Comme des Garcons PARFUMS Series 6 Synthetic: Tar

Second in the series of Top 5: Tobacco Scents, is a bookend.  Whereas Tabac Blond is firmly in early 1900’s, Comme des Garcons are so very now.   Luckyscent says it best:

“Comme des Garçons is no stranger to extremes or breaking rules. Synthetic is the sixth and most daring in CdG’s series, traveling once again far outside the mainstream but remaining in the physical world of manmade places and materials of modern daily life. Experimental, socially incorrect and avant-garde, the Synthetic series features five “anti-perfumes” whose names you’ll recognize immediately.

But these are no scratch n’ sniff “gee-I-smell-like-a-garage” fragrance. Each one varies on its name and theme, using an assortment of fully synthetic ingredients to make each one mind-bendingly unusual and wonderfully wearable. These are for the fearless–the rebels and the non-conformists.”

So many perfumes imitate natural scents (roses, jasmine, etc) with fully synthetic chemicals.  Only a few perfume houses make truly ‘natural’ perfumes.  Not that synthetics are bad – they make pitch-perfect renditions of priceless extracts that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars an ounce.   What’s bad is when synthetics are passed off as naturals.  Anyway, CdG forgos all that nonsense by creating a line of fragrances where synthetics get top billing.  This is one of my favorites, but they’re all fascinating in their own ways.  Although the fragrance is called tar, the entire concoction smells spicy,  exotic, and exciting.  Like sneaking that first cigarette behind the middle school, or drag racing on a hot summer night.

Notes:
town gas, vapours of bitumen, bergamot, earth notes, opoponax, styrax, grilled cigarettes, pyrogenic notes