Where scent is concerned, beauty sometimes keeps strange company. It might lie all dewy and recumbent amongst petals- exactly where we might expect to find it- but more often than not it smiles at us from some oblique quarter, all the more welcome for such ambagious disclosure. Such is Fumerie Turque, a juice that sits so pale and unassuming in the glass that the curious can find themselves chewing on a little more than they expected, in common with other Lutensian lovelies. There's not much backwards in its forwards, but I'm not complaining; life's too short to tolerate equivocation.
Turkish smoke implies a single dominating note, even to those with no knowledge of latakia tobacco or any other substance that might contribute to such a thing. And that's what you get, to some extent; the fumes from a brazier fuelled with fragrant wood and maybe damped with sheaves of anise. But that's not all, and it doesn't play out in the way you might expect. Fumerie Turque divides into embellished halves and their expression is inverted away from natural expectation; the smoke is induced to curl up and cleave to the wrist, and it is the hearth's sweet, charred bones that are offered to the distant admirer, by way of scented woods and haunting resins.
My initial impression of the skin scent is that of burning rubber, a elderberry-purple acridity that cracks you in the face right off the wrist. Don't let this deter you; a moment of force majeure is required to deliver the rest of its hefty payload, including the broken flesh of liquorice, that packet of Camels that breathed at you from his shirt pocket when you put your arm around his neck, and oil-stained, sunwarmed saddle. Synaesthetic impressions lie a little further south of the Bosphorus than the title implies- I get the deep, inky-stained colours of Moroccan or Tuareg leatherwork, perhaps, or maybe lattice shadow in the alley outside a hammam if one is to draw a more literal inspiration. Coincidentally it shares these gothic flavours with the subject of my last review, Norne (Slumberhouse), although it is a drier and more tasteful version of that potent nocturne, its laurels resting in cured leaves rather than on a green plant trampled by a must-wracked sasquatch.
Turkish smoke implies a single dominating note, even to those with no knowledge of latakia tobacco or any other substance that might contribute to such a thing. And that's what you get, to some extent; the fumes from a brazier fuelled with fragrant wood and maybe damped with sheaves of anise. But that's not all, and it doesn't play out in the way you might expect. Fumerie Turque divides into embellished halves and their expression is inverted away from natural expectation; the smoke is induced to curl up and cleave to the wrist, and it is the hearth's sweet, charred bones that are offered to the distant admirer, by way of scented woods and haunting resins.
My initial impression of the skin scent is that of burning rubber, a elderberry-purple acridity that cracks you in the face right off the wrist. Don't let this deter you; a moment of force majeure is required to deliver the rest of its hefty payload, including the broken flesh of liquorice, that packet of Camels that breathed at you from his shirt pocket when you put your arm around his neck, and oil-stained, sunwarmed saddle. Synaesthetic impressions lie a little further south of the Bosphorus than the title implies- I get the deep, inky-stained colours of Moroccan or Tuareg leatherwork, perhaps, or maybe lattice shadow in the alley outside a hammam if one is to draw a more literal inspiration. Coincidentally it shares these gothic flavours with the subject of my last review, Norne (Slumberhouse), although it is a drier and more tasteful version of that potent nocturne, its laurels resting in cured leaves rather than on a green plant trampled by a must-wracked sasquatch.
As far as the listed notes go, suede and tobacco are plain enough, providing the scuffed matte warmth of leather and the delicious little stink of unborn smoke. It's sometimes possible to detect dusty old camphor, as when the lid is lifted on a fabric stash; there is even that faintest suggestion of the parched and weary fibres of the silk that's stored within. If juniper, chamomile, patchouli and currant were bound together and sharply compressed you would doubtlessly end up with the aniseed and liquorice accord, something faintly disturbing and boiled-down into a witchy black compound. Tonka, styrax and honey align with true vanilla to form a sort of vanille chimérique, so much more brown, like the wizened titular pod, than anything you would scoop from a tub; Medjoul dates might be a bridge too far in regard to this element, but you get the idea.
As I've already said, don't worry that everyone around you is being subjected to smouldering tyres or bossy sassafras. FT proffers this lazy, sinuous sweetness to the bystander, my partner identifying aniseedy Smokers lollies and dried cherries in the sillage, going on to mention sweet leaves on a fire or perhaps a room fumigated with scented greenery- all surprisingly divergent from the more proximate experience.
As I've already said, don't worry that everyone around you is being subjected to smouldering tyres or bossy sassafras. FT proffers this lazy, sinuous sweetness to the bystander, my partner identifying aniseedy Smokers lollies and dried cherries in the sillage, going on to mention sweet leaves on a fire or perhaps a room fumigated with scented greenery- all surprisingly divergent from the more proximate experience.
Emphatic it may be, but not bereft of surprises. I've been wearing Fumerie Turque for a couple of years now and the other day was I startled by a novel burst of incense, similar to that so boldly expressed in Sonoma Scents Incense Pure; FT let go of its leather and lay back like an opium belle, breathing purring resins for two hours before stepping down again into liquorice and firesides. Could it have been a change in my personal chemistry? Bottle ageing? Who knows, but I had never struck it before.
FT favours cooler weather and a dry skin, so think twice about dousing yourself if you're likely to sweat. Nor is it really for the meek and it would behove the uncertain to invest in a sample before going to the effort of sourcing a bottle, now that it's been made a Salon Exclusive (ie. more obscure and expensive.) On the Lutens strength and projection scale I'd give it a 7.5, a little behind 10-monsters like Chergui. As far as gender suitability is concerned, it's perfectly, perfectly androgynous.
Perhaps the thing I enjoy most in Fumerie Turque is its transportive quality. Unless, by some anomaly in the space-time continuum you are already standing in a somewhat romanticised 19th C bazaar, chewing the butt of a cigar and scowling at a dodgy syce while haggling for a brace of blood mares, FT is pretty much guaranteed to take you there. If you know what I mean.
FT favours cooler weather and a dry skin, so think twice about dousing yourself if you're likely to sweat. Nor is it really for the meek and it would behove the uncertain to invest in a sample before going to the effort of sourcing a bottle, now that it's been made a Salon Exclusive (ie. more obscure and expensive.) On the Lutens strength and projection scale I'd give it a 7.5, a little behind 10-monsters like Chergui. As far as gender suitability is concerned, it's perfectly, perfectly androgynous.
Perhaps the thing I enjoy most in Fumerie Turque is its transportive quality. Unless, by some anomaly in the space-time continuum you are already standing in a somewhat romanticised 19th C bazaar, chewing the butt of a cigar and scowling at a dodgy syce while haggling for a brace of blood mares, FT is pretty much guaranteed to take you there. If you know what I mean.
Fumerie Turque is still available from a few retailers online as a 50ml epd | HOUSE Serge Lutens/Christopher Sheldrake STYLE/FLAVOUR Oriental/leather. Unisex. DATE OF ISSUE 2003 NOTES Tobacco, honey, rose, juniper, tonka, chamomile, patchouli, vanilla, red currant, styrax, suede. |
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