To be frank, 90% of the perfumes I smell are disappointing, if not downright awful. Which is why I’m starting a series dedicated to reviewing (or should that be ‘roasting’) the duds.
Sogni (Meo Fusciuni)
Sogni is quite possibly the worst thing I have smelled in a long while. I can usually find something positive to talk about in any perfume – and I am inclined to give indies like Meo Fusciuni an easier ride than designer – but this is just such a badly made, almost ugly effort that I can’t summon one iota of generosity in its service. It starts with that God-awful fake sesame-bread-nut aromachemical that was already over used in the indie perfume oil sector (think BPAL, Alkemia, etc.) but has now begun to blight higher end niche perfumes such as L’Eau de Papier by Diptyque and Jardin de Cythère by Hermes. Perhaps due to over-exposure to this particular material in the ‘throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks’ approach of the indie oil sector, this note smells objectionable to me – as fake as that movie popcorn butter food additive and amateurish to boot.
This is compounded by an extensive mid-section that I understand is supposed to smell like tatami mats but regrettably smells to me like a dull, greyish ‘paste’ of unknown but probably industrial origin. I like some industrial smells, but this perfume doesn’t commit to any one point of reference, like glue, plaster of Paris, latex or glue, but rather, hangs uneasily between them all, which gives the paste accord a gassy, poisonous character that is as unpleasant as raw potato flour dough that has been proving too long. It is not easy to describe, but this part of the perfume gives me the same feeling as when a dog flattens its ears and emits a low warning whine. It makes me equal parts anxious and depressed. It just smells like a bad mood.
I really should stop there because if a perfume makes you feel this bad, there is nothing that can redeem it at the end. And indeed, what follows, like the most unfortunate backwash ever, is a sourish woody amber that bellows tech bro. Expensively cheap, if you know what I mean. I am beginning to see that the perfumer behind Meo Fusciuni is capable of doing amazingly intricate, interesting work with incense and florals, but equally capable of doing stuff that smells mawkish, cheap, or designer-adjacent. It’s ok, everyone has their off moments. It’s just that this perfumer has so many of them that it makes me wonder if the truly incredible ones he has managed to create are his strokes of genius or just happy accidents.
Little Song (Meo Fusciuni)
Coffee in perfume form is almost always disgusting if the perfume is too literal about it, and Little Song is no exception. Yes, the topnotes do smell authentically of coffee, but not, to my nose, like a freshly brewed pot, but rather like the dusty, flat, grainy-singed smell that pervades the air around a coffee roasting shop, which is so intense as to induce nausea. This would be bearable if the accord changed or evolved with time, but it remains as this brownish, bitter dust that lingers in the air, losing perhaps 10% intensity with every passing hour. Worse, the coffee is mixed with a cheap, sweetish liquor note that if I didn’t know any better I’d peg as Southern Comfort, aka liquid regret. Yes, I do understand that this is likely the Turkish rose. But it somehow twists and warps into the shape of booze, and I never succeed in reframing it in my olfactory memory bank.
The drydown is more brown dust, this time a light tobacco. Aomassai, Coze, Santal Noble, Oud Luwak, even Santal Nabataea – these win at coffee because the note is woven into a richer, more complex woody background rather than spotlighted under a glare it cannot withstand for long. People on Fragrantica saying that Little Song is like Noir de Noir but richer should have their login credentials revoked, because (for once) the Tom Ford is the significantly better perfume. At most – and this is me being generous – this is like Intense Cafe by Montale, an unbearably loud, syrupy concoction that mixes Turkish rose and burnt coffee to similarly ill effect.
Spirito (Meo Fusciuni)
A very nice, crisp herbal fougère with an aquatic, blue-green 1990s feel that makes it feel slightly dated. I do like the complex interplay of anisic herbs, shaving foam, and this dark, brackish ‘hedge’ accord that may or may not be cedar. My only complaint, really, is that spending over 200 euros on what is basically a Drakkar Noir upgrade is a bit of a piss take. Why are indie perfumers swimming in such crowded-genre waters?
Fortis (Les Liquides Imaginaires)
I don’t come to the Black Afgano DNA with any particular history or feeling, so can honestly say I understand its broad appeal. You have to place it in the proper context. It was probably a new shape in the air at the time. Instead of offering boys suede or incense or ambergris or sandalwood or spice, it bundles all of those things up in one vaguely dark-ish, sweet, smooth mass and calls it a day. These days, that kind of DNA has been done to death, so perfumes like Fortis and Black Afgano have lost the element of surprise.
To me, it smells gummy and formless, with a generic herbal-smoke note for a bit of roughage. This reflects the rise of cypriol as a wondrous material that, while derived from an Indian plant, manages to smell like one of those strangely plush, pleasant-smelling chemicals that spill out of the vents at a carpet factory, so deeply unnatural but also good (fuel, petrol, glue, putty). The greyish suede-sandal accord is pumped with so much saffron, cumin, pepper, and other spices that at times, it even approaches the general territory of Black Cashmere by Donna Karan, which I always think of a block of ebony wood that is perfectly glossy and ergonomically smooth, quietly emanating silky ribbons of spice. I think Red Aoud by Montale is also a distant cousin.
There is something almost obnoxiously buttery underpinning the mass, which makes me feel a tiny bit nauseous, which is the point at which the perfume starts to unravel into its constituent parts, which are of course powered by aromachemicals I tend to find either too ‘scratchy’ or too fake-creamy – Ambroxan, Amberwood, suederol, Cashmeran, Javanol, etc. To its credit, though some of the scent’s chemical under-structure is eventually exposed, it still holds together in (mostly) one vaguely sweet, incensey, ambery, sueded-sandalwoody mass. This is a highly processed food product rather than the raw food my gut prefers, so even though technically-speaking, it is a decent example of a distinct style or time period in perfumery, I don’t ever want to wear it again.
Fleur de Sable (Les Liquides Imaginaires)
Though nothing in the press materials or official notes suggest it, this is the kind of rose that modern gals like – a peppery, musky lychee-rose with zero shadow or depth. I find this kind of limpid brightness a bit bloodless, to be honest, like an over-exposed Polaroid of a once color-saturated, dramatic rose.
I will allow that the opening is arresting – fresh, tart, ruffled, and so peppery that your mouth almost puckers. It is fruity also – not pulpy (more like a dry, grainy pear), which creates a sandy texture that is kind of great. If the perfume could hold onto this accord for more than ten minutes, I could be convinced. But unfortunately, Fleur de Sable soon devolves into a ghastly modern fruity-rosy musks that smell a bit farty or gassy (do I mean glassy?), as if the rose had consumed too much cabbage. Others will perceive this as a clean, fruity-floral musk, but I can only smell it as a a burp from an overfilled liquid soap dispenser, a bit too chemically clean and cleaning product-adjacent for it to be the luxe experience I need it to be. Pass.
Phantasma (Les Liquides Imaginaires)
I don’t know if anyone has pointed this out before, but Phantasma is nothing more than a fresh, green Sambac jasmine with a ton of rubbery, halitosis-y indole attached to its underbelly. Nice if that’s the part of Sarassins you love, but underwhelming if you are expecting something a little more evolved. I can see the appeal of this as a layering agent for when you want to add some poopy floral musk to a cleaner soliflore or lightweight amber. It’s how I like to use stuff like Kama by Ava Luxe, for example, which this reminds me vaguely of.
But at 200 euros a bottle? If you’re a newcomer to perfume, please don’t spend this kind of money for anything less than a fully thought out, beautiful, or interesting experience that is going to hook you from start to finish. This perfume is nothing more than a single chord stolen from the full orchestra that is Serge Lutens’ Sarassins.
Source of Samples: I bought the Les Liquides Imaginaires 7 Virtues set and Meo Fusciuni sample set from the Italian e-tailer, 50-ml. The total cost was over 200 euros.
Cover Image: Photo by Tom Pumford on Unsplash
