New York retailer Odin has launched three new fragrances: 01 Nomad, 02 Owari and 03 Century. These scents inhabit the territory between modern, ‘fresh’ colognes and more traditional, rich and spicy perfumes; this “middle path” presents fragrances that are gauzy, quiet, warm and on the sweet side.
01 Nomad
(juniper berries, cedar leaf, palmarosa, black pepper, tonka beans, sandalwood, bergamot, heliotrope, grey musk)
Tonka bean seems to be the fragrance note of the moment in men’s colognes, replacing the (over)popular violet leaf (Ta! Ta! Old Thing!) of the last few years. Is there a surplus of tonka beans? An especially scrumptious-smelling harvest? A new “tonka” aroma-chemical available at a great price-point? 01 Nomad is a sleek tonka bean-centered fragrance with top notes of juniper and palmarosa (smelling like a sweet straw-citrus peel accord) and cedar and soft heliotrope in the base. The fragrance is well blended and there is not a lot of development from the top notes through the dry-down, but the perfume is so pleasant, smells so good, I’ll forgo distinct top, heart, and base phases. I’d describe 01 Nomad as a “masculine vanilla” scent with great lasting power.
02 Owari
(mandarin, grapefruit leaf, pepper, Tonkin musk, bergamot, amyris wood, neroli, cedar and golden amber)
If the non-stop, multi-fragrance-collection launches have exhausted (and annoyed) you, I’ll save you some time with the Odin line: try 02 Owari first to experience its peppery, green-citrus opening (verging on “tomato leaf”) and its pungent, long-lasting tangerine note. Neroli is discernible starting in the fragrance’s mid-development and it’s accompanied by a dab of sweet musk; an interesting, powdery and tart musk-citrus accord appears during the dry-down. 02 Owari is a deluxe sport fragrance that replaces the genre’s usual raspy bergamot-lemon opening with delicious-smelling green and tangerine notes. 02 Owari has good lasting power for a citrus-y cologne.
03 Century
(silver birch, cypress, mint, myrrh, vetiver, patchouli and moss, black musk, amber)
03 Century is a super-soft (talc-y) fragrance; Odin classifies this perfume as a chypre, but I don’t detect moss at all. (03 Century’s birch is also faint and provides no smoky-leather aromas.) 03 Century starts with minty-menthol notes and myrrh; it’s sweet — in the way old-fashioned barbershop fragrances are sweet. 03 Century’s vetiver and patchouli notes “blur” to create a masculine amber-like aroma in mid-development that slowly morphs into an Old Spice-Meets-Musk base — clove/cinnamon and vanillic notes come to the fore. 03 Century is the most staid fragrance in the collection and has excellent lasting power.
The Odin fragrances are well made and far superior to recent, flashier designer launches (The D&G Fragrance Anthology for one). The Odin line was developed by perfumers Kevin Verspoor (01 Nomad, 03 Century) and Pierre-Constantin Guéros (02 Owari).
Odin 01 Nomad, 02 Owari and 03 Century will be available in 100 ml Eau de Toilette; for buying information see the listing for Odin under Perfume Houses.
What do ravens have to do with “Odin”? Read here.
Note: top Manet raven image and bottom ravens image via Wikimedia Commons.
Does the 02 Owari bottle really have a raven on the cap? If so, that’s a really cool bottle, but I think it’s probably just a marketing photo. I have a son who’s big into Viking mythology, so he might be interested in this, and I like the idea of a masculine vanilla. Would also like to smell palmarosa.
Jirish: nope, I put the raven there myself!
Ohhhhh drat you, Kevin, I’d forgotten these were coming. Grumble grumble, they sound like must-tries (except maybe #03)…esp with your usual fabulous review. The “sweet” might save me though…and on a scale of 1 (unisex) to 5 (too manly for most men), how masculine would you say these are?
Boojum..a ‘2’ perhaps…
…and drat again.
Hi Kevin. You know, these don’t sound bad, but I must be “fighting vainly the old ennui” because none of the descriptions sound particularly exciting to me, either. The words “lasting power” absolutely do catch my eye, however, and Nomad does sound worth a sniff — juniper and heliotrope sound like unique additions to a vanilla/tonka fragrance (I happen to love heliotrope).
Nomad sounds good to me too…
Joe: I love heliotrope too…always have a pot of it growing on the porch in summer.
Odin. Ravens. Nomads and Owari’s (whatever they might be). I am so there.
Wonderful review Kevin!
Dzing: Owari is a type of mandarin I believe.
Wonderful work as always Kevin! I love the reviews and the images you used to illustrate them with. I always look forward to seeing what graphics you’ll use to illustrate a scent.
Just out of curiosity, will any of these frags be making an appearance on your neck?
Norjunma1: not sure, but if so it will be Owari….
Gosh, all of these sound nice…and the bottles are lovely too! Christmas shopping for the hubs just took on a new little twist–must sample these. Thanks for the review.
GD: thanks.
I’ve thought the same thing about tonka bean! I think it’s because it’s vanilla-ish without being immediately identifiable as vanilla. I think Smell Bent is doing nice things with it, though, in their incense fragrances… I recently got both Incensed and Horny Little Devil after reading about them here.
Noirepices: I’m a fan of tonka…great in incensy-benzoin formulas.
Just reading the notes for Owari, I decided that I liked it best (even before reading your description of it)!!
Speaking of the D&G Anthology line, it’s being promoted like crazy in Adelaide – in Myer alone, there were 2 giant displays (giant cardboard, giant bottles) and 1 normal display and a DVD playing the ad on repeat … if I didn’t like L’Imperatrice so much, I would avoid Myer’s perfume section like the plague! Must be the pre-Xmas warm up.
Lsnuing: yep, the ads for the D&Gs are still going strong here. I’m getting sick of ’em.
Cool ravens, Kevin! I love the sound of Owari. A good citrus that lasts? I’d like to try that one on my husband AND on myself.
For years we have had two dwarf Owari Satsuma mandarin trees in half wine barrels on our deck. They bear fruit at Christmas time. I adore them (and this from a girl who isn’t big on eating fruit!) They have a thick, loose peel that comes off in a flash, and the flesh is tangy-sweet with almost NO seeds. I think it is the variety that you find in cans.
Haunani: they sound delicious! I love citrus trees…I have a lime tree in my bedroom that’s blossoming now.
A blossoming lime tree in your bedroom? How cool is that?
*I’m not worthy*
That is pretty darn cool…..I also, am not worthy….bowing down before your greatness, Kevin.
Daisy & Scent Red: ARISE! loyal subjects, ARISE! HA!
thank you, o great benevolent one…..guess that means I’m off duty until the 10:00 shift where I believe I’m scheduled to strew rose petals in your path…..this loyal subject gig is pretty labor intensive.
No fair Daisy! You always get to strew the rose petals.
I guess I’m stuck carrying around that big fan
that’s because I went to the petal strewing training seminar; I’m skilled. You must have missed that one…
Ooh, what a wonderful idea! And no bees.
Nomad sounds very good to me—big fan of tonka, heliotrope, bergamot, sandalwood…it’s ALL good.
And a “2” on Boo’s Manli-ometer sounds just about right to me.
BTW Kevin, every time I reach for my bottle of M7 (and I reach for it often) I say a little “thank you, Kevin” because you sent me the sample that gave me one of my all-time HGs! So if you feel little waves of gratitude wafting over you…at least some of them are from me.
Daisy: happy to oblige!
I know what ravens have to do with Odin, but that pair at the top are rooks…you can tell because of the bare skin at the base of their beaks.
PhinClio: doubt that Manet was a bird man and don’t know if the white area is bare skin either…that image is from the illustrations for Poe’s The Raven.
Nomad and Owari are fresh, unexpected fragrances (haven’t tried Century yet), but on me they are surprisingly soft and understated. I bought Owari immediately after experiencing it. Sadly, its sharp citrus-peel burst fades after ten minutes. I’ve reapplied three times today but still need to hold my wrist to my nose to smell the “gauzy, quiet, warm” dry-down Kevin describes. My sample of Nomad is much longer lasting, but its sweet, buttery scent makes me hungry.