According to Barneys New York, Frédéric Malle’s inspirations for Monsieur1 were…
“…remorseless seducers2 who would playfully flit from women’s embrace to social merrymaking. Gentlemen3 whose manly and timeless elegance has relentlessly guided the development of this perfume and enabled Frédéric Malle to stay on course during the creation of this very minimal scent.”
Here they are, a-hem, “aristocrats” all…
How many people know what REAL patchouli smells like? It seems fewer and fewer perfumistas have smelled “dirty” natural patchouli. The patchouli most used in perfumes these days is clean and crease-less, its damp/dank, earthy/root-y character has been dimmed or eliminated. Brutish, chest-thumping patchouli has been replaced in designer fragrances with patchouli that could be characterized as either an elegant lady or a freshly laundered, cuddly teddy bear who has cocoa-scented breath, with a dab of vanilla extract behind each ear.
Tom Ford Patchouli Absolu doesn’t go the ladylike or gourmand routes; its patchouli retains a natural “edge.” If real patchouli is Homo neanderthalensis and contemporary patchouli is Homo Catherine Deneuve, Tom Ford Patchouli (Absolu) is…Tom Ford himself…
Natural patchouli. So maligned. Always mentioned in the same breath as low-rent head shops…or hippies. Thus? Thought of as: dated, old fashioned, tired…obnoxious. Or just noxious.
Me? I love real patchouli! But the first time I wore natural patchouli I realized it was not beloved by all. During college, I remember taking my little brown bottle of patchouli oil and dribbling some oil into my palms and then rubbing it all over my leather boots (as I had read “rebels” did in the 60s). I went to work. Almost as soon as I sat at my desk I heard whispers slowly turning into boisterous shouts: “What’s that smell?” “I’m getting SICK!” “Damn! It smells like a HEAD SHOP in here!” “Is Stevie Nicks in the building?” I started to sweat…
Patchouli haters — I used to be a card carrying member of the club — are probably not so numerous as they once were. Some of us perfumistas were undoubtedly desensitized by frequent exposure over time. But it’s also true that there’s just not so much to hate any more, now that “patchouli” invariably means a patchouli fraction, in which all the difficult bits have been removed via the wonders of modern science; these days, as often as not patchouli is virtually indistinguishable from other dry woody notes.1 If you were born long after the days of head shop patchouli oils (and have somehow managed to bypass Thierry Mugler Angel and its many spawn) and your only exposure to patchouli came from recently launched department store fragrances, you might wonder what all the fuss was ever about.
Atelier Cologne’s latest, Mistral Patchouli, belongs to this brave new world of patchouli. It’s not just that it’s a relatively sheer fragrance, in keeping with the brand’s concept of the “magical freshness of cologne coupled with the lasting power of eau de parfum”, but that there’s nothing earthy or musty or heavy or otherwise demanding about the patchouli…
Reminiscence Patchouli Pour Homme is not a strange, cocoa-sprinkled, cramp-inducing patchouli fragrance like Serge Lutens Borneo 1834 (whenever I smell Borneo 1834 my stomach begins to ache). Patchouli Pour Homme is certainly not a loud, “crude” type of patchouli perfume favored by provincial nouveaux riches. (See Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, where the prissy, aristocratic Leonid Andreyevitch Gaev enters a room, sniffs the air, and complains: “It smells of patchouli in here.” Someone’s wearing cheap perfume…and it’s none other than peasant-turned-entrepreneur Ermolai Alexeyevitch Lopakhin!) Patchouli Pour Homme is also not the variety of oily, overbearing patchouli used by old-time hippies to scent their greasy hair and beards or their sweaty leather boots. Patchouli Pour Homme is a staid patchouli fragrance.
Reminiscence Patchouli Pour Homme contains mandarin, lime, geranium, cedar, patchouli, labdanum, tonka bean, tolu balm, white musk, and benzoin. Patchouli Pour Homme opens with warm lime and geranium leaf; quickly other notes pop: ‘fossilized’ cedar (almost too “dry” to detect), sheer labdanum, well-behaved and CLEAN patchouli…