Who doesn’t know the clumsy Mr. Hulot from Jacques Tati’s famous movie from 1952? An eccentric with a hat and pipe who causes trouble everywhere, no matter what he does. Whether driving a car, playing tennis or just listening to jazz. What would a perfume of the same name smell like?

There’s talk of a salty breeze from the Mediterranean where Monsieur spends his holidays, of driftwood, seaweed covered rocks, and the scent of old leather suitcases. In contrast to other aquatic scents like Sel Marin by Heeley or Tirrenico by Profumi del Forte, Mr. Hulot’s Holiday does not exude the typical watery ozone notes. I can’t feel the rough coast of Brittany nor can I find the leather suitcase. For me, the scent is a mixture of a bouquet of white flowers and fresh air. Don’t get me wrong – Mr. Hulot is a synonym for chaos and action, restless like the jazz he loves – that’s what I expected. To my surprise, what I got was a very polite, innocent and clean perfume.

Category: unisex

Perfumer: Christopher Brosius

Year: 2005

Notes: salty breeze, seaweed, driftwood, leather

www.cbihateperfume.com

I have an indescribable desire for the ocean. When I was a child there was nothing more beautiful than seeing the dazzling sea after a long journey. There are perfumes that reveal exactly what you are longing for. The ocean is an inspiration for a lot of scents that I would like to introduce to you. Here the first five oceans in a bottle.

Profumi del Forte: Tirrenico
Tirrenico is the Italian name for the Tyrrhenian Sea with its rocky coastal landscape. The smell of wet algae on sun-drenched rocks mixed with a cool, salty sea breeze. Tirrenico is one of the most beautiful perfumes that were inspired by the ocean – a wild beauty with windswept hair. The scent is made of highest quality ingredients and leaves a soft shimmer on your skin. Perfect for hot summer days.

Micallef: Black Sea
Black Sea is an alluring, warm and pleasantly aromatic scent, a metaphor for the goods that are transported over the ocean. Aboard the ship noble treasures like saffron, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, sandalwood, guaiac wood and cedar wood. In combination with a salty sea breeze, cypresses and a wonderful leather note. Originally created as a men’s perfume I fell in love with Black Sea on ‘first smell’. The scent is dark and soft like the silent ocean on a balmy summer night. Do you remember the R.E.M. song Nightswimming? If not click here – it’s so beautiful!

CB I hate perfume: At the beach 1966
At the beach 1966 is a flashback to the beach of childhood vacations, Christopher Brosius’ childhood, I suppose. 1966 was before my time. I don’t know the smell of 1960s Coppertone sunscreen but the sunscreen of my childhood seems to smell alike – the German Delial sun lotion. I love At the beach 1966 because it evokes images of sandcastles, seashells and the ocean – nearly endless days. In the evening we were the last ones at the beach and went directly to dinner – tired and hungry from the wind and sun, our shoes full of sand, skin and hair sticky from salt water and sunscreen. I want to thank Christopher Brosius for bringing back these memories.

Parfumerie Générale: Harmatan Noir N°11
Harmatan Noir is named after a hot, dry wind in Africa, that blows large amounts of dust from the Sahara over the Atlantic Ocean. This elixir is a dry, yet fresh greeting from the desert. The perfume reminds me of freshly brewed mint tea with green tea and lemon like they serve it in the Maghreb – but with a light menthol note. Jasmine, patchouli and woody notes give a certain depth to the scent. Harmatan Noir is the starry sky above the ocean – cool, spicy and refreshing with a hint of sand. Merci Pierre, it’s wonderful!

Montale: Sandflowers
Sandflowers is one of my personal favorites. It smells like holidays and you can recall summer in a split-second. If you close your eyes you can even smell the warm sand. Calone, juniper berries and mint reveal a fresh yet spicy sea breeze. Sandalwood gives a touch of sweetness and oak moss a contrasting coolness. When I went to a bar during wintertime the waitress was completely confused… she asked me what I was wearing because for her it suddenly smelled like summer even though there was snow falling outside the window.

When I was a child, my sister and I often went to the Black Forest with my grandmother to look for chanterelle mushrooms. When I opened Wild Hunt, it felt as if I were travelling back in time. There I was, a little girl, sitting in the moss, cutting chanterelle mushrooms and eating wild blueberries. Sometimes we would hear a sound in a distance – maybe a deer, maybe a hunter – with the sun high above the treetops. A birdcall far away. Apart from that, silence. The smell of the damp earth, the wood, the twilight. Wild Hunt roused an overwhelming memory that left me speechless.

Opening it is like a slap in the face and I mean this literally – it feels like kissing the earth, wet, dark earth, with your face deep in it, reminding me of the forest scenes in Lars von Trier’s movie Antichrist. But when the earthy head note calms down, the perfume opens up to a warm and spicy heart note and you travel from the underworld with its roots and humidity to the surface and inhale the pines and resins. The base note still reveals echoes of earth, but the sun glimpses through the branches dancing in the wind, exhaling an aroma of wild honey.

Wild Hunt is a perfect day in the wilderness. A wonderful creation that really captured me, but I admit that it would be better on men.

Category: unisex

Perfumer: Christopher Brosius

Year: 2007

Notes: earth, old leaves, green moss, fir, pine, mushrooms, honey

Photos: Jürgen Henkelmann, CB I hate perfume

www.cbihateperfume.com

This is a very sweet library. Kind of like Marie Antoinette eating petit fours with her legs up on the chaise longue, smearing sugar icing on the arm rests. After she’s had enough of all the sweets, she starts to flip through a book of fairy tales – can you smell it? Notes of dry old paper and leather bindings start to drift through the room and mix with her powdered wig. And they hang in the air for hours while Madame sleeps and dreams of her gardener. This is a nice, soft leather scent with hints of vanilla that turns into a soft skin scent. But there is a certain note that irritates me, that I can’t place. Maybe it’s the wood polish Christopher Brosius mentions in the description of his perfume. Must be that. Sounds weird? It is. But I like it. A special scent made in Brooklyn.

I highly recommend Christopher Brosius’ Manifesto on the CB I hate perfume website.

Category: unisex

Perfumer: Christopher Brosius

Year: 2005

Notes: english novel, Russian & Moroccan leather bindings, vanilla, wood polish

www.cbihateperfume.com

Photos: Sony Pictures, CB I hate perfume