How often does a fragrance literally draw a giggle out of you when you spray it on? I doubt this was Francis Kurkdjian’s intention, but his upcoming flanker to Cologne pour le Soir had just that effect on me when I caught its truly feral civet and cumin pong.
[Note added on Sept. 3rd: The Maison Francis Kurkdjian does not consider L'Absolue du Soir as a flanker but as a stand-alone product in the "Soir" series: ylang-ylang, cumin, Atlas cedar and sandalwood were added to the structure of the Cologne.]
With its powdery balsams, the Cologne is a cosy, faintly retro, stay-at-home and snuggle on the couch kind of scent with only the barest hint of the beast in its honeyed rose (the rose/honey/sandalwood combination can come pretty close to essence of womanhood, as the vintage Schiaparelli Shocking demonstrates). But the Absolue pour le Soir is a party animal with a kinky bent. This is Mr. Hyde to the Cologne’s Dr. Jekyll: spray it on and you’ll come out of the house already trailing wafts of heated flesh in leather. And whatever you do with your night, the extraordinarily tenacious sandalwood base will hang on well past the dawn. Even handling the sample atomizer leaves such a lasting trace on fingers you’ll have people doubting your moral character…
While Absolue pour le Soir hangs on to the sweet and elegant rose and vanilla-benzoin core of the original Cologne, it’s such an all-out skank-feast it’s even giving me pause. Which is saying a lot. Well, perhaps on a full moon night?
What about you? What’s your Mr. Hyde fragrance, the one that draws out the animal in you?
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This one is easy... the ultra skanky Muscs Koublaï Khan by Serge Lutens.
RépondreSupprimerNormand, you see, that's funny, and really a case of selective anosmia, I think: I've never at any time perceived MKK as skanky.
RépondreSupprimerI have a few of them, but recently I've been drawn to my little decant of vintage Visa parfum. A couple of drops and eyebrows raise. Can't wait to try MFK's new party animal!
RépondreSupprimerMelissa, Visa is most definitely feral. It's full of the Animalis base: the name says it all.
RépondreSupprimerEasy task for me as well- Musc Ravageur by F. Malle!
RépondreSupprimerShould we also excpect Absolue pour le Matin? And truly hope that Lancome would not have any objections as their creams and lipsticks use the same name.
When I bring MKK to the office and ask people what they think, their reaction is always, "Oh my God!"
RépondreSupprimerOr Kiehl's Musk. But that may be just me... musk smells animalic to me except if the laundry, soapy aspect of it is turned up loud.
Ela, again, I think my skank setting must be pretty high: I find MR sexy but essentially cuddly!
RépondreSupprimerAnd, yes, there is an Absolue pour le Matin which is essentially a stronger version of Cologne pour le Matin, but didn't inspire a review.
Normand: well, there's North Americans for you... I mean, it's animalic, but not in the "Eww what's that" territory.
RépondreSupprimerHow about Mona di Orio's Nuit Noire?
RépondreSupprimerI have never quite managed to buy a full bottle, but it certainly feels pretty grrrrrr...
Or the wonderful Fredeique Malle Une Fleur de Cassie which isn't particularly polite on warm skin... I almost started licking a friend's skin last week, but alas we didn't know each other well enough...
Alexander, I tried Nuit Noire ages ago and never since, but it *is* pretty feral. On the other hand, I'd say Une Fleur de Cassie is too well-balanced to be a skank-fest. And I repress that licking (or biting) urge quite regularly!
RépondreSupprimerI think it's true about North Americans... it has to smell clean. No smell is not clean. A clean smell is something that we've been brought up with... dictated by the detergent companies.
RépondreSupprimerI often found it odd that Javel water is considered a clean smell when, in fact, Javel is a disinfectant. It kills bacteria but it's not a soap and it doesn't really clean anything.
I'll just add a point to my Kiehl's Musk comment. KM is more of a kitten. It comes out roaring but it dies down to a skin scent pretty quickly.
Normand, one thing I know is that bleach turns my kitty (talking about the wicked creature with pointed ears, claws and whiskers) into a mad thing... On bathroom-scrubbing days she could bite my fingers off in her enthusiasm.
RépondreSupprimerBy the way... GREAT choice of photos for that post! I never tire of seeing how you match up your posts with images.
RépondreSupprimerHmmm. I really enjoyed my sample of Cologne pour le Soir, as it conjured an oozing skank re-take of Bois d'Armenie, so this must be sampled also. Any idea of when we'll be able to buy?
RépondreSupprimerOh it's so nice to know that there's someone else who finds MKK mild and un-skanky! Perhaps growing up opposite a farm has left me barnyard-anosmic.
RépondreSupprimerOnes that do make me giggle: Jicky parfum & vintage Bal a Versailles edc for the civet. Other types of dirtiness somehow fail to register with me (esp indoles and musk). I must be *very* European ;)
Amaranthine is as skanky as this American dares to go... I love that facet of it, though I know most people get no skank from it at all. And my 15-year-old Mitsy has some nice skank, too, but that one gets raised eyebrows when I'm among Yankees (not from Southerners, though). Beyond those two, I must remain skank-free, because I work with Americans, and children. I mean, really! Once I wore Mitsy to a family reunion and my mother sniffed me and said in sotto voce, "Marla, really, there are CHILDREN in the house!!" Synth-fruit, candy, and laundry detergent are the acceptable odors for North Americans, particularly those who work with kids. I'm glad mine are growing up in Europe!
RépondreSupprimer-Marla
Trhoades, it's coming out here in France some time in September, so I'd imagine it'll be launched internationally pretty soon.
RépondreSupprimerNormand, "party animal" immediately summoned images of Terry Richardson. I had trouble finding some that wouldn't be too risqué even for this blog, though...
RépondreSupprimerParfymerad, even Bal à Versailles registers as cuddly for me, though I get the whiff of the barnyard. I think it's a matter of balance: the FK pushes the envelope, whereas BàV and Jicky don't.
RépondreSupprimerMarla, Amaranthine is pretty sensuous indeed... But Mitsouko registering as indecent? That's a new one on me... I always thought it was the over-ripe fruit note and the darkness of the moss that scared off people, not the "indecence". But it's amusing that it registered as slightly obscene to your mother rather than just "musty" or something...
RépondreSupprimerIt could be simply that "proper perfumes" in WASP (Puritan-derived) culture are signals of "naughty Continental/Catholic" ladies- these prejudices go back to the Reformation, as well as old sumptuary laws. My WASP ancestors simply could not wear perfumes like their Catholic cousins that they left behind in the Old World. History runs deep, yet most people have no memory of it, they just retain the instinctive prejudices....
RépondreSupprimer-Marla
Marla, that's pretty much my opinion too: cultural/religious/moral condemnations move into an almost subconscious part of cultural reflexes. The perfume/sin equation isn't absent from Catholic countries (witness 19th century France) but it's certainly less ingrained because it's counterbalanced by the Counter-Reformation inheritance of ornamentation...
RépondreSupprimerAnyway, your argument makes perfect sense: any "proper" French perfume would be "sinful" in that context, simply by being real perfume...
On the skunk front, Eau d'Hermes wins hands down for me. But I wore Theo Fennel Scent for a burlesque/circus party-thingy and it was just perfect.
RépondreSupprimerGot a decant of AplS coming and can't wait !!!
Silvia, so the Absolue is already on sale then?
RépondreSupprimerI took part in a US split, the bottle has been pre-ordered from Bergdorf Goodman and the US launch date is 9th Sept. Not sure about the UK.
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RépondreSupprimerThanks Silvia, that's good to know!
RépondreSupprimer(P.S. The above comment was a shill, so I suppressed it.)
I've developed a higher tolerance and even love for "off" notes the longer I've had this hobby.
RépondreSupprimerHere are some of my candidates...
L'Arte di Gucci - rich, almost sweaty castoreum-laden rose ( alternately SL's Rose de Nuit, if I'm feeling more introspective ).
Jardenia - overripe, fruity-cheesy floral decadence. A friend says this smells a little like rotting oranges when I first put it on, but I mostly smell gardenias past their prime.
Ubar - vintage-y floral with an edgy streak of civet and incense; a decadent, subtly feline animalism.
Rasa Extreme - when I first tried this I was new in this hobby and described it as "used diapers in a garabage heap". Revisiting it later, I found I actually really enjoyed it. It's more or less a simple rose-water tinted musk with an enormous civet note. For better or worse, long gone and impossible to find...
I enjoy Kouros, which is slightly urine-y to my nose, but I don't find it as super-dirty to my nose as many do. I'm also one of those who doesn't find MKK particularly rude - for me, the dirtiest part is the patchouli; the civet stays in the background and the musk is sweet.
The dirtiest thing I've ever smelled is Ajmal's Musk Gazelle in its current formulation. It's a scary, sticky, stinky dark oil that captures the sweet-putrid smell of a rotting corpse in horrifying detail. I suspect an overdose of castoreum plays a part, but it really is inhumanly foul; I'll never wear it again.
I'm looking forward to this new one from FK; so far none of the reviews of his line have made me want to fork out the cash for a sample, but this is an exception.
Sugandaraja, you've just reminded me I have the Ajmal Musk Gazelle somewhere in my archives. I do remember an unrelenting density and darkness, nothing I'd really want to wear, but I got it 5 years ago and I haven't smelled it since.
RépondreSupprimerRasa Extreme rings no bell...
I should note that sometime ( I really have no clue when ) Ajmal's Musk Gazelle was reformulated into something a little more, ahem, intense; I've heard the older version, which your sample may date from, was a much more balanced fragrance and not so extreme. So, on the plus side, you might have a superior version in your sample, but it might not be the charnel flower I encountered...
RépondreSupprimerRasa Extreme is from the here-again, gone-again one-woman fragrance line Ava Luxe. I find the line on the whole hot-and-miss, but it had quite a cult following before its recent two-year absence, and in some cases deservedly. ( Her Midnight Violet remains the best violet I've ever tried - woody, musky, rich, complex - no matter how many other violet fragrances I sample in the search to find something to take its place ).
Sugandaraja, I missed out on Ava Luxe entirely: when things aren't available here in Paris I tend not to go after them.
RépondreSupprimerMitsouko! Always hits the spot; I wear it rarely, but when I do! The Visa comments have peaked my interest. Wore Chinatown today, the weather called for it, love Aurelien Guichard! Must try Visa. After Chinatown today, it'll be Cologne Pour Le Soir (sample) toinght, thanks to your post.
RépondreSupprimerOkay, one more I thought of - Knize Ten! Lasts a while on clothes, can be perfect at times.
RépondreSupprimerCarla, bear in mind that the new Visa is an entirely different fragrance from the one Melissa mentions. The modern one is much in the same spirit as Chinatown whereas the original, which I agree with Joe Garces could not be commercialized today, is an out-and-out animalic.
RépondreSupprimerOh goodness, thanks! While I really love Chinatown, it certainly is not animalic.
RépondreSupprimerThis scent sounds delicious -- I'm glad I'll get to try it soon Stateside. My Skankometer is terribly erratic, MKK smells like sweaty hoards to me, while MR is way too cosy for me. Vintage Visa is simply delicious, although I've been around perfume for long enough now to know that it is meant to smell feral ; ) Most often the scents that are supposed to be the sexiest simply smell yummy to me. I'll have to ask those nearby what they think ; ) JAR's Ferme tes Yeux might be one of the skankiest ever, even to me!
RépondreSupprimerWendy, so you're off your fresh kick then? If you aren't entirely, I think you'd enjoy Absolue pour le Matin too...
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RépondreSupprimerThe above comment contained a commercial link so it was suppressed.
RépondreSupprimerwithout its bit of skank any perfume makes me feel ill at ease, almost tense. Of course, there are many crystalline marvels in the world of perfume and fragrance, and I love to own and wear them, but they are not the full story. One needs those grounded registers of passion, decay, those denotations of...shall we call it incarnation? i find those tonalities in Nuit Noire, Miel de Bois, Ombre Fauve by PG, Voleurs de Rose by L'Artisan, and I adore the four, fervently so...and they should be used with a great sense of timing.
RépondreSupprimer11EM, "incarnation", at least in French, is a term I often use in my conversations with perfume historian and consultant Elisabeth de Feydeau. It doesn't necessarily need to be the smell of corruption but there needs to be something in there that answers to skin and flesh...
RépondreSupprimeri'm ecstatic since I've coined all alone in my thoughts a term that you, the writer and expert, have chosen to denote that quality. with no little caution I took it from the Nicean Creed...Indeed, it it doesn't purport to denote bad, dirty, morally wrong. In that respect, one of the best qualities of Nuit de Tubereuse, for instance, is that it has the diaphanous whiteness of the flower, but also the roots, the mushrooms, some salt...it is 'incarnated'.
RépondreSupprimerGreat!!!!
11EM, nothing could be further from negative connotations than "incarnation" since it is what Christian say their Saviour did... Perfume has always been linked to the spiritual and it isn't surprising that mystical or religious terms could be applied to it. You could even say that the animal notes are there both as a reminder of our fleshly nature and to be transcended.
RépondreSupprimerso beautifully put, and I agree totally, that the idea, the concept of incarnation is essential (language is so transparent...) to all arts. fragrance, because it inscribes itself on air on its way to the skin, and then again, on its way from the skin out into space allows for the use of the concept of incarnation more than any of the other seven arts. I can't wait to read the book. Enjoy this Dimanche of Ordinary Time. :-)
RépondreSupprimerDenyse and EEM, so glad I stopped by this post again and did not miss these ideas on incarnation.
RépondreSupprimerDenyse, I wonder if it is hard to actually finish a book in this time of interactive blogging - or easier if the blog may provide a future place for discussions prompted by the book?
And which language(s) will it be published in initally?
Looking forward, nozknoz
Nozknoz, it's hard to write the book and the blog at the same time, that's for sure! And it's a very different process since a book is written far ahead of publication, can't be hyperlinked, can't be amended or added on indefinitely.
RépondreSupprimerAs for further discussion after publication, I have no idea, I've never done it!
It'll be in English initially.
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RépondreSupprimerI just dabbed this on and man, that's funky. But I like it; it's not an obscene representation of body odor, or unwashed "folds." I'm getting sandalwood, leather, maybe some spices, though not so much on the cumin. It's actually got a very surprisingly dusty rose note. I must say, it conjures up La Treizieme Heuer, at least in the sillage.
RépondreSupprimerSmells like date night to me. ;)
Eric, I've smelled it on a young man: it's very recognizable and definitely a sillage monster. The relationship with la Treizième Heure, I don't see so much: I find the Absolue much more animalic and somehow fattier.
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RépondreSupprimer3sieme Homme
RépondreSupprimerCDG Dryclean
Giorgio Beverly Hills
Montana Parfum de Peau
THE skank perfume of all times was,is and will ever be:
RépondreSupprimergale haymans' "Beverly Hills"
(1990).
madonnatella