Anti-Blues
Pierre Guillaume (2019)

Perfumer’s note: “Through a vapor of incense mixed with vetiver, the woody bitterness of cacao wood, saffron, and amyris rises. Anti-Blues deploys its dark gourmand nature by stretching its olfactory spectrum from the smell of hay and dark chocolate to the animal nuances of a vanilla hemmed with leather and tobacco. By contrasting the animal vibration of dark chocolate with the urban coldness suggested by the notes of frankincense, saffron, and vetiver, the perfumer, influenced by the work of Monory, composes a painting with a dark and electric atmosphere.”

I’m not sure why one would call a Monory-themed fragrance “Anti-Blues,” given Monory’s penchant for monochromatic blue paintings.

Anyway, this dark, waxy chocolate scent is much less interesting than the description makes it sound, as if I were pitched a gourmet truffle and then given a square of Hershey’s Dark, albeit less sweet. Maybe all that stuff is in here, but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. (It may be neither blue nor anti-blue, but it’s certainly monochromatic.) Not bad—I enjoy the odd square of Hershey’s Dark—but nothing to make a fuss over.