Search This Blog

Tuesday, December 30, 2014

Helmut Lang Cuiron

We all know that guy who's all business and button down at work but then spends his weekends roaring around a track on a motorcycle, or traversing distances with his chrome-enhanced bike.  He's a biker in no sense of the word, but he is a motorcycle enthusiast.  He wears tailored shirts but you get the slightest scent of bad boy from him.

Cuiron opens with a very energizing, bracing bergamot note which is quite strong and actually brings to mind lemon peel.  Bergamot usually strikes me as a more refined citrus, but in this fragrance the note is front and center and there is no denying it.  At the same time, there is a definite whiff of soft leather with an underpinning of motor oil.  It seems masculine leaning, but a leather-scent loving woman would enjoy this as well and the juxtaposition of this phase on a woman could be very sexy.

The leather and oil are prominent notes but I'm very surprised at how the citrus holds it at bay.  There is no struggle for dominance, but an uneasy harmony.  Think lemon oil conditioner on leather.  When this starts becoming disconcerting, the citrus steps a little over and allows a tempering agent to come through.  I believe this is the pink peppercorn as it sweetens the lemon a bit, and at the same time the cassia comes through as well, not in a spicy, cinnamon wave but in the flat bark manner of cassia.  This is not baking cinnamon or big red, but rather the cinnamon stick itself, vaguely woody in nature.  This is never a spicy scent, nor a sweet one....but I enjoy how it never veers into the burn-your-nose leather.  This is how a black motorcycle jacket scents your closet when you open it....even if you can't see it, you know without a doubt that it's in there.

The oil scent/feel of Cuiron fades over time but the citrus always hangs around the edges of leather....the effect almost brings to mind oakmoss during one phase of the fragrance.  The notes listed include 'resins' but I get no sense of the usual suspects in this scent.  Instead, it stays very California-professional-meets-biker/motorcycle-stuntsman....the just-showered guy wearing a leather jacket in a lemon grove.....It would be fabulous on any man, but the right woman could definitely wear it as well. 

No comments:

Post a Comment