VAR

Mallo Parfums

pic:LT

The reviewer feels an unusual sense of urgency when presented with a new Mallo. On past form, all of them sell out quickly. I have no idea whether this happens within minutes or days of them appearing on the website. A few days ago I got a parcel from Mallo containing their latest, and half an hour ago the website said New Collection Oct 31, today. VAR is listed as sold out! Is that possible? Do these dudes have a waiting list of clients ready to blind buy anything? Is there some sort of high-frequency trading going on where Mallo fans have installed a server in Zaragoza to make sure that delays caused by distance and the speed of light do not make them lose out on a deal? There I am, late to the party but smugly holding a full bottle. I guess my comments on the fragrance are either for the secondary market or for readers with vivid imaginations. [Stop press: Rajesh Balkrishnan says that VAR is actually for sale now, and that the sold out was a placeholder]

VAR

VAR is a fougère of what may be described as the third generation, the first being Fougère Royale (lavender, coumarin, oakmoss), the second Canoé (bergamot added) and the third Brut (aniseed added). Indeed VAR is so distinctly Brut-ish that I find myself unable to resist. For those who do not remember the sixties, either because they weren’t there or, as the saying goes among the formerly druggie boomers, because they were, let me say that Brut (1966) was a life-changing experience. Fougère 3.0 was about a stark contrast between bitter and suave, and Brut took that to the extreme, with the green hiss of galbanum at the leading edge and the powdery sweetness of the late, lamented nitro musks in the vortex trail.

Its intense aniseed heart was a brilliant idea, because it is impossible to decide once and for all whether anise is green or sweet. There was a crudeness, a simplicity to Brut that reminded me (and probably a lot of other people) of the Ford Mustang. The car came out just a few months prior and, like Brut, was cheap, gorgeous and fairly agricultural under the hood. Brut was, so to speak, a fougère with leaf springs in the suspension. For the record, the supermarket version of Brut these days is depressing, whereas the Frater Works version is a dream.

VAR, despite the undoubted family air, is quite a different beast. For a start, I would have no problem wearing it, whereas Brut on a heterosexual senior citizen might come across a bit crude, aspirational or, God forbid, both. Mallo had previously released what could logically be described as a fougère, i.e., ARC, about which I wrote glowingly. There is definitely a fraction of ARC in VAR, filling in the gaps and smoothing the angles of the Brut structure. Overall VAR is sweeter, richer and more expensive-smelling than Brut—there’s iris in there, for heaven’s sake— as if the dude with a chest medallion and an open shirt had become the Most Interesting Man in the World. I don’t often wear perfume, but when I do, it could well be VAR.