Pour Homme

Anisic lavender, out in the open

The opening rests on two materials that do not hide: lavender and anise. Lemon, bergamot and petitgrain brighten them without softening them, and the attack is frank, without the citrus veil usual in men’s fragrances of the time.

Basil and clary sage pull this opening toward the herbal. In 1978, this aromatic rawness was surprising: men’s fragrances of the day favored smooth freshness, and bitterness passed for a flaw to be corrected.

Luca Turin sums up this opening in two words: anisic lavender.

A spicy heart that tips toward the woods

Cardamom and caraway take over. Caraway is the most unexpected material in the formula, and one of the most constant in descriptions of the fragrance, even if its tier varies from one to another.

Behind them, patchouli, sandalwood, cedar and juniper berries thicken the weave. This is where the fragrance leaves the aromatic for the woody.

Vetiver arrives with the spices rather than after them: it belongs to the middle tier.

A base of moss and leather

Oakmoss, leather, amber, tonka bean and musk close the composition. The animalic weave described by those who wear it comes from this whole group rather than from a single material.

In 2000, a European regulation on musk forced the house to rework the formula. Oakmoss, often cited as the victim of this revision, nonetheless appears in every later description.

Owners of old bottles describe versions mossier and heavier than today’s: olfactory memories, to be read as such.

Three materials the house highlights

Azzaro, which classes its fragrance among the woody aromatic fougères, singles out three materials. Star anise, the dried fruit of the badian tree, brings in its view liquorice-like, spicy notes and a hot-cold contrast.

Lavender from the Drôme provençale gives it a soft, floral, slightly fruity roundness. Vetiver, of which the house prefers the Haitian kind, brings its dry, earthy, smoky woody notes.

The disputed notes

Some descriptions add iris, geranium or ambergris, which no other takes up.

Fennel has long circulated in French descriptions. It comes from a tasting impression, anise and fennel often being confused.

The house puts forward the figure of three hundred and twenty raw materials, more than half of them of natural origin.

What the label declares

The label opens with alcohol, fragrance and water. Beyond that, it names only the allergens that must be declared: limonene, linalool, hexyl cinnamal, citronellol, geraniol, benzyl alcohol and coumarin.

Citral, eugenol, alpha-isomethyl ionone, cinnamal, benzyl salicylate, anise alcohol and benzyl benzoate complete the list.