By Andrew
The first fifteen minutes with Traversée du Bosphore are a roller coaster ride for the nose. Having heard this was a Turkish delight gourmand-oriental scent, the delightfully dry saffron, smoky woods, and incense top notes came as a shock - even if they are vintage Duchaufour, circa Dzongkha or Avignon. Before the cognitive dissonance can fully register these austere top notes disappear completely, their place taken by a powdery-sweet cherry, vanilla, almond, and rosewater Turkish delight accord that will be familiar to anyone who’s worn Serge Lutens’s Louve or Rahät Loukhoum. Granted, this version is neither as loud nor as cloying as either of the Lutens confections, but it’s still far too one-dimensionally sweet for me to enjoy.
Then, five minutes on, and just as I prepare to write the whole thing off as a particularly devious exercise in olfactory bait-and-switch, the smoke and woods return in full force, as if recovering from a momentary distraction. They settle down next to the gooey-sweet gourmand notes in one of perfumery’s more amusing odd couple arrangements. The juxtaposition of powdery gourmand and austere exoticism makes perfect sense in Traversée du Bosphore’s programmatic context, but it’s no less clever and delightful for its aptness. And delight this fragrance does - at least for the hour during which the two opposed olfactory masses remain balanced.
My interest fades the smoky, bitter elements recede, and the drydown of rose and sweet vanillic amber is both harsh and disappointingly commonplace after the self-contradictory wit that precedes it. Too bad really, for if Duchaufour had managed to sustain the scent’s precarious balance for another hour or two, I’d be inclined to rate Traversée du Bosphore a brilliant composition. As it is, it’s the sense of anticlimax that endures, and I’m left feeling that I’ve smelled a great idea let down in its execution.
Year: 2010
Nose: Bertrand Duchaufour
Notes: Apple, pomegranate, tulip, iris, leather, saffron, Turkish delight accord, vanilla, musks
It sounds like something really interesting that I would never want to wear. Thanks for the review.
ReplyDeleteYour description, the way you write, is so beautiful and exciting, I can't believe there are human beings sensitive and eloquent enough to experience scent this way, AND be able to express it!
ReplyDeleteIt tried this scent and was like, Oh, kinda sharp, and then after 5 min, ooo cool, its sweet and somehow not, how dangerous!, and then after an hour I was like, where did it go? I smell like scented candle. I wish I could take your writing and translate it into a movie or music. Thank you.
Gosh, I'm blushing.
ReplyDelete