Patchouli-themed Perfumes (Part 2)

Personally I prefer wearing mixed-media perfumes (synthetic ingredients mixed with natural ingredients) to all-natural perfumes because they are much more interesting and exciting to me. (Aldehydes, metallic notes, fantasy notes, etc.) Some time ago I have heard a perfumer say that a lot of natural ingredients are mini-perfumes themselves and not easy to finesse; and all-natural perfumes if not well-designed often smell “muddy” or “brown”.

Maybe patchouli essential oil is one good example – to me it is a mini fragrance. It is strong, full of character, herbalness, earthiness, and nuisances, but It also gives me uneasiness for I find them smelling “too close to nature” – too earthy, deep and aromatic, almost the exact opposite of smelling a synthetic white musk detergent. I can imagine a perfumer either using just a little of it in a perfume to add some character or “darkness”, or “go big or go home”, using a lot to make a patchouli-themed perfume with some complementary notes.

There is a patchouli-theme fragrance that I have recently discovered that makes me feel that the perfumer has tamed patchouli and turned this hobo into a fine gentleman – Dior’s Patchouli Imperial. The opening is smooth, ambery, sophisticated, mildly spicy, but undoubtedly patchouli, yet constrained. It is so impressive that I feel like I want to stay close and talk to him for hours, as if he has seen the world and now he is back to tell stories in tuxedo and sandals, but really, I should leave this handsome hobo alone after taking a selfie with him. As the perfume reaches dry down, there is something in it that’s really synthetic and borderline nauseating. (Synthetic vetiver, maybe?) But crazy enough, the opening is worthy of my purchase of a full bottle.

Then I rediscovered Chanel’s Coromandel (“Asian lacquered partition screen”). You didn’t know how much I disliked this perfume when I first discovered Chanel’s exclusive line of perfumes. It smells like… you are trapped in a wet, wood cabinet and forced to eat white chocolate flavored TUMS to survive. I threw the sample across the field like a quarterback superstar and hoped not to see it again. One day, while reorganizing my sample drawers here it was again, I sprayed some on the back of hand. The epiphany arrived – it’s a powdery patchouli scent. It’s as weird as avocado milkshake in a Vietnamese restaurant, but now I have seen through the unusualness and found it amazing. Hurrah for white-chocolate and patchouli flavored TUMS! (Amazing yuck.)


Auphorie’s Miyako (2015)

Auphorie’s Miyako Extrait © Victor Wong

The first time Luca Turin smelled Miyako, he couldn’t even. There’s nothing he could do except give Miyako a five star glowing review; and if you know what a five star review has done to Andy Tauer, you can imagine what could happen to Auphorie, or any new startup perfume house. On the day the review was released, I checked out their website – Miyako was already sold out.

I had had the greatest pleasure meeting the owners/perfumers/brothers at the AIX Scent Fair 2016 in Los Angeles a month after the review was released. They had a booth there, and on that night they won the 2016 Art and Olfaction award in the Artisan category, and just when the show was over, they were inevitably talking to the people of Luckyscent, the biggest niche perfume online shop in US.

Rewind seven hours back that day, when I first sniffed Miyako with one of the greatest anticipations in my life since my fortieth birthday, my initial reaction was, “What am I smelling? An osmanthus leather? Ok…” I wasn’t let down, nor I needed someone to carry me to the nearest bench to get my ghost back. I bought a bottle, because I needed to, for I knew while Luca Turin sometimes can be a drama queen, he was like the little kid in the movie “Sixth Sense”, instead of seeing dead people, he could see unusual things in a perfume most people couldn’t.

I have been wearing Miyako on and off since then, and slowly I think I’ve got it. It has an accord that I have never smelled before, whether it is beautiful to you or me or not. It’s a scent of musty osmanthus flower and moist leather, and it creates a strange, austere atmosphere – like someone has taken you to an unfamiliar room with Asian decor with not much ventilation. You are told to have a seat, and someone you do not anticipate will greet you soon – except that person never comes. You are sitting in the room dead silent, looking at things, breathing the weird sweet air that the room and objects are emitting, and trying to make yourself at ease. Eventually, the uneasiness subsides, and you wake up naturally, you faintly remember you just have had a dream. Let’s try again.

Sonoma Scent Studio’s Amber lncense & Fig Tree





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Sonoma Scent Studio’s Amber lncense (2015)



Sonoma Scent Studio’s Fig Tree (2011)



Olympic Orchid’s Kyphi (2011)

Olympic Orchid's Kyphi (2011) © Victor Wong
Olympic Orchid’s Kyphi (2011) © Victor Wong

Kyphi’s has saved me from a near mental breakdown.








Armani’s Ambre Eccentrico (2015)

Armani Ambre Eccentrico, 100ml
Armani Ambre Eccentrico, 100ml© Victor Wong

Wearing Ambre Eccentrico is like eating Halloween candies, not just some, but a whole bucket full of them, blindfolded. The initial pleasure is great – you get tasty ones like Cinnamon Amberlicious and Tonka Bonka; they are classics and everyone’s favourites. In the mix you also get plasticky Plum Bums and cellophane-wrapped sun-dried fruits disguised as candies. As you crawl to finishing line in a span of 8 hours, you’ve realized that the bucket of candies came from trick-or-treating in a Turkish neighbourhood who didn’t care for Halloween at all.

Ambre Eccentrico is named aptly for it is not your typical amber perfume; it is resinous and fruity (not the fresh ones like apple or pear, but sun-dried ones). It reminds me a little bit of Chanel Egosite, which also has a dried fruit note, but Ambre Eccentrico wants to make sure you get the idea that it is an eccentric amber-based perfume, and they amplified the fruit notes. The result is an addictive but also nausea-inducing perfume that you want to wear occasionally with half a spray, and not everyday.

Amouage’s Interlude for Women (2012)

Amouage Interlude for Women (100ml)
Amouage Interlude for Women (100ml) © Victor Wong

There’s a time when everyone talks about how strong and uncompromising Interlude for Men smells; how it is not for everyone, but if you like it you are a perfume connoisseur. Or how people around you might get offended if you wear too much of it; and how fun it was to “accidentally” wear 20 sprays and kill everyone in Sunday church. Probably those are the reasons why men want a bottle, to tell the world that I am a bad boy, I am a nonconformist.

I won’t dismiss the excellent quality of Interlude for Men, but I can’t say I get pleasure wearing it – it’s an inextinguishable incense factory industrial fire. Me, being your everyday nonconforming nonconformist, I, chose to investigate Interlude for Women instead. And just to prove how cool I am, I bought a bottle of Interlude for Women. (No, just kidding, it smells good to me.)

What’s in Interlude for Women? There is only one note: magic pencil. Some people said it smelled like Jolly Rancher, I think they are crazy, because it clearly smells like a magic pencil to me – it’s dense, dark, rich, a little sweet and a little floral and woody like a pencil. (Note: upon research, most pencils are made from “incense cedar”.)  I went to Fragrantica in glee to verify my guess, and holy moly, it said it had bergamot, ginger, lemon, marigold, incense, rose, jasmine, tuberose, walnut (really?), coffee (didn’t get it), kiwi (what?), honey, immortelle, sandalwood, opoponax, vanilla, leather, oak moss, amber, frankincense, tonka, musk and guaiac? Hey, these ingredients all have very distinct personality, but when the perfumer of Interlude blended them together, it’s almost too hard to tell them apart, like I can’t believe mayonnaise is made of egg, vinegar and oil.

Interlude for Women is one of the heaviest scents “for women” that I have encountered. It doesn’t break down, it smells the same from start to finish and it wears me down like a heavy coat. After wearing Interlude for Women for more than five times, the magic pencil note finally unravelled a little bit. I focused and could detect the incense (that’s almost a given for an Amouage perfume), honey and guaiac. It will take me a while to recognize the other notes. But I need strength to wear it.

Pure Distance’s M (2010)

Pure Distance M (60ml)
Pure Distance M (60ml) © Victor Wong

Whenever I spray some M on my skin, an image of Super Mario hitting a floating coin box appears in my head. One pump is one jump and a dollar disappears in thin air.

I am not very proud of owning a bottle of M, because I can never mention about it to my family or close friends for fear they might ask me how much it costs. The irony is that I am telling the world of fragrance lovers that I own a bottle through this piece of writing.

I don’t buy expensive perfumes because they are expensive or everyone says it’s really good (e.g. Aventus). I really love M and I have been thinking of getting a bottle since I first sniffed it. People might tell me there’s no need to make any excuses for buying the things you like, but I am not that chic; I still wear my two-year-old shoes bought from an outlet mall everyday, and I hesitate ordering lunches that cost more than ten dollars. But here are some excuses anyway: my birthday is coming, and I deserve a little treat (except it’s not little); I imagine I am buying two or three bottles of niche perfumes at the same time (a.k.a. a fragrance haul) and I don’t need to buy any perfumes for a long time (except I will still buy some more very soon).

While wearing M, it makes me wonder what makes a perfume to be perceived as a luxurious scent, because to me, M does smell luxurious. Or the sales associate would tell me, “you wear it to feel tall.” If you do a blind test, can you pick one that you think is luxury smelling, and it is in fact, an expensive perfume? Or, if you are a perfumer designing a perfume to be marketed at $500 or more apiece, what notes would you choose? Is there an insider formula (I call it the “perfume gravy accord”) and does it change over time? Can a client smell a work-in-progress perfume and immediately know it is not luxurious enough? Are there ingredients whose smells are hard-wired in our brains to trigger a “luxurious” response? If bananas are only available to the top 1% of the population, would people associate the smell of bananas with luxury? Would you pay for a simple perfume that is made out of a few expensive ingredients or the one that is priced the same but made out of cheap aroma chemicals but smells “luxurious”? And what exactly is luxurious? Or is it just a marketing psychology game…

M (which stands for male) is a resinous, spicy incense scent with a heavy dose of carnation, clove and labdanum, with a touch of jasmine and rose. It has very little scent development, but it stays on you for a long time. Sometimes I wish it would go away because it wears you down like a monkey wrapped around your neck that never leaves you alone.

While studying the notes breakdown of M, I realize M is actually half the formula of a typical vintage style perfume. It amplifies the base notes of those perfumes and trims away the floral, fruit and wood accords, almost ditches the oakmoss, and the effect is like buying bacon fat in a jar instead of bacon or drinking straight cream instead of coffee with some cream. No wonder it’s so sickening rich.