for Men – Page 4 – Life with Perfumes

Emanuel Ungaro’s Ungaro pour L’Homme II for Men (1992)

Here’s another purchase from the perfume store that sells a lot of discontinued perfumes. A friend messaged me and urged me to get all the Ungaro pour Homme (I, II & III), particularly I, because they are very hard to come by. Well, even that store doesn’t have any Ungaro I left (except the aftershave), so I picked upUngaro II & III.

Anyway, Ungaro II is amazing. 90% of perfumes that I own are “for women” and only 10% “for men”, and I almost don’t care about colognes, butUngaro II is just wonderful, sophisticated and mellow .

Coincidentally, basenotes.com just published “the top 10 discontinued fragrances for men” and Ungaro II is one of them! http://www.basenotes.net/content/2058-The-Top-Ten-Discontinued-Men-s-Fragrances

Hermes’ Rocabar (1998)

Rocabar is lying in a bed, naked, on top of his felt jacket, reminiscing the great time he just has had. That’s probably what Hermes wants you to imagine when you reach for this bottle.

When I first saw the bottle design, my initial reaction was, ha ha, a scrubbing pad to wash dishes with (but smelling really great standing in front of a kitchen sink). I took a sniff and I thought I had smelled some chocolate, hence the name Rocabar. Later Fragrantica embarrassingly corrected me, “Rocabar: the name a contraction of “rug” and “à barres” (striped in French)”.

Frankly, I am not a fan of overtly masculine perfumes, but the comical packaging (now discontinued) is so strange that I have to get it. A very balsamic and a little bit spicy cologne that is almost void of floral notes, it smells great but not very memorable, at least to me.

Amouage’s Epic (2009)

Got this bottle from eBay at a relatively good price. I totally dig the packaging.

The creative director of Amouage, as many have already known, is Christopher Chong, a man from Hong Kong. He’s good at his job, but I often wonder, how did he land on that job. I mean, he must have some very good social connections and given a perfect opportunity.

The good and bad thing about Amouage perfumes is that for each scent, they have a man’s version and a woman’s version (well, the smart guy created the Opus line, which is for unisex, I suppose.) I didn’t spend much time checking out the woman’s version; I probably have missed some really good Amouage perfumes for women. Any recommendation?

L’artisan Parfumeur’s Timbuktu (2004)

L'Artisan Parfumeur Timbuktu, 100ml, EDT — © Victor Wong

A year ago I bought a bunch of L’artisan Parfumeur samples from Luckyscent.com. I paid special attention to Timbuktu, for Luca Turin praised it like it’s heaven-scent (pun intended). But you know how tiny those LuckyScent.com samples are and how soft L’artisan scents are? I thought Timbuktu was simply ok.

Today the full bottle has arrived, and I am showering myself with many sprays, I hope I can fully appreciate this scent.

Here are some excerpts from Luca’s review on Timbuktu:

[Timbuktu is probably the first true masterpiece of what, by analogy with nouvelle cuisine, I would call nouvelle parfumerie.]

[…almost infrared shimmer of woody freshness.]

[Timbuktu is the only modern fragrance that replicates, albeit by a completely different route, the bracing, euphoric freshness first bottled in 1888 by Paul Parquet as the defunct but immortal Fougere Royale.]

Robert Piguet’s Casbah (2012)

Robert Piguet Casbah, 100ml, EDP — © Victor Wong

Hide-and-Seek Incense

Casbah, my new blind-buy from the Robert Piguet line. It smells so different from the rest of the line-up. Funny thing is that all the current perfumes from Robert Piguet are created by Aurelien Guichard.

I originally expected a perfume similar to Serge Luten’s Arabie, a very spicy and rich perfume, but instead it’s a ghostly nutmeg incense. 5 sprays in the morning, an hour later I couldn’t smell it anymore. At lunchtime I took a short walk and suddenly the scents came out like a genie from a bottle.

I would not call this a lovely perfume (it has a lot of pepper in it, I usually don’t associate pepper to loveliness ), but if you think Amouage’s Memoir for Men is lovely, then this Casbah is quite lovely.

Guerlain’s Coriolan (1998)

Guerlain Coriolan, 100ml, EDT — © Victor Wong

A Hero’s Second Chance

Released in 1998 by Guerlain, Cariolan (the name of a legendary Roman general), was a “flop”. I didn’t care about perfumes back then, therefore I didn’t hear the sound of him landing face down on the ground.

He got revived, changed nationality from Roman to French, got a new name “L’Âme d’Un Héros”, and given a new modern suit that looks like a wooden box with two sides missing. Now it costs $275 instead of $80, standing side to side with Lupin and Derby.

The important thing to me about this perfume, is its oakmoss basenote. I need to know if oakmoss had already been banned in 1998. If it didn’t, then I am smelling real oakmoss? That’s pretty awesome (I believe I am smelling real oak moss here).

Bulgari’s Black (1998)

I suggest people getting a bottle of Bvlgari Black for their perfume collection before they vanish completely in the market. It is a very unusual perfume.

I bring a different bottle to work almost every week for “show and tell” and the coworker sitting in front of me, who has a very specific taste, (or I should say, a very limited palette for perfume. His fav is Lacoste’s Generic EDT) takes a sniff, and shakes his head and says, “Not for me.”

One day I brought in Bvlgari Black and he instantly liked it. (To my surprise.) His father owned a metal workshop, and when he was a kid, he frequented that place and remembered the smell of oil for machine parts lubrication fondly. And not to mention that he is a cycling nuts, who loves the smell of rubber tires.

He asked me if he could borrow it and bring it home and ASK FOR HIS GIRLFRIEND’S APPROVAL. I asked, “Does your girlfriend ask you for approval when she gets a new perfume?” Well, we all know the answer. (Anyway, her favourite is Flowerbomb, which my coworker doesn’t like.)

Long story short, they both love it, and he is heading to the discounted perfume shop that I go to all the time to get a bottle. I told him to ask for a tester bottle because that could save him 10 bucks as he totally doesn’t care about packaging. Sometimes I feel like I am living in a totally different planet.