Basenotes - Reviews by charlie.gund

United States

Showing 1 to 4 of 4.

Incense by Ava Luxe

While the incense isn't as potent as some may wish, I give it a thumbs-up: it's what I wanted from CDG Incense Avignon but didn't get. That frag I found unhappily, severely literal; this one is much more restrained about its frankincense, which it allows to develop gradually through layers of cedarwood, leather, bergamot, and chamomile. The overall impression, for me, is warmly resinous -- serene rather than severe. If it has any deficit, it's the oddly Estee-Lauderish quality that I am finding common to Ava Luxe frags -- the warm amber at the end of the day seems to me just slightly too fuzzy. Still: some incense make me contemplate my mortality, while this one makes me smile. I like it.

9th March, 2011.

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Tricorn by Caswell-Massey

I can't imagine anyone in the twenty-first century who would wear Tricorn *naturally* -- it is distinctly old-fashioned. The medicinal quality many observe contributes to this effect. Some people may remember Balsam di Malta, an antique dental astringent -- the powerful benzoin accord with which Tricorn begins smells startlingly like that. Yet that opening dries down quickly, leaving behind what Redbeard calls "creamy wood": an enduring amber-cedar-sandalwood-cinnamon glow, warm but unsentimental. Like it.

9th March, 2011.

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Cuir de Russie by Piver

Griff calls the overwhelming mandarin "metallic"; I'd say it's more blunt and fuzzy, like a skein of polyester yarn wrapped carefully around a ball-peen hammer. The carnation is squashed to a sad pink pulp (some of its clove seeps out, however, in the squashing). The rich or ancient leather-or-wood notes that others have found I can only discover after hours, long polyester-hammer hours, sitting very close to my skin, almost as though it were a postcard sent from the gift shop of the antique sawmill Quarry so beautifully describes. "I wish I were there, too," I say sadly to Quarry; but my nose will not take me there.

This is a good fragrance to have on hand if, for instance, you are staying in Paris in the winter in an apartment with no hot water, where you consequently bathe perhaps not as often as you might like to. Piver's Cuir de Russie is so powerful, so straightforward, and so absurdly durable that you will never walk out of the house feeling unkempt. Not fascinating, perhaps, but certainly presentable.

11th April, 2008.

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Youth Dew by Estée Lauder

I urge all those who smell a rich old lady to give Youth Dew another chance, with more careful attention. She may be rich, this lady, she may be old (she wasn't always), but she is wiser than you know. The initial shower of assorted spices suggests that she may possibly be benign, even kindly; then, the clove and rose recall the grand passions of her youth; finally--you must pay close attention--the benzoin drifts up from beneath her polished manners like a prophecy (tricky to interpret, undoutedly true). Among my favorites.

11th April, 2008.

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Showing 1 to 4 of 4.