Scentology: Self-branding by fragrances
Posted on July 20, 2009 4 Comments
I’ve become more interested in fragrances recently – at least, more interested than when I used to inherit old cologne from my dad via my mom in junior high and high school. (Drakkar Noir, Old Spice, etc)
I mostly wore Hugo Boss BOSS a few years ago and was content with that mainstream scent: syrupy, sweet club-sweat ‘flavor’. It had never really crossed my mind that there were darker and more eclectic options out there until I started spending more time browsing scents at our local “apothecary” at Blackbird.
They carry just a couple higher-end scents (Comme Des Garçons, Dyptique), and an indie clean scents (Malin & Goetze).
When they brought in CDG’s Synthetic Series 6 scents, my interest was piqued.
I liked the idea of smelling like a natural re-creation of an artificial product. We tend to smell artificial smells as much or more as natural – well, at least us city-folk.
I think that ‘scent’ branding is an important component to one’s fashion. As important as clothing, hair & makeup. (makeup is for the ladies and KISS, not the common or uncommon man!) Men tend to spend little to no thought on it – just grabbing the Axe or Brut deodorant, aftershave, cologne or soap available at their local supermarket or drugstore. Most of these are designed to smell similarly – saccharine sweet, maybe a little woodsy, sporty but always weighed down by a syrupy after-smell. Many are musky, thick, cloudy – simple, dumb and one-sided.
The introduction and growth of Axe has definitely proved that men are interested in fragrance, however motivated by sexual response from women. But everyone has access to Axe. Everyone can instantly imagine what Axe smells like – it’s a product tied to a marketing campaign first and foremost, not a scent tied to a person or feeling. It’s not really ‘ownable’ because everyone can smell like that . . .
More interesting is rarity, strangeness, masculinity and complexity.
CDG Synthetic are a series of very avant garde fake scents that mimic several hisotrically ‘unpleasant’ odors:
Garage smells like your dad’s oil and gas soaked garage, mixed with some leather, wood and vetiver.
Skai smells, literally, like faux leather with some coal, sandalwood, etc to round it out.
Soda smells like . . . a chemical-tainted Sprite.
Tar, like fresh black top, cigarettes, bergamot (south american citrus fruit), styrax (south american flowered shrub)
Trust me, they smell better than they sound.
My favorite, by far, was Garage. Manly, stinky but . . . pleasant. Just like a man should smell.
But I hadn’t yet convinced my wife that it’d be a good new ‘standard’ for me and she was already biased toward Malin + Goetze’s Rum fragrance.
I wanted to try some other options, some leather, some wood – so upon recommendations from StyleZeitgeist users, I ordered a few samples from LuckyScent.com. Sadly, they weren’t free ($3-$4 each) but the vials contained enough to try em out for a few days and get a better idea of how they wear.
I remain utterly convinced that cologne reacts much differently on my body than most people. Seems like my body dissolves or breaks down scents faster than anyone else I know. So I think something heavier and more complex was right up my alley, beyond or in addition to a standard lighter, sweeter M+G Rum.
(After several months of usage, I’m pretty sure M+G Lime is instantly absorbed or dissipated by my sweati-ness)
So without further ado, the samples I ordered and my and Shannon’s impressions of them, and then noted below each -the actual description from LuckyScent.
Comme Des Garçons – Odeur 53
Almost cinnamony, soda, light woodsy, spicy, sharp
Smells like a lot of other colognes. Not my style at all. Too sharp and prickly.
Shannon: Yuck.
Manufacturer Description: oxygen, flash of metal, fire energy, washing drying in the wind, mineral carbon, sand dunes, nail polish, cellulose, pure air of the high mountains, ultimate fusion, burnt rubber, flaming rock
Lucky Scent: New Car
Rating: 7.0
Olivier Durbano – Black Tourmaline
Very avant garde, smokey, gassy, leathery but with a sweet end. Very similar to garage but with a kind of patina to smooth out the gassy/tar/oil saturation but with a slight touch of anise?
This one smelled very different when we first smelled it – lighter and airy. Now smells darker, heavier and more gassy and leathery.
Shannon: Liked it at first, then it changed a bit after airing out and she thought it smelled a lot different – more like Garage.
Manufacturer Description: Cardamom, coriander, cumin, frankincense, pepper, smoked wood, oud, leather, precious woods, musk, amber, moss, patchouli
Lucky Scent: Burned wood, sweet smoke, rich oud and dried spice
Rating: 9.0
M. Micallef – Avant Garde
Firstly smells strongly of alcohol – much moreso than the others.
Then a bright and light chemical flowery leather smell, some lime, the most flowery of all of them, but still not feminine. Smells similar to CDG Soda, if I remember correctly but with more naturalistic flavor, less chemical stank.
Shannon: Her favorite by far.
Manufacturer Description: bergamot, grapefruit, cocoa bean, tobacco, incense, Russian leather, tonka bean, grey amber
Lucky Scent: tobacco mixed with cocoa balances the striking freshness of the citrusy top notes
Rating: 8.9
Miller Harris – L’air de Rien
Powdery, cat litter, grassy. Pretty gross. The worst by far.
Shannon: Thought it smelled like her mom, or an old lady or baby powder.
Manufacturer Description: French oak moss, Tunisian neroli, sweet musk, amber and vanilla
Lucky Scent: smells of father’s pipe, floor polish, empty chest of drawers, old forgotten houses, the scent creates an atmospheric effect, ambery-vanillic, quirky
Rating: 2.7
Boudicca – Wode
Smells exactly like OFF! bug spray. I had a momentary flashback to going to camp as a child.
Strong and distinct,woodsy, bug sprayish with with some grassy notes and soda tinge.
Shannon: Yuck.
Manufacturer Description: Juniper, Cardamon, Nutmeg, Clary Sage, Corriander, Angelica Root, Saffron, Tonka Bean, Styrax, Amber, Treemoss, Musk, Leather
Lucky Scent: A stroll in the woods becomes a trek through a primeval forest with a few glowing yellow eyes peering at you from the shadows. A dark and ethereal swirl of resins and animalic notes dances around a heart of leather and musk and there is an intriguing undercurrent of something raw and untamed, softened by a soft whisper of sweetly narcotic tuberose.
Rating: 6.7
Comme Des Garçons – Garage
Still my favorite. Smells like all of the best parts of a garage without being too overwhelming.
It sounds very strange, smells strange but yet remains inoffensive and almost comforting in its familiarity.
Manufacturer Description: oakmoss, animal musk, leather, ambery-vanillic, quirky
Lucky Scent: tobacco mixed with cocoa balances the striking freshness of the citrusy top notes
Rating: 9.0
I’m still leaning toward CDG’s Garage, but Olivier Durbano’s Black Tourmaline is giving it a solid run for it’s money.
I’ll probably test them out a little over the next week or two and make a decision then.
It might seem a little freakish to go to these lengths – but definitely think more men should consider the idea of ‘scent branding’. There are more than enough colognes out there for any guy to claim his own ‘smell’.
(However, any scent similar to my DL&Co’s Modern Alchemy Salem candle would automatically trump all of above options. The idea of smelling like burning books, wood and brackish seawater is vastly more attractive to me. Pirates before mechanics. Come on DL&Co, make it happen!)
4 comments so far
Garage sounds awesome.
I always wanted a cologne that smelled like two-stoke motor oil, wood chips, and a bit of tobacco.
Basically what my Grandpa would smell like after cutting down trees with a chainsaw or working in his shop.
How the hell do you have TIME for all this nonsense?
How long did the research take you, let alone the WRITE UP?! I will fucking KILL YOU. No, no, no… I will not kill you. I LOVE YOU. You are my PRO-TE-GE! Love,
Saddam.
Just being able to find sources for this stuff is more work than I’ve ever put into it, but I admire and respect the scientific rigour. I wonder if there’s anything that smells like eastern European pipe tobacco, mesquite smoke, cedar, nickel, and old comic books.
About this Blog
Variegating
1. Having streaks, marks, or patches of a different color or colors; varicolored; mottled; dappled
2. Distinguished or characterized by variety; diversified.
Drew Pickard is a graphic designer employed at Pop in Seattle WA. He is an amateur photographer, a collector of Galactic Heroes, big-picture obsessor and has a lot of opinions about stuff.
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I save all kinds of money on the Garage scent by spending a lot of time in my own. Notes of gasoline, two-stroke and various penetrating oils and solvents, with a nice Simple Green mildness to round it out.