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My Signature
60 reviews
What a glorious curiosity this is: an off-kilter gourmond of sorts, but also a fougere, while at the same time it resembles the odd non-perfume scents Comme des Garcons used to specialise in.
It's available as an extrait and EDP. Both produce roughly the same scent but are made from entirely different ingredients.
So it smells of coffee and of cake (a dry, bready cake). It smells of citrus and of florals. It also smells of ointment, of dry, dusty roads, of sweat and of heat. The EDP is a little sweeter, the extrait a little spicier. Some notes emerge more prominently in one as opposed to the other: the EDP has a prominant liquorice smell at one point, for example, and I can smell the dust more clearly in the latter. Oddly, the extrait doesn’t last as long on my skin, though if I had to choose between the two, that's probably the one I would go for. In both instances, and with most of the Chronotope line, the smells retreats and advances when you least expect it, at times seeing to disappear entirely, then suddenly re-emerging with unexpected force
You don't need to know the backstory to appreciate this: which is perfumer Carter Weeks Maddox following the pilgrimage trail of Camino de Santiago de Compostela, not as an act of devotion, but of exorcism, suffering shattered, infected feet and blood poisoning along the way, fed coffee and almond cake, passing through Spain's arid landscapes. Though you can smell all of those things in the finished scent. You can also imagine it as an abstract avante garde concoction, or conjure up your own scenarios to fit the notes provided. Which is the beauty of perfumery, I suppose.
Like all of Chronotope's perfumes, there's a fierce intelligence and intent on display here, but it's not simply an intellectual exercise: you can feel the emotion put into its creation. It's pretty bloody amazing, and it's next on my perfume shopping list, when funds allow. All the Chronotopes I've sampled so far have been real growers, and it's quickly becoming one of my favourite perfume houses.
Vying surely for the most notes listed in any perfume, Al Bashiq is a clone of Spirit of Dubai's Meydan. Which begs the question, can a clone be a clone when it's owned by the same company?
So I'm presuming this is the same formula but composed of cheaper ingredients. That, and they're relying on mass market volumes to provide roughly equivalent profits to their premium version.
So what does it smell like? It's leathery, woody, fruity, with a pine note that gives it a slighty musty, almost medicinal quality. I'm sure there's something almost like coffee in there too. At one point it moves into definite barbershop territory, shifts into sweetly floral incense, then into a dirty, animalic, quite heavy tobacco. All of this is fairly standard middle-eastern fragrance territory, but the multiplicity of ingredients means it shifts focus frequently and unexpectedly, which gives it added interest.
I liked this quite a lot, but ultimately it didn't quite click: it's feels a little muddy and unfocussed overall, and I wonder if the presumably less expensive materials are responsible for this. It certainly feels as though there's a really stunning perfume waiting to be unleashed, but that never really arrives. A special note of displeasure for the tacky faux-metal eagle lid, which distinctly marks it as the sort of thing you'd see on display in a bargain basement shop: that went in the bin straight away. I'd be really interested to smell the original to see if it manages to cohere in a way this never quite does for me.
Intense white floral and orange blossom explosion. The purpose of this must be to highlight the petitgrain, which is does, but it is so floral, so lacking in some darker ingredient to offset this, that it becomes both wearing and a little nauseating. There's a very mild dusting of cinnamon in there, but it's barely detectable, so it doesn’t do what I imagine it is supposed to do, which is offset that shrill white note.
It becomes more tolerable in the drydown, but I still can't say I like it much.
Antoine Lie's created some of my very favourite fragrances, but this one's a real miss for me.
Legendary cheapo creation from Nathalie Lorson, who is very accomplished at making a very few, inexpensive ingredients go a long way (Encre Noir is another one of her works).
What you get here isn't in any way radical. It's a boozy, sweet wood-floral-incense combo. But it's very well executed, and smells pretty much what you would expect an owner of a Bentley to smell like: wealthy, well turned-out, kind of classy, mature, perhaps a little conservative in outlook. In actuality, they'd probably be wearing bloody Sauvage, but this is an infinitely more preferable option, scent-wise.
Night time in the desert. You're crouched in front of a burning fire, wrapped in a goatskin blanket, drinking coffee. A camel has just taken a dump alongside you but you have an allergy to camels and it has dulled your sense of smell.
Agreeable, mildly woody, mildly leathery, mildy spiced scent that wafts away pleasantly in the background without being either offensive or intoxicating. There's a note of oud, artificial, I'm certain, but a closer approximation of the real thing than a lot of artificial ouds on offer. There are much worse offerings in this style out there, but much better too. I'll happily use up the little sample bottle I have, then will probably never think of it again.
Some perfumes just smell nice (or otherwise). Some evoke particular emotions or associations. And some conjure up very concrete, very definite images. Nouvolari belongs in this last category.
I had no idea who Nouvolari was before reading the blurb about this release (he was a racing driver), but even without that information, it would be easy to picture the scene. This smells of petrol and tarmac, of oily grease and metal, of fumes and sweat and smoke and leather. Mixed in amongst this is a sizeable dose of spearmint, and sparse citrus and rose.
This is the sort of scent that shines outdoors on a cold, still, crisp winter's day. It still smells pretty amazing as an indoor scent, or on cooler days. I would imagine this wouldn't appeal to everyone, it's not a crowd pleaser, but it is incredibly evocative. I loved it, and it proved absolutely worthy of a subsequent full bottle buy.
Cut lillies lying in a pool of brackish sea water. Wetland earth with sparse wildflowers growing amid thick greenery. A hint of peppery incense in the air.
Duration is impressive, the lilly note constant though to the drydown, at which point woody, amber notes become more prominent.
This a strange, cold and beautifully funereal creation, as befits its name. It's also pretty dark - there's a suggestion of something wild and unfettered lurking around the edges of the scent, even though its core is very still. One of the high points in the Beaufort range, and one of its more approachable creations as well.
Cheap imitation leather jacket sprayed with sickly floral air freshener. Supposed clone of Les Absolus d'Orient Cuir Intense, which I haven't sampled.
An attractively spicy fresh ginger opening turns quickly to a pallid approximation of wood and vetiver, before evaporating entirely in a pitifully short lifespan.
Pure vanilla opening, followed by cocoa, chocolate and rum. There's a mustiness to counteract the sweetness that must come from the cumin. Unexpectedly, vetiver emerges, along with a rose note, I'm sure, although it's not listed. There are toasted nuts and a sheen of PVC over it all.
What all this has to do with frustration I have no idea, unless it's counteracting all your frustrations by gorging on your favourite edibles and drinkables while dressed in a polyvinyl gimp suit. Like most ELDO fragrances, it's not as edgy as the description promises, but it's a very pleasant and mildly eccentric creation, and I like it a lot (though probably not enough to invest in a full bottle.)
