M/Mink by Byredo

Living in Stockholm it's difficult to avoid Byredo, Swedens only perfume "house". They have a prime selling spot manned with dedicated sales people at the only department store here in Stockholm that has a department dedicated to niche scents. In the blogosphere they get bashed around a lot, some claim that, scentwise, they don't have a clue what they're doing and that they exist only because insecure 30-somethings like to have a nicely designed and pricey looking bottle to show off. Myself, I like to believe that I'm keeping an open mind but I haven't found a fragrance from them that I'd like to wear. That does not mean that there isn't one that hasn't caught my attention.

Stigs harido

Yesterday I went perfume sniffing at NK (the department store mentioned above) and I sprayed a splash of M/Mink on a test strip. I got a very strong scent association right away. When I was in grade 1-3 in elementary school (6 to 8 years old) I lived pretty far away from my school. There was this guy named Stig that used to drive his green minivan and come every day to pick us up and take us to and from school. Stig was maybe in his 50-ies, had a few whisps of streaky grey hair in a comb over. He had this constant olfactory aura of camphorous cough tablets and very sharp old school hair pomada. This was backed by that sour kind of body odour that some guys have that heads towards urine whenever they break out in a sweat.

Now, Stig was not the type of guy who would waste a ride so occasionally he would do some private errands, leaving us kids in the car waiting while he did whatever he did. I especially remember one time, he was gone for pretty long, we were getting bored and while going through the car we found a porno mag under the front seat. At the time, I might have had some basic notions on how human reproduction happens, but learning there is such a thing as oral sex did come as a chock.

So now you have a basic picture of they guy. I think most of us know a Stig, for some personality types there are just more to go around than what meets the demand if you know what I'm saying. How anyone could leave Stig in care of their kids is a big mystery to me and it's an even greater mystery how Byredo have managed to create a scent that to me feels like having Stig standing right next to me.

When checking in on Byredos site, they say that M/Mink is all about ink. Now I never tried it on my skin, just on a strip if paper as the scent felt as it was as far away from my comfort zone as anything could ever be, so I've probably missed out some. But, to be honest, ink never crossed my mind.

The official notes of M/Mink are:
Top: Adoxal
Heart: Incense
Base: Patchouli leaf, clover-honey, amber

I'd never heard of Adoxal so I looked it up and this is how it is described, according to Givaudan:

Olfactive note:
Fresh, Aldehydic, Marine, Powerful, Floral
Description: Adoxal blends extremely well with floral notes such as muguet and cyclamen, as well as with fruity and woody compositions. It can also be seen as having a typical "fresh linen" odour which makes it very useful for detergent perfumes. Adoxal has a natural, ozonic aspect. Powerful, it must be used carefully.

I can tell you, M/Mink is NOT about fresh linen. It's a very unique scent that is interesting to perfume nerds as it is so different. I've been thinking about who could possibly want to wear it and the only one I can come up with is some kind of hipster guy making an ironic statement about something. Guys like Stig would be scared away both by the bottle design and the price. And why would they be interested in it, after all, if they go unwashed for a while and making sure they are dousing themself with pomada every day. they can sport it all for free.

Coeur d’Été by Miller Harris

Having kids, some days you'll be very very tired. There are lots of reason for that, they might have stomach ache, teething, nightmares or sometimes they just wake up for no reason at all and refuse to go asleep again for hours and hours. I recently had a day like that. I felt there was just no way I could bear putting on another Serge Lutens to try out, I wanted something light, subtle and undemanding. I thought about my stash, wasn't there a sample of Coeur d'Été by Miller Harris somewhere? According to the sales talk: "Lynn Harris (their perfumer) made that perfume during the early stages of her pregnancy when her already acute sense of smell became heightened". Great, I thought, that should deliver what I'm looking for.

I occasionally wore this perfume while I was pregnant myself last year, and liked it. I remember it smelling of chocolate, bananas and lilies of the valley, a strange mix but it worked for me. Now it felt different, I mostly smelled inky lilacs, anchored to a curiously heavy base I couldn't make out.

In the end I looked up the notes on the internet:
Top notes: cacao pod, mandarin orange, grapefruit, licorice and lemon
Middle notes: banana, white pear, cassia, lilac and heliotrope
Base notes: sandalwood, musk, benzoin and vanilla

The citrus and liquorice I can't detect at all. The other fruits and gourmet notes I can detect as I now know they are there, but this perfume does not stand out as a gourmand scent. The flowers are load and clear though. The other notes are near seamlessly integrated, creating a firm background for those heady florals.

Pregnancy is a funny thing, it completely distorts your sense of smell. I remember all of a sudden not being able to stand the smell of plastic bags and green herbs. It was so bad I forced my husband to keep our kitchen herbs (mint and Thai basil) out on the balcony, which nearly killed them. However, the notes in this perfume do makes sense. I had huge cravings for fruit, ice cream and chocolate. My guess is when creating this perfume, Lynn Harris put together all the things she could stand the smell of, just to see what would happen.

If you're looking for something light and delicate, this is not it. This scent reminds me of something both my mother and grandmother might wear. Makes sense to connect to earlier generations of women while you're pregnant, I suppose. It's a comforting and a bit old fashioned scent, but not very exciting. I'm rating it 3 out of 5.