Turning Japanese and a filthy anomaly: Bogue Profumo MAAI review

'On guard!' ~ Source: Wikipedia

It is seven years this week since I was struck down by sudden onset perfume mania, and began tentatively buying samples of designer fragrances on eBay: DKNY Cashmere Mist was amongst my very first purchases, as the name sounded fuzzy and romantic. I quickly formed a preference for light and feminine scents, eschewing - nay, running a mile from! - the few diva perfumes I inadvertently stumbled across. The tuberose fright wig that is Givenchy Amarige was one early traumatic encounter, Caron Narcisse Noir another. I soon developed a twin aversion for bombastic florals and animalic notes. I gave myself the Basenotes handle, 'VM I hate civet', and was known 'on the scene' for my sanitised and lily-livered tastes. The only exception to that was my sneaking - and ongoing - affection for Jean Desprez Bal a Versailles, whose flouncy underskirts were steeped in this unsavoury secretion.

Fast forward seven years and the 'Best of 2014' posts are all in - I didn't compile one myself, for the reasons explained in my New Year stocktaking post. One of the recurring names that lodged in my mind was MAAI by Antonio Gardoni, the founder and perfumer of the Italian house, Bogue Profumo. There was a real buzz around this scent, and arguably it doesn't need any further comment from me, as the reviews are already 3-4 pages deep in Google. Left to my own devices I probably wouldn't have got as far as seeking MAAI out, but Liz Moores of Papillon Perfumery kindly offered to send me a sample of MAAI and its predecessor Cologne Reloaded. She has a bottle, and is as taken with it as so many in the blogging community.

Source: Bogue Profumo

I'll be honest, based on my cursory reading of reviews, I was a little apprehensive about trying MAAI, fearing that it would be an animalic horror - I noted that the photos of Antonio Gardoni mostly show him wearing a little (fencing?) mask on a stick. I took this as an omen that protective clothing - over the nose at the very least - might be in order. Looking back, it may have been a reference to the Japanese derivation of the name: MAAI is a martial arts term meaning 'engagement distance' ie the distance between you and the attack surface of your opponent. Hmm, I thought, it all ties in - both the (shouty!) capitalised name of the fragrance and its associated imagery were telling me to approach this one with caution...***

But I needn't have worried. Which is not to say that MAAI is not a challenging, epically singular scent that packs an animalic punch when it gets into its stride, but it was precisely that part that was strangely to my liking. As with Bal a Versailles, MAAI is another bonkers filthy anomaly.

But let me try it yet again and take it from the top. Here are the notes from Luckyscent:

Notes: tuberose, rose, jasmine, ylang ylang, civet, castoreum, hyraceum, dried fruits, sandalwood, oakmoss

Source: luckyscent

On first spraying MAAI on skin, I get a jumbled impression of a citrus-herbal - quite masculine leaning - cologne, which gets progressively mossier and sort of dank undergrowth-y over time. There is a pronounced earthy aspect, as in soil, I mean - the 'earthy' / raunchy notes come later! I even thought I detected a fleeting hint of spearmint. Notwithstanding the extensive list of heady florals, I would never call MAAI a floral perfume at this point. There is a cool sensation to the opening, as though a breeze was whipping across a freshly dug grave in a forest glade. In terms of airiness, I was immediately reminded of Le Labo's Ylang 49, albeit that is floral from the off and nowhere near as mossy, though it has oakmoss in it.

And whereas Cologne Reloaded was composed almost entirely from vintage materials - following a tip off, Gardoni acquired a collection of bottles from the 1940s that were gathering dust in an old pharmaceutical laboratory - MAAI is a modern construct, though with a high proportion of natural ingredients. That said, it is a modern spin on an old school genre: the animalic chypre, but one that is way more herbal than you might expect. And as I say, the dirty quality remains firmly of the 'wipe your feet' / 'great outdoors' variety for some time to come...

In an interview with Basenotes, Gardoni explains the starting point for MAAI:

"When I started MAAI I wanted to do an oriental incense perfume with a lot of smoke and sandalwood sawdust; parallel to that I was trying to grow a better relationship between me and what I always considered a difficult flower, tuberose."

Tuberose looking deceptively easy ~ Source: Swaminathan / Wikimedia Commons

Now that is interesting, not only because I also have a tricky relationship with tuberose, but because tuberose can present itself in intriguing, non-obviously floral ways. Serge Lutens Tubereuse Criminelle has that strong camphoraceous note to it, for example, and MAAI's take on tuberose has more in common with that scent than Amarige or Giorgio Beverly Hills, say(!). Tuberose can sometimes just be hunkered down in the background of a composition - more 'badass' than 'big ass' (as with the likes of Giorgio). So yes, the tuberose is certainly playing peek-a-boo at best, but I don't mind that.

And then, 2-3 hours in, a (to my nose) non-specific floral bouquet finally pokes through the damp ground, and it is only now that I actively start to enjoy MAAI. This soon segues into the honeyed, creamy, animalic drydown which is my favourite part of the scent's development. This reminds me of a similar (but briefer) stage in Rozy edp. It is faintly floral but more about the honey and plushly soft filth. Tangy (ylang-ylangy?) and faintly urinous in places, but not objectionably so. Oh MAAI! Whoever would have thought it?! The animalic facet is also evocative of Bal de Versailles, though Bal lacks the juicy, honeyed facet I'd say. The civet in Bal de Versailles is soft and diffuse - and unmistakably fecal, as here - but is more of a bass hum. There are also echoes of retro chypres such as La Perla, Paloma Picasso and L'Arte di Gucci. However, La Perla has more of a plasticky, soapy quality, while the other two are in a deeper register and are heavier hitters generally - the front end of MAAI is cleaner and more breezy than those two, but is murkier and mossier than La Perla.

You can't see my spectacular overbite! ~ Source: wikipedia

Eyeballing the list again, what a veritable menagerie of animalic notes that is! Musky secretions of the civet cat and the badger (castoreum) are teamed with hyraceum, the petrified and rock-like excrement (composed of both urine and feces!) of the Cape Hyrax, a little creature akin to the guinea pig to the untrained eye. Hold the snot and sweat, why don't you? The mucky melange should be way too much, yet I am lapping it up, nasally speaking. I don't think I would wear MAAI in company when it is cycling through its forest floor phase, but I would be curious to get friends' opinion on the deliciously skanky stage - even if it is only to be told to go away.

Oh, and out of curiosity, I used one of those Internet pronunciation apps to see how to pronounce MAAI correctly - with three consecutive vowels it wasn't immediately apparent to me - and the answer is 'Muh-eye'.

***Editor's note: further research has uncovered the fact that that mask on a stick is in fact an ingenious portable aroma diffuser designed to scent whole rooms!

Also, I had quite forgotten that the song that inspired the title of this post is rather fittingly by a band called The Vapors. There is even a bit of light fencing in this video:

Oh, "Vienna": Olfactoria - and Val the Cookie Queen - travel to Stafford...in spirit at least!

While I was up in Scotland visiting my brother and sister-in-law this weekend, I spied a Facebook status update posted on my wall by my good friend - and perfumista protege-in-progress - Clare:

"Making a rare visit to the Big Town (Stafford).  When did we get a Guerlain shop?"

To which my instant and feverishly excited response was:

"Good grief.  Not JUST Guerlain, surely?  With the Paris Exclusives and everything?"

Clare let my mischievous riposte die a natural death, replying:

"Guerlain, La Perla and Wolford."

At this point our mutual friend Nicola chipped in, making the very understandable point:

"I think you must have stumbled into a different town, Clare...easily done."

But no, we do have a new, 'Guerlain-forward' perfumery: in Crabbery Street, on the site of a failed cake shop, and a failed shoe shop before it.  For anyone not familiar with my adopted town, I should point out the sorry fact that many shops fail in Stafford, including - to my great chagrin - its lone delicatessen.  Oh, and we have never been lucky enough to warrant a wool shop selling the sort of ball that doesn't give you an electric shock.

Frau Hermine Mayer, Proprietor of Vienna in Stafford

So today, notwithstanding an urgent need to recce Stafford's sherry and turkey crown options, I braved the intermittent hail to check out this latest retail phoenix, called "Vienna".  It turned out to be a tiny perfume shop carrying a variety of high end brands (principally Guerlain, Lalique, Hermes, Amouage, Cartier, Ruth Mastenbroek(!), Patou, Bvlgari and Fleurs d'Ombre), shoehorned into a small luxury clothing store.  The flacons nestle cheek by jowl alongside Wolford tights, La Perla lingerie, a selection of high end Austrian coats, a pile of Scottish wool blankets, some soft kid leather gloves (as worn by The Queen!), and an assortment of expensive handbags.  I also spotted a Filofax by The Bridge.  The proprietor, a pretty blonde lady called Frau Mayer, turned out to hail from Vienna, which explained the Schneiders coat collection - albeit they are technically from Salzburg. And Wolford is of course from Bregenz - I accidentally drove past their Head Office once as I was crossing several borders in short order (an occupational hazard in that part of Austria), and my eye was distracted by the forest of pedalling mannequin legs in the foyer.

Frau Mayer & daughter Monika - flanked by happily co-existing tights and Amouage scents

Frau Mayer and I got to chatting in a mixture of English and my rusty German. I learnt that her sister Elvira Birkin had been the proprietor of "Elvira", an eponymous 'perfume-in-a-coat shop' in Newcastle-under-Lyme,  some 15 miles from here.  I had been tipped the wink about this store by Ralph, a fellow fumehead I had a blind sniffing date with once in Stafford, but - for my sins - I had never got round to visiting it.  Now, after 25 years of trading, Frau Mayer's sister had sadly died earlier this year and she had come over to run the shop for a spell, before deciding to close down there and try her hand in a different location, namely Stafford.  Frau Mayer is not planning to stay for long, but rather is simply moving to fresh pastures for a spell.

I may have touched them before I saw the sign, but I think I got away with it!

The store's move to Stafford is an admirable yet bold one; and while I thought the Schneiders coats were well worth the c£400 they cost, I am not in the market for one at the moment, and I fear your typical Stafford shopper may not be either.  I am not even in the market for any more perfume indeed, though Frau Mayer is holding two testers she is selling off of Mitsouko and Nahema extrait de parfum for me in case I can find an interested party.  They are £90 each for what looks like 30ml, which is a bargain versus the typical retail for a new bottle of parfum of 270 euros approx. There was also one bottle each of Vol de Nuit and L'Heure Bleue in extrait, but they are spoken for, and all the Amouage (regular) perfumes are also sold. So that is encouraging, certainly.

As well as talking about local demographics and Frau Mayer's home town of Vienna, I couldn't not mention my meeting with Birgit of Olfactoria's Travels and the fact that another Austrian-based blogger, Val the Cookie Queen of APJ, must surely clock a number of Schneiders coats striding the chilly streets of Salzburg on her morning delivery rounds.  In short, it was all rather surreal.  Sampling Mahora and the latest Ruth Mastenbroek in Stafford while talking German was almost as bizarre an experience as if I had met Bertrand Duchaufour in Lidl during the turkey and sherry scoping exercise.  And in one of my Scent Crimes Series posts, entitled "Binning the classics", I relate the sobering tale of the bemused reaction Clare herself got in Stafford's Co-op department store (as it was then) when she inquired about Mitsouko...

Mahora - so unexpected and so not Lacoste Touch of Pink 

So there you go - a pop up shop that will pop down again shortly, as serendipitously as it came, so if you are within striking distance of Stafford, come and grab a bargain while you can!  Support local enterprise in this, the most worthy of product categories!  Oh, and there is 25% off all the standard perfume lines... ;)

And as I say, if you are after slightly sprayed testers of Mitsouko or Nahema parfum, please let me know in the comments or drop me an email at 'flittersniffer at gmail dot com'.  I probably have an option on them till Christmas, say, maybe a bit beyond.


Up next, in time for Christmas...the results of the Puredistance BLACK sample draw!