The Lion Cupboard
4160 Tuesdays (2013)

The whimsical names of Sarah McCartney’s perfumes may put people off, which would be a shame. This one is a slightly crude but entertaining tangy fruity-woods - like a Punk Rock Féminité du bois.

Polish is not her forté. She makes vibrant pieces of enthusiasm, rough creations - which might be bland if they were smoothed and finessed.

It’s a question of temperament. If you watch her YouTube videos, you can see McCartney’s work is an extension of her self. Her pongs are no made-to-order focus-grouped marketing fodder; she does what she likes, and, as a consequence - despite their technical shortcomings - 4160 scents are genuine and authentic.
They're original scents with original ideas.

If I were wearing a scent Out-on-the-Town with the aim to Drop someone’s Panties (although the mechanics of that leave me entirely baffled) this would go down like a fart in a perfume shop. It’s the sort of thing I would wear to a solstice sunrise or a childs birthday party, celebratory and fun, and just a bit silly.

I like it pretty well. It's a thumps up for being a nice perfume, a solid effort, but it's somewhat underwhelming. I imagine I could be smelling the listed notes of mint, juniper berry, aniseed, rose, cedarwood, vetiver and vanilla (or rather benzoin).

It smells like a rose and wood combination, with sweetness from vanilla/benzoin, with notes such as juniper berry and aniseed, perhaps, giving it a bit of a twist.

The sweetness (sweet note?, benzoin?) and the woods (cedarwood?) give it a bit of a been there, done that feel, making it not overly exciting, although it's nice and wearable, warm and agreeable.

It reminds me of Aramis Calligraphy Rose and even Carven Homme.

For months, this scent smelled like nothing I could possibly wear. I felt it was too masculine, too deep, too intimate. It smelled like an old shoe polishing box, perhaps after it survived a house fire. Or maybe like an old pine tree in deep woods, hammered by woodpeckers, and half-eaten by woodlice... but I kept going back to it. Soon, I accepted that I adored the smell. But when could I wear such an oddity? I've come to realize that this scent on my skin is delicious and highly wearable. It makes me ridiculously happy. I do get compliments from the oddest people, too...

A different twist on a fougere, mainly due to the huge dose of anise that is married here with lavender. This pairing is the central theme of this characterful perfume. At first it is washed over by a wave of furniture polish, which when it recedes is succeeded by flashes of all kinds of interesting things – fresh mint, soft floral sweetness, hints of tobacco – while all the way the anise and lavender remain front of stage singing their song of love. As a result this cupboard has bags of air to it – and the aura left in a room is beautiful, better in fact than what I smelled off my skin.
Grows sweeter and more diffuse with the wear, yet without losing too much of its individuality. The woody notes were pretty subdued for me, as also the cocoa which I would have loved to have had a greater puff off. It didn't completely win me over, but enough for me to realize that there's a skilful hand at work here and I should try out other 4160 Tuesday perfumes. However, as a perfume with personality and a light touch I can see it immediately clicking with some who will adopt it as ‘their' perfume.

It begins peppery. Peppery, with a backdrop of the gloopy Adriatic olive oil my auntie used to slather over us as kids on holiday in hot Croatian summers, to protect us from the sun, would you believe?

But there is a promise of just a little sweetness all the while, underneath, and an increasing murmur of a kind of mentholated frankincense that emerges with that sweetness.

This is lovely. It becomes warm, lovely and warm, just a hint of sweetness from the patchouli, never cloying, like a recently oiled, ancient piece of oak.

I have worn this several times before, and enjoyed it throughout the day (it has decent longevity), but never had time, until now, to sit, and study the composition - oh, how it increases one's enjoyment of a fragrance!

Ferris Bueller was right...

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it..."

The Lion Cupboard is the recreation of the smell of a hug from the perfumer, Sarah McCartney's, dad. It is evidently made with love, and projects that way. Wonderful stuff.