I was all set to give the fat thumbs-down on Monocle Scent Two: Laurel. After my recent encounters with the lush complexities of L’Artisan Al Oudh, Le Labo Poivre 23, Keiko Mecheri Cuir Cordoba and Vero Profumo Rubj, Monocle Scent Two: Laurel seemed at first to fall a little flat. And thin. And disappointingly wan.
But I also recognized that I was leaping from the moving merry-go-round of plush orientals into a still, hushed world of severe angles and sparse aesthetics, so it was obviously going to take some time for my senses to adjust.
Monocle Scent Two: Laurel was created by Antoine Maisondieu, Senior Perfumer at flavor & fragrance conglomerate Givaudan, for Monocle Magazine, a lifestyle glossie that, according to Wikipedia, “purports to provide a globalist perspective on international affairs, culture and design to wealthy, cosmopolitan readers” — in other words, investment bankers and government workers.
*Note: In an interview with Anatomy of the Self, Monocle founder & editor Tyler Brûlé states that the magazine’s readership is “over 30 … predominantly male (70 percent) and work in finance, public policy, assorted academic fields, media, and assorted travel sectors” — which makes me just about 70 percent correct in my assumption.
The magazine was launched in only February of 2007, and since then, Monocle’s expectations for exponential readership growth have likely been shrinking like a wet vicuña sweater in a hot dryer, so it’s no wonder, then, that they’ve come out with a new fragrance to hawk on the niche market. With fragrances above the $100.00 mark being about the only category of fragrance that saw sales increases in 2009, a contemporary culture and design magazine with its finger on the pulse would have to be staffed with complete dunderheads to pass over such a high profit-margin opportunity.
*Note 2: Tyler Brûlé is the original founder of the very successful Wallpaper Magazine, a design-travel-media oriented publication that was snapped up by Time Warner a scant one year after its debut, so his hiring “a staff of dunderheads” for Monocle is improbable (though nothing is impossible).
Octavian at 1000 Fragrances posted surprisingly high praise for the Scent Two fragrance: “Monocle Scent Two Laurel is a perfect fragrance if you are tired of conventional fougere mainstream perfumes or even by the sweet Orientals. It is daring (almost savory) and special by the unusual dosage of laurel and peppery notes. This time the overdose is welcome because it brings a very original note and long-lasting freshness.”
And I say “surprisingly high praise” because day after day I sprayed it on, and day after day I found myself gritting my teeth as the chemical-fume approximation of peppery, camphorish spices blasted out from the bottle. I was certain there was little to no complexity to the formula, with the synthetically “fresh” herbal-soap nature of Scent Two: Laurel playing dead on my skin, curled up and inert until fading out about five to six hours later. And unlike my experience with more concentrated EDP formulae, climbing aboard a treadmill later in the day did nothing to revive the Laurel fragrance on my skin, or bring about any kind of epiphany as to its deeper nature (a la Al Oudh).
But as one of my far more fragrance experienced friends has told me time and again, scents sometimes change if we stick with them, revealing facets that were previously hidden, or that we may have simply missed in the blur as we blow our way through the daisy-chain of (just add caffeine and stir) modern day life — and this was the case with Monocle Scent Two: Laurel.
The listed scent notes for Laurel are: Laurel (aka Bay Laurel), pepper, cedar, patchouli, incense and amber, and at first I got none of the above — just a kind of rubbing alcohol + camphorish patchouli vibe. Yet once my brain jumped the oriental genre track and began appreciating Laurel for what it *is* instead of raging against everything it *wasn’t*, all the pieces clicked into place and I suddenly got it, the dusty laurel (like crushed bay leaves), the ground pepper, the split cedar, the smoke of burning incense wood — sculptural elements placed in a wide open space.
My primary impression from Laurel is how arid it is, so dry it almost cracks on the skin. MDCI Invasion Barbare exhibits a similar dry, herbal nature that progresses into a masculine woods and amber finish, but where Invasion Barbare wraps the wearer in a note-perfect snapshot from “Bonfire of the Vanities“, Scent Two: Laurel is more minimalist, though still exotic, in its aim: the 1940′s expat madly dashing for the only afternoon plane out of Beirut, just one battered brown leather suitcase in hand as the twin props kick clouds of dust and grit through the air.
Ok, fine — I may have watched too many movies, but the sensation of hot, dry air infused with the scent of brittle bay leaves and sun-baked wood is most certainly there (the 1940′s expat image is a case of sound and fury signifying nothing).
My one complaint with Scent Two: Laurel, however, is the packaging. At $135.00 for 50ml (1.7 ounces), Laurel plonks itself firmly into the “above $100.00 premium fragrance” camp, yet you’d never know it to look at it: the box is just black & white printed cardboard; the bottle is standard issue drugstore and of such low quality glass that it was barely able to catch and hold light; the atomizer leaks every time I spray it; the printing on the bottle is, again, black & wh
ite, and looks so much like an ugly round sticker that I almost tried to peel it off; and the plain aluminum-thin cap is the grim cherry atop a cheerless packaging sundae.
At the price that’s being charged, I expect at least a semblance of effort when it comes to the box and bottle, especially when it’s a fragrance issued by a self-professed design-travel magazine that claims a readership of wealthy, discerning professionals. Despite the fact that the fragrance itself is an excellent example of a modern niche masculine, the packaging is so dreary that I would hesitate to recommend Scent Two: Laurel as a purchase, and would never (ever) purchase it as a gift for someone else.
Yes, the packaging is nearly identical to their Scent One: Hinoki, yet if you put the two side by side, Hinoki was obviously given a few nips and tucks to lift it above the rabble. The packaging for Laurel, on the other hand, looks like Monocle declared defeat in the face of a recession and decided not to even try.
If you can see past the ugly duckling exterior, there is a bit of a swan hiding inside, and if sparse, herbal fragrances with a very light wood and smoke base are your thing, then Monocle Scent Two: Laurel could sit very comfortably on your dresser top (or on the counter next to your sink, etc.). I wouldn’t say that I’m wowed by the stuff, but there’s a discernible intelligence behind the composition, a distinct vision in mind as opposed to the dictates of market trends.
That’s certainly to be applauded, but I wish someone had seen fit to extend the same intelligence and vision to the whole shebang (and not to just what’s inside the bottle).
*Note 3: Because it’s an EDT formulation, Laurel requires generous application. My initial tests using 5-6 sprays were not sufficient. When I increased application to 8-10 sprays, the real soul of Laurel came shining through, and longevity increased from about 5 hours to a good 8+ hours. But beware the leaky atomizer!
