Tabachnaya Tuberosa

I have just received this fragrance after waiting for it to get to me froim Russia. It more than meets my high expectation (based on Luca Turin's comments). The tuberose is a beast, but it is not the spice bomb that Tuberose 3 is. I have not smelled Ford's Tuberose, but I imagine that one being a bit of a spice bomb too. I find the tobacco notes a lot more subtle here than in some of the usual subjects (Josier, Ford,); It is long and lingering. I am not sure it it the most intense note. the tuberose is stronger. but there are lots of florals and incense too and the now nearly mandatory agarwood. But this one does not remind me of any fragrance. It is rare that this happens in scents these days, given the somewhat limited palette of genuinely natural elements. I think most would say this leans feminine but I find it unisex. It is a refined beauty, natural, classy, but not old fashioned or grandmothery. Old Russian perhaps, but in the gentrified sense of Nabokov's family. This house is not well-known in the US. I think those seeking adventurous experiments should sample this or others. For example, Venetian Red does have some initial but quickly passing connection, to Magnificent Secretions--a fragrance that is impossible to ignore--for better or worse. In other. words, Anna Zworykina has quite a range in her work. This is what niches should do--explore the relatively unchartered depths of natural notes blended in powerful and at times challenging ways.

I have ordered this and will write a review after I have received it. I am surprised that no one has mentioned Luca Turin since he quite likes this one; "As in the brilliant Twilly d’Hermès, tuberose here subs in for the lavender in a traditionally masculine coumarin context, to excellent effect. Though Zworykina’s stated guiding principle is a perfumery of entirely natural materials, it somehow smells pleasurably of photocopier machines. ts"

Such a different use of both tobacco and tuberose! Both notes are usually loud and sweet- she went the opposite way. On my skin it was dry, dry, and not sweet at all. Like when you wear ear plugs and some frequencies are blocked out. Pleasant, different, but there are so many other Zworykinas that blow my mind. If this was the only one I had tried of hers, I would have cherished it, but now I'm spoiled...

Tobacco and florals - not just tuberose, but that purple powder iris and violet flowers as well. Really nicely balanced... not too much tobacco which can be a deal breaker for me. There's also quite a bit of incense and on longer wear I get incense and wood. Found her shop on Etsy and will try some others...

This is a good example that, 100% natural perfume has its limits, even essential flaws, which take great skill to overcome. This perfume definitely has a significant dose of tuberose CO2 extracts(or other forms of natural extracts). Counterintuitively, tuberose natural extracts smells NOTHING like the real flower . The closest thing I can think of is dry, cool-tone-powdery, crushed old tea leaves . Mind you, tuberose natural extracts is not cheap, probably even more expensive than most of natural flower extracts, but, do you really wanna spend hundreds of dollars to smell like...old tea leaves? Except for tuberose, I also sense a heavily dusty mixture of notes piling on the flower, with a very subtle smoke feeling on top. Perhaps those are the other materials listed in the pyramid. For me, it’s hard to distinguish them from one another. It’s perfectly understandable that you’re after 100% natural ingredients simply for its own sake, however, natural ingredients don’t necessarily have higher aesthetic value.

It arrives suddenly.. ... as winter morning fog, that covers everything around in thick moist cloud, eats down all the snow, catches you by the sleeve, entangles in your hair, and dissolves into the air as quickly as it appeared. Now you see me, now you don’t , and vice versa. Strong and bitter beginning, but you cannot say anything paticular about it, only that it is sure a perfume, and sure enough it is far from simple. It lingers along for a while, three minutes, five maybe. And then the most interesting begins: suddenly (just like that fog) appears a tuberose, even a TUBEROSE! It’s not alone, there comes LEATHER as well. A tuberose I feel here is not a creamy chelestial creature made of light and mist, it is quite serious, it means business. It is a bit toxic and suffocates you but somehow this fact doesn’t bother you at all. You take a full-lungs breath, sit yourself down into a deep cabinet arm-chair. The chair is upholstered with leather and stuffed with horsehair, it is old and very cosy. And you just sit there, breathe this toxic tuberose in-out, in-out, in... and suddenly you understand that everything is as it should be. I cannot quite undrestand the reason : possibly it is my habbit to see the things a bit less cheerful then most people do, or maybe because of annoyingly changeable winter weather this year (from –15 to +3 Celsius every a week or two, several times already, constant fogs and complete absence of clear sunlight), but to me this Tobacco Tuberose seems inevitable like chronic neurosis, it doesn’t disappear, it’s always somewhere around. With all that said, I never can call it “cloying” or “obtrusive”, on the contrary it is “habitual”, even “kin” and any minute threatens to become “indispensable”. I suppose it is extremely particular about the temperature and humidity and I strongly believe it’s seasons are late autumn and winter. But this clearly visible tension is not the only important case of the perfume. What is even more important is the 3D reality it creates with laudable stability: a dark room (a cabinet? a smoking room?), a leather chair, a softly lit table and a bouquet of tuberoses upon it. Late foggy night outside, the house is sleeping. The room is warm and stuffy. No pipe smoke is visible but you can smell it clearly in the air along with intoxicating tuberose; there’s a lot of dark wood and smells of leather everywhere – from the chair you sitting in, from a leather sack beside the chair and maybe there’s even a leather coat, just taken off and still slightly damp from the thick fog that is outside. And there’s even a particular time and place : St.Petersburg (Russia), late 1890s- early 1900s, - time of Art Nouveau, decadent, artificial and excess. I even have a strong suspicion that if one reaches through time, collects some air in a cabinet of that time into some test-tube and brings it back here, this air would smell like this Tobacco Tuberose. A must-try for everyone into floral leathers!