Miami study for Le Labo Tabac 28 (Miami City Exclusive)

 

we feel the nouns make emotions

out of a sense of easiness

the ability to relax

the desire to simplify

what we suddenly discover

is meant

because we haven’t paid attention

to exemplify something

what it is, we forget

we know it was something special

something out of the ordinary

a nagging something or other

stupidly repeating itself

in a vague way

on the sill

when we think the water still

that’s the silliest thing

I ever heard of

hearing everything through

the air conditioner above

the bottom line

———————————Ted Greenwald, “Miami”

Miami study  #2 for Le Labo Tabac 28  Miami City Exclusive

The sun has long set; torpor stopped falling down from the sky and is now sitting in thick blankets low to the ground, merging with vapors rising lazily from the asphalt and the sewers. The sounds are muffled, and the air—tired and tight. Lights don’t help much in the way of coolness; in the cones of the happy yellow they throw effortlessly onto the sidewalks, passers-by can see the remains of the night before: gum; dust; roaches; a bride-to-be broken crown; cigarette butts; pieces of woodsy palm fronds; sand; someone’s parking ticket.

 

Miami study #3 

The diners pulsate with the living, tromboning fluffy columns of white smoke into a pale hot sky; doors open only to let people in—and when they do, healthy laughter from cooks with many teeth can be heard all the way down the street. Their smell, smoky and pungent, mixes with that of the griddles the lean over. If one should sit to watch the entrance, one would never see anyone come out; just people rolling in, hour after hour, until the sun suddenly rises and all lights go out.

 Miami Study #4

Every diner has a Carol just as every diner has a cook; and just as every cook has shiny teeth, every Carol has a lighter. Carols are smart and tough and steady like a heart, there from the opening and moving long past the last door has closed. Nobody knows where Carol comes from, and neither does it matter- for the diner’s heart is precisely where she wants to be and where the diner’s life, as long as Carol is strong, can go on and on and on and on in the same heat, under the same trees, in the same healthy laughter of the cooks with many teeth. Time, here, is present in name only.

Le Labo Tabac 28 by Frank Voelkl is atemporal, too, and eminently positive. No complicated drama, no pressure to comply, and no polarizing weight- this is a fragrance for the easy. Opening is wet and sticky, a bit pungent and slightly medicinal: boozy-barrel-y accords bring forward the caramelic rum; sourness zings with a green and piney zest; tobacco hits with mouthwatering earthiness. The first blast set, middle nuances round up, enveloping like a steady stream of steamed woods and gentle aromatics. Underneath it all, hot and humming and body-full, creamy spices and a pinch of dark make this strangely familiar, nostalgically reliable… and alive.

Official notes: tobacco, rum, cedar and guaiac, green cardamom

Other perceived notes: vetiver, sage, labdanum, cypriol oil, oud, pepper, palo santo

disclaimer: Le Labo Tabac 28 sample provided for testing and sent to me –dana sandu, Sr .Contributor

All  photo editing and creative direction by a_nose_knows aka dana sandu

Follow us on Instagram @cafleurebon  @lelabofragrances  @a_nose_knows  @wearefirmenich

 

apped by dana photo by Le Labo©

EDITOR’S NOTE:  I have heard many a perfumista quip that New York City smells like Le Labo Santal 33 also composed by Sr. Perfumer Frank Voelkl of Firmenich in 2011.  I really admire Frank and you can read my interview with him here. Frank Voelkl was also part of a CaFleureBon  roundtable of well-known perfumers that Sr. Editor Gail Gross queried  on “What is Cheap Perfume”.  Sr. Editor Lauryn Beer did an article in 2016 “The Three Le Labo City Exclusives you should be wearing” here. There are now 13 Le Labo City Exclusives including Bigarde 18 for Hong Kong.  –Michelyn Camen, Editor-in-Chief