Les Indemodables can do no wrong in my eyes. They are spectacularly good fragrances, creative, transparent on the amount of naturals used and fascinating from a technical point of view on just how the perfumers bring them out. The compositions are original, they don't release too much or spunk free bottles away on tiresome, social media, gurus and reviewers etc... I love them. The seem French, arrogantly puffing on a Galosises and not giving a merd what you think! They are here to be artisits and create beauty. All that good stuff. But I don't really like this one as such. haha However it's still BRILLIANT!!! The opening is orange blossom, a spectacular orange blossom accord full of petitgrain, mutating into a more creamy/waxy floral but light on it's feet an with the 'fougere' bit threatening to rumble just beneath the surface. If this was just a nice Orange blossom, I'd be like okay, it's a safe pass fragrance but never with this brand, they don't allow mediocre to slip through, even their tropes are fresh and new, Musk, I mean how exciting can a musk be? Musc des sables? Just try it! Anyway then develops a smell of minty, resinousness, I described as white camphor/elemi/frankinsense/cypress/eucalyptus/atlas cedar...Those vibes. Mix this with the white floral effect and petetgrain and there you have something highly original and then there's warmth of fougere vibes setting it perfectly as this herbal, floral melting pot! So looking at the notes here I can see that clary sage also has these properties of sharp and mild camphor as does some lavender sometimes. Even Tuberose has a minty quality and the heft of the midrif combined with petitgrain (Which I feel is definitely here as well as orange or tangerine) will promote an orange blossom smell, I reported in the opening. This is a strange fragrance and not a typical fougere but still fits the character of one in some strange sense. I need more time with it because I really started to fall for it as it dried down.

So I'm not sure what I thought I'd tried before but this being released in 2016 seems like some Mandela effect shit! (google it!) I could've sworn this existed well previous, but anyway, I like it, smells like a modded version of L'air du desert Marocain. I couldn't tell you how it's different? But it is if you are super familiar with previous work you can feel the micro adjusted accords, maybe this is a slightly cleaner leather and creamier sandalwood even? Either... The people love it, give them more of it. fine. Stale & creatively bereft and churning our the same old shit/playing about with formula variations on the customers time? Maybe? How I feel is that L'air and Tauer's style is so unique I feel can dine out on that, pretty much for the rest of his career as far as I'm concerned. It's unfair to say that because he is innovating and trying stuff outside of this, his obvious, both commercial and artistic comfort zone. I have L'air du desert Marocain and as such this is obsolete to me personally as I prefer that to this. Objectively, this is monumentally superb, strong and all the other great things about these fragrances. Bit of an odd review but hopefully a truthful and helpful one.

I used to own this. I quaffed a bottle years ago and never replaced it until recently when I acquired an 80's/90's mini. Wearing it today and I'm blown away, the top notes are still bright nothing short of superb. I can picture the segments of lemon, bergamot and grapefruit. This is mainly a citrus, oakmoss chypre in that classic mold with a kind of smooth, white floral heart, descending into a clean, dry vetiver note like the Nootkatone of grapefruit, more of a mild, Thai vetiver oil as apposed to a full bodied Haiti or Java, and one which doesn't have the typical smokiness or earth of vetiver, until the darker tones of the drydown that is and even then it's not really vetiver, more murky, vintage tones. I think it's amazing! A great fragrance. So it feels funny reviewing something I'm so familiar with and kinda took for granted in a way a fresh, functional, masculine fragrance. I think the journey opens your eyes, you come back around again to appreciating the little things, like Guerlain Vetiver.

So I was completely bamboozled by this fragrance today, to the point I had to wear something else so as not to experience sensory overload. I’m not in any mood at the moment to be over stimulated, challenged, or conscious of what I’m wearing, taking it apart and ultimately being put off from pursuing it further, in spite of what is a fantastic concept, well executed. I don’t know where to start with this? When I’d wear it? Or even if I would wear it? I’m assuming the brief (by the name) is to create something which is not trying to recreate the natural, but actively be anti-nature. It’s certainly that. It’s quite alien, existing one it’s own bizarre space, not typical in any sense really. There’s lots of obvious metallic, green and blue/green, azure notes opening up to what is a juniper, melon, cucumber type of smell, honestly that sounds hideous to many but please give this a chance. Very modern and out there in terms of artisan ‘kook’, but somehow remaining quite stern and serious and with real merit as far as I’m concerned. Personally, I think it’s very floral (certainly opening wise) in a exciting way, it kinda dances between snorting iron filings & licking a battery, while some exotic bouquet of flowers passing by on a oceanic breeze. The weirdest thing of all is the development of a chocolatey, cacao, amber, benzoin which even as I describe it seems completely at odds with the heart of this fragrance, but like so many of these additions, if it wasn’t there, I’d likely be far less enamoured with Against nature. It’s fucking brilliant! Just like yesterday I couldn’t face actually wearing this as my #sotd but on a day when I want something different I’ll sack it on for a proper wear. Holy moly is this tenacious! It remains on skin a LONG time.

I love the image of a surly Cellier with a gauloises hanging out of her mouth muttering French swears at an industry dominated by men. It’s through the interaction with Cellierphiles that I have this impression of her, could be inaccurate though. I mean I’m not the biggest fan of Bandit but I can appreciate it, I love another she did for Balmain Vent Vert and have a reasonably old 60’s vintage which is still fantastic and twangs with greenery. So I was told I should try this and was very kindly supplied with another pretty ancient vintage to try and boy oh boy this a brilliant perfume. It smells like the wafted beauty of violet, kindly powdery but definitely has colder qualities of violet leaf, which is a really strange smell in truth. A complex green, dry mixture of irone and ionone. This is all against a completely not pretty, not buttery and totally not elegant leather. It’s almost modern in a weird way and yet this perfume proabably smelled as dated today as it does when it came out. I mean dated in a good way, aged but not lacking a certain vibrancy. Yeah it’s a kind of powdery, enigmatic statement, warm, and just the right amount of everything going on for me, musks and all of a sudden all that dryness is some how epically punctuated by lush, floral Narcissus or more a purple feel, maybe bluebells or nearly to the point of hyacinth. I’m completely smitten with it. The topnotes which I could tell were citrus had lost a little of their lustre but when you’re in your twilight years you don’t expect everything to work perfectly right? Another thing that really prompted me to try this classic perfume was Miguel Matos and his tribute to Cellier, Germaine. Which I have to say smells very different to this. I still enjoyed Germaine and you could say Citrus, violet, violet leaf, leather how different could it be? Well quite different is the answer but a jolly good nod in the direction of this perfume. I completely adore Jolie Madame and it’s about as suitable for a man you could hope for, especially as a perfume with Madame in the title.

Undergrowth is by far my favourite of the three I tried. I’ll get the critique out of the way to start off, I feel the same about this as Forrest it’s not a perfume in the sense that I want a perfume to be...well...perfumey! It’s a scent Aurora, a smell, indeed evocative of undergrowth without being too witchy or madly Indy. But that might just be where it misses a trick? If I was ever to represent ‘undergrowth’ the almost literal definition to me would be a mushroom accord or note. There’s loads of materials that possess these qualities such as geosmin or Ethyl fenchol. However, the stuff I like is the cliche free delivery of common and recognisable materials but rendered in such a lovely way. The patchouli is prominent but it doesn’t have that soil trope, it’s been manipulated and softened, rounded. The opening is minty but not to the point of some toothpaste, or peppermint which would seem out of place. This is very delicately placed atop the woody, greenery of the body of undergrowth. Slightly menthol, a hint of eucalyptus, a sparingly use white camphor on that body of patchouli. So apparently there’s a lot of naturals in this and it shows, the vetiver is not overt or smokey but is probably thickening and supporting that patchouli. I say thick but it’s remarkably light this one. I’ve extracted as much perfume stuff as I can out of what is another collection of woody and green materials. Perhaps I’m being unfair and expecting too much? Not every fragrance should have a diverse spread of notes and accords, and to Rooks credit, nothing jars and everything goes together in its right place. I’m being over Critical of a fragrance I fundamentally like and enjoyed. I still wouldn’t buy it though.

Forrest is nice. Pine, cypress and spruce, heavier Virginian cedar perhaps create a kind of floaty Forrest air. Which is as much about olibanum as anything else to me. It’s fresh, woody, it’s lovely. However, is it perfume? I say that with the greatest respect, but I’m not sure of the answer? I think it’s more of a smell than anything else. An aurora I want perfume to have interest, distinct phases and notes. The name would suggest that it has met its Brief and it’s supposed to be a collection of woody, resin materials conspiring to conjure a Forrest and it does that. You can’t overtly smell modern fixative trickery or Iso e super or anything, although I don’t doubt it’s probably there. The sharpness of citrus and pine gives way to a cerebral Lemony Elemi and Frankincense lasting fairly well on my skin. I can’t knock it really, doesn’t excite me though.

Whoever thought for a moment that this smelled anything remotely like Fall into Stars, clearly has a vastly different sense of smell to mine. No offence but Nadeem’s skills are in no way comparable to Christophe’s and even if they were these two perfumes are at completely different ends of a spectrum. That’s not to say that I don’t like it, Rook’s signature has notable complexity, opening with a strong but well managed birch tar note, effectively acting as a kind of smokey top note, which gradually fades as a kind of deep, soapy, gentlemen’s leather emerges. It evolves throughout the wearing, and lasts forever on skin but I wouldn’t say Rook is intrusive. It feels accomplished but suitably dense, Indy and rustic, quite strange in actuality. It’s hard to describe because it’s muddled, and that’s not a good adjective to use about a perfumers work. I wouldn’t wear it and therefore it’s not a success in my book. Clearly there’s some quality here and reasonably good value along with strong branding, interesting packaging. I think there’s good things to come from Rook, but the three I tried didn’t excite me particularly.

Completing the set is this... a fruity rose perfume. Not a concept I don’t like, a tried and tested combination, which means it has to very very good to standout. There’s enough flair and talent in the industry to create rose perfumes which are doing something different, this from Cra-yon is not one of them. If I compare to recent examples of roses that did something else I’d have to site Chronotope’s Spite or Meditorossa’s Talento. I just don’t like this, jammy jammy sweet rose, plastic thin, reminiscent of red cellophane, no real depth, but powerfully in your face! I mean to the point of screaming at you. The fruitiness goes hand in hand with a musky, rose, red berry, raspberry/strawberry tone. It’s fine I suppose if this is what you want and plenty of people maybe do, but I question it’s existence even moreso than the tiresome catalog of Montale fragrances which seem to have an audience whereas this new brand is trying to establish one based on absolutely nothing of value or originality. I’m being particularly and unusually harsh for me, but I just don’t see the point in this brands existence? I’m not someone who is ‘all about the juice.’ (...Man!) I see that there’s more to perfume than that and perhaps have not come dow so hard on other new fangled brands that seem to place more importance on social media presence, marketing and brand image. I don’t doubt the importance of these things but if the fragrances are very cookie cutter, then perfumistas worth their salt will see through it and demand more. Like I said in a previous review if even one of these hand been slightly ‘brave’ even if it was awful I might not have been so critical.

CEO is a curious choice of title don’t you think? This from a brand that seems to promote a kind of trendy, sustainable, socially conscious vibe with the Vegan and genderless proclamations plastered on the packaging. I suppose you can be a good CEO not a elite bastard shitting on the little guy, but there you go. Anyway... this is a boring vanilla to me. Opens fairly nicely, clearly sweet with vanillin and a light floral accord developing, but hey come on, it’s crushingly uninspired. I think in its defence it reminded me of something from the Vanille collection from Sylvanne Delacourte which is actually not much of a defence as I found them pretty uninspiring despite the Guerlain connection. Cloying after a short time and I really didn’t enjoy wearing it. Sorry. It’s not just because I’m some woody, natural vanilla absolute snob or something, I like plenty of more modest vanillas just not this one.