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Friday, March 29, 2024

Unusual fragrances

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Christopher Brosius is a perfumer who seems to hate everything the perfume industry stands for—the same notes and accords used over and over again, the diffused, diluted and bubblegummy celebrity-endorsed scents dominating the market. His brand reflects that impression with sheer vividness. It’s name? CB I Hate Perfume.

Christopher Brosius

If you’re thinking that Brosius is just another hipster with yet another hipster brand—it is based in Brooklyn, after all—you’re sorely mistaken. The perfumer has been in business way before the word “hipster” was defined in the contemporary sense.

Fire From Heaven

Brosius’ most high-profile creation is Cumming The Fragrance for Scottish actor Alan Cumming. Yes, it’s a celebrity fragrance and the collaboration happened only because of the mutual admiration and respect the two have for each other. Brosius wouldn’t nose a scent for anyone he wouldn’t want to hang out with frequently, he said in an interview a few years back. On his Web site, Brosius describes the fragrance, repackaged as the noncommercial version “2nd (Alan) Cumming,” as “anti-celebrity,” “warm and changeable reflecting many moods and feelings” and designed in such a way that “the more you sweat, the better it smells.”

CB Beast

As of this writing, there are around 40 different fragrances available on CBIHatePerfume.com. According to Brosius himself, he’s been “described as one of the most innovative perfumers of the 21st century” and looking through the selection on the Web site kind of gives credence to that statement.

There’s CB Beast, “a delicious blend of roast beef, parsley and herbs, black pepper and spices, smoked woods, patchouli, cedar and tobacco absolute.” You read that right: The scent contains the unusual roast beef accord, which gives the initial whiff of meatiness. “But as it warms on the skin, it looses that literal impression and quickly becomes deep, rich, smoky, spicy, indefinable and frankly delicious,” Brosius says.

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2nd (Alan) Cumming

CB I Hate Perfume definitely shuns the ordinary. Even seemingly straightforward creations are surprising in their simplicity. Tea/Rose, for example, is “a classic scent with real Tea (Indian Black) and real Moroccan Rose (Rosa Damascena).”

And those that are more adventurous are expertly nosed to form unique combinations of notes, both traditional and unconventional—just like Fire From Heaven, which blends Frankincense, Myrrh, Opopanax, Cedar, Sandalwood, Styrax and Labdanum to evoke the olfactory experience of smoke.

These scents are not cheap. Depending on the notes and accords used, each 30ml water perfume can sell from $55 to $135; and each 100ml water perfume, between $120 and $265. Concentrated absolute oil versions ($24 to $53 – 2ml; $120 to $265 – 10ml) are also available.

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