Perfume Reviews

Cala

A few years ago while I was on a licorice binge, a dear friend from Finland told me about salmiakkikossu (salty licorice vodka). He said that people often make it at home, so I procured a bottle of Koskenkorva vodka and a big bag of Tyrisk Peber (the aggressively spicy-salty salmiakki preferred for this purpose), pulverized the candy, and poured all of it into the bottle.

Hot tip – my friend said if you’re in a real hurry to drink it, Finns speed up the process by running the bottle through a cycle in the dishwasher. Finland sounds fun. I skipped that step, but in a few days the salmiakki had dissolved and I discovered that I had made something best described as flaming hot salty Sambuca.

The first five minutes of Cala smell like salmiakkikossu. The vapors coming off my wrist might have been flammable. It’s alcohol-forward, extremely phenolic, and very assertive. Imagine black licorice-scented industrial-strength disinfectant. I’m a big fan of that genre, but even by my standards it’s unsettling.

Then suddenly, it just disappears. After five minutes of aggression, and another transitional five minutes of licorice-labdanum, Cala is a minty rosemary-cypress that sits extremely close to the skin. It doesn’t smell like perfume, it smells like you’ve been picking herbs for a while and just put your hands near your face. It’s a remarkably subtle scent.

As a respite from the constant din of woodamber in most new perfumes and all public places, I’ve been really enjoying quieter perfumes lately. So, a lack of so-called “performance” isn’t a negative for me. It’s not even something I would ordinarily mention. Unfortunately, it’s become normal for people to harp on any perfume that doesn’t wear like a foghorn, so I fear that people will think I’m just describing a low-projecting perfume. This is remarkable because it’s less than that. After fifteen minutes, Cala is about as strong as the odor that a lightly scented hand soap leaves behind after its rinsed off.

Cala smells very natural, like herbaceous plants, and I don’t hate it. It’s just an enormous peak that drops off so precipitously, like full-volume microphone feedback followed by non-amplified whispering from across the room. Neither phase is ideal and it’s not something that I would purchase.

Bosc

In healthcare we use two products to help dressings adhere to the skin. One of those is Mastisol, which is made from alcohol, gum mastic, styrax, and wintergreen oil. We also use a particular kind of deodorizer called Citrastat. It’s a relatively pleasant, simple scent of orange oil. Imagine combining the two, and you have the opening of Bosc. Like Cala, it fades very quickly.

After about ten minutes the mastic all but disappears, and the orange recedes significantly. From this point on, Bosc smells primarily of juniper. It’s juniper berry-orange peel with rosemary edges. It’s tart. It reminds me very much of the degreasing hand soap products that you find in garages and machine shops. If you mixed Worx powder (for the juniper berry) and Gojo liquid (for the orange), it would smell similar to Bosc.

Bosc is also a remarkably soft perfume, but it’s stronger than Cala. Again, I don’t hate it, but it smells more like a functional product than a perfume. Where Cala smells somewhat “like nature,” Bosc is more “made with natural ingredients.” This would be a nice scent for an environmentally-friendly bathroom cleaner. It’s not unpleasant, but I still feel a sense of relief when it disappears. It reminds me of modern era hospital cleaning supplies, which are meant to be milder on the senses than old-school phenols and bleach.

Conclusion

I don’t want to completely dismiss these scents because there is a very specific audience for things like this. I’m picturing people who enjoy things like thru-hiking and bushcraft where it’s not just recreation, it’s a lifestyle. The scents are rugged, and you would have to prefer scents that are unpolished and hyper-natural to enjoy them. If you are a fan of things like Juniper Ridge, this brand might appeal to you.

I bought the samples from Indigo Perfumery and, to me, they feel a little out of place there? People looking for conventional perfumes or even avant-garde fragrances just stumbling upon these will probably be surprised and may be disappointed. I am not a fan of this style of perfumery and clearly these aren’t made for me, but that’s not obvious when just browsing the shop. I would expect to buy something like this at Erewhon, or direct from the brand after seeing it on the bulletin board at REI.

Bravnariz was founded in Spain by Ernesto Collado, who is also the perfumer for the brand.