Odd--it was comforting to wear so much

I piled on the Yatagan this morning. Spray after spray, probably six shots total. It was stronger than I remembered. Big deal, I like it that way. The sunshine and warm weather might have played a part.

On to the story of the day: it was very strange, but the power of this fantastic scent, despite its reach into lots of people's nostrils as I rode the subway and went about weekend chores, was incredibly comforting. Odd--it was comforting.

Sitting down on the subway, standing, walking the passageways of the stations and riding the escalators, I knew it was spreading out there. I have a friend who said she always used to tease her brother and his friends when they got ready to go to nightclubs: "you're getting all cologned up!" she said, and held her nose or waved the air away from in front of it. Today, I was all cologned up.

But it wasn't guy-on-the-skirt-hunt cologned up. It was weird. I noticed that people didn't move away from me. One got noticibly closer for sniffs. I think the reason was that it was Yatagan, and I think this for two reasons: first, Yatagan is very interesting and a great smell, but second and most important, Yatagan is so different from what most people smell. Yatagan isn't on even as many as 1 in 1000 men, maybe not even 1 in 10,000. So it's a categorically different smell from Biff, Bobby, and Dick getting ready for a night out. Yatagan is so different it doesn't call mockable images into people's minds.

I'm not a mind reader, but I had to wonder, and thus I felt very comfortable smelling so strongly, about how different the people around me thought I might be because of how different my chosen scent was. I thought my smell made me a curious commodity in a positive way. I loved it. Felt like I was in control the whole time I was, well, holding onto the standing support bars of the subway car. It was really cool. I was smelling up the place, but giving no one the material for giggles.

I've got to do this more often!

That's not easy though. I think it's a delicate balance depending on which scent is picked, and how much the wearer likes the scent. How "fitting" the scent is on the person, and all that.

It was very strange and delightful. I wore a lot and had no worries--had comfort instead--because of the perfection and oddity of Yatagan.

Super cool.
--Chris

Gents and lady,
I'm going to get back to all of you as soon as I can. Sorry I haven't already.

Thanks!
--Chris

Yes, Merlino, its sort of a nutty twist that other people decide I could never pull that off but think that you can and do well. I think theres no metaphysical root for this error of who can pull it off, because if your friends were to wear MKK for a while theyd see themselves in it and feel great in it. I think its only a matter of a person deciding what olfactory territory he or she is going to demand from the world. So you make a change and the world catches up to you since it starts to make sense that youre smelling so differently.

Right again on the Le Male comparison. If they knew the fragrance and mentally associated it with everyone wearing the latest rear-grabbers I want tail scent (forgive me Le Male lovers, Im just trying to have fun with words), then you betcha, everyone smelling me would have had possibly negative associations.



Strolly, you probably thought the wind had caught the scent of the zoo in an unusual way, when it was just the cars of 95 bringing a tunnel of wind currents up to you!

One quivering shot of Yatagan to the chest, my friend and you are all of a suddent Candy Apple Grey heading for Land Speed Record for sure.



Renato, you and I usually wear six shots. This time it was oddly powerful, more so than usual. Its your wifes comment about the zoo value of Yatagan that made me reply to Strolly above about the winds over the Baltimore Zoo.


I dont get the animal smell myself. Might be that Im a city boy, but I get a grubbiness for sure, herbal stickiness, and thick oooze of something. I know a the apes and elephants house smell too.


Jillsy and Dimitrios write about stinkin up the sub-continent with Yatagan. You absolutely must! Criminals in Botany Bay, a national reputation for adventure loving people, natural beauty everywhere, sounds like a place for Yatagan on men and women alike!


I hear you Nthny, its a really neat feeling when you smell someone, he or she is perfumed, and you reflect that it means something special to that person, it means a hope they have, and a piece theyve put on to make them feel perfect for what theyre going to set off and do. I cant remember exactly which holiday it was, but a year ago or so it was a half-business day before some common cultural holiday event, and when I was around business people downtown I smelled several that didnt smell like business smells--a woman smelled heavily of Jicky, for example, and was dressed for the evening. She was chatting with co-workers, apparently, at the coffee shop to kill time before going out for the evening. She wouldnt have been in the Jicky, although who am I ultimately to know, just a hunch, if it werent a special holiday. So that holiday brought a unique hope to her and she had a special fragrance for it. Fantastic. Makes one really love people.

More replies as soon as I get them ready.
--Chris

RM, thanks for your kind words. I always enjoy your posts for the same high quality reasons. Yeah, I know--six sprays usually isnt killer material. Sometimes using six makes it easy for me to spray a seventh, though, in an aww heck, this smells good, a couple more good uns wont hurt anything, and I never look back. Bring it on and all that. This time it was weird though, I had the fragrance with me as if Id put on six sprays every three hours. A great thing!

Caron has four mens scents, Pour un Homme, Yatagan, Third Man, and LAnarchiste. All four are of the finest scents available on the surface of this great earth. Not a stinker or a miss about them, and it's a blessing that theyre not on strips inside millions of fashion magazines too. Quality that speaks for itself and runs itself to the people who know or figure out how to know. Imagine, one other person, who wears Caron and replaces the same bottle whenever its used, but doesnt know its anything different from AdG, D&G, or and celebrity marketed scent. Imagine that the person just wears it and only wears it because he or she likes it. That person is going to come off as so much cooler than everyone in the fashion magazine advertised scents. They might not know it as such, they might not have our Basenoters wisdom that Caron rocks, but they are scent-dressed like a million bucks and dont know it. There wont be anything wrong with how they smell ever, in their one Caron, and theyll always be top of tasteful.

Im going to turn over to the Carons for women some day soon, just to try to extend the good smelling feeling. Id have that house make a vetiver already, though. Same with Diptyque--need a competitive vetiver from the magic houses.



Mike, you raise two good points, and I know on the first one you really sink the arrow into the target.

Yes, Im also convinced that the reason I could get away with this subway car commanding olfactory dominance was that the scent was unusual. Lets say I was covered in Eau dHadrien instead. Its a very very top citrus scent, and glorious in its own right. I delight in it when I wear it. But were I clogging the air with it on the subway car, it would trigger things in everyone elses brains that would say, that guy is all cologned up. Among them there would be those who would go further and think, someone needs to tell that loser hes wearing too much--obviously hes not getting laid because any significant other would tell him about his super gaff! And that would be with a glorious scent too. But because of the prevalence of a citrus, probably, everyone mentally plugs it into a certain picture of the wearer, or me. The Yatagan aint like that. I could get away with it because it was exotic in the sense of not being familiar, and if I smelled of it, whether I walked out of a place/room pregnant with it, or if I had it to apply like a daily cologne thing, then just who/what must I be, and what on earth was my story? Was the reaction I think was going on. If my scent was so unfamiliar, then I must have as unfamiliar roots or experiences myself to have exposure to this unfamiliar smell.

I dont want to pat myself on the back, I just want to talk about what it is to wear a scent that cant be placed. Chuck a glory like Eau dHadrien, it gives you away too much! Instead I let a fantastic smell set me apart and inspire curiosity. I think. Maybe everyone thought I worked at the zoo though.

The second good point you raise is to ask which version/formulation of Yatagan I was wearing. Unfortunately thats a very important question, and its one Im in denial about. Truth is its not the current formulation. Its the square 100ml bottle with a tall black plastic cap like the one Sloan posted in a picture in the last few weeks. I also have a 125mls bottle of the currently sold version with a silver cap.

Ten years ago or so my brother was interested in how I talked about scents. Peppered me with all the good questions. Well, no biggie, I said, Ill send you a good gathering of fantastic ones. So I did. Antaeus, Pour un Homme, Yatagan, Carven Vetiver, and Molinard Vetiver. I told him he needed vetivers because hes a dad now and vetiver says Im the daddy like nothing else.

I was recently visiting him for a while. I knew that skunk had never bothered to try out these glories. I knew that ungrateful sibling had them somewhere and had never used them. He and the wife went to the grocery store, and I went through his stuff to get the old Carons back! Made sure I wore them loud and clear the rest of my time visiting him too. Packed em up safe for the plane ride home too.

Now I get to wear them and compare them to the current versions available.

My friends here will tell me Im smelling through rose colored glasses, but I dont think the current version of Yatagan is much off this older one. Theres a denser heart to the older one, and the newer one is slightly less viscous oil, but it does the job almost as well. I think Ill have to do more tests and report more on this later.
--Chris