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:

La Perla edp - A dainty basque-ing shark of a chypre

La Perla basque - source: eBay

There have been a few posts knocking around the blogosphere lately, discussing what stage people are at in their perfume trajectory - eg the frenzied acquisitive stage or a more jaded plateau stage, typically hit around the five year mark.  Well, I would describe myself as very much in that later phase, for I wouldn't necessarily cross the road to sniff the latest fragrance release unless I was pretty sure I was going to be blown away by it.  Nor do I expect any major perfume epiphanies at this point in my life as a perfumista - any more than I expect to fall madly in love again.  Oh all right then...never say never.  ;-) And that is also how I felt the other day when my good friend Gillie - my scented mentor in the bonkers herb garden challenge - mentioned that she had received a perfume sample as a gift with purchase. This happens to me from time to time, and I always accept gracefully, sometimes rehoming the sample in question if it is something Herbal Essence-y from Clarins, or one of those disappointing inbetweener perfumes like Valentina by Valentino.  On this particular occasion Gillie handed over a sample of La Perla edp, which she had doubtless been given with an underwear purchase, though I was naturally too polite to ask outright.  For La Perla is of course an Italian design house specialising in lingerie and beachwear, and La Perla edp is the brand's first foray into the fragrance market.

On its very irritating website, so typical of high end fashion brands, there is lots of flash gimmickry and sideways scrolling images hovering right over the bit you want to read.  The print is in a tiny font, white out of black - yes, even worse than my blog! - but I did manage to decipher the following background to the brand

'The designer Ada Masotti opens a corset boutique in Bologna with a promising name - La Perla. The name was inspired by the jewel-like case with red velvet in which th e first products were delivered.'

Asa Masotti, possibly wearing a corset of her own fabrication - source: nonsoloborse.net

Interesting mix of tenses there.  And I have never seen an oyster with a red velvet interior, but we'll let that minor point go in the spirit of poetic licence.  Over the years La Perla gradually expanded its range, adding coloured underwear as well as flesh toned garments, introducing bodies made entirely of elastic lace and so on, and then in 1986 its first perfume was born.

I was interested to read the company's commentary on the bottle, designed by Pierre Dinant (not to be confused with the Belgian town of that name).  Its shape is described as 'winding'(??) and evocative of the feminine figure.  The fragrance itself is intended to encapsulate the essence of the La Perla brand, namely 'luxury and seduction'.  Now I have yet to meet a woman with a physique remotely like the La Perla bottle, though I do find its curves most pleasing.  As for the the scent itself, there I am in complete agreement, for I was completely smitten with La Perla from the first sniff.  This is because it niftily manages to combine two of my favourite genres in one - a wispy, soft skin scent and a subtly raunchy 'pulling scent'.  I must say I haven't found two note listings the same, but this one from a retailer called 'Clickfragrance' grabbed me as much as any...:-)

La Perla edp notes: carnation, freesia, osmanthus, light citrus floral notes, coriander, pepper, cardamom, jasmine, rose, patchouli, oakmoss, sandalwood and musk

Source: bijouperfumes.co.uk

There are very few reviews of La Perla edp, but The Non-Blonde was impressed, and likens it to 80s diva scents such as Fendi and Paloma Picasso.  I can totally see the connection with Paloma Picasso - I am not sure I have ever tried Fendi in fact - and when you compare the notes (from Fragrantica this time), there is some interesting crossover in terms of their chypre base and the presence of carnation and coriander.  However, it is important to say that La Perla is a very quiet scent, the quietest, most delicate example of a throwback chypre you could possibly imagine.  And it is a long time since I smelt Paloma Picasso, when I will have found it jolly scary on account of its multiple whammy of animalic notes.  But these days I am much more game with respect to the 'business end' of small mammals.  I am speaking metaphorically, obviously.

Paloma Picasso notes: coriander, angelica, carnation, aldehydes, ylang-ylang, jasmine, hyacinth, oakmoss, patchouli, sandalwood, vetiver, tobacco, castoreum, civet and musk

Source: theperfumestop.co.uk

Hmm, even the Paloma Picasso bottle has that two-tone, vaguely ovoid bottle shape going on...

Go on then, how does it smell?

Word associations that spring to mind when La Perla hits the skin are 'cool, silky, feminine, light floral, mossy, ever so slightly plasticky'.  Now normally I am very anti-plastic notes in a scent, and have gunned down large swathes of the Givenchy and Jean-Paul Gaultier ranges on that very account, but a hint of plastic doesn't bother me here and it is moreover quite fleeting.

And now here's the interesting thing about La Perla.  It starts out girly and feminine, a wisp of elasticated lace if you will, a silken strap of a scent, but gradually a more animalic base asserts itself, and though there is none listed, it most certainly smells like CIVET to me.  During my googling of the notes, I came across an intriguing thread on Basenotes, in which Olfacta of Olfactarama (who is blogging again, in case anyone missed that) asks if other members have encountered a civet note in La Perla - which she herself doesn't particularly care for, I might add.  She appears to be the only one who detects it, mind, but I get a pronounced note as the scent wears on, indeed on one particular wearing the civet base (phantom or otherwise) persisted until the following morning!

And what is even more noteworthy is the fact that I didn't mind.  I wanted to keep sniffing my wrist when it got to this nice but naughty stage.  This is the scent of 'finished business', rolls in the hay, getting to fifth? base, and what might euphemistically be termed 'special cuddles'.

Source: facebook

So in summary - a new lemming and the need to revise my Basenotes moniker.  For from now on, I should be known not as 'VM I hate civet', but as 'VM I appear to have discovered a sneaking affection for civet and am as surprised as the next man'.