Black Vetyver Café by Jo Malone

Jo Malone's Black Vetyver Café is like Thierry Mugler's Angel Men Pure Coffe, only without the steroid injections and the twenty-five pound sacks of sugar -- which means, actually, that it's not like Angel Men Pure Coffee at all.

Pardon my brain lapse.

While both fragrances feature the aroma of roasted coffee beans as their opening attraction, the vetyver root imbues BVC with a musky earthen tone at its base that forgoes the predictable avalanche of candies, syrups and sugars comprising much of its gourmand competitors. Black Vetyver Café fits neatly within the class of modern fragrance that comes across as near transparent, sitting close to the skin and subtly vibrating its frequency rather than blasting like a foghorn at everyone else in the room. You have to lean in a little closer to get the message.

Angel Men Pure Coffee, however -- pure sugar, pure foghorn. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Black Vetyver Café is a bit of burnt coffee, a whiff of sweet smoke and a split of dry wood that winds down into a light salt of the earth musk. Since BVC is a cologne rather than a parfum, the oils are somewhat diluted so the main body of the fragrance, already subtle, tends to make its exit sooner than appreciated (I would have liked the coffee and smoke to pal around for another hour or two) -- but for approximately $50.00 an ounce, that's not necessarily a deal breaker.

UPDATE:

A decent enough compromise between Black Vetyver Café and Angel Men Pure Coffee would be New Harlem by Bond No. 9 -- a potent blend of coffee, vanilla and patchouli that's sweeter and stronger than Black Vetyver Café but not as fully committed to the spotlight as Angel Men Pure Coffee.