Humiecki & Graef Askew, Eau Radieuse, Geste and Multiple Rouge

By Tom I hope all of you had a wonderful July 4th! My July 4th weekend meant wandering around window shopping. Partly because a generous friend gave me a very nice gift card to Neiman's to celebrate my 87th birthday. Sniffing around Neimans Friday didn't make me want to purchase; frankly there wasn't anything there that I could say "I have nothing like this". Saturday was spent at Le Labo, basically chatting with Heather about various stuff. Not much else was open on 3rd street on the 4th so they weren't busy. I did get to smell tiny samples of the Tokyo and London exclusives (I hadn't before) and they are lovely, and grrrr inducing that you can't get them without going there. Sunday I stopped into ScentBar and tried the new Humieckis- this is the company that did Skarb, which sadly went nowhere on me. I've long ago learned that it's not all about me, and sometimes that which went nowhere can become a favorite later on. Askew initially made me think of Gendarme SKY, in that it's extremely clean. Unlike SKY, this is an extremely cold scent; the singing cold of a late spring cold snap. I'm not from Florida, but I know that when a sudden cold front comes in, orange growers will water the plants. The layer of frozen water will actually insulate the fruit temporarily keeping them from being damaged. This is what this makes me think of: buds and bergamot and mint flash-frozen and protected by a layer of brittle ice, and oddly glove leather. In any kind of heat I can imagine this to be the new go-to scent: the only way it could be more refreshing would be if it came with copper tubing and freon. Eau Radieuse has an opening that's the most true lemon I think I've ever smelled: oil, pith, pulp and peel. Within minutes, it almost completely disappears. Later some of the lemon is there, with a whiff of fattiness that must be banana peel. How 'bout them Dodgers? Geste starts with candied violets, which Fran Liebowitz refers to as "the NECCO wafers of the overbred". Well, I like candied violets, especially when laced with the "did she or didn't she" musk as in this. The violets become less confectionery as the scent progresses when something they call "fir resin" starts to assert itself. It stays very close to the skin and I think as lovely as it would be on a woman, on a man it would really sing. In that Daniel Craig as James Bond way; you didn't think from the spec sheet you'd like it at all, but when it walked out of the surf, oh my! At first, Multiple Rouge seems like false advertising. I'm smelling Multiple Vert: I get cilantro, grass and lily of the valley. Then I start to get something fruity, but not any fruit that I can identify as of this Earth. Since what I get is something along the lines of Tobaccomelon and leatherberries I am fine with this. If you looked at the ingredient list you would want to have the insulin on hand; on me this is desert dry and delicious: Vulcan Fruit Salad. For those of you who wonder what I actually got with my gift certificate, I got a proper wallet. No more just jamming my cash into my pockets and cards jammed into a filled to bursting ID case built for two cards. Now although I hate to type it, I think I need a murse. All of these are $220 for 100ML at LuckyScent. Perfumer: Christophe Laudamiel.

Perfume Review: Humiecki & Graef Skarb

Let me preface the post by saying that I feel I should be fully qualified to understand and appreciate Humiecki & Graef’s olfactory effort, Skarb. I am Slavic, in more ways than one. I have made seen Slavic men cry. I love practically everything Christophe Laudamiel has ever created. I am fairly broad-minded and can relate to the creators’ desire to break free from the conceptual confines of perfume-about-love, perfume-about-sex, perfume-about-travels-to-exotic-lands. Having said that, I do have my reservations about bringing politics or any sort of agenda into perfume. That I feel the horrors of National Socialism and Perfume just don’t “go”. And that I find the idea of a scent about crying rather depressing. To put the long story short, this concept doesn’t rock my boat. Perfume itself, on the other hand, does. I will not engage in the game of guessing which notes of the “star-shaped” composition were meant to represent which sides of the mysterious and sensitive Slavic soul and of the sacred rite that is men’s crying. The presence of some of the notes I could have guessed before smelling Skarb or reading its description. A Slavic-inspired perfume must have incense. And you can’t make perfume inspired by crying without a watery accord. By the way, predictable or rather unavoidable as it is in this case, that accord is what makes the perfume so recognizably Laudamiel for me. The raw, salty, leathery-animalic feel of it reminds me of S-Perfume S-ex, and, dare I say it, it is the “watery accord” that makes Skarb smell interesting, that sets it apart from the ubiquitous spicy-incensey offerings one can now find in dozens at any store specializing in niche perfumes. I also love the pungent greenness of the scent, the meaty earthiness, the unexpected piquant sweetness. It has the kind of oddness that I think should be the only one allowed in perfumery- the wearable kind. Again, that is something unique to Laudamiel’s creations, as is the quirky sort of elegance and unexpected versatility that Skarb has. You could put it on to reconnect with your Slavic soul and to brood about the tumultuous history of Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th century. Or you could easily wear it to your down-to-materialistic-earth and politically correct office and it would feel quite natural there too. And by You I mean a man or a woman, because, despite the man-oriented premise, Skarb is resolutely unisex. Available at Luckyscent, for the price that, in the spirit of the scent, was probably meant to make you cry, $210.00 for 100ml.