Tabac Tabou is the latest from French niche line Parfum d’Empire. It's sort of limited edition — the brand says it will be produced yearly in limited quantities, with the year of production listed on the label.
Tabac Tabou was high on my "can't wait to sample" list, not least because I so loved the fairly recent Azemour Les Orangers and Corsica Furiosa (the fragrance released between those two, Musc Tonkin, I admittedly didn't much care about either way). Plus: tobacco, narcissus, fresh hay, honey? That sounds most excellent, in fact, it sounded so excellent to me that I'll repeat the description, originally from Luckyscent:
In Tabac Tabou, the tobacco leaf arrives folded in whiffs of fresh hay and wild landscape, rich and utterly untamed. A green, fresh narcissus meets white flowers, rough-hewn leather and compellingly fur-like animalic notes. Sweet, honeyed immortelle supports the main ingredient's natural sweetness, while unannounced secret ingredients lend incredible depths of earthy yet delicate nuance, confirming our feeling that this isn't so much a standard fragrance as it is a direct pipeline to a mystical world that used to be.
In the event, the first spray of Tabac Tabou was a bit of a surprise, and I won't repeat all the many discussions we've had here about fragrance names, but suffice to say that yes, tobacco leaf does arrive folded in whiffs of fresh hay and wild landscape, and so on and so forth, but tobacco is not the star of this show by any means, and if I were naming it, hay or narcissus, or maybe both, would be in the name, along with some romantic-sounding French euphemism for the "fur-like animalic notes".
Tabac Tabou opens on a deep, dense, almost horse-y funk — if you are sick and tired of smelling anemic / laundry detergent fragrances, here is your antidote. Some of the funk remains as the backdrop while the hay and narcissus come into focus, still dense and rather dry, and it is in these early stages that the tobacco, while subtle, is most obvious. The smell is a perfect match for the golden browns of the image shown above, and even more so during the later dry down, as the honey and immortelle sweeten the pot as it were, and the "rough-hewn" leather starts to get, well, rough-hewn. The leather was more obvious to me on some wearings than others, but at least once, I wondered why Cuir was not in the name too. It is also true that a couple of times the narcissus took on an almost soapy quality early on, but by and large, every time I wore it, the thoughts that came to mind while wearing it were "golden brown" and "hay".
I found the lasting power to be extremely good.
Verdict: I suspect many people will love Tabac Tabou. If a narcissus with a bit of funk sounds appealing to you, and especially if you adore hay notes, do try it. I am not sure I could say why I did not even come close to falling in love — I do like hay, and I do like narcissus, and I appreciate a bit of funk, but there was something about this much of all three, over such a long period of time, that wore on me. I wanted a bit more sparkle and liveliness, or something. Anyway, if you've tried it, do comment. Either way, you can find a more detailed review at Kafkaesque, although she did not love it either.
Parfum d'Empire Tabac Tabou is $160 for 50 ml Extrait de Parfum. For buying information, see the listing for Parfum d’Empire under Perfume Houses.
It really needs some floral notes to lighten the load, especially in the middle. It is too dense. The time I liked this the best was when I wore it over EO Rose Chamomile lotion, but, like you, I never loved it. I am happy people are making things like this, odd and not mainstream.
Too dense is right — even the narcissus is too dense. I am out of the EO lotion but I perhaps should have tried layering. Agree about being glad people are still making fragrances like this!
I’m a fan of this house and so didn’t hesitate to join a split, but the word “dense” is the right word for this scent and how it smells on me.
I smell mainly honey, and its an over-the-top honey. I think this is where I get the animalic “fur-like” notes.
I’ll continue to wear it but I’m with you, Robin, that over time it gets to me.
Good to read your take!
And yet, dense isn’t always a bad thing, yeah? I think if someone said a dense narcissus hay with touches of tobacco and leather, I’d still think it would be fantastic! But it isn’t, at least, not to me.
It’s funny how I always think that with certain notes I am guaranteed to like a scent – and I am always wrong 🙂 I haven’t tried this one, but though the description and notes are beautiful, there are still an indefinite number of ways in which it could fail to win my heart!
Yes…I do understand why some brands would rather leave all discussion of notes aside.
I’d agree with “dense,” and it also seemed to be sweeter than I’d like with the immortelle and the honey. But it inspired me to re-sample La Via del Profumo’s Tabac and remember how much I like that one. I smell hay there, too, but it’s a greener and much drier scent.
I don’t think I’ve tried that one, will add it to the list!
I like that one a lot, too.
LVdP’s Tabac is my Holy Grail tobacco scent. Not sweet. Smells just like the tobacco farms around the town where I grew up. Perfect.
I was the commenter who was swooning and fainting on NST when PdE TT was first announced as a new perfume.
I got 5 mL of it in a split. THANK GOODNESS I didn’t blind buy a bottle. Because I absolutely hate it. It smells of menthol/camphor with a very sweet rotting quality. I don’t get any hay or tobacco at all. This was one I anticipated falling head over heels in love with, and most certainly did not. I think I have issues with immortelle and/or honey, because SL Miel de Bois is another dreadful nemesis of mine.
In general I hold Parfum d’Empire in very high regard.
Musc Tonkin, which I’m wearing today, is amazing. And, I also love Azemour as well as Ambre Russe, their Osmanthus and even the not oft discussed 3 Fleurs. PdE is a fantastic house — but Tabac Tabou is definitely not my thing!
For me, Nacissus and hay should smell something like L’Artisan Fleur de Narcisse. And I am forever on the look-out for a good and true “hay’ scent.
Ha, whereas I love Miel de Bois!
Well, that was smart to buy a decant first, and even that you can probably swap away.
Fleur de Narcisse is lovely.
I have a decant of this and love it. I agree, tobacco is not the first thing I would have thought of had I tested it without knowing the name. My immediate thought would have been leather, but it isn’t really a leather perfume, either, but rather a living creature. It seems like a new category.
Honey, narcissus, hay and tobacco are all there if you search for them, I suppose, but, to me, Tabac Tabou is centered around a warmer variation of the horse mane accord that debuted in Cartier L’Heure Fougueuse IV and La Treizieme Heure. It’s like a live horse with perhaps occasional hints of saddle soap.*
I would recommend it for those who like the two Cartiers, BK Back to Black, Dzing!, and probably leather perfumes in general, although, part of the fun is how mane accords invert the idea of a leather perfume.
*Footnote: I have to confess that it’s been decades since I was anywhere near an actual horse, so take this simile with a grain of salt. I’m very curious to hear from someone who has more recent experience with horses and has also tried Tabac Tabou.
Wondering how you and Robin would compare this to Chergui? They both have hay, honey and tobacco and I would describe both as golden brown…
Sorry, meant – I would describe Chergui as golden brown (haven’t yet smelled this!)
Well gosh, Chergui is an ambery tobacco, and while it is spicy and rich (I would hardly call it light) it is not dense in the same way. TT is not, to me, a tobacco scent, and it wears on me in a more simple fashion.
Lemming has been slain! Just as well because PdE is no longer available around here… Sigh of relief.
I’m not a big SL Chergui fan. To me, it is a bit too sweet and spicy. (I do wear Fumerie Turque which I consider a bit drier and more natural than Chergui.)
Tabac Tabou is very different.
It might be closer to Dzing! than anything else, but it’s centered around a horse mane accord, which is something fairly new and still uncommon. The only other perfumes I know of with a (somewhat different) mane accord are the two Cartiers.
nozknoz, Chergui was my beloved for a long time, but for the last year it has seemed too sweet. I’m not drawn to Fumerie Turque – I find it a bit unfriendly!
Would you say TT is at all like L’air de Rien?
I haven’t smelled L’air de Rien for a long time and can’t remember what it smelled like.
Here is a review of Fougueuse that discusses the horse mane accord. Tabac Tabou has a slightly different mane accord, and Fougueuse is a lighter and fresher perfume (Denyse even compares it to Eau Sauvage). Nonetheless, the mane accord is central to both perfumes, and the way Denyse describes the horsiness of Fougueuse is relevant.
http://graindemusc.blogspot.com/2010/09/mathilde-laurents-lheure-fougueuse-for.html
Thanks for the link! I need to find a horse…
The first time I wore it, I classified it as a floral leather, but I wonder what Michael Edwards said.
Yes, it would be very interesting to know what category he would put Tabac Tabou into! I wonder where he put the Cartiers, too. I see Fragrantica has Fougueuse under chypres and Treizieme under leathers, neither of which makes very much sense to me.
I agree with you. I get more animalic notes and then the floral note, finally followed by hay. It seems to work well with my chemistry and I do enjoy it, but prefer others in the line more.
I am still kicking myself for not getting the Musc Tonkin extrait before it sold out. That was just gorgeous and although I do like the edp, the extrait worked much better for me.
I have a small decant of Musc Tonkin somewhere. I wasn’t crazy about it when I got it, but I’ll try it again now that winter is coming on. Sometimes I try something new and just smell dissonant notes, and then the next time I try it, it snaps together into a balanced and pleasing form. It’s as if the nose has to learn to see the shape the perfumer intended.
I haven’t tried it yet – my usual PdE haunt didn’t have it when I was there last. I was very excited when it was announced, considerably less so after this review. Still, I’m curious to smell it and as I like hay and narcissus very much, there’s still hope.
There’s always hope 🙂
I was lucky enough to split a bottle with 4 others. To my nose, it is sharp and green and funky although the funk is not the type I would typically run away from. The overall effect brought back scent memories of a tobacco leaf sorting room – the good ones go to the top-end cigar pile and the worst ones go into making cigarettes. All these piles are then tightly bundled and stacked up on pallets. The sorting room and the pallet room together smell just like Tabac Tabou. You DON’T want to be in the initial leaf-drying room – there is no nice tobacco smells – it’s all eye-watering ammonia. Anyway, I am glad to have my 10 mL portion to last me until the next harvest!
So glad someone who loves it commented, thanks!
Interesting scent memory! Looking forward to seeing you tonight 😉
Wondering (like Merlin above) if there is any similarity to L’air de Rien? They sure sound similar.