SM Café

The opening transports you to a seedy part of town. It’s like the first time you went into a strip club. It doesn’t smell like a strip club with all the talents smelling like "bath and body work" fruity lotions and vanillas. What I mean is, it triggers that forbidden, sinful, part of your soul that you get when you’re doing something that you were told not to do like a Catholic 7th grader jerking one out for the first time. Theres a burning smell. There’s a sense that you’re in the wrong place, a part of the city that’s been in front of you for you tucked in an alley. This world wasn’t meant for you. A year later, returning back to the fragrance, I now am a customer. I can drink my coffee casually while public sex surrounds me. Nipple slips from the staff goes unphased. Asian men in their 60’s read the paper printed in their native language smokies comfortably. They give the orders. You can tell by their behavior and the way they seem to have eyes all around the room. The dry down reminds me of incense. Incense that’s been out, but the burnt air still hangs around. It’s not an accord listed, so it’s the blend of the accords that give me this feeling. Where others have said that this was a beast lashing your nose, I found that this is a subtle scent. It stays within inches of your being. I had to buy it. I had to because it’s in our nature to feed our shadows once in a while.

My second sampling from Strangers Parfumerie is SM Café, another coffee-named/laden entry (like Caffeine Honey, which inspired me to look into the brand), except, unlike the very sweet Caffeine Honey with, SM Café is more of a woody, spicy, leathery blend, certainly with some sweetness and coffee, but not so much a gourmand. The woody/spicy aspects are fairly well balanced against the dark coffee, too, with standout notes of leather/suede, cade, lavender, cedar, and resins. It vaguely reminds me of 4160 Tuesdays Black Velvet Café, but spicier, maybe leaning more toward the leather chairs and spicy foods of the café, rather than the inner oaky ambience. Certainly SM Café offers something for coffee lovers who nonetheless want to stay out of gourmand territory. The sweetness in it is pretty faint. There’s a maraschino cherry note, but to me this only exists in a cherry wood concept that is subtly part of the cedar. Overall, I think SM Café is very well done, and performs quite well, also, slightly more strongly than Caffeine Honey, and even if CH is a little more my speed, SM Café would be nice to own, I dare say. SM Café is priced for $80 for 30ml in EDP concentration, and is sold in the US via Luckyscent and Canada via Indiescents, both great sites that ship internationally. 8 out of 10

SM Café reminds me of a Portland, Oregon hipster coffee shop, with its coffee and leather and “scent of place” vibes. I picture a fluorescent-bulb-lit pastry case with semi-fresh pastries, coffee, studying, plants in need of water, and flyers messily pinned to cork boards. It also smells like the day-after-debauchery bars that smell like someone tried to clean away the sins, complete with quietly whirring air ducts, and a hint of mopping up. The scent of hippy glassware shops and adult bookstore also springs to mind. I also get the 80s animalic powerhouse Quorum with a dollop of amaretto coffee on top sometimes. Very evocative fragrance. I think it’s brilliant but also somewhat disorienting and uncomfy.

Grab yourselves a cup of coffee and dark chocolate and enjoy this beautiful creation by Strangers Parfumerie. Dark, rich, roasted coffee opening followed by woody and sweet facets (mainly honey&vanilla) and a little bit of tobacco in the background as the scent dries down. This is how a coffee based scent should smell like imo, perfect balance between dark and sweet sides. My only complaint would be about the performance, i expect these 30 ml bottles to have more strength because i don’t want to run out of this beauty quickly..

Agree with DR521 below. It's mainly strong coffee, but has a ton of other stuff going on to keep it interesting. What sticks out for me is a strong, bitter booze smell as well, which makes it kind of an Irish coffee thing. Brings to mind a long day of traveling, in airports and on planes, where you're downing strong liquids to get through the process. Exotic and far-flung. If I were to choose a coffee fragrance, this would certainly be the one.

Wow this was such a sensual scent!!! Roasted coffee beans, with a touch of leathery cream, no sugar. The cherries add a dark fruity air and there’s lot of booziness here. A truly beautiful blend that’s atmospheric of a brooding coffee shop that serves their lattes with a shot of liquor, with leather booths, suede chairs, and cherry pies in the display window.

Bitter coffee, it's fantastic even if it doesn't last. The bitterness fades to a benzoin heaven. Wish it lasted longer. Coffee lovers must sample!! Very realistic tin of coffee.

SM Café Strangers Parfumerie (100 ml. bottle, store test, Rebellion). Roasted coffee bean realness, oh boy this is another magical one. Slightly turn more leathery but in the good way. it kind of sexy. It's never leave the coffee bean element. I haven't done skin test yet because " Roasted Coffee Cigarette Whisky Come And Get Your Suede Honey Baby " Stole the attention because of Honey x Coffee. My arms soak on that day. I will revisit you too. 8/10

Initially, it smelled like a nice strong mocha for a good hour with decent projection. As it dried down, at times it smelled like 80s mens cologne, but ultimately after 4 hours it is a light leathery coffee with notes of cherry and wood.

I get a blast of pure amaretto mixed with some black coffee. The scent takes a few hours to calm down to a calmer sweet and woody vibe

Exactly as described- smokey leather, chocolatey coffee bean, tobacco and cedar. if that's your thing, this is the scent for you !

smoky oud, tobacco & coffee. dark, but not bitter. closest impression to morning cigarettes and coffee from a fragrance.

Beautiful, well blended and complex unisex improvement on ristretto intense cafe

Testing blind an opening of cocoa nibs, earthy dry tobacco, and a whisper of leather and rum seeped into my mind. It's a familiar yet elusive combo of notes that is hard to pin down. As it dries down, it leans more into the tobacco realm, but not in the way you'd expect. It's like you're reading the description of the tobacco rather than the tobacco itself. “With notes of dry cacao and a rum-rubbed leather sachet, this long twist is earthy with a hint of vanilla. Looking at the name and notes, coffee does make sense, but if you ever walked into a roaster where you can really smell the hot and dry air of coffee beans, it's more of that realm than coffee taste. The cherry and beeswax give a hint of sweetness and the herbs with the woods keep it dry and a hint aromatic. The amber and benzoin add to the rum feeling, but it is more elegant than liquor. The other notes all add their part, but I pick up no rose. To pin it down as specially this or that is difficult. It's between coffee with notes of tobacco, or tobacco with notes of coffee. For me it's a tobacco fragrance. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of tobacco fragrances, so while I like elements of this and think it's quite well blended, offering a unique tobacco bend, I just can't get past, it's tobacco.

Giving this a second try, I'm gonna leverage my initial 'dislike' rating to 'ok', because I am acknowledging that this is not really a true gourmand coffee scent necessarily. Around the start of the scent, it is kind of 'sweet' - not sure if that is supposed to be the coffee itself or what- once it mellows down though It's a smokey woodsy scent, not very strange. I can see this working on certain people for sure, for cold dry places this would be a good option

I really tried to like this one, I really did, but this is sitting between OK-Dislike for me. SM Cafe wowed me when I first smelled it. The opening is a very realistic scent of a burning fire, unlike the use of cheap wood vinegar. It's syrupy warm like caramelizing sugar in a saucepan. However, the fire smell dissipates moderately quickly and the sweetness quickly takes over, becoming almost overwhelmingly sugary and reminiscent of ultra-sweetened coffee. If you could even call it coffee.. it's far from authentic smelling. Instead, it leans heavily into caramel, maple syrup, and molasses territory. It's not a gourmand sweetness in the cakey sense, but rather a sticky, almost overcooked kind and one that borders on overwhelming. There's also a powdery undertone. The beeswax is noticable, and the cherry note was elusive until specifically sought it out, and when I did find it, it presented more as the artificial tanginess of preserved cherries you get when opening the jar. At this point I found myself questioning the realism of the other notes. Does this really evoke the smell of a cafe? Not really.. The intense sweetness hinders the "coffee shop" vibe since it doesn't smell like bitter roasted beans but more like distant wildfire and heavily syruped coffee and burning sugar. I'm sorry to say that I don't really enjoy this fragrance much. It's intriguing in concept but is let down by ingredients that feel both cheap and expensive, and it was too stuffy and warm to wear. it certainly made a memorable first impression, but the burning sweetness gradually fatigued me. I wouldn’t wear it again, but others might enjoy it. I'll keep it to torment my friends.

Odd fact: I’ve never had a cup of coffee in my life. So this fragrance was a disgusting scent-shock to my caffeine-free system. Of course I initially hated it and instantly wrote it off. But then, the following morning after spraying, it was the only fragrance that still remained on my skin - but by now, it was altogether a very different creature. It seems to go through 3 transitions: 1) Freshly ground coffee in its purest form 2) The coffee resides to become a scent which is much closer to Armani Prive’s ‘Encens Satin’ (which is very nice) 3) The dry-down is my favourite - a seriously tangy patchouli and soft musk, this remains for hours after. The longevity is absolutely superb. Shame I cannot empathise with the intimidating coffee intro.

Wow, on my skin, this smells only of smoke and maybe a bit woody. Almost smells like I poured liquid smoke on my skin. I was looking forward to smelling all of the other notes come in to play, but none of them came out for me. For that reason, I would say this would not be a safe blind buy if you are basing it on the note profile alone. Test it first.

Its ok and s.th different . But maybe hate or love perfume

Toi-toi smell. It took me back to all the festivals I've been too with portable and dirty toilets. Or my grandmother's outside toilet built from wood. No, just NO.

The smell of roasted coffee beans and freshly brewed coffee paired with a unusual white floral toned leather note, unexpected but goes so well with it, then a deep juicy plum-like cherry and coffee heart (rose and beeswax too) with a wood and sandalwood base, never losing the coffee until the very end where there is just a rough leathery wood. The coffee note is great, on a par with Iris Macchiato, there is something so edible and satisfying about the plum notes, it's like the fruity part of a great cup of coffee, but richer and more dominant, and so unexpected. Becomes a true perfume at this point. Drydown leaves something to be desired, becomes a little airy and bland, but it's really nice getting there. I keep thinking I want to give it away, but I would miss the opening and middle. Definitely one of the solid coffee fragrances to explore.

This smells like a coffee machine that malfunctioned because it wasn’t heating up, that then exploded room temperature coffee all over the picture perfect donuts on display at a Donut Shoppe. Coffee also splattered all over Donna’s cashmere sweater and the coiffed bangs she took forever to set that morning... whilst Peter tried to shield his toupee with his second hand leather briefcase. Both had never met until that morning and both are unaware that this coffee conundrum has destined them to exchange laughter and telephone numbers. Their love started there, on that morning that the coffee machine exploded at the Donut Shoppe. This literally smells like poured coffee on thy self. 🍩☕️

Strong coffee and a sort of mineral opening; burnt tarmac or rubber. It's challenging my nose, not really in love with the opening. The drydown is more gourmand, you get some beeswax resins and suede. Coffee strong throughout, it has a sweet honeyed vibe so I can place amber / tonka but the cherry / lavender / rose are lost on this one. Overall vibe of drydown is a slightly sweet ashy tarmac with some coffee. An interesting one to test, but not one I could wear. Not to mention - once again noted on this brand - not really a laster which it should be at this price.

I’ve sampled almost all of the collection and I’m finding the first ten minutes of each to be too weird and jarring. This was no exception. As usual I gave it time and it’s become for me the most shape shifting comfort scent. There’s plenty of coffee scents out there but on me they fall flat and short lived after the caffeine fix. This has a lovely gourmand and sensual woody drydown that stayed on my arm the day after sampling and through two showers. Contemplating a full bottle

Cold, stale black coffee, cherry syrup, the inside of a well loved pipe. I feel bad for anyone who doesn't know that pipe smell, it speaks of a treasured, homey indulgence. The rose and your favourite imaginary leather make for a beautiful drydown. A very enjoyable journey. PS sometimes a little vomit note just to add to the fun!

Smells like straight up bad coffee breath at the top - reminds me of a crush who always smelled like old coffee. As it dries down it becomes less perverse and more wearable. There’s a nice sticky lavender sap note. I’m kind of into it. But it’s not for mixed company.

There is something almondy and cookie like for a while, and the leather note feels separate from the rest in the opening, then it smooths out into something sweet, that is probably the tonka beans but reminds me of vanilla and white musk.

I think it's nice, but not nice as a coffee lovers fragrance. It's just a generic gourmand frag.... Try Akro awake if you love coffee

Wow. The notes from the brand really mention fisting. Alright.