Time Machine

Time Machine takes you back wherever you want it to. My oh my, how I adore this fragrance it’s even hard to imagine. If you think that by now you know this brand well and there’s nothing it can surprise you with, you’re sorely wrong. There's a very creative mind standing behind it and you can tell it just by looking at the bottle. But let’s get back to the juice. First the name. To me, it’s one of the most accurate names a perfume can have. But again, if by now you think you know what to expect from Time Machine, you’re wrong again. It's a perfectly blended perfume and you can smell it right from the beginning. It starts with the hint of something sweet. But don’t worry, it’s not another boring gourmand we’re all fed up with. It’s sweet, but ripe and juicy just like a fruit you’re about to eat. Then you can smell something sour, a little bit savory and with a nice hint of cardamom. After it stays on my skin for a while, I can smell some tobacco and good old rum. Of course, there are animalic notes here too, but this time they're very gentle. But the note that literally blew my mind is the one that smells like a gear strain. FOR REAL. I could talk for hours about separate notes, but what I love about Time Machine is how they all blend and create a perfect combination. It’s incredible how this perfume works on my skin and stays on it for hours. After some time, it gets quiet just to come back unexpectedly with another hint of memories. Time Machine gives me comfort, it is pleasantly weird just the way I like and makes me want it more and more. So where does the Time Machine take me? On one hand It's a little dusty and it makes me think about the attic when I was a kid and my grandpa’s workshop. But it also has a really cool old-school vibe that takes me back to some old rusty bar in the middle of nowhere in Arizona during the 80’s. One of those places the world forgot about, but it has its own charm with an old jukebox, clouds of smoke from cigarettes and smell of good old alcohol. To me, it looks like the gears of Time Machine work perfectly well. Go for it. Find out where it’ll take you.

Le Frag's new addition to it's very solid line is a bit of a departure from previous releases, Time Machine feels quieter in volume, but not in message, it's just as evocative (or more, one could argue) than the rest but, for me, it's more of a distant memory than a vivid event. The first blast of herbal-almost funky-pinneaple frees you from any previous idea you could have towards this perfume, guided by the list of notes, and then a musky, somewhat medicinal immortelle, a creamy and nutty (but not gourmand) witch hazel, backed with golden tobacco and oud sends you to a difusse place of your mind, things of a begone phase of your live take a vague form, maybe you are at that woodworking workshop where your grandparents used to go, maybe a bit of solvent, my partner said that it was like being at it's father's old car workshop. For me, it's like being at a watchmaker's atelier, minuscule steel shavings float by the ambient, a shimmery, golden light hits the old barnished wooden bench, and there are still traces of pipe tobacco, used to soothe your nerves after loosing or breaking some tiny parts. I think you can tell how much I love Time Machine by now.

Time Machine opens like an object caught in backlight, found in a room that has been closed for years. The first impression is surprisingly mechanical. There’s an echo of a workshop: thin oil, brushed metal, bearings that have been spinning for far too long. It’s the same scent that lingers on your hands after touching a warm engine, after a day spent in a factory. It’s an industrial memory, but not a dirty one: a residue of worked-through life, an echo of labour that still vibrates in the air. Then the perfume shifts. The metal dries, the oil turns into smooth wood: a light cedar, scraped, sanded, never heavy. The composition becomes powdery — a dry, non-suffocating dust — like the dust that rests on old photographs, yellowed books, fabrics stored in a wooden chest. It’s a “good” dust, one that doesn’t speak of abandonment but of care: the dust of things someone loved enough to keep. And then the flowers arrive in the heart. Not fresh flowers: these are room-flowers from an old house, faded flowers — shy, almost forgotten — scented with motionless dawn and curtains stirred by a quiet breeze. It’s as if an elderly keeper of memories had decided to retain only the essential: the flower as memory, not as colour. The drydown is soft, lightly vanillic, transparent. A non-gourmand, almost “dusty” vanilla that wraps around the wooden note and keeps everything in a state of suspended time. And indeed, the name is perfect: Time Machine is not a device that travels through time, but a place where time has stopped. Time Machine is a small apparatus of nostalgia, of wood, metal, and dry dust; an emotional capsule that opens and reveals itself only if you let it.

Smells like a vintage classic car that has been smoked in for years, with the scent so deeply embedded that it will never go away. In the first seconds, there’s a barn-like oud scent that comes through, but then it fades. I can’t really detect pineapple; it’s not a sweet scent, and definitely not tropical. Good! It’s a tobacco fragrance accompanied by hay-like and earthy notes. Cardamom and lavender are also quite discernible. It’s the scent of a grandfather with incredible memories from his youth, who could never part with his car. When I mention figures like grandpa, grandma, or auntie, I never mean it disrespectfully or mockingly; on the contrary, I couldn’t think of a better metaphor to do it justice. Overall, I liked it.

This smells like something that has a place in Escape room more than on a person. I would consider it wearable only if you're 75+ and want to smell like you are living in a museum. Definitely an interesting scent but not something I'd ever wear. In short, this isn't just niche, this is niche of a niche of a niche.