Perfume Pen Pals: Humiecki & Graef Skarb and Andree Putman Preparation Parfumee


Katie,

Humiecki & Graef Skarb is great and it's one perfume about which I feel no guilt for buying.

It has an oddly melancholic note (it might be “men's tears”, or it might be carrot seed, because I remember Luca Turin specifically mentioning that carrot seed smells sad) combined with that dirty male metallic of Etat Libre d'Orange Sécrétions Magnifique.

Plus, there's a touch of incense, something else animalic, but mostly it's a sad and peculiar little scent. I love it! I'll send you some with your next batch of decants.

Dan


Dan,

"Skarb" sounds like Ikea furniture. I'm wearing your sample now and can see why you like it, with its green woody freshness.

It's odd that something can smell like wood and freshness at the same time, because a wood accord in perfume is usually the dead kind: driftwood, or lemon-polished tabletop, or charred, or something.

There's some earthiness in here. It smells modern. No frumpiness. Hmm, it doesn't strike me as melancholy in the slightest.

Katie


Katie,

I wore Skarb to bed last night (Alicia is back east for a funeral) and that was a big mistake. It's the opposite of a comfort scent. It smelled like despair, like something went terribly wrong and someone should contact the authorities.

Dan


Dan,

What happened here? I thought you loved Skarb. Was the perfume sad, or were you?

Katie


Katie,

Alicia doesn't much like Skarb, and I think that infected my reaction. Also, it was a little tricky getting past that iron-y note (not "irony," though I suppose some traditionalists would say having an iron-y note in a perfume qualifies as irony).

But usually I love the stuff, provided it's a sunny day. I won't wear it at night anymore because it is a little downcast. Or maybe "withholding" is a better way of putting it. There's nothing cheerful about it, no flowers or fruit or peppy little spices. It's the Ingmar Bergman of perfumes.

I'm currently wearing Tauer's Lonestar Memories, and it smells like the ladies from the Mustang Ranch are building a bonfire. I only hope this washes off. Which is surely something the Mustang Ranch ladies say a lot.

I made something of an impulse buy today, ordering an un-sampled cologne that had been on my wish-list for only a few weeks. It's Andrée Putman Preparation Parfumée, and I bought it because I've been longing for a good dose of driftwood.

Dan


Dan,

Wow, you are stepping out on a driftwood limb, aren't you? Interesting to see that the LuckyScent description of driftwood is "wet wood", which I guess makes sense: the wood has to drift in on something, after all.

But I always picture driftwood dry and burnt, like it's been sitting in the hot sun on the beach for months, and then was used by Frankie Avalon in a bonfire for toasting marshmallows and snuggling with Annette Funicello.

Katie


Katie,

My memory of driftwood comes from my youth and probably isn't reliable. Strictly speaking, it might not even be driftwood. My father's nursery was in Half Moon Bay, a small foggy coastal town, and he bought his fertilizer from a factory right on the shore.

Hunks of wood would wash ashore there, in an inlet, and it was oily, tangled in seaweed and, yes, wet. And damp, because of the fog. (Nothing ever gets dry there. I'm still airing out a pair of sneakers from 1975.)

So my association with driftwood is not burnt, but oily. A kind of salty-woody-damp-petroleum smell. But no Frankie Avalon. Frankie Avolon kept to the clean sunny Southern California beaches.

Right now I'm wearing my brand new Preparation Parfumée, which indeed has a light salty driftwood accord. And pretty much no other accords. It's death by light salty driftwood. It reminds me a little of Eau d'Italie Sienne L'Hiver, minus the smoke.

It's one of these modern minimalist things that I always think will work well for summer but rarely do, because I can never completely convince myself that summer should smell like almost nothing.

Nothing should smell like almost nothing. Except nothing. So nothing should smell like almost nothing but nothing else.

Dan

7 comments:

  1. Dan, 'almost' nothing leaves room for 'something', so nothing can't smell like almost nothing, cos there is something else there. Nothing minus almost equals something. Or. I. Think. Ow, my head hurts.

    But I am curious about a perfume that smells like nothing, or almost, and also oily driftwood. Sounds maybe fishy?

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  2. ScentsofSmell: You're right, nothing cannot smell like almost nothing, only something can smell like almost nothing. And upon a second spraying, Preparation Parfumee is certainly something, or almost something, and carries the faint smell of driftwood and sea air, a shy version of Heeley's Sel Marin. It's not unlikable but only in the way that someone who barely speaks is not unlikable. There's almost nothing not to like.

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  3. It sounds like Preparation *Parfumee* is something of a misnomer.

    I hope the bottle is nice, at least.

    There must be cheaper ways to get to smell - faintly - of driftwood and sea air.

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  4. Junelady, cheaper, sure, but not newer. Dan's a sucker for the latest untried iteration of any perfume containing driftwood, woody florals, or smoke (though he's not yet tried the ultimate smoke, Cartier Les Heures XIII La Treizieme Heure, which is surely an oversight).

    He probably already owns all the cheaper driftwood/sea air combos. He is nothing if not thorough in his obsessions.

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  5. I was thinking more along the lines of a day trip to the beach :-)

    Will be looking forward to reading about the 13th hour shortly.

    Driftwood is an odd note, concept wise - anything that has been immersed in salt water can hardly smell of anything but salt - a fancy word for a salty note, perhaps - but it evokes a very strong mental image of a rugged, yet refined gentleman. In my mind, anyway.

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  6. Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?

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  7. radu, you're welcome to quote a bit from my blog as long as you credit it and link back to this post.

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