Curzon (1882)
by Geo F Trumper

Bergamot, Oakmoss, French Labdanum, Patchouli and Spices.


This is quite interesting, although I must admit immediately that I am not interested in buying an actual bottle of this. No, its not THAT interesting and my sample vial will do very nicely with this one.


Curzon starts off smelling like some vintage, dated bitter leather chypre with oily structure. There is a huge doze of oakmoss in this scent.

Drydown reveals fairly complex developments and changes, and eventually I am able to relate this even to Palais Jamais by Etro. (Although I like PJ much more as it is more natural with much more timeless and versatile feel to it)
Btw, I am surprised to see not pine wood lacking from the list of notes. At least I imagine I can smell something very pine-y in this blend.


Curzon is a classical woody chypre fragrance heavy on oakmoss. Very easy too detect that vintage-like, overripe bergamot note too that flows all the way from the top to the bottom.
Curzon is bitter-green and to my mind hopelessly dated. It smells very natural in way mixed forest smells when its thick and dry growth is seeking desperately some rescuing rain showers after some long bone-dry season.

There are much better and more vital fragrances of this kind available.

Sometimes you just want something simple that does exactly what it says on the tin. This is just such a product.After a rather soapy opening, it dried down swiftly and left me feeling clean and fragrant. The longevity was pretty good, and it retained it's class for the remainder of the day.

I love this! Usually I don't like mossy scents but this one is amazing. A combination of traditional cologne and chypre compositions. Classy, dry, oakmoss, lemon, and feels natural. I'd compare this with Paco Rabanne pour Homme. Good stuff.

A very 'classic' cologne that is the epitome of the Trumpers line but for me, this smells a little dated. To be fair, it is over 100 years old and I would wear this if bought some but I think Trumpers make some equally distinguished colognes that have a better balance and come across more timeless. (eg Wellington).

Another Trumper dry chypre (like their Eucris and Astor). This begins with amber, drys down to sandalwood, then oakmoss and pine. It's not as harsh as Eucris and slightly sweeter than Astor. I'm not crazy about chypres. I find them the most unpleasant of categories in scentland, but this one is at least endurable.

It's muggy and cloudy outside and that is not a good setting for a dry chypre such as Curzon. So I might just have to eat my words after retrying this on a cold autumn day. For what it's worth: no sweetness to talk of here for me, in fact, the citrus and lavender top is disappointingly muted and the florals also never really make a convincing appearance on stage. Everything is happening behind a musty curtain of arid herbacity dominated by what seems to me to be clove, flanked by mossy notes. Too conventional by contemporary standards, but then it dates from 1882, so one should concede it probably became so conventional by being consistently plagiarized. What's worse is that it never achieves a proper balance on my skin, which makes it mediocre for me, though I appreciate it's objective quality.