Maybe it was the hype — the stream of overwrought fragrance reviewers slinging around words like disturbing, creepy and cruel — but Yatagan by Caron turned out to be a bit of a bust, in my opinion.
Not that it isn’t a decent enough men’s cologne — it is, but in that Gentlemen’s Club way, where manliness is defined by taste in whiskeys and conversation about golf scores. Yatagan would fit right in among those wood paneled walls, the smoke of imported cigars and the latest round of merger speculation; it has a semi-rugged manner and a voice deep enough not to cause suspicion, but there’s also something vaguely feminine about it, like the expletive-spouting football fanatic at the office who goes home every night to his closet full of feather boas and high-heeled pumps.
There are a number of women I’ve talked with who like and wear Yatagan, praising it as alluring and slightly animalic, and it’s the “slightly” part preceding the “animalic” about which I’m most disappointed, for Yatagan (named after a curved, Turkish blade) is an expertly blended, perfectly composed fragrance, all tucked in and pressed, shoes shined and its mane of hair carefully combed. It lacks any of the truly rough edges necessary to be considered disturbing.
In all fairness, Yatagan gets points for not tilting the smell-o-wheel toward the citrus fruits, iris flowers and potpourri spices imbuing the majority of its allegedly masculine co-horts. I can appreciate a fragrance that doesn’t attempt to smother me in hot-house gardens, grapefruit juice and sandalwood — but it’s more musky and smoky than dirty, sweaty or scary.
Wear it when the occasion calls for something classic, but you’d prefer not to smell like the CEO’s wife or the rum section at your local liquor store.
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