10/03/2018
FvSpee
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An ordinary chypre
The penultimate fragrance of my little "Czech series" is Chypre - again from Alpa. Chypre is a cologne, and measured by it the Sillage and above all the durability of approximately four hours (with generous application) is quite considerable
This Cologne opens brilliant, with a cologne-typically gaudy explosion of cologne-untypical floral-sweet and soap-synthetic notes. After an already creamy and yet at times also somewhat animal-like seeming intermediate phase, which I feel as cool as the beginning (although flowery-sweet and cool seems to go hard together), a very beautiful, gentle, calm, moderately warm finish follows from about the third hour, in which I can identify moss (and perhaps also other green notes) and vanilla as clearly as in hardly any other fragrance ever tested by me - which goes together here quite excellently; musk should also be represented, which I consider plausible.
In the late phase of the fragrance I can imagine Chypre on the handkerchief or the cheeks of a gentleman (who perhaps has a certain weakness for the interwar period) (I have taken this picture again from the page "Pomadeshop", about which those who do not come to or through Bohemia as often as I can get these fragrances). In the opening, however, this is less the case - the bouquet of this fragrance here seems to me at the same time immensely fascinating, not to say provocative or exciting, but at the same time somewhat intrusive and, well, let's say it, vulgar and cheap. Perhaps this impression can be put into perspective by further tests with now lower dosages (which, however, will probably also have an effect on shelf life).
This somewhat ambivalent finding is responsible for the "compromise mark" 7.5, which I have given - although I find Chypre extremely attractive in a way - and also for the title of the review. It is based on the third part of the so-called "noetic trilogy" of the Czech writer Karel Capek, who is unfortunately not very well known in this country, which was read in advance in the early thirties (i.e. suitable for the fragrance). This third part is entitled "An ordinary life" (obycejny zivot) and depicts the life of a middle Bohemian railway official from the perspective of the first person of decrepit papers. Behind his respectful and brave façade, among other, morally far more problematic, abysmal things, there is also a (sometimes lived out) dark attraction to the type of the ordinary, even repulsive woman. To think of such a dubious woman, I could not deny myself at the beginning of this fragrance.
As with this brand, I almost always like the bottle very much: I don't think we're doing vintage here, we're just living retro here. The label looks like at least eight decades out of time, I find it beautiful and matching the fragrance. A splash (or spray) device is unfortunately missing, which is a pity. Because pure for hand and face washing one should not use "Chypre", although the large spout would certainly make this possible, for the avoidance of the fatal consequences of an overdose however rather.
This Cologne opens brilliant, with a cologne-typically gaudy explosion of cologne-untypical floral-sweet and soap-synthetic notes. After an already creamy and yet at times also somewhat animal-like seeming intermediate phase, which I feel as cool as the beginning (although flowery-sweet and cool seems to go hard together), a very beautiful, gentle, calm, moderately warm finish follows from about the third hour, in which I can identify moss (and perhaps also other green notes) and vanilla as clearly as in hardly any other fragrance ever tested by me - which goes together here quite excellently; musk should also be represented, which I consider plausible.
In the late phase of the fragrance I can imagine Chypre on the handkerchief or the cheeks of a gentleman (who perhaps has a certain weakness for the interwar period) (I have taken this picture again from the page "Pomadeshop", about which those who do not come to or through Bohemia as often as I can get these fragrances). In the opening, however, this is less the case - the bouquet of this fragrance here seems to me at the same time immensely fascinating, not to say provocative or exciting, but at the same time somewhat intrusive and, well, let's say it, vulgar and cheap. Perhaps this impression can be put into perspective by further tests with now lower dosages (which, however, will probably also have an effect on shelf life).
This somewhat ambivalent finding is responsible for the "compromise mark" 7.5, which I have given - although I find Chypre extremely attractive in a way - and also for the title of the review. It is based on the third part of the so-called "noetic trilogy" of the Czech writer Karel Capek, who is unfortunately not very well known in this country, which was read in advance in the early thirties (i.e. suitable for the fragrance). This third part is entitled "An ordinary life" (obycejny zivot) and depicts the life of a middle Bohemian railway official from the perspective of the first person of decrepit papers. Behind his respectful and brave façade, among other, morally far more problematic, abysmal things, there is also a (sometimes lived out) dark attraction to the type of the ordinary, even repulsive woman. To think of such a dubious woman, I could not deny myself at the beginning of this fragrance.
As with this brand, I almost always like the bottle very much: I don't think we're doing vintage here, we're just living retro here. The label looks like at least eight decades out of time, I find it beautiful and matching the fragrance. A splash (or spray) device is unfortunately missing, which is a pity. Because pure for hand and face washing one should not use "Chypre", although the large spout would certainly make this possible, for the avoidance of the fatal consequences of an overdose however rather.
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