34 Bohemian Cafes

In true Thin Wild Mercury fashion, 34 Bohemian Cafes is evocative, rooted, and expertly blended. The juniper and pepper are bracing - you can imagine this mixed drink hitting your bloodstream - supported by a grungy, atmospheric warmth. The top notes settle quickly into a phenomenal "place" smell: if you had a dusky rose perfume clinging to your clothes when you entered a dim, smoky, intimate space full of leather furniture and sticky wood tabletops, and then you lingered there, doing whatever underground debauchery genuinely suited you, all night long, this is how you'd smell when you reemerged into the fresh air. I imagine this particular Bohemian Cafe has a corner full of tattered secondhand volumes or a table toward the back full of ridiculous but deeply earnest poets squabbling amongst themselves, because something in the drydown - I imagine the iris and musks combined with that gorgeous aged leather and tobacco - really, really brings to mind the smell of old books and papers. Is it a little challenging? Maybe, if you're not a smoke-and-musks person. Is it a crowd-pleaser? Probably not. Is it intense and antique-grungy and melodramatic? Yes, in all the best ways. I'm obsessed. Even if you're not a smoky-musky-woody perfume person, I highly recommend sampling this one, just so you can appreciate the artistry.

For me, this feels like the bridge between the NY and the LA collection, but before we get into it, let's get something out of the way first. Despite the word Cafes in the name, this is not a coffee scent. This is Thin Wild Mercury after all, which means the fragrance was inspired by a different era. There's tobacco smoke, but it's not that simple either. It's in the air, it's soaked in the walls. Pink peppercorn provides a spiced kick, while a dry textured rose grounds the scent with a weariness. There's history, complexity, depth, and character. The reason I connect with this one is because it reminds me of myself. Sitting in a quiet, dimly lit corner of a coffee shop, scribbling together notes, then giving those words meaning, based on life. The adventures of a tortured soul, suffering through grief, finding love, searching for more. The description says poet and yes, I can see the poet, but it's also the rebel, the dreamer, and the visionary all rolled into one.

34 Bohemian Cafes is the home of your grandmother you don’t get to visit often. Or possibly a funeral home. Though I won’t venture there today. The opening is a smooth, rich, almost honeyed tobacco with a hint of sharp pepper spice. It dries soft and smokey, covered over with paper dry florals. Especially that rose. The home this builds is one strewn with intricate doilies, heavy quilts and hand crafted wood furniture. On the walls hang dusty, delicate, bouquets from years past. A pipe smoking habit is poorly hidden amongst the flowers. Such an inviting and soothing scent. Makes me long for a person that doesn’t exist in my life. I think I’ll become her. Easily a daily wear. Any season any time. So lovely.

If Replica By the Fireplace is a roaring living room hearth, 34 Bohemian Cafes is the smoldering embers of an outdoor bonfire. The juniper, pink pepper, floral and other organic notes give this one a lovely outdoorsy quality. It's still incredibly warm and its sweeter notes bring to mind a hot toddy on a cold evening. Wore it for an afternoon hiking in the pacific northwest and fell in love with how it blended with the smell of the forest. Going to be a staple fall/winter wear for me.

I loved this at first smell when I first purchased the NYC sample set from Thin Wild Mercury (later went back for a travel size), and it wasn’t until I read these reviews that it occurred to me that this could be a polarizing fragrance! I think it perfectly nails the boho vibe of an artsy, smokey, jazz cafe filled with leather jackets and instruments. Not great for spring or summer, but I adore it for fall & winter. I guess it’s not a safe blind buy, though!

I would by this in an instant if it was a candle... very sexy but a bit challenging for me to wear I’ve changed my mind about this... this is a beautiful fragrance... dry down is intoxicating... I feel sexy when I wear this. Jazz club vibes but sweeter....dark academia book by the fire... Lasts forever

After the (admittedly offensive) leather and rubber, it's a hypnotic incense that turns into syrupy liqueur. I love twm's dusty wood furniture. I find this fairly clean despite the tobacco and leather(new car smell), and the drydown is caramel sticky. Calm and sensual.

34 Bohemian Cafes reminds me of the theory that ghosts are like footprints of us existing in a single place but in different planes in time. There is something so vast and rich but devastatingly lonely about this perfume, like memories gathering dust and ectoplasm.

I like this one and girl of the year. Theyre a bit similar, top through base notes were all yeses for me. Although the base note kinda gives me a tobacco candle vibe but that’s ok. I like those anyway.

First impression from the sample set is that 34 Bohemian Cafes reminds me a lot of Chateau, another perfume from this house. It shares the same rosy, woody DNA, but with the addition of smoke and leather versus Chateau’s clean linens. I’d imagine this is what I’d smell like after a night out where I wore Chateau and hung out at a bonfire, borrowing my boyfriend’s leather jacket and bumming his cigarettes. I’ll need to test longer to get an accurate sense of the longevity and sillage, but the sample is radiating strongly and leaving a lovely scent trail, so I’m inclined to assume this is another big performer from a house that does beast modes well.

I don’t know what you guys are talking about. I find this one pleasant. It’s like a spice but found in the wild, not like a grocery store spice. I didn't like it as much on a piece of paper but on the skin it smells deeper and warmer. Maybe like a herby candle?? It’s not my favorite scent in the world but she’s cute.

I love the energy this one brings and I wish it worked better on my skin. Even though I didn’t connect with it immediately, I found myself smelling it on my wrist throughout the day. Maybe it’s an acquired taste. I also think I prefer more sweetness than this scent is willing to give. The notes are blended beautifully and the scent itself builds so much intrigue. I get a lot of pipe tobacco and musk, dark room with a wood stove and some dried flowers. It’s like Sherlock meets Alan Ginsberg. I want my boyfriend to try it.

This one is my second favorite of the NYC collection after Girl of the Year. Unfortunately that iris note in both perfumes kills it for me and overwhelms the rest of the notes on my skin. Really wish iris/orris wasn’t in these, but if that loud powder note had worked for me I’d probably be wearing this.

not bad from afar, smelling it faintly off my wrist was very nice. Too close to it and I definitely got the more barbecue smell, which was not great.

BLEH! the opening was promising: buttery iris against plush leather backed by an alluring trail of smoke and woods. but soon enough the leather turned into rubber, the smoke grew dank, and the forest succumbed to the overgrowth of juniper berries. the woods are sticky like syrup, and to a fault. my teeth hurt every time i catch a whiff. this isn’t a cafe; it’s a candy store with staff that don’t wear deodorant.

This is an old smoker’s leather jacket. Old ashed cigarette and wet worn out leather. It doesn’t ever settle into something wearable. It needs freshness or brightness to balance out the overwhelming funk. The notes list has some fresh-er notes included, to my notes these are not present in a meaningful way, just old cigarette smoke and leather.

smells like old :) like a very smokey rose but in kind of a nauseating way. enjoyed this way more in the bottle than on myself. tried to scrub , didn't wanna come off so now I must have a headache the rest of the day I suppose

again love the idea of this brand but this scent smelled like dirty clothes to me. like a piece I would pass on at the thrift because I couldn't stand the smell. jealous of the people that get it!! it sounds so cool

I find this aggressively Smokey, in no way one would find sexy and in every way you would come home from a dive bar smelling of cheap cigarettes

On paper, I should have loved this one, but it unfortunately gives me the worst headache and makes me nauseous. :(

this is just like if i was covered in maple syrup at a bonfire

When I was a kid, we had a house fire that destroyed everything we owned. I remember going back to the burnt-out husk and picking through the blackened, mushy remain of what was once our life. The smell was indescribable. Ashes, smoky, greasy wood, sweet rot, melted plastic and burned hair that was acrid to the nose and absolutely nauseating. This perfume smells exactly like that. No thanks.

There is unfortunately some note in this perfume that gives me thee most excruciating headache which is sad because I wanted to love this one...tried the sample multiple times and ended up having to shower it off the head pain was so terrible (I still love you TWM!) Not exactly sure what notes are causing the issue.

Not a fan of this one unfortunately, but I’m not typically a fan of leather notes so if you are a fan of leather then you might like this. I get kind of a burnt plastic smell from this tbh

so bad. I'm catching so much CINNAMON. It's all I can smell basically. Tacky

What began as the most challenging of TWM's New York offerings has slowly found its way to becoming my favorite of the collection. It is an unusual scent. It introduces itself loudly as is tradition for the line, but this time more synthetic and bold than ever. That is not to say it's unintentional - the rubbery note feels very intentional here to evoke the bitterness of leather and to add a lasting punch to the composition. I don't know if you've ever put your tongue on a leather car interior as a child, but that's the bitterness I'm talking about here. I like to use a light hand with this fragrance. Doing so seems to filter out some of the curious industrial fumes and lets out more of the syrupy, caramellic wood that lives in the dry down. That's where I feel 34 Bohemian Cafes is the most wearable and the most sensual for me. I'm completely intoxicated by this scent - both confused and enamored by its gorgeously tempered sweetness. I can't wrap my head around how well blended it is. I can't really compare it to anything else. But once you've worn it a few times, you'll remember each time from then on how fun it is to play with. It's like a stranger you've just met but feel as if you've always known. Bravo Thin Wild Mercury for continuing to create beautiful, experimental scents. Please don't stop. xx

You know, Orpheus went down to Hades to retrieve Eurydice, but he was a dumbass and couldn’t follow instructions; he looked back at her when he was expressly told not to, and then just like that, she was whisked away again. Poor Orpheus, I guess, but I feel like no one ever thinks about Eurydice. I mean, did she even want to come back? I think we imagine this terrible journey to unspeakable hell dimensions, but maybe ... contemplate it...she was happy to be uncoupled from that guy and just be on her own? Maybe she got to hang out in a dim-lit, infernal coffee shop, double-fisting the most bitter espresso and a chipped glass of crisply caustic gin, wearing a deliciously pruney leather jacket, a blackened and dusty rose in her lapel and being the sole audience for a mysterious entity singing jazzy French lounge horror ballads, just the unholy instrument of her smoky voice and the demonic feminine in heavy reverb. I don’t know why or how Eurydice and diabolical musician La Femme Pendu got to be in the same Satanic VIP room in this perfume review, but here we are and I love this for them, for me, and for this dark, gorgeous fragrance.

on the brand's website, they describe a base note of "sticky woods," and that is spot on. this scent is syrupy, sticky, woody, and smoky, with some piney, steamy freshness from the juniper and a pervasive boozy maple syrup. It is really rich and lovely and unique. and it's STRONG. i usually lean towards dry, powdery, spicy woods, but there is something about this that is GREAT. whisky, 1969 was tough for me because the raspberry, nutmeg and bourbon brought it into "just spilled food on myself" territory, but this scent has a more woody, leathery application of the sticky gourmand and it really works.

Just received my sample set and started with this one! Super unique. I only sprayed it on a test strip because I already put on perfume today, so my impression is not of one on skin. It's in your face, interesting, and unpleasant. Not necessarily in a bad way though! The rubbery smell is overpowering any pleasantries here. This would smell fabulous on a real, old leather jacket. Need to test on skin before saying anything further, but while I find this intriguing, I can't envision myself buying a full size.

On me, this is just tons of smoke and leather and wood. There is SOME sweetness in the dry-down after about an hour but you really need to search for it. I don't mind a masculine-leaning scent but this one is just a bit too masculine for me personally to wear. I would LOVE it on a guy. Maison des Animaux has a ton of fragrances that are masculine/smokey but still have enough sweetness to be wearable, if you are looking for something with a similar vibe but more feminine.

This brand is NOT WEARABLE. I tried all of them in a discovery set. The only one I can fathom being wearable/decent is Girl of the Year. Do not blind buy ANY of these. Perfumery is an art, these are not that by any stretch of the imagination. They all smell industrial and forced together. There’s no harmony in any of them. Even girl of the year, like there are better leather scents.

mmmmm, this is smoky and rich but so good. Almost brown sugary, I really love this! It's definitely smoky and woody, which can be hard to wear without it just reading like a man's cheap cologne. This definitely doesn't have that vibe. The pink pepper and juniper make it almost smell like a fancy cocktail. The floral notes are faintly in the background, tying it together. Incredible!

picture me agressively sniffing my wrist trying to smell literally anything except sauna. Could I wear this? Perchance! But should I? Mayhaps not.

Bug spray. Thought I caught a whiff of leather for a second but must have been the wind. Booooo I’m throwing tomatoes

Yeah this smells like wood and more wood. Not for me.

this smells a bit like bug spray