03 Lonestar Memories

Just when I thought I had decided on a bottle of PHI Une Rose de Kandahar, I checked my inner-elbow, which held the mysterious, earthy scent of Lonestar Memories. I would describe it as just barely smoky, leathery, resinous, woody, creamy, and minty-herbal. When I first sprayed, it was much darker, much more leathery and smoky, like a BBQ, but it settles down considerably if given some time. I sampled it despite knowing I don't care for leather nor smoke, but I was still curious because, after all, it's a Tauer. Never imagined that it would become something I "needed" to own. The drydown reminded me of something I had been searching high and low to find in a perfume! Several weeks ago, I was out walking when I noticed a blooming rosemary bush. While I don’t care for the pungent scent and taste of rosemary, I love flowers of all sorts, and the precious tiny blue flowers were calling to me. I carefully picked a few to show to my little daughter. Before giving them to her, I cupped my hand and inhaled and was amazed to find that rosemary flowers smells entirely different from the leaves. It was the most beautiful, delicate scent, like just a drop of the essence of the leaves mixed with cream and sugar. The flowers smelled so wonderful that I couldn’t stop inhaling their scent. That was my Jean Baptiste moment (if you've seen the movie "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer")! I soon realized that the scent was oddly familiar. I start thinking of Mentholatum with milk and sugar. And then my “a-ha!” moment. The scent was like Noxzema. I have always loved the scent of Noxzema, and now I desperately wanted a perfume that smelled just like it—like tiny rosemary flowers. Lonestar Memories contains a note of clary sage, which plays out like a vague menthol scent. I wouldn't have guessed clary sage in particular. Combined with a creamy base note, I found the rosemary flower fragrance that I had been longing for, a scent that I assumed would just be my personal unicorn for many years to come (more likely forever). Despite my total adoration for PHI Une Rose de Kandahar, I bought a bottle of Lonestar Memories. I barely got to my car before ripping my box open and spraying with abandon. The next morning, I woke up and immediately hit the trigger--I'm obsessed with it! I rolled out of bed and prepared a cup of Earl Grey tea, added sugar and milk, and proceeded to take a sip. As I sipped my tea, the scent from my wrist drifted up to my nose, and I noticed that the scent of the perfume and the flavor of the tea blended together almost perfectly. Vetiver can present as black tea (hence Odin's Seylon), and with a bright note mimicking bergamot as well as a creamy note that smells, well...creamy, it was a lot like a cup of Earl Grey with milk. So that is another reason I am falling for Lonestar Memories--I LOVE black tea perfumes. I continued to examine the perfume on my skin. It is so beautifully blended that the notes just kind of tumble into one another, and it's tough to pinpoint specific notes. I did however pinpoint the scent of jasmine. I almost wasn't sure if it was really florals I was smelling, so I checked the Tauer website to confirm it is indeed "a hint of jasmine," one of my favorite florals. Keep in mind that all the things I have mentioned (Noxzema, Earl Grey, jasmine, BBQ) are all present, but none of them dominate the scent. In fact, at first the perfume dries down and then it may seem streamlined, natural, even flat. But upon examination, it has what seems like a million subtleties to explore. Please take the time to get to know it. Every bit as masterfully crafted as L'Air du Desert, Lonestar Memories contains Mr. Tauer's fingerprints--his silky, ambery, cedar-like "Tauer-aide", if you care for it. This perfume is his second masterpiece. Not a crowd-pleaser by any means, but I deeply appreciate it.

More than any other fragrance in my collection, Lonestar Memories never fails to remind me why I am so passionate about fragrances. When I first smelled it, I was just beginning to move from designer scents to niche, independent, etc. type scents. I was blown away by how "non-commercial" this scent is. There is no freshness, no citrus opening, no musky dry down. Instead, there is resin, leather, grit, and passion. It smells like it was made with love... like the difference between a home-cooked meal and Applebee's. The fragrance opens with a somewhat harsh onslaught of herbal and floral notes. It relents a bit after 15 to 30 minutes and presents a transition to a relative smooth phase where the leather and myrrh kick in. This is where the scent gets as comfortable as any scent I've ever smelled. Any by comfortable I mean it induces a nearly narcotic-like sense of well-being in me... I'd say it comes close to producing euphoria. It must be lighting up just the right chemicals in my brain, because it has a way of melting away my troubles and brings me to a peaceful place. This is a scent to be enjoyed by the wearer. I think it could be pleasing to others in the right setting, but that would be missing the point. This is art to be appreciated by experiencing it. Not at all linear... as previously said the jarring opening becomes somewhat addictive, if for no other reason it provides such a great contrast to the beauty that comes next. Throughout the dry down, I get phases where I can detect Jasmine one minute and then have it disappear the very next minute. Please don't every bind buy... there are some notes here that will not sit well with everyone. Samples are inexpensive on LuckyScent. Try it out at least three times before judging. The price is a bit high for 50 mL on first glance, but considering the potency of the fragrance, I'd argue it is no more expensive than any designer scent priced at $80 per 100 mL. A true love for me. Thank you Andy Tauer for making this fragrance. It is just incredibly beautiful and such a singular scent and experience.

Lonestar Memories I usually try to come up with a title for my very personal opinions here to give the reader a hint about what he or she is about to read, or my general idea or opinion in a sentence, but this perfume made me speechless. there is no better title than its own name. ladies and gentlemen, all the hypes about Mr Andy Tauer and his works of art are 100% true. Lonestar Memories is not simply a perfume. it is a journey, a work of art, or something to appreciate or be thankful to be alive and have the chance to smell it. Andy Tauer was completely successful to create a fragrance based on the concept he has in mind about it (which you read in the descriptions of the perfume). it's so awesome, badass, crazy, and yet beautiful (and even comforting at the very end) that i can not stop thinking about it. it starts powerful and leathery, earthy, resinous, and with some petroleum vibe which is surprising. it is not heavy on animalics. as you can see there is no notes in it to make it a "heavy on animalics" perfume, but there are some touches of that feeling. as it dries down it gets a bit more leathery and the myrrh and labdanum starts to sing a bit more, and in the end we can get the amber feeling more and more. I blind bought it, but I do not recommend to do as i did. it's not definitely a crowd pleaser. you may get a lot of negative comments about it. but if you care about the perfumes and perfumery itself then you must get a sample and try this. the only problem that i have with this one (and generaly Tauer perfumes) is the cap of the bottles. the presentation, glass, box, the signed card and everything is 100/100, but the caps makes you stressed every single time that whether you are going to ruin the cap and break the sprayer or not. This scent is mind blowing. a true masterpiece and work of art by Mr Andy Tauer. The perfume in every aspect is 10/10

I was so pissed at first because I went to a niche fragrance store and smelled a couple of samples, and the one I liked the most by Tauer was L'Air du Desert Marocain, so I went back to it a couple weeks later and accidentally mixed names in my head and ended up getting this. I was so bummed out when I sprayed it on my wrist... "Damn... I screwed up. This is not the one I wanted and now I have to suck it up". The opening was not really my cup of tea. It felt like a hot leathery, almost lava-like smell and reminded me of the opening of Tyrannosaurus Rex by Zoologist. I love leather fragrances, but that was missing the subtle kind of leather that I love from other perfumes such as Cuir Velours by Naomi Goodsir, which is more of a suede leather. Also, the myrrh was quite present, giving you a sort of hot pepper spiciness I wasn't so fond of. However, I could not stop reaching my wrist from time to time later that day. The following hours were by far the best of the fragrance and the smell instantly transported me to some time in the 80s or 90s, when really good action movies were being made. One particular one, which I love despite the critics at the time absolutely panning it, is "Harley Davidson & The Marlboro Man". An instant classic in my book. Well, this scent could have easily be worn by either Mickey Rourke or Don Johnson in that film. Don't get me wrong, this scent is nothing like Dark Rebel Rider by Varvatos, but it conceives its intention a lot better, and of course, I would recommend it to anyone trying to convey that message of rebelness and "lone-wolfness" across the room. Some say you either love it or hate it, but I don't believe this can be hated. It seems pretty animalic and quite hard to despise. It is purely raw, sexual and masculine, and I love it. No doubts about it: best mistake of 2020. 10/10.

This is not just the crown jewel of my collection. This is the bottle that makes the rest of the shelf behave. Tauer No. 03 is not merely a perfume to me, it is a antigravitational object. Every time I open the bottle and smell it, time seems to fold in on itself. There are fragrances that smell beautiful, fragrances that smell expensive, and fragrances that smell artistic. Then there is this: something that feels almost impossible to reduce into notes, or to be even produced. It has that unmistakable Tauer signature (of course)... a storm of smoke, amber, spice, resin, and desert heat, all moving like one living devil creature rather than a list of notes. But what makes it extraordinary is not any single material. It is the way everything fuses together into an accord that feels completely outside the vocabulary of modern perfumery. It's not here to give you pleasure. The notes do not sit beside each other but they interlock, melt, and radiate as one singular entity. Nothing in the market smells like this. There is depth, but not heaviness. There is richness, but not excess. It has a dry, glowing, almost sacred quality, as if incense, woods, spices, amber, and desert air were compressed into liquid form. It feels ancient and futuristic at the same time. A fragrance with soul, structure, and a kind of emotional authority that very few perfumes ever achieve. Andy Tauer, whatever you are doing, keep doing it. This is a masterpiece. I say this without irony: if I had to pay €50,000 for a bottle, I would understand the price. It sits in the very center of my collection, not as decoration, but as a lighthouse. A reference point. A reminder to every other bottle around it of who the king is.