Memoir Man
Amouage (2010)

I get an impression from this perfume that maybe Amouage was trying to alter their identity a bit to appeal to those whom they do not normally appeal to. The top notes of absinthe and wormwood, basil, and mint are quite bracing upon application but fade very quickly, as do some of the heart notes that should be backing them up, particularly the lavender and rose. The other heart note, frankincense, stays with you quite well, and the base notes of sandalwood, guaiac, vetiver, amber, vanilla, musk, oakmoss, leather, and tobacco all plays roles too. But the roles are short lived. The frankincense begins to depart within a couple hours, and you're left with those base notes with the vetiver and leather playing the starring roles. All of these notes are quite nice, but that's just it - they're "nice." They are very short-lived and safe; nothing really has a compelling voice in this perfume, which therefore means the perfume itself lacks a voice. Amouage perfumes are not known for lacking an identity or purpose; love them or hate them, all who have experienced Amouage will admit that their perfumes say something (and usually quite loudly and/or boldly, for that matter). Don't get me wrong, Memoir Man is certainly not a bad perfume by any measure. It is simply a memoir that very few will want to read, and even fewer still will remember. It captures a short life of someone who never really truly lived a life worth writing about.

An old carpenter’s cabin in the forest.
The wood inside the cabin stained dark from decades of smoke.
Sawdust on the floor. Bundles of herbs and botanicals hanging to dry in the kitchen. Something in a cauldron bubbling over the fire.
Frankincense incense burning.
A single red rose in a small clear vase on the table in the middle of the room where you sit. He pours you a glass of absinthe, then sits back and lights his pipe.

You take a sip, and then another.
Staring down at your glass, you realize that you can’t remember how you got there, or even why you’re there in the first place.
You look up in confusion.
The vase is empty. The carpenter is gone.
The incense still burns.

Memoir Man is dark, heady, complex, and sophisticated.
It also smells like something that could be slightly poisonous.

My favorite Amouage to date.

the silent hill 2 of fragrance. dark meditative incense oud but the green aspects like mint and wormwood make it easy going enough to be worn anywhere anytime. its also very smoky on my skin

Memoir Man by Amouage (2010) was created during the good old Christopher Cheong days, when we didn't really know how good we actually had it. Back when the house released knockout after knockout of big, incense-laden, woody, oudy, or sometimes animalic fragrances full of resinous goodness, heft, and distinction. These were the heavy-handed methods of a house like Ted Lapidus (or any Bogart Group brand including Jacques Bogart itself), but with materials budgets that would make Bogart owner Jacques Konckier shrink and shrivel in his overpriced underwear. Those halcyon days are gone, with Reynaud Salmon pimping out the brand to be more like the corporate competitors who'd rather issue two-cent bubblegum-laced woody-ambers dosed at 500% in heavy bottles and call it luxury. Oh how the mighty have fallen, but not in 2010, when this issued. Back then, there was excitement for every release, and people would blind buy them, because of the trust.

The big stars of this show are wormwood, mint, incense, pine, and tobacco. Memoir is the 1800's dry black-coated gentleman with huge mutton chops and stovepipe hat visiting the hashish den underneath seedy gas-lit London. It's all absinthe and humorless stiff-upper lips, with mint and wormwood mixing with basil, a dry floral melange in the heart, and even drier leather notes mixed with guaiac wood (before that note became played out), vetiver, amber, oakmoss, and opoponax. There is a pepperiness that lingers throughout, and something like this downmarket would surely end up in Geo F. Trumper's bottle, or Penhaligon's before Puig turned them into a wannabe nouveau-riche racket. Performance is powerful, but not "single dose of Amber Xtreme dosed to infinity and beyond" like your usual Parfums de Marly. No sweetness, no oud, and no noticeable tonka make this one a bit of a hard sell compared other favorites from the period. Expect all-day wear in most situations, best as a formal or fall/spring thing.

On the whole, I'm surprised this sells well enough to stay on the docket, although it may also be because of its association as a darker cousin of sorts to Amouage Interlude Man (2012), which would come out a few years later and really cement this brand's reputation with try-hard influencer FragBros who spend more time looking at YouTube analytics and editing their videos than actually wearing their godforsaken fragrances. Memoir Man would be more for the cats who are of the "if you know, you know" persuasion of Amouage fan, and the kind of dudes who rock things like Honor Man (2011) and other deep cuts of the Cheong era that aren't discontinued yet get no talk really. To think something like this was once about $125 at discounters, posing a perfectly superior alternative to most designer woody-peppery things making the rounds then. This truly is a memoir of better times for the brand. You're gonna overpay no matter how you get it now, unfortunately. Thumbs up

I get fresh pine, mint, forest woods here. Imagine a forest in the middle of november, its mist all around you...yeah thats what i get. I get a similar minty experience as i get with Beach Hut Man, but this one has a slight dark edge to it, a dark base that doesnt come straight out of the gate, but it requires for you to have some patience, and i think the reward is high. You get fresh incense with woods and smooth leather. Just a great release from Amouage. I find myself to not click with Amouage as a house (its still a quality house), but this one just does it for me. Superb stuff, i think it will grow even more on me in the future.

The mint, incense, and sandalwood in this fragrance are exceptionally well-blended, making it one of the smoothest scents in the Amouage collection. While its performance is decent, it tends to sit closer to the skin. This is one of my favourites from the brand.