Monk (2005)
by Michael Storer

EDP:

Smells like the New Orleans French Quarter at Halloween. Without the booze and garbage/sewage.

MS lists the notes as: Top: Acacia flower, bergamot orange, bitter orange, galbanum.

Middle: Linden blossom absolute, blond tobacco absolute, frankincense resin, beeswax absolute cysts oil, ambrette seed, cocoa absolute, Bulgarian rose absolute.

Base: Aged Indonesian vanilla, tonka bean absolute, civet, sandalwood, Texas cedarwood, benzoin tincture, jasmine absolute, birch tar.

Hmm. Imagine a cocoa-butter-laden tourist in a cathedral with the incense burning full-on. That's the top notes (and this was the first perfume that has caused me to sneeze, although just once) ... Within minutes there is a different character to this scent.

The cocoa fades to ...a jasmine-tea-like frankincense and tobacco, as if the tourist left the building and a pipe smoker came in that tourist's place. I am getting the civet shimmering at the borders now, a little animality to the above combo. Airy and sharp animality? Yeah. Just at the edges. Nothing bergamot though, which is odd... perhaps it's covered up with the cocoa and frankincense and tobacco.

There is indeed a leathery (bookbinding leather, which conjures up yet another cathedralesque image for me) undertone to the early middle notes... a kind of wild dance between the "sacred and profane" seems to be going on here. Dry onionskin paper and leather laced with incense.

... and still a hint of cocoa butter but more cocoa than butter... seem to come to the front as the drydown progresses. Warm and soft, still with the leatheriness beneath, and the touch of tobacco as well.

It is dark, and I can understand why it's been called a Gothic scent. But sweet and warm and dark Gothic, like a New Orleans courtyard. With a little whiff of a good Nag Champa incense floating in from time to time. Must be the tobacco, sandalwood, and tonka.

The drydown has a lovely sweet/acrid woody/civet edge to it.

I am liking this.

I am mystified by the other reviews of Monk. I don't smell tobacco and birch tar or incense in this fragrance at first. I get the party floral notes up front, then some softness and the darkness comes afterward. Its opposite of what most of the other reviewers smell in Monk. It is possible that there is a newer formula - my bottle is a different shape and the juice is light orange, not clear like photos I've seen so there's a clue that there may have been a formula change.

The list of notes from Michael Storer is formidable. There are florals listed of linden blossom,acacia flower and a very noticeable bulgarian rose absolute - all florals that waft out first followed by warm sweet soft notes of vanilla, tonka, benzoin, ambrette seed, sandalwood and cocoa. These softening elements quieten the florals into a soft warm musk that really does project - bam! Following these floral and vanilla notes are big masculine notes of: frankincense, tobacco, cedar and birch tar. These give it a wooded depth that moves it more masculine. There is natural tartness from the beeswax that adds a sour/sweet connection to darker notes of civet and birch tar.

I see the "partying Monk" that Vibert mentions, right from the beginning of the fragrance with its hypnotic floral musk at the top. The floral musk blended with civet and frankincense is softened by vanilla, tonka and cocoa and it reminds me greatly of Musc Ravegeur by Frederic Malle. The base transitions to dark stoney frankincense with a bit of tobacco and birch tar which slowly ebbs up from the depths. After a few hours this fragrance has a monkish darkness about it but inside this monks hood his eyes are still glowing and he is "dancing in the dark".

Monk is a hard fragrance for me to wear. It is very bold and an aggressive mixture. An occasional light spritz though adds some sun and mystery. I think of this as a night out on the town fragrance similar to Musc Ravegeur or Neil Morris's Prowl.

Monk starts out with dusty frankincense, bitter green notes, and very dry woods, in an austere, musty, old cloister accord redolent at once of weathered stone, parchment, and snuffed out candles. I detect nothing sweet, nothing warm, nothing citric, and nothing floral amidst all this ashen monochromatism. After about an hour of unrelieved gray, and just when I’m ready to write it off as “nice, dry frankincense, nothing special” and shelve it next to Heeley’s Cardinal, Bond's Silver Factory, and Durbano’s Rock Crystal, Monk pulls its massive sucker punch. The friar shimmies off his robes, pops a curly blond wig over his tonsure, and sashays out of his cell in fishnet stockings, pumps, leather skirt and a biker’s jacket he’s been hiding under the ecclesiastic trappings all along.

In olfactory terms, Monk abruptly softens and sweetens, draping its stark incense in mild florals and its bitter greens in sweet tobacco, soft leather, powder, and tonka bean - in short, Habit Rouge with incense! I’ll take Storer’s word for it that there’s civet in the formula as well, though it does not register as a distinct note. Instead it contributes to the warm mantle that embraces Monk during its more comfortable second phase.

Scent that transform as quickly and radically as Monk often do so to collapse from sublime to ordinary (Aziyadé, Fire Island), if not decompose, fast-forward, into a smoking heap of refuse on the skin. (Aoud Ambre, Serge Noire.) Once in a great while though, a scent will undergo a metamorphosis from grub to winged adult. Monk is just such a scent. Neat trick!

EDP formulation.

Monk is an odd fragrance, I know I'm smelling cocoa butter but yet it doesn't conjure up feminine associations. Though the smokiness is difficult to discern there's just enough there to mould the cocoa butter in a masculine smell. Within an hour vanilla starts to dominate and I'm afraid vanilla is just not my thing.

When all is said and done my wife likes this, and because I don’t dislike it and as I'm a bit of a tart I'd wear this just to impress her. A 'Thumbs Up' but barely.

Michael Storer Monk

Over the last few years there have been a number of artisanal perfumers who have sprung up. One common thread to all of them is they present a distinct view of what they think perfume should be and then go about making perfumes that live up to those ideals. Michael Storer is one of this breed of artisanal perfumers and his creations are challenging olfactory fever dreams. His 2005 creation Monk is the scent that would seem to work best on me, as a lover of incense and birch tar, and with those notes at the top of his ingredients; Monk should be just what I'm looking for. With a name like Monk it is sure to conjure up images of European monasteries over a 1,000 years old and the top of Monk surely does that. At the top Monk smells like a musty hallway in an ancient stone edifice redolent of smoke and aged parchment, with only faint hits of incense. This beginning comes off a lot like CB I Hate Perfume In The Library but with the addition of smoke. I have to say this beginning is challenging for me as I appreciate the stage it sets for what is to come but it lasts almost too long on me before developing further. The heart of this is where Mr. Storer really does make things come alive because apparently his band of merry monks like cocoa. This is the dry cocoa powder accord I like so much from Chanel Coromandel and Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 and here it signals a shift in tone as the smoke and mustiness is left behind and the rich tones of cocoa take over. The base is a well-balanced animalic mix of civet and musk. Mr. Storer does a great job here of balancing two very strong notes and using them to bring out the best in each other. Monk is a very long-lasting scent with very good sillage. I find the first 30-45 minutes of Monk to be almost too much of an effort, for me, but the remaining 12 hours are well worth the investment of my time.

EDP review:

The only half-decent men's release from Storer but it still fails to fully convince or inspire me. I don’t get much incense from this at all – more of a musty smell you associate with an old decrepit building. Like Ava Luxe, there’s something amateurish and muddy about his creations that I, unfortunately, am unable to appreciate.

[Original submission date: 05 July 2008]