The Tar Trio
By Tove Solander
Today’s theme is tar. I’ve compared three tar scents – in fact the only tar scents I know of: Comme des Garcons Synthetic Tar, Tauer Perfumes Lonestar Memories and Le Labo Paychouli 24. Only Lonestar Memories has tar listed as a note, although the Comme des Garcons scent has it in the very name. Patchouli 24 is composed of patchouli, styrax, birch and vanilla, along with twenty secret ingredients I assume. Lonestar Memories is known as a leathery scent, but the notes are geranium, carrot seed, clary sage, birchtar, cistus, jasmine, cedar wood, myrrh, tonka, vetiver and sandalwood. Tar, finally, takes a more urban approach with town gas, vapours of bitumen, bergamot, earth, opoponax, styrax, grilled cigarettes and pyrogenic notes.
What they all have in common, apart from smelling like tar, is that they’re on the sweet side. I guess tar has a rather sweet aroma naturally, but I could easily imagine a more butch take on it. In fact, there might be one – Comme des Garcons Synthetic Garage has hints of tar along with gasoline, chrome and faux leather car interior, without the sweetness. Tar, on the other hand, has hints of gasoline and asphalt so they’re really sister scents. Compared to Lonestar Memories and Patchouli 24 it comes off as very urban, very minimalist, very cool. The sweetness in it is almost the sweetness of anise or liquorice, as opposed to the more syrupy and vanillic sweetness of the other two. However, it’s mostly compared to them it comes off as so very urban and modern. Compared to the rest of the Synthetic series it feels rural, nostalgic, even cosy. Occasionally, I get a feeling of walking in a sunny pine forest rather than a metropolis.
Lonestar Memories is even more rural and nostalgic in feeling. It’s simultaneously sweet, thick and dry. I get a feeling of cracked, grey wood, so old it hardly has a wood scent anymore, and of dirt floors too dry and worn to smell other than dusty. It’s like being in an old boathouse or workshop – there’s the sweetish smell of hemp rope, perhaps some hardened leather gear oiled long ago, and dust speckles in the sunlight that shines in between the boards. The rich, musty sweetness makes it more of a summery childhood scent than a macho cowboy scent for me.
Patchouli 24 is, I think, my least favourite. It’s smokier than the other two, and I usually like smoky, but it’s also the sweetest of them all, and sugared smoke tends to get a bit nauseating. Rather than asphalt or boats, I’m thinking of barbecue. Barbecue with lots of crème brulée for dessert. Maybe even a steak drenched in custard, at its worst. It’s a viscous scent, like syrup so thick and dark it’s almost black. With less vanilla, it could have been the pleasant scent of a wood pile burning, but with the vanilla it’s just too much. I like it best when it’s a faded smoky-sweet trace on my skin.
Image source: luckyscent.com, barneys.com
9 comments August 1st, 2007