I have to admit it. Much as I don't smoke as a rule, the scent of cured tobacco is irresistible to me. Is it perhaps because a favorite cousin used to smoke pipe tobacco from an early age? Is it that said cousin is a phenomenal engineer, whom I admired for his skills and intelligence? That could be one reason.
Another reason might be provided by vision, rather than olfaction. Growing up with images from the silver screen heroes, often caught in glimpses from open air cinemas in the summer, through rooftops and balconies close by. Or images etched in memory during Marathons with fellow cinephiles watching Cinema Club (Κινηματογραφική Λέσχη), a classic and cult national TV rendez-vous of quality international films broadcast weekly. In 40s noir films of American cut there was always handsome, badass Richard Widmark or brooding Bogie smoking and emitting smoke rings as they thought in pregnant silence what to do next. In French avant-garde Godard films (Vivre sa Vie, Pierrot le Fou, À bout de souffle) smoking was treated as existentialist angst. In German, Russian and Italian films it was something people did, no symbolism attached one way or another.
And of course there was Blondie, in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. A crush. If there ever was a man holding and twisting his cigar that way, I had no idea. All I knew was I was transfixed by the movement on those (parched for a significant amount of the film) lips.
The way I was seeing Audrey Hepburn teetering on to her longish cigarette as Holly Golightly or Uma Thurman working that no-nonsense cigarette as the least dangerous among her addictions in Pulp Fiction, it's a real wonder I never became a real smoker! How did I ever escape?
Because you can certainly consider me one of the victims of cinema glamorization of tobacco. Poor Jon Hamm had to smoke 74 herbal cigarettes in the pilot of Mad Menalone, such is our modern shunning of smoking, even more so on screen, where it's strictly seen as "period work." And yet ... You can do lots of things with a cigarette on hand: gain time, use that sharp intake of smoke as a decisive battle cry, fill that hanging silence of exhaling with something to look into, occupy your hands, offer to light a damsel-in-distress's own cigarette ... smoking has its own language and codes.
Which nicely brings me to our matter at hand. A gorgeous tobacco fragrance for men. Those old-cut ones, like Richard Widmark. Widmark looked quite a bit like my own grandfather, who wore Tabac Original by Mauer & Wirtz; there's poetic justice in the lives of perfumephiles, you see.
I have dearly loved many tobacco fragrances which evoke the subdued, mysterious atmosphere of a den or the posh hush-hush of a gentleman's club, it is of no matter. It's the scent of cured tobacco that fills the nostrils with the eager bulimia of a person that is on a self-imposed diet. There was no withdrawal pang, as I never developed the nicotine addiction, but there was a welcome call of good memories whenever I came across a good blend, satisfying my nostrils with the inhaling of other people's cigars and from the neck of glass bottles in suggestive shapes and shades.
From
Bell'Antonio by Hilde Soliani, one of the first true tobacco niche brands which hit a sensitive chord, or
New Haarlem, all the way to the extra sweet
Tobacco Vanille by Tom Ford, a cult in the making (so many are its fans), there are plenty of good, solid, woody, honeyed rich, full bodied tobacco scents on the market to have one's heart lost to.
The composition is outright masculine, so ladies who shun things "smelling like cologne" (connoted in the American sense as masculine fragrance) should give it a skip. But all the others should flock and get a taste, for this is a rich, deep, satisfying cologne, my friends. The tobacco, honeyed, not too sweet, beautifully restrained and with only a hint of ash, is dominant.
Around the pipe tobacco the supporting notes of sandalwood and vetiver contrast with their juxtaposition of warm and cool; the emphasis of this tension aids the persistence of the cigar taste, prolonging it into a delicious dry down. On the top, as befits a brand founded in the Mediterranean, is a cool spice; cardamom. This beloved addition to oriental coffee, giving it a taste that uplifts and puts it into the realm of refreshment rather than warming potion, even when said demitasse is hot, as well as in Middle Eastern desserts, is crucial.
In
Premium II L'Eau de Parfum by Korres, the masculine notes get a hint of freshness through the addition of cardamom, plus an airy section (that is probably due to ISo-E Super much like it was used in
Montabaco by Ormone Jayne). It makes for a fragrance that is overall tenacious, deep and reminiscent of a pinstripe suit with a fedora, which, however, can be envisioned in summer cloth in a muted taupe.
And of course, being an eau de parfum concentration, means it lasts through the night, doing that after-cigarette together in bed.
What can I say? Bring me the Rizla papers!
Available as 100 ml Eau de Toilette.
Available as 100 ml Eau de Toilette.
Available as 100 ml Eau de Parfum.
