The first time I smelled this perfume I assumed it was a joke. Indolic Horror. A mothballing Eros/ Thanatos: overwhelming and oversaturated in/ with itself. Vile, even.
Now it is definitely in my Top Ten. If not my Top Five. I cannot live without it. Only this perfume rushes to fill the void on a Hot Summer’s Night – I spray it on my body and underclothes and go into some kind of ecstatic sweat trance; it physically stains the skin and clothes red – see frequent complaints online – so beware – but I don’t care, and enter a very particular, deep-breathed space away from daily refrigeration where everything feels hot-blooded and Real.
A stupidly rich, and extremely intoxicating, Pakistani jasmine absolute : rich ! filthy ! is cradled with ylang ylang and rose oils in the offset of this perfume but neither is perceptible as such : these essences are merely there to exalt the JASMINE, glorious !which is bolstered cleverly in the base by clovey sandalwood and vanilla – and which on me – D has just confirmed this – smells quite fantastic
I have been rather enjoying wearing this the last couple of days. Although I am not always 100% keen on neo-chypres (something about the ‘dead civet’ quality in the base of perfumes like Heeley’s Chypre 21 or Rogue’s Chypre Siam prevents these neoclassicisms from ever fully taking off), Chyprelia is more like a straight-up homage to (or even modern reformulation of) a vintage classic – Dior’s Diorella to be precise – and for me, it totally works.
For me, this is nothing butDiorella – (though did the base this morning remind me a little of Chanel Pour Monsieur Concentrée? )with added effervescence. Extraordinarily sparkling and bright, the lemon/jasmine/aldehydes burst like stars in the head notes, with subtly peachy-ylang for added heart and sustenance, over a soft, but enwrappingly chypric base of vetiver, oakmoss, patchouli and sandalwood that is totally brash amber-free: gentle, but believable. While Chyprelia might not house the darker, inner mysteries of the original seventies citric chypres, the perfume hangs about you elegantly, sensuously contained – and with its light witticisms and uplifting freshness, is perfect for a summer garden cocktail party. I need to smell more perfumes from this house.
I just found this in my raincoat pocket. I wondered where it was. One of the minor acquisitions from the astonishing haul I had at the beginning of May, I was curious to try it on skin. Though not a bona fide maharaja of santal, I do enjoy and crave a golden sandalwood every once in a while: I find the essence soothing, and enriching, at the spiritual level, and often burn sandalwood incense.
Getting my sandalwood fix when I need it from vintage Madame Rochas or Amouage Gold Man (I discovered recently that the ‘Cristal’ bottle I bought a decade or so ago for about ¥10000 (£60) is now actually retailed at £1,750 – wow, and it basically just smells like my beloved Imperial Leather Soap !) or else the occasional dot of Samsara extrait – ooh the Mysore! – Jean Paul Guerlain really did do some good sourcing there…… 。。。。I, like several other Black Narcissi, still nevertheless sometimes badly miss and crave the sandalwood of all sandalwoods, Sandalwood by Crabtree & Evelyn, one of the most pleasurable perfumes ever made.
Hoping that the Roger Gallet mini might take me on a similarly generous seventies odyssey of warmth and soap and sunlight on Indian sandal trees, I was disappointed, on application, to discover that Santal is instead a humorless beard twitcher, the type who likes to play acoustic guitar, alone, in a shed in the middle of a forest and plot against society. Dry, ‘herbal’ a bit ‘spicy’, I find this rather dull and small c conservative; sly. He might be swift-footed and sinew-muscled, this loner; good with his hands; well read — and I have no doubt that Lady Chatterley would be partial to a hard pounding or two behind the lathe on a summer’s afternoon – but no – with his steely gaze, his wooden crossbow hanging menacingly on the back of the door, I know that he and I most definitely wouldn’t get along.
These things are relative of course. The smell of the wrong washing powder does not quite compare in magnitude and seriousness to the vast majority of sociopolitical, physiological, emotional, and ontological crises and catastrophes that plague humanity on a daily basis —— being sent to a war zone in South Sudan is definitely worse.
But it still matters to me. It really matters to me. The ‘bio enzymes’, the aroma chemicals that increasingly pollute the senses on a daily basis really do get to me at the nerve/ stomach level. In the UK, artificial neo- melon ozones I smelled everywhere this spring had me gagging the second I landed at Gatwick Airport , a form of curious reverse culture shock but which has obviously become culturally normalized on the Mothership : in toilets, on people, shop premises (“yes, don’t you think it’s something to do with the pandemic ?”, Olivia said to me wisely on the last evening – the need for an an oversanitized freshness post corona – ‘to put the virus behind us’) – and she is right : disinfecting, cantalouped calones by the gallon to make us forget about illness, grubby intubation, death. A swift backpedalling to those early 90’s, blinding, subarachnoid days of Calvin Klein Escape For Men and Arden Sunflowers and all the other piercing frontal lobe drillers – when inhumanly bright marine notes started being used en masse in functional perfumery everywhere — and headached the atmosphere.
Getting back from the hospital yesterday – though I have to return for a check up tomorrow as things are still a bit swollen – I warily washed some clothes that needed doing with a liquid laundry detergent that happened to there in the bathroom – Attack X or something : yet another of those blue green alien liquids in white plastic bottles that are becoming more and more intense and commercially ubiquitous wherever you go; so very, very far removed from our natural human origins — and I knew that I would immediately regret it. Usually I buy the cheapest powder I can find at our local supermarket : a crap product that barely dissolves in the washing machine, but which I like because it has a virtually odourless, light lemon / generic floral scent that doesn’t interfere with my perfuming once dried : – and this is the whole point. People, I need a BLANK SLATE if I am going to apply a quality scent to my personage, I need no contamination — but YE GADZ : ugh !! now the clothes I am/was going to wear for the appointment tomorrow smell horribly and indelibly like another person – and not a person I want to know. Call me neuro divergent, with my laundry detergent, but my hypersensitivity to an overly intrusive and unnaturally ill-smelling modern washing powder / fabric conditioner knows no bounds. And if the pollutants in question are then worn on my body, that crass, inescapable odour can wreck my entire day.
On the ward, all the nurses smelled universally lovely – they had got their shampoo/ hair treatment / clothes softener combos down to a very site-specific T – clean, calming, trustworthily fragrant: it elevated the air. Other people, though, out in the real world (men especially), often very obliviously combine rank personal body odour, with sour and vividly artificial laundry musks that linger so penetratingly in the air around them they jam up all my signals. Inhaling the smell coming from the clothing hanging out to dry on the balcony at this moment is equally disturbing – like being substituted by an alien life form. It’s only washing powder / liquid – whatever it is pertaining to be – I do realize this – yet purely in smell terms, switched out with another entity, as I inhale this smell I feel like Donald Sutherland, screaming noiselessly in the hope-crushing final scene of
Probably, I could have gone home on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit guilty for still being in here. But Japanese hospitals always like to be on the safe side, making sure there is no infection, that you have had enough physiotherapy, enough post-operative rest; have been properly fed and looked after before they let you go. They are incredibly conscientious.
It was not a major operation. But considering that THIS had been removed from my legs
-and been enmeshed in my bone and muscle tissue for eight years, there was no guarantee it was going to be a walk in the park either ( had I known they were going to be hammering bolts into me like Frankenstein in 2017 I am pretty sure I would have nixed the whole procedure – look at it ! I was a walking hardware store !). I was quite shocked the other day when they presented me with this excruciating paraphernalia as some sort of omiyage – a souvenir from within my own body : I might have to make it into a necklace for Burning Bush.
No. If it were the UK or US, you would be turfed out onto the street with your swollen mummies a day or two after surgery, with a fistful of painkillers and an on your bike. Try not to let the rats get to it – and if it gets gangrenous, come back and we will chop it off.
Plus, if it were the UK, you wouldn’t be having an operation in the first place because you would be on a five to ten year waiting list, crawling like a beleaguered millipede in the dirt before you even got a chance at having surgery, by which time your heart and blood pressure and kidney function et al would be so bad they probably wouldn’t let you have the operation in any case. The procedure would be free, but by the time you were finally wheeled in for it, you would be dead.
Across the pond, surgery and a week in a private room in an American hospital would leave you bankrupt, were you unlucky enough not to have been born into the right circumstances, mopping the floors at Burger King without ‘coverage’ – because remember, people, HEALTH CARE IS NOT A RIGHT !!! COS JESUS SAID SO !!! —- — so you would be sobbing into your receipts as you walked through steel doors : my good friend AI tells mr you would be presented with a medical bill of anything from $17,000 – $100,000 for similar treatment for what I have o my how is this discrepancy even possible ? – and use your new found leg power to promptly jump from the nearest bridge.
In Japan, all citizens pay a monthly health insurance contribution depending on their income, and then 30% of the fees for all medical consultations and medications when they see a doctor or go into hospital for surgeries.
Today’s bill, including surgery, drugs, aftercare, meals, physiotherapy, and sundries, will come to ¥245,000 – or around £1,200, which I think is very reasonable. I am just wondering why in America it could be eighty times higher. I find it … disgusting. And though the staff at the government- funded NHS back in England are undoubtedly doing their very best in the face of the slow disintegration of our national health service – once the pride of the nation – those unfortunate people whose cartilage has gradually disintegrated. and whose bones are aching like mine on a daily basis face years of agony and discomfort : waiting, waiting, waiting, to embark on the eventual, grotesquely delayed, beginnings of a new, more mobile, pain-free existence.
In the Yokohama hospital where I have been staying, I have had immaculate care. A world renowned knee surgeon. Courteous, attentive and friendly nurses, cleaning staff and physiotherapists. Great thought put into nutrition and hygiene. Some amazing food. A successful operation. And, importantly, I was not totally ripped off in the process. While glad to be going home – I will be back in August and November for the joint replacements – at least I know that when I do so I will be returning to a clean and trustworthy environment where I will be comfortable and get the best medical care possible – and at an affordable price. I am very grateful. What can I say ? Amazing !
I first ‘crossed over’ in 1996. Until that time, I had stupidly internalized the ‘For Him’ ‘For Her’ regulations as though they were an eternal order of the universe.
Coming across a $10 bottle of Herrera For Men the other day in its original polka dot packaging in a thrift shop in Tokyo (the current packaging, and ‘juice’, have been dulled down for the pathetically insecure bro-culture of our times (“Man, the PROJECTION on this thing, the M A S C U L I N I TY, man, this is a real, motherfuckin PANTY/DROPPER, MAN) … Seeing it again, I couldn’t resist buying it for the sake of pure nostalgia.
As Emma will attest, I really did tend to overspray this thing. A discovery in my last year of university, it is what I wore to the Trinity Ball – all tuxed and young slender handsome on the arm of my escort for the evening, looking lovely and wearing, I would imagine, either Cristalle, Jardins De Bagatelle, Jil Sander 4 or possibly – but unlikely for a summer ball as it was always more of an autumnal affair , Guerlain Vetiver.
It was also the first evening that D and I were veering seriously close to getting together ( we almost kissed on the top of the marquee to Madonna’s Vogue). His date for the night was Claire, and I think both she and Emma were getting a bit miffed that our attentions were periscoping elsewhere – we were all off our TROLLIES with champagne and whiskey at the balls – these extravagant, decadent, black tie indulgences thrown in the exquisite gardens next to the river in Cambridge were insanely boozy : did E throw up at one point, possibly because of the bubbles – or was it – more likely – because I was killing her softly with my recently purchased Carolina Herrera ?
What I re-realized upon smelling my new acquisition of this original formulation of what was a pleasant evolution in the stultery of outdated manhood at the time – you were still supposed to be wearing your sweating, hairy testes on your sleeve in the seventies and eighties to a pitiful and laughable extent – was that all through my adolescence, and early twenties, almost all of the ‘pour hommes’ that I wore ceaselessly only generally appealed to me in their top notes; the fuzzily generic male domination of the bases of the majority of the andro-aggressives either boring me to tears, or else making me me downright angry.
The most unforgivable perpetrators for me at the time were the ash-breathed, hernial Terminators with their stagheads hammered mercilessly into the walls of their dartboards —- Tsar, Dunhill Edition, YSL Jazz … just don’t get me started. In the same vein that I would yell and leave the room if Charleton Heston ever appeared on the television screen (teenagers!) – these admittedly well-crafted- but nigglingly invasive and overly winkily sock-down-chino atrocities —- you could practically file sexual assault charges the moment a male in such ‘aftershave’ elbowed his way into the room —- would never fail the just grate on me furiously. I didn’t, at that point, understand how perfume was constructed, nor knew what any of the notes were -none of us did at that time; fragrance was more mysterious – you gravitated towards the mysterious imagery that was selling the flacon to you, the mood that the perfume evoked, and were either then drawn to the perfume or you were not (hence the sheer joy of hanging around the perfume counters of department stores as an adolescent and ‘finding yourself’ there among the covetable and nose/beckoning Aladdin’s caves of touted and polished designer perfumes).- The new wave of Sylvester Stallones and Bruce Willises that were proliferating around that time, though – too rigid and conservative – were seriously not doing it for me one iota.
In contrast, though I would inevitably be dulled and disappointed by the base notes of most masculines – hence my ridiculous propensity to constantly reapply the fresher top notes that I did like before they faded:: Herrera, for example, has a pleasing tobacco/ clove/ citrus/ lavender opening accord that although rather sweet (simultaneously part of its appeal; we were already in Joop! territory and the times they were a changing ) – gave off a feeling of smoother edges, more fluid definitions, and a certain, undeniable New Nineties optimism. Similarly, , I grew close to other scents for men at the time with their new tingling top moments : Eternity For Men; Fahrenheit – and later Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme – though I never truly loved them in their entirety.
THE EXCEPTIONS
While I loathed the entire Jazz-posse with a jock-hating intensity I am sure regular readers of the Mad Narcissus can readily conjure, this doesn’t mean I was unable to appreciate other masculine classics, either on others who might wear them perfectly, or even with some degree of success actually on myself.
An example would be the wonderful Armani Pour Homme (1984) that I wore for many years, always frustrated by the unreachably enigmatic base that was nevertheless gentle-spiced-mossy enough not to get in the way of the to-die-for Italian lime-mandarin top; I flirted with other Italiano also : Fendi Uomo seduced me up to a point with its spiced Roman charms to get me through a couple of bottles or more – though the castoreum in the base, a little too prominent among the hidden vanilla – always put me off: leather is always slightly precarious for me. Krizia Uomo was also fascinating, an odd coniferous jasmine with soapy facets that is very unique and enjoyable for a few hours until, again, the nose aforementioned ball sacks come swinging back in your face.
THE BEGINNINGS
My first ever scent purchase was Xeryus; a glinty, Givenchyan polished onyxness I adored in its first impressions (and girls would coo and sniff me in the school corridors when I was sixteen so I knew I was definitely onto something)- but of course, as it ‘wore off’, the typical fougere base of the era just bored me to death. Eau Sauvage was magnificent – I couldn’t get over it when I first discovered it, the implacable, limpid freshness with its almost Greek mythical timelessness — but it never, at the end of the day entirely suited me — no Dior ever has —-my dad wore it much better – and I finally just came to the conclusion that I would have to admire it from afar.
THE CONFUSION
Today, aside my ascribed physio, I have nothing to do in reality but lie on my hospital bed and wax lyrical – it is raining outside as we speak in Yokohama – so if you don’t mind too much , do let me dig further into this frivolous, over analytical ephemera just to while away a few more hours.
IN THE GENES
I think the budding young homosexual male sees other males as both the same, and the ‘opposite’ sex. The same goes for females. They have different bodies, which you are not really turned on by, but are often much easier to get along with and relate to – perhaps, I don’t know because (controversially!) you have something of a female brain yourself. Or something in between. I’m not sure. I know I find much of the current gender identity politics extraordinarily tedious – I am just Neil Chapman and don’t need any of your labels ; if I want to smell like a gimp in a sex dungeon with the sweatiest male armpits that ever lived then I will spray on my Ungaro Pour Homme – so horny and masculine fougere-y it veers into the bulging erectile territory of Tom Of Finland —- and really enjoy it; if, instead, I want to snuggle up with the maternal yearnings of immaculately executed ultra-femininity, I will dab my ivory wrists with Nina by Nina Ricci or Detchema by Revillon or More by Shiseido or even some Chanel No 5 and feel no psychological contradiction by being able to enjoy either or.
Back as a teenager, though, trapped very, very, painfully in the closet – for ten years !- ! there was no way on earth I was going to be treading the boards of an evening in my mother’s Oscar De La Renta, Ysatis, Rive Gauche, or any other of the countless other beauties that were displayed on her bed dresser at 51 Dovehouse Lane (No 19! In the original grey and silver spray flacon! my god – how divine and intellectually interesting did it smell in comparison to heinous fucking Jazz !!). I would wear them surreptitiously on the back of my hand, of course, so as not to be noticed – but the idea of wearing any out in public with my friends or anyone else was impossible – the fear of being ‘outed’ just too deep rooted to take any olfactory chances.
So, while I would swoon over my classmates’ Anais Anais, Chloe, Poison, Beautiful – and especially Loulou – which I knew was clottedly camp and sweet and heavily tropical and Battenburg almondy but adored anyway…. Despite my aesthetic and sensual appreciation of them, these were still, at the end of the day, Perfumes Of The Other ; femme-tastic creations that made me fall head over heels with the art of the perfume, but which were dogmatically held from my own teenage reach by the great Chromosome Divide.
At the other end of the spectrum, the elegant masculines – which nobody in my school was sophisticated to wear themselves, but which I soon became very acquainted with from all my mooching in Beatties and Rackhams department stores -and other places ; icons such as Antaeus, Gucci Nobile, even Drakkar Noir, also presented themselves as the MASCULINE Other: distant, self-assured; dismissively erotic.
THE ANOMALIES
While the great majority of the For Men pantheon was not for me, there were, of course, some notable exceptions to the ‘rules’ ( I do love a good contradiction ); male perfumes – classics of the canon – I would enjoy wearing from start, to finish, in their entirety .
CHANEL POUR MONSIEUR … in the vintage apres rasage; … I could well up with tears just thinking about the original version of the … the fleeting, but slightly oleaginous citrus veil tapered over a light, almost powder chypre base was the beginning of my life-long love affair with the aldehydic chypre – Ma Griffe, Antilope, Mitsouko all of them : smelled like an invincible young deity in this perfume and got through countless bottles
KOUROS
Kouros ..
Ah, what to say about Kouros….
So many people wore this one; the girls in my class having affairs with much older men or the teachers would rave randily about how horny this Yves Saint Laurent made them; the oranged spice, the feral, musky piss of it all
Kouros is interestingly the only fragrance all three of the male Chapmans wear. Both my father wear or have worn it but I personally think it smells best on me — as I am by far the most feral smelling in skin tone and bring out all of its Eros. That is also Kouros’ downfall, however : there was one day on Okinawa a decade or so ago with d when I had upped the Kouros dosage just one tiny overstepping olfactory too high – and he suddenly declared out of the blue NO MORE KOUROS : I CAN’T STAND IT ANYMORE and that was that. I now have a vintage mini that I like to inhale again from time to time. and I wouldn’t mind trying it again this summer – but Kouros, essentially, has now been consigned to my own history books.
PACO RABANNE POUR HOMME, AZZARO POUR HOMME
Neither of these were ever my full on holy grails, but I could, and can, still pull these off when I am in the right hirsute and huskier mood. Classic fougeres – the former herbaceous and warm, the latter, more caraway anisic in similar territory to Aramis Tuscany, anothermellow and solar-lit masculine I wore buckets of back in the day, the Azzaro slightly veering into obnoxious machofucker territory but with its space-to-breathe gracefulness and clarity of structure, still manly and persuasive, somehow distant enough to let its judiciously dosed patchouli and lavender shine.
GIVENCHY GENTLEMAN
Now this really is an anomaly, I don’t like leather but I love this. I don’t want to smell suspiciously patrician, all rose and patchouli and tarragonish dark, but I have always excelled in this perfume with its unfathomable shadows and sometimes look at my remaining quarter full vintage bottles with a certain sadness. The original formulation of Gentleman ticks all of my boxes for a men’s scent for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it evinces a certain mystery.
THE GAME-CHANGER
The effect that both Calvin Klein Obsessions had on me can never, ever, be overstated.
George will corroborate how much Obsession For Men I wore at university ::, buckets: ridiculous levels of it because it was the very first time in my life that I had found a perfume that TOTALLY suited me. I fell hopelessly in love.
You have to remember that at that time, in the late eighties, there was no niche perfumery, only mainstream, – at least where I lived – so Obsession – ATE MY BRAIN whenever I smelled it like a man possessed and it was my first ever exposure to a proper amber. Later I would of course come to know all the L’Artisans, Maitre Gantiers, Profumums and all the other ambers released by the boutique perfumeries and look back on my old Obsessions as being a tad obvious and gaudy ( but not really.. I got a vintage full bottle of the women’s original recently and I am totally mesmerized by it — the main point being – you can read about my obsession with the Obsessions elsewhere – that this form of perfume, a fougereless, leatherless beauty – was an exhilarating, catalytic coverter to realms of other possibilities.
THE TRANSGRESSION
In 1996, I discovered Kenzo Jungle L’Elephant. It quickly became my signature. My friend Melanie was telling me recently how delighted she was when she could smell me flooding the maternity ward in Oxford twenty five years ago when I went for a brief visit – the spicy, vanilla ylang ylang licorice preceded physical appearance by several minutes and she already knew that I was there. I don’t wear it now – it got too sickly, and is ultimately a rather artificial perfume, at least in its dense and plasticky original iteration, but when I first smelled this strange and innovative perfume at some Duty Free or other, I just knew I had to have it, no matter what. And it opened the floodgates. Before you knew it I was wearing Infini, Vol De Nuit, anything my olfactory intuitions honed in on, feasted on, pleasured into my mind and nose and body and life memory and it is very hard now to imagine a world in which I was supposed to be limited to cretinous tropes like Dunhill and Jazz ( and things haven’t changed, incidentally, except for the worse : tell me if you agree …. the men only smell of sport ouds , the women of ignoble, vanillah flora-schlock – that smell when you go through an airport that is nothing more than a hellishly overlit headache inducer, the facile Gender Divideas dull and uninspiring as it ever was. I wash my hands of it. But none of that stops me smiling when I smell this old bottle of Herrera For Men, a scent that isn’t me any more – another time, another place —possibly another person, even but which still reminds me quite powerfully of a time and place in my life when I was pushing against forces that were thwarting my natural essence: through meaningless barriers and borders, and on towards some form of liberty …. … on the cusp.
