Geste / Eau Radieuse (Humiecki and Graef)

By Andrew

In its brilliant amalgam of pretentiousness and utter dopiness, Humiecki & Graef’s marketing copy for its first scent, Skarb, set a new standard for fragrance shilling as unwitting entertainment. The press release entailed some drivel about the “eruption” of “how men cry,” plus (if I remember correctly,) a patently offensive reference to the human suffering of World War II. I dare anyone to read it with a straight face.

What did Skarb smell like? Not much, really: a mish-mash of contemporary men’s fragrance clichés, dominated by a scratchy woody amber, incense, and aquatic notes. It was too blatantly chemical to be attractive, too faceless to be provocative – unless your notion of provocative is household cleanser. Humiecki & Graef have since followed up with four more fragrances, and I decided to try a couple and see if they’d prove anywhere near as amusing as their accompanying prose.

Geste:

At first I thought the jest was on me, since Geste goes on as unadulterated rubbing alcohol, but it turns out that Geste simply dispenses with the top notes perfumers typically employ to mask the alcohol carrier. In fact, published pyramid notwithstanding, Geste consists almost entirely of two base notes: a sweet-and-sour synthetic amber reconstruction and a plush, borderline animalic musk. The combination makes for an interesting smell (which is more than I can say for Skarb), but not a satisfying personal fragrance.

“Geste” in French is a gesture, and that’s exactly what this scent amounts to. As a kind of rough sketch, Geste smells as if it could be part of a good fragrance, but on its own it’s perfunctory and incomplete. That it’s absolutely linear does Geste no good, since without development there’s nothing to keep me engaged as I wear it. On the contrary, the one-liner gets old pretty fast. After two hours it’s tiresome, and after three it’s outright irritating, like the drone of a mosquito in your ear.

Year: 2009
Notes: soft amber, musk, soft violet petals, soft fir resin. (I guess it’s soft.)

Eau Radieuse:

Jolly Ranchers + Calone, more or less. Eau Radieuse is a screechy artificial “froot” flavored concoction that could pass for cheap hard candy, a soft drink, or even a room air freshener. It’s all harsh colors, crude forms, and jerky lines, like a toddler’s drawings - only without the charm. Humiecki & Graef seek to provoke, and Eau Radieuse is the first scent of theirs I’ve tried that’s actually loud and ugly enough to do so. Too bad their idea of avant-garde is smelling like a bag of jellybeans. I’ll give this outfit credit: in Eau Radieuse they’ve assumed the mantle of Ed Wood and made something so bad, it’s almost good. It may not succeed as radical perfumery, but it’s just about as funny as its advertising copy.

Meanwhile, if you really want jellybeans, Demeter sells something called Jelly Belly Wild Blackberry Peach Cobbler at about one tenth of Humiecki & Graef’s prices. For a scent that’s actually provocative, just go out and buy yourself some Kouros.

Year: 2009
Notes: green banana skin, fresh mandarin peel, fresh Italian lemon, fresh mint leaves, rhubarb juice, bamboo sap. (I guess it’s fresh.)