Timbre

So Chris Rusak's Timbre (a fragrance I mistakenly keep referring to as 'Timber' to the man himself and he was likely too sweet to correct me) is a strange fragrance of two halves. The first, the opening and main body of the fragrance which is a stunningly well rendered and natural smelling woody scent that propelled me back to childhood, climbing tree's and very specifically getting incredibly viscous sap on my hands. This is a lightly smokey, pine, cade, vetiver tinged incense with the impression of silver birch in my head. It truly is a feat to cram that much vivid woodiness into a fragrance and for that he must be applauded. This is where my amateur perfumery experience (or lack of?) can come back to bite as I'm constantly thinking about and trying to deconstruct a composition, especially from Indy perfumers. A little bot of knowledge being a dangerous thing because this is when we enter into the second phase of the fragrance which for me smelled a great deal more synthetic. I rattled off a list of aroma chemicals and natural isolates I use in 'woody/amber' bases to Chris and only one of the materials he said was in Timbre (Cedramber) but only in a trace amount and as a supporting role to the cedar in the base. Now I think I perhaps neglected to mention that I also use cedar (Virginian and Atlas) in pretty much everything too and perhaps Timbre is teaching me a valuable lesson about just how tenacious natural cedar is, in the base, remaining as they do with all the tenacity of Timbersilk, ISO E SUPER, or ambroxan. I also got a blackcurrant nuanced, peppery, licorice, wood smell that I often get from synthetic oud (especially the Firmanich one) and often when paired with pink pepper, but Chris uses real oud in here and I have smelled this in real oud materials too so for those who say that synth ouds don't really smell like real oud...they do....(a bit) I get the oud purists point but they sort of do in some senses. The base is a smokey, rough brown paper of a thing, with elements of vetiver, resinous warmth but more seems more sterile to me, than the lucid opening. For all this waffling, and struggling with a rubix cube, navel gazing nonsense this is a superb woody fragrance and one that I would implore anybody who loves that sort of thing to check out. It promotes images of fresh air, great big skies, mountains, huge sequoia tree's and all that good stuff. I liked it a lot.

I don’t know where I first discovered Chris Rusak’s perfumes—maybe on Instagram, late at night, suggested by another fragrance enthusiast out there. I ordered a sampler along with two sets of his Studio Series, which include sketches of things he’s working on or materials he’s interested in. The four scents of Chris’s main collection are all very good, though none captivated me as much as two of these sketches—the Chypre project (which, if it ever comes out, promises to be glorious), and the Wood/Yuzu project. Timbre is said to be the “first” perfume to come out of his Wood/Yuzu sketches (and let’s hope there are more). It’s bracingly fresh—petitgrain, bitter yuzu, and juicy orange—tempered by a light cedar and sparkling mineral notes. He added a small amount of oud sometime after the last sketch I smelled, and it’s the better for it—just enough to give the blend a deeper and darker edge without overpowering. I’m not a citrus or cologne lover, but this one is perfect. It’s not butch, nor astringent, just well-balanced and fresh. Chris says it’s designed to be worn by the end of the summer so that the top notes remain pure, but I could see this working during any season, for any reason. It’s a limited edition, but as I write this in July 2019, the last bottles still remain. There’s hope for you. It bears a resemblance to Comme des Garçons x Artek’s Standard (a perfume I have long had and loved). Where that one feels to excel in the chill of Scandinavian Modern, Timbre has more grain, more nuance, more hand. It’s exceptional.

This is a scent that invokes a lot of geometry - I imagine a 6-petaled flower bud with exquisite petals made of aromatic cedar, among greenery of bitter petitgrain and foresty galbanum. As the flower opens in a zen-like fashion, it releases its oils of sharp cedar, and the expanding space between the petals allows the scent of a very hesperidic mandarin and pithy yuzu to escape. In the base of the flower is an intensely herbal and polished, woody Vietnamese oud, just enough to ground the composition, and wafting up from this base are a few delicate tendrils of smoky, camphoraceous myrrh. I own the EdT and the EdP -- this review is for the EdP and I have to say that the work Chris Rusak did on the reformulation was phenomenal. The original scent was built to showcase an exceptional ingredient (that is no longer available), and the new EdP takes that original concept and hits it out of the park. The scent is easy to describe, but that's where it ends, because the rest of the story is kinda black magic. It lasts on skin for over 12 hours and projects really well but it's also never overpowering. It smells great in the hottest weather, and in the coldest weather. It's very sexy and it's also quite elegant. I love to smell it on men, and I love to smell it on women. It goes perfectly with a suit and tie, or streetwear, or a little black dress. I really mean that -- it's totally versatile. When people ask me to recommend just one fragrance that will work in any situation, it's the first one that always comes to mind.

A dynamic, rich, woozy, delicate evergreen-foresty scent. I could wear this all summer. And will, actually. For the first 60 minutes, I get a Beaux-arts pine tree: a broken ponderosa twig, saturated with sunny green citrusy tang. So well blended, so well observed -- ducking photorealism for the soft gaudiness of memory. Which is what I'm looking for in a perfume, personally. After an hour, the citrus has faded a little but never quite disappears; the cedar gets richer and churchier, but never quite loses the sunny quality that makes this thing smell special to me. The base is really interesting, and Rusak undersells it in his description IMO. After 3-4 hours, the pine mostly fades away, and I'm left with an odd, tangy, buttery woodiness that shouldn't work but does. It's utterly different from what came before, yet it identifies something that was there all along. Super interesting but not at all too weird to wear in a professional setting. Perfectly unisex. Full bottle worthy IMO, and safe for a blind buy if the above description appeals to you.

ah Timbre! love at first sniff..this is the only EDT from Chris Rusak collection right now, so as you can expect doesn't last long as I hope for.. really hard for me to choose between this & 33, timbre top note opening for me like the lighter version of 33. with more striking more thin more dry more fresh & lesser longevity, definitely best for summer day or night. the scent itself take me to a journey to traditional wood sawing in sawmill just right outskirts of town; the smell of fresh cut of layer by layer of dry log of wood on hot day while you drinking fresh mandarin orange infused water.really refreshing i just hope Chris still have a bottle laying somewhere when i want to get this as this one is limited run that he wont remade once sold out. very unique creation from Chris Rusak!