Fumabat

The lone release from Brooklyn NY based Couteau de Poche, Fumabat has perfumer Parid Cefa approaching the time-tested leather chypre with an attention to elements heretofore missing from the style that reached its zenith in the late 70s. Yes, IBQ (isobutylquinoline, also known as pyroline) is here, with its verdant, grassy, rooty, spicy bite, dosed impeccably, which can't be said for other more recent efforts to recapture this style. However, there is a smokiness merging with galbanum and pine that imparts a more rustic sensation of pinon resin incense burning in a wood cabin. Growing more shadowy, inky, and brooding, the incense sensation grows stronger as olibanum resin is more apparent, along with something that reminds of the way geranium leaves smell under the sun. I wear this as I listen to atmospheric ambient music and I have an urge to look out my window and just watch the trees and shrubs rustle in the breeze. Fumabat smolders, it evokes glowing embers that slowly fade into ash. This is one that sends me to my own personal "happy" place, which always somehow has a hint of melancholy.

I think the time has come to write a review on this masterpiece. My friend asked me to try it when in NY for her, well I tried it and fell in love and left with a full bottle of it... it’s perfection in a scent! Before my “feeling powerful” scents were tea forward scents like Russian Tea by Masque Milano or The Moon and I by Floraïku (not sweet or lactonic ones), but Fumabat takes me even further to a completely different genre that I didn’t explore before and I feel like a BOSS wearing it! The smokiness of it is so unusual for me, but it’s addictive. My friend said carnation was too much for her in it but I have to say apart from the very first wave of coldness that I guess is carnation, I don’t get any floweriness. Saying that, it’s not all resin and smoke. There is an undetected sweetness to it too.... I don’t know how, but this is so perfect... Run don’t walk to try it!

It starts as an aldehydic pine scent with a touch of minty freshness that feels like an aquatic just like in the Jacques Bogart One Man Show, continues with a mixture of galbanum and oakmoss, and then the incense-like leather reveals itself. What a totally great retro masculine it is. It is like the modern adaptation of the green toned fresh aromatic chypres of the 70s and early 80s. Possible to find traces of many perfumes from that period. The Bogart One Man Show as I mentioned above, plus Van Cleef & Arpels PH, Caron Yatagan, Ralph Lauren Polo, Oscar de la Renta Pour Lui. It is as if it has been taken a little from all of them and brought out to this day. A pleasant, sophisticated and modern smelling perfume beside it’s old school vibe. I strongly recommend it to those who like this type of fresh aromatic chypres.

Honestly not crazy about the opening, but I absolutely love the dry down on this one. It smells like a true 70’s chypre, so much so that I’m carried back to the barbershops of my childhood. I don’t know what fragrance my grandpa wore (he did have a bottle of Hai Karate in the cabinet), but the dry down here reminds me of him in a good way. This is definitely a nostalgic fragrance, perfect for me, but maybe not for the younger crowd. Longevity and projection are great. Hats off to Parid Ceta and Couteau de Poche for nailing it.

This is the stuff! Pine, oakmoss, leather - and it lasts. (I don't get any mint from it.) Retro and masculine. But... I didn't buy it. $160/bottle at the Scent Bar in L.A. I'm kind of done with expensive scents, to be honest. But this is a good one! -------------- I bought a sample. It smells terrific on skin, but, wow, doesn't last at all. There's a surprise. I don't know why I wrote that it lasted above... that wasn't my experience actually wearing it.