Czech & Speake's Cuba is the Smell of Heat, Sex, Mojitos, Mambo, and Cigars

I feel like taking a break from the Hermes for a bit, and I did give a quick teaser of Czech & Speake’s Cuba yesterday, so I should probably end the suspense and commence with a full review.

Before I even tried Cuba, BitterGrace described it to me as “quite a mélange – sweet, spicy, green, animalic, etc. Kinda smells like a Havana nightclub, circa 1950.” I include her words here because, really, I couldn’t have said it better, myself. Cuba has all of the olfactory elements I associate with a hot night in tropics. The notes of tobacco, lime, rum, and mint come together in a way that evokes mojitos and Cuban cigars. The vetiver and other vegetative and woody components bring to mind palm trees emitting their fragrance on a warm tropical breeze, while the animalic thread is suggestive of sweat and aggressive sexuality. And something in there smells like green bananas to me, though I’m not sure that was intentional.

As I said yesterday, Cuba is an intensely interesting cologne. Nothing about it is even remotely dull. Czech & Speake markets it as a unisex fragrance, but it smells like pure testosterone to me. I suspect it takes a big personality to wear Cuba well, and I don’t think I could pull it off in a thousand years. It’s definitely a work of art, though, for painting such a perfect picture of a very specific time and place.

Image note: I wanted to use something sexy here – a vintage photo of people dancing a mambo or something – but nothing really fit the bill, so this is just a cool iconic photo that seemed to capture the appropriate era. Many thanks to Belgian photographer Ulrik De Wachter, who kindly shared this photo over at Stock Exchange.

Terre d'Hermes - So Good it Turns Me Stupid

What’s this, a third Smells Like Boi post in two days? Madness! Don’t get used to this frenetic pace. It’s just that, after all of those bitchy, negative reviews, I was itching to write about something I actually like. The next several posts will all be about various Hermes scents. I got samples of nine different unisex and masculine fragrances from Hermes, and have been trying each of them over a period of several weeks. As most of them smell very nice – even the ones that aren’t really my style – you can expect the atmosphere around here to be quite “posi” for the next few weeks.

The first sample I tried was Terre d’Hermes, and it smells fantastic! I think it may have been love at first sniff. My initial scent impression was a really rich, deep pine, that was not at all artificial like Pine Sol or a car air freshener. I could actually picture the needles and the bark. It smelled jut like the Pacific Northwest, and brought back a vivid sense memory of the time I visited Mt. Rainier with a couple of old friends who were living in Seattle.

“Earth” is an incredibly apt description; Terre d’Hermes smells like nature in all the best ways. I can even smell dirt and rocks and rain and fresh air, and maybe even a little bit of a far off wood fire. It makes me wonder how the hell Jean-Claude Ellena managed to bottle the smell of camping. Then it makes me wonder if Luca Turin could possibly have been smelling the same thing I was when he declared there was “no terre in sight” in his review for The Guide.

After a little while, the pine seems to fade, and I can smell other parts of the forest - ferns and moss and grass, deciduous trees and even a few spring flowers poking up through a carpet of fallen leaves in search of the sun. Before I can miss the pine, though, I find it’s still there, if I focus on it.

Terre d’Hermes is exactly what I was hoping it would be, and more: earthy, wholesome, and unpretentious. It’s a scent I would recommend to people who claim not to like perfume. It’s very rugged, but not at all hyper-masculine.

On a subsequent wearing, I noted all of the things I smelled before, but I also realized it smells strikingly similar to the Nippon Kodo Viva Pine incense I use during my daily zazen (Buddhist meditation) practice. I think its meditative association is a large part of the draw for me. I love incense-y smells.

I’m wearing Terre d’Hermes again today, and for the first time, I can smell the citrus notes people keep mentioning in their reviews. It’s been described as everything from grapefruit to navel orange peels. Whatever it is, it’s pleasant, as citrus notes generally are for me.

As much as I love this fragrance, I couldn’t wear it every day. Beyond the fact that it’s quite expensive – which is why I haven’t snatched up a bottle yet – it makes me stupid. Really! I’ve been wandering around in a haze of contentment all morning. I don’t think I could handle feeling this good all the time.

Image note: Isn’t this photo gorgeous? This is one of those popular nature photos that get put up on those “free wallpaper” sites. I think it was taken in Japan, but I’m not sure. Anyway, this is where wearing Terre d’Hermes takes me.

My Apologies to Azzaro

Hello, dear readers (all four of you).

I know I warned you all at the outset that I was likely to lose interest in this blog, but I don't suppose any of you thought I meant after only a few posts. Well, I haven't! I've had a monster cold for the last few weeks, which left any sniffing-type activiy more or less out of the question. I'm feeling a bit better now, and will soon be able to commence with the smellage.

I don't have a new review today, but I have a few lined up for the coming weeks. I just wanted to check in and say "hello." Also, a little housekeeping ... In my last post, I compared Azzaro Pour Homme to Old Spice and, while noting that the former was more subtle and pleasing than the latter, suggested that one might as well just save some money and buy the Old Spice.

Since then, I've had occasion to sample some Old Spice, which I haven't actually smelled in many years (since my dad stopped wearing it when I was in high school). And when I say "sample," I mean I covertly splashed some on at the local Rite Aid a few weeks ago. Shhh. Anyway, while the Old Spice was pleasant enough at first, it quickly turned bitter, excessively soapy (like Lava soapy), dank, and way too loud for my liking. After about an hour, I scrubbed it off.

So, I'm forced to rescind my previous pronouncement and admit that Azzaro Pour Homme is, by far, the nicer fragrance. It does project a similar character to Old Spice, but does so with much more restraint and charm.

Huh, now that that I think of it, I guess that was a new review, after all.

Image note: A schooner, like the one that Old Spice has used on its bottles for decades. I love schooners. Here in Maine, there are companies that will take you out for a schooner cruise along the coast, for an afternoon, overnight, or even a week. I never saw myself as a "cruise person," but my mouth has been watering at the prospect of taking one of these trips for the last several years.

Azzaro Pour Homme = Bottled Machismo (In the Best Possible Way)

Azzaro Pour Homme isn’t bad … Not bad at all! My first sniff reminded me of my dad's Old Spice, but it mellowed on my skin to something less over-the-top testosterone-y. It was still spicy and clean smelling, and the Old Spice resemblance never completely faded, but there are much worse things than smelling like Old Spice.

In addition to the spiciness, there's a definite sweetness there, too. Vanilla? I think so. I’m noticing that my skin (or nose?) seems to pull out the sweetest notes in almost anything I wear. Scents that guys review as “animalic” or “woodsy” smell almost gourmand on me. That’s an interesting trend for me to note.

I enjoy this well enough, but I don't think I would buy a bottle. It's not something I would wear on a regular basis. It would be too rugged for me to pull off, I think, unless I were in deep drag ... blue collar drag, not the awkwardly, scruffily, dandified boi I like to pull out on occasion. If I did ever want to smell like this – and the possibility isn’t out of the question – I might just save myself a few dimes and opt for the Old Spice, instead.

Image note: I think the kind of guy who would wear Azzaro Pour Homme is the same kind of guy who might have a poster of this pin-up girl hanging on his wall. Heck, who could blame him …

UPDATE: I've since revised my opinion that one would be just as well off buying Old Spice. See my follow-up post.