Fougère Gothique

Not a lot out there about this fragrance and I've had my bottle since 2017 so I'll try to chip in. It's an absolute beast as far as longevity and projection, it will stick around until the next day and fill up a room when fresh. The older bottles have real oakmoss and lots of it, I don't know the state of the current offering but I'd love to find out how it smells in 2026. The opening is a blast of realistic, natural mushroom and peaty damp pacific northwest forest floor. It feels like moving a rain-soaked rotting fallen cedar trunk in the rainforest and grabbig a handful of the pitch black loam underneath it. The ashy notes are not really smoky to me, its more like activated charcoal or volcanic but not sulpherous. It feels green, but bitter dark and natural green. There is zero barbershop or soapy clean here, zero citrus and I can't really detect much in the way of lavender so it isn't a bright opening but a bitter and slightly sharp one, although in a natural herbal way, not synthetic at all. There may be more of the listed notes there to discover but they're mostly overshadowed by the base. The wear experience starts there and basically moves towards a powerful oakmoss drydown with the mushroom note being the first to go. I don't get a ton of aromatics or delicate notes and there isn't a big transition, I would say its all about that damp loamy rainforest vibe starting out photorealistic and becoming pure oakmoss cologne. This is a good fragrance, with quality materials and a traditional feel sort of in the way of Rogue Perfumery but with less finesse, more creative wandering and untethered from connections to particular historic perfumery touchstones. It's from a house that makes great shaving products, uses high quality materials and has some skill, so it doesn't feel amateurish at all. Rather it feels like an unabashed exploration of genuine interest in those materials, even if a little heavy-handed. I think its great and I'm happy to have an old bottle, if only to experience the power of real oakmoss.

I can't say no to a mushroom note...although I must admit I approached this with some trepidation after being burned by many a hubristic shaving company branching into the field of fragrance. Normally these ventures prove to be dreadful, overly simplistic affairs rife with cheap synthetic essential oil soliflores at best and redundant clones of cheaper and more easily accessible classics at worst (etsy shaving companies offering their own versions of Brut, Old Spice, Proraso etc etc... both annoy and baffle me as to how they're financially viable?). If this was presented a little bit more aesthetically esoteric It could easily sit amongst the best contemporary subverted Fougeres. The opening blast is, as expected, mildewy, soily mushroom and a deep, rich christmas-candle balsam fir. These two perfectly mitigate each other's cons, the fir giving the mildew a resinous sweet edge, cleaning it slightly, and the mushroom giving the fir a more naturalistic and challenging (read: less 'festive') vibe. Shortly after the top burns off the scent settles into a fairly linear drydown; a dense, turbo compact blend of lavender, clove, nebulous woodsiness, the lingering earth of the mushroom opening, and a shy yet noticeable florality that gives this otherwise aloof blend of dirty and clean a sort of dapperness. The most pleasant aspect of wearing this is how the attention-grabbing novelty elements actually have something to say after grabbing your attention, an aspect that is reflected in it's performance as the most challenging and volatile notes seem to jump the farthest out, beckoning the sniffer to come closer with a tendrilled wisp of ominous green smoke. Once obeying the call, one is relieved to find an otherwise quite nice and somehow jovial blend, as if all along the wispy green hand of smoke belonged to some kind of strange whimsical green-mushroom-dandy-man. Nice! And it has real oakmoss, if you care about such things. Definite recommend.

''Hell is Empty and all the devils are here.'' Fourgère Gothique by Barrister and Mann smells like an old abandoned church. An old abandoned cemetery. It's an unearthed creature that smells like wet ground, smoke, ashes (Silent Hill) and burning woods from medieval times. Like, Oscar De La Renta Pour Lui, This is the scent that Nosferatu, Bela Lugosi and Edgar Allan Poe would wear. This scent falls under the same bracket as Narciso Rodriguez for him, Antaeus, Kouros, Oscar Dela Renta Pour Lui, and Salvador Dali Pour Homme. It shares similar characteristics one way or another but all in all, it is a monster of it's own. It's a very strong, mature and sophisticated scent that epitomizes all the dark horses and beauty - the damped, the cold and the mysterious. Sir William Carius has done a phenomenal job! When I first applied this scent, I went with 4 sprays but in all honesty, all you need is one or two sprays. Let this settle in and you're in for a crazy, delightful and beautiful journey. Sillage is strong. It projects like crazy and last me 10 hours without a doubt. Best to wear during the colder months.

Atlas down there pretty much nails it. The sweet side is similar to Bee, a toasted honey sort of thing that's tangy and smoky. Which is balanced perfectly by the peaty, earthy, mossy side. Both sides have a bite to them in equal measure, and are constantly competing for your nose's attention, making this perfume a dynamic and enjoyable temporal experience. Could easily be a Zoologist perfume, maybe some sort of slow, mossy creature that feeds on charred honey. What Amouage's Figment Man maybe tried to be but didn't know how. Probably more for guys, but would suit an adventurous chica as well, especially one who likes her gourmands dirty. Versatile, but maybe best in a moderate temperature range, as it is a sweet-ish organic thing. Hard to tell. Lasts forever. Oh, and if anyone's been appreciating the Castlevania animated series the last few years, this somehow goes perfectly with it.

In the top three of my favorite scents of all time, and easily the best offering from Barrister and Mann. The first, limited release EdP offered an almost shocking blast of soil and mushrooms, that mellowed over the course of the next few hours to a serene floral beauty. Later versions have toned down the earthy blast, to my disappointment, but the drydown is still a divine work of bucolic peace and beauty. I describe it to people as a bouquet of dead flowers by a freshly-dug grave in the forest, in the best possible way. Excellent performance, and superb longevity. One of my signature scents, and arguable as masterfully executed as MpG's Santal Noble, another favorite of mine. If the dirty blast came back, this would be an absolutely perfect scent. The drydown is still perfect; I just miss that "holy crow, what is THAT?" that I felt when using my first bottle.