Well, I finally found a fragrance which even I don't think I'd wear in public... at least for the first half hour after application anyway. "Fecal" is a common adjective for fragrances which contain notes like oud, jasmine, or some animalic and musky notes (and yes, I know using a word like "fecal" at the start of the second sentence is alarming). I generally take those descriptions with a grain of salt. While I do pick up on what people mean, I won't mistake those notes for actual feces. This is not the case with Montale's Aoud Cuir d'Arabie. When I first sprayed it on, I immediately said "what the fuck, are you shitting me?" It smells like shit... literally. It's like you accidentally stepped in something outside, and decided to throw out those shoes because there's no fucking way you're going to be able to clean off the substance which could have only been shat out by Cerberus after he escaped from the Underworld because Hades didn't close the door while taking out the garbage in the evening. It's putrid enough to have made me feel like running to the sink to scrub this shit off.
But I decided to wait. I wasn't going outside, so it's not like anyone will be smelling it anyway. Plus, fuck me if I'm not getting at least one full wearing out of something I bought. Anyway, I just needed to keep my wrist as far away from my nose as possible so I wouldn't be getting wafts of manure until I decided to see if it develops after a while. At least until my mind would say to myself "you're exaggerating, it doesn't really smell like shit. Don't wait, smell your arm again, it's ok." At which point I would sniff it again and be reminded that, yes, it does indeed smell like shit; and then I'm back to keeping my arm at, uh, arm distance. And my brain would start laughing. I could ask if my senses inform my cognition, or if my cognition informs my senses, but I'm not getting into that empiricism vs rationalism shit (no pun intended). Decartes and Locke would be very disappointed in me (I think Locke and Hume would actually chuckle shamefully, they seem like they were fun guys).
Anyhoo, after about 15 or 20 minutes from application, that shitty smell thankfully started to subside. The fragrance began turning into something much more wearable. Consequently, this review will henceforth be far less vulgar - probably still vulgar as shit, because that's just how I roll, but less so. Take the signature Montale oud note - a petrol and leather tinged woody note which dominates half of their fragrances (and Mancera's fragrances too... I guess they must have vats full of this stuff and are constantly churning out new fragrances every other day in order to figure out what to do with all those buckets of oud). Add more animalic leather and a bit of birch-like smokiness. Within about half an hour after application, you're just left with those notes, and the shit is totally gone. The fragrance doesn't change at all after that and remains mostly linear. In the far drydown, there's maybe a hint of soapiness you'd get in some old-school leather fragrances like Kouros, Bogart, Paco Rabanne, Quorum, and the like.
Performance is actually tame for a Montale fragrance. Yes, it's strong, but it's not as brash or obscene as I was expecting. It does project obnoxiously for an hour or so. It wouldn't deserve the "Montale Aoud ____" name if it started off with class rather than ass. This isn't Hermès (though they are kind of trashy nowadays). It also would have been absurd for me to wax poetic about how it smelled like the neighborhood after Fluffums had eaten a bad can of Puppy Chow and unleashed his fury. But it does start to sit close to the skin after the first hour. The longevity, however, is 10+ hours.
Overall, it is an interesting scent precisely because it is closer to an old world tannery, or the smell of goat skin on a darbouka (don't sniff it... trust me), than the traditional leather notes. That's admittedly ballsy of Montale (or shitty). Regardless, it takes a lot for me to think something is unwearable. I may hate some fragrances because they are too harsh, generic, juvenile, or sickeningly sweet, but I won't necessarily think they cannot be worn in public. I mean, I'll call One Million shit (not literally...), but if you wear it? Not much of a problem with me... depending on my mood. Likewise with musky, animalic, and sweaty fragrances which smell like you're about to collapse because you're dehydrated and worn out from fucking someone for 10 hours straight (if it was just by yourself, kudos... and good luck with the pain). Vintage Kouros? I had no problem killing off a decant of it, even though it's definitely more animalic than the current version. Even something like Neandertal Dark, a somewhat avant-garde scent which sort of smells like a cross between an urban fire, burning rocks, and dust clouds at a construction site, is perfectly wearable for me. I'm even still curious to try Secretions Magnifiques, since it doesn't really sound that bad.
But the opening of Aoud Cuir d'Arabie made me throw my hands up and just shout out "nope" (as in the slang verb, not what you'd find in the Oxford Dictionary... I don't think?). It was finally something that even I wouldn't wear in public and wouldn't want to smell on myself. I wonder how many other people would too? Otherwise, why would the COVID toilet paper shortage have been such a big deal?
But the rest of the fragrance is actually good. It's not amazing. Aside from the topnotes, it's not a creative or unique fragrance either. It's like an afterthought from the house done by taking a few basenotes common in their other fragrances, and it seems pointless. There are much better leather fragrances out there. For the Montale oud note, I'll always prefer to reach for Black Aoud over this one; although I guess that's not fair since Black Aoud is one of my all time favorite fragrances, and probably as close to a signature scent as I'll get. But if you're looking for a leather and oud fragrance with an animalic edge, and you can tolerate 20 or 30 minutes of smelling like the noxious fumes emanating from a gas station shitter which had been condemned by NATO, this could be a good choice.
.... shit.
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