Oakmoss

This is by far the most oakmoss forward fragrance I have ever encountered. A cool, pensive lavender supports our melancholy protagonist in the opening stages, and the scene pans out to an overcast day on countryside vicarage. Trees are bare, stone walls are mottled grey, the grasses straw-colored,, but the lichen, it stands out starkly, celadon in hue, twiggy and web like, growing along the bough of an oak. The aroma of aniseed and freshly-cut tarragon are detected, and something reminds me of mist that dampens long dried out earth and faded foliage. Inky, earthy, so stark, even arresting is this first hour, it ruptures any sense of ease yet leaves me transfixed in its gothic tenor. I am unable to make heads or tails of it, but just experience it cloistered in my room as the afternoon light fades. Over time, as night descends, this Oak Moss grows more deep and dark, with a labdanum and patchouli accompanying the oakmoss—the chilly, ashy forest understory is most prominent. I almost imagine a cold evening walk wearing a muffler scented with this, hearing the hoot of a Great Horned Owl, seeing the light of distant clock tower from beyond the twine of trees. Regence Oak Moss feels cool, surreal, and divine.

I wore this in the late-1980's and loved it. Today, it can't be found for love nor money, and I'd do anything to smell it again. This is oakmoss in its most sombre, conservative guise: basically a masculine fougère, but not exceptionally aromatic or spicy, and certainly not green. Not listed in the above pyramid, but I am quite sure it possessed a subtle "reglisse" note in the head. It had a very 1930's French or English "country villa" feeling to it, which is to say, impeccable, even a little airless, stuffy. Devoid of sweetness. To me it smelled very sombre, almost funereal in fact. At first I rather disliked it... so buttoned-down and proper! Then something clicked, and I grew to adore it. That it is melancholy, grandfatherly, earthy and sombre... almost goth, even... was exactly the qualities I adored about it. It kind of smelled like someone's late grandfather, beautifully embalmed and immaculately dressed in his oaken coffin. Or like a scent Bela Lugosi would've worn. Or picture the elderly male silent film has-beens who came to play cards at Norma Desmond's dismal little party in her mouldering mansion on Sunset Blvd. If it had a color, it would be mossy olive-brown with stripes of dove grey or mauve. If you like to be absolutely transported by a fragrance--- taken away from your current circumstances-- then this one did it in spades. It was this scent, in its nondescript, even homely-looking flacon, that made me learn: truly great scents can indeed come in plain packages. I suspect one would be hard-pressed to even find a dupe or something similar to it today, as it was the diametric opposite of anything sweet or fruity the kiddos are going for these days. You WILL let me know if you come across some, won't you?