The cloves don't really peek out of their hiding place, making this no Rive Gauche Pour Homme despite the comparisons it gets to that contemporary. Base notes consist of tonka, amber, patchouli, musk, cloves, oakmoss, vetiver, and sandalwood, although out of all these I'd say the musk, moss, sandalwood are most prevalent. Lavender, jasmine, and muguet creep in to give that classic clean musky fougère accord that gives it these comparisons, but Cabaret does grow a pair of it's own legs in the end. Maybe this is the exact combination of notes used by Proctor & Gamble chemists when they launched Coast soap in 1976, but regardless, they don't last terribly long before comparisons to Drakkar and Xeryus surface. all opening notes listed and reliably I can smell them all here. Rosemary, basil, coriander, juniper berry, bergamot and pineapple. Cabaret Homme brings to the table a 2000's lightness that it's source inspirations do not possess, but the same squeaky clean transition from top to bottom exists throughout. Pushing the Coast soap comparison of the opening aside, a full wear of Cabaret Homme reveals a scent that reminisces with the soapy subgenre of 80's powerhouse fougères a la Laroche's Drakkar Noir (1982), Fragonard's Swing (1984), Avon's Féraud Pour Homme (1985), and Givenchy's Xeryus (1986). Cabaret Homme wasn't quite as celebratory in it's tradition as some of it's peers, nor did it have the budget to truly be extraordinary, which is odd that Pierre Bourdon even was assigned to it since he typically works with upper-echelon houses like Creed, but such is the way of Gres masculines anyway, and those who have smelled Homme de Gres (1996) already know that the house operated in it's own timeless yet low-budget bubble outside what other designers were doing. The Pierre Bourbon-composed Cabaret Homme goes in an entirely different direction and sticks to strict fougère convention, probably because the early 2000's saw a resurgence in traditional masculines thanks to the LVMH products under direction of the retro-minded Tom Ford, leading to new green aromatics, barbershops scents, leathers, and even a chypre or two from different designer houses, cutting a traditional swath through the sea of ozonics, aquatics, and gourmands that dominated the Y2K era. The original Cabaret composed by Michael Almairac was a woody rose scent that consequently smelled balanced enough for either cisgender to wear or literally anyone that appreciates a good subtle rose, much in the same fashion as Azzaro Acteur (1989). On that very same token, people liken Rive Gauche Pour Homme (2003) to a can of Barbasol shave cream, so I don't know if creating designer masculines that mimic every day household toiletries was a thing in the early 2000's, but it would sure seem so. I often jokingly refer to Moustache Rochas (1949) smelling like Safegaurd soap in the dry down, and Alfred Sung Homme (1988) being Irish Spring soap in a bottle, but the reality is Safeguard soap came afterward and Irish Spring isn't identical to Alfred Sung, so it's just the chemists of a major health brand mimicking their favorite designer fragrances or coincidence really. Before I get into the whereto's and whyfor's I just need to get this out of my system: Cabaret Homme is an ode to original Coast deodorant soap, at least in the opening.
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