florals or sweetness in the current vernacular, Arz el-rab is perfect for all those situations where you want a tiny jolt of energy without appearing too invasive or self-conscious, and can be worn summer or winter without much wavering to its medium projection.

The Smell of War: The Senses on Alert (part 2)

It was Shakespeare who wrote, ""Cry havoc!, and let loose the dogs of war, that this foul deed shall smell above the earth with carrion men, groaning for burial."
In part 1 of my article on The Smell of War (HERE) I extrapolated the scents that plagued the combat fields of WWI and the fragrances which were created in that fateful era as solace and as memory.

Since chemical weaponry had been so notoriously used during WWI to great impact, as we have elaborated before, by the time WWII soldiers were fully engaged there were posters warning them about the smells they should avoid to protect themselves from terrible pulmonary harm and skin burning, an olfactory compass that directed them away from musty hay or green corn (for phosgene), geraniums (for lewisite), flypaper smell (for chlorpicrine), and garlic-horseradish-mustard (rather predictably for mustard gas).

Amidst the newer weapons of smelly compounds for WWII, one catches our attention by its intricate psychological concept behind it. Who Me? was a top secret sulfurous stench weapon developed by the American Office of Strategic Services in the 1940s to be used by the French Resistance against German officers. This stinky bomb smelled strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers, sort of like modern pepper spray, intended to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer, humiliating him and, by extension, demoralizing the occupying German forces. Needless to say that the fact that the fecal smelling compounds were largely based on sulfur, a light molecule that easily leaked into the clothes and skin of the assailant, a fact which confirmed the swift failure of such putrid, but essentially harmless, weaponry as Who Me?.

Perfumery rose to the challenge of bypassing the foul and the fragrant, of vicious and frightening smells, to bring a respite after the war that would celebrate the return to normalcy. Boys raised on farms, coming to pee themselves out of terror for garlic or geraniums that would signal risk of death, would come home to find themselves greeted by fragrances that needed to soothe, but also to heal, which is not quite the same thing. Feeding the longing for serenity was a mission. Naming the new fragrances gave half the game away sometimes.

Air Nouveau by Houbigant was ushering the new era, full of optimism and willing to put to rest the angst that plagued Europe and the world for more than a decade with repercussions lasting beyond that time frame.

This is a small part of a longer article which I published on Fragrantica. You can read it in its entirety here.