Fragrance Reviews by Eluard

I sat next to a girl on a bus today and was knocked out by her perfume — which was very strong indeed. It seemed powdery and made me think of Chanel, but was not any Chanel that I recognised. There was a very pleasant ambery, oriental character to the fragrance.

I asked her what it was, telling her that it was incredible: she said it was Vanderbilt. Not bad for an inexpensive scent.

Like some others here I get no leather from this fragrance—none at all. But it is full of dark smoke, as if one had walked into an underground jazz joint in 1920s Paris and been enveloped in layers of cigarette smoke drifting up from the fingers of predatory call-girls and their attentive, bookish, clientele. And somehow “bookish” defines this scent—because you cannot rid yourself of thoughts of Stein, Hemmingway, the Fitzgeralds, and other writers of the time, drinking themselves into a state where they can see eye to eye with the times. And this scent is the scent of those times. There is nothing opulent about this scent, but I can imagine it on a young Bette Davis or Barbara Stanwyck (pre-code) and it conjures up murder and burlesque and a world recovering from a great war. I wouldn’t say that the scent has a great beauty to it, but it has character — like layers of shadow. I suppose it could be said to be a film-noir scent, some twenty-five years before that genre properly emerged. But it were a painting it would have to be Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted 12 years earlier — or perhaps those sepia cubist paintings of Braque and Picasso.

Whatever Daltroff’s original intention, this scent can now be worn by both men and women. It is more masculine than many male scents that are on the market today. But it isn’t unisex in the way that has come to be interpreted by L’Artisan and others. Rather it somehow transcends gender. One could say it is for sexual intellectuals of either gender.

I come to second Herr Duckfinder’s opinion of this overlooked beauty. The accord that I most love is the Oakmoss/Patchoulli combination. Here it is combined with some rich green notes and a perfect amount of leather. Polo Crest, which I also love, combines O/P with a heavy dose of jasmine, and Polo (Green) combines it with some green (natch!) medicinal notes, but neither have the classic masculinity that leather brings. More people should give Capucci scents a try — they are extremely well-made and criminally underrated.

Some fragrances are good—some are great works of art. Ungaro I is a great work of art. I have no idea what’s in it and I don’t want to know. I can’t dissect it for component smells and it all just seems irrelevant anyway. This just has a beauty that is undeniable and maybe even unsurpassable. In the early 90s Ungaro must have had a sudden rush of genius to have made in such quick succession I, II, and III. I love III, and find it a romantic masterpiece, but I is special in the world of men’s fragrances. It has an ineffable beauty that makes the fact that it is no longer available a real tragedy.

The notable thing about this fragrance is that it is unlike anything else on the market at present. (I say “at present” because it is sure to be imitated within a year.) It is thus distinctive and unique—both good things in the overcrowded smell-alike world of scents where everything seems to have been done and few things stand out. Terre stands out—and how! The opening is of cold earth, and is faintly off-putting. It’s a sour smell, rather than the modern feminine “sweet” that most men’s scents seem to have. But it dries down quickly to something quite lovely—without losing its distinctive masculinity. A great scent—and a distinctive, creative achievement. It shows that new things can still be done.

(For what it’s worth I detect no patchouli whatever.)

Ken Russell has said below “When I first got a bottle of it was so enthusiastic about it and almost instantly I felt much more sensual and attractive than ever before. But I also discovered another quality of Drakkar- for me it worked extremely well as an aid for concentration and intellectual work. Its heavy, smoky tones must have an almost spiritual, mystical aura.”

This immediately struck a chord in me because it expresses my feeling about another Pierre Wargnye creation, Baldarassini by Hugo Boss. I also get it from Contradiction (also by Wargnye). I wonder if this might not be a secret thread running through the perfumer’s work? He manages to create something quite spiritual in his work, something I get from no other cologne.

This might seem a bit of a stretch but the image that Wargnye’s work reminds me most of (and I’m thinking principally of Baldarassini here) is the art of 15th century painters like Fra Angelico. I’d be very interested to see Wargnye interviewed—I’m curious to know his own views on his work.

I can’t shake the feeling that some of the reviewers here have been overly influenced by advertisements for this one. How else to explain the surprisingly divergent views?

I came to this uncontaminated by marketing and fluff and have to say that I am a believer. I can’t quite believe how beautiful this juice is. It is just surprisingly lovely at all stages, but doesn’t feel feminine in any way. It is sweet, I suppose, but more, it seems to radiate sunlight, a warm yellow glow. Wearing this I feel happier and more centred, more myself. I like the world more. I have no direct evidence as yet, but I think that others will appreciate it on me. (This review is of the concentree version.)

If it reminds me of anything it would be Salvador, by Salvador Dali.

A reviewer here suggested wearing this one for three days straight. This I’ve done, and I must say I’m a real convert. Civet, leather and patchouli, done as a beautiful homage to a by-gone era (even in 1974), and masculine in a way that many modern scents could not conceive. But a small amount of this goes a long way, and whereas with many modern scents one can spray and spray to little discernible effect, with this more than one spray can have you smelling dandified in a way that modern women would not find attractive—and hey, they probably wouldn’t even have found attractive in 1974. But this fragrance is evocative of style and substance and in small doses is probably a better choice now than it would have been in, say, 1980. Because whereas 25 years ago it might have evoked images of bling-riddled Eurotrash cruising Monte Carlo, it now brilliantly offsets the modern tendency toward weak “office” fragrances that are so bland, inoffensive and forgettable.

It took me awhile to work out what the initial (unpleasant) blast of this smells like: it smells like linament oil, the kind that one might rub into an aching muscle in the locker room after a tough game of…you guessed it, polo. Plenty of steam, but a heavy blast of that medicinal muscle relaxant as well. I find it both intensely evocative and equally intensely off-putting. But after an hour or so it all changes: the woody base notes come through and it is extraordinary. During this phase, which lasts for hours, I can really appreciate the craftsmanship involved in this. Ralph Lauren has an uncanny ability to match scent to an image of a lifestyle. In this case it is not my lifestyle, but the creation is a thing to wonder at nonetheless.

The reviews here almost put me off getting this, but I’m certainly glad I did. It is powerful and long lasting and smells like nothing else. The base notes here seem to stretch all the way up to the top. This is a very special fragrance—modern in the way that The Third Man and Yatagan are not, even though they also are excellent—and I really hope that Caron keep it around. And did I mention that it is long lasting: the musk or flowery notes seem to last in their original strength for around ten or so hours. This is a real gem.