Fair warning: this is a long post, but I've been thinking about this a bunch and I wanted to get it all down.
I’m coming to the conclusion that Dior Sauvage is misconstrued. It presents itself as Dior’s answer to Bleu de Chanel, and it’s been a huge mainstream hit. I have no doubt it was exactly Dior’s intention to respond to Bleu de Chanel, and I have no doubt Sauvage has been calculated to be a big mainstream hit. However, I think Sauvage is at the same time actually quite a bizarre and challenging composition. I’ve seen others here and there liken it to Fahrenheit (in spirit, not smell), since both share an odd chemical effect that is nevertheless attractive to many people. We should keep in mind that bizarro Fahrenheit was a huge hit when it came out, and I remember smelling it everywhere. Like Sauvage, it was loud and effusive, and while popular, it absolutely had its detractors (and still does). I’m starting to see the “fresh and likable” opening of Sauvage as a bit of a feint, a friendly hello before it quickly moves to its real business, which is that odd, at times off-putting, sweaty-bitter-airy dry down. That dry down is WEIRD. It’s loud and scratchy and indeed sweaty, and I also think it’s Demachy rather wittily completing the brief for Sauvage, if we assume, as the marketing strongly supports, that the brief involves big wide-open dusty swaths of the American West, along with the sweaty, rough man to fit such a setting.
To be clear, until very recently I loathed Sauvage. Not because I thought it literally smelled repulsive (I don’t know of too many fragrances that do, honestly), but due to a combination of the Ambroxan and other notes, most likely lavender, creating a “dryer sheets” effect, very reminiscent of the toiletries and laundry aisle of the drugstore — plus the fragrance being so damned loud. Not just loud, but doubtless it causes crazy anosmia to where most guys are spraying on far too much of it thinking they’re still not smelling it much at all (doubtless a high dose of Iso E Super doing its thing again). So: dryer sheets, which while not offensive, is just not a sexy smell, nor even to me particularly fresh, just functional fragrance. And then you amp that up and I’ve had several times dining out where a huge chemical cloud of Sauvage from a fellow a table or two over distracted me the whole time.
(By the way, a European friend told me dryer sheets are far more common here in the States than in Europe, which might explain why Demachy was willing to go with this accord and not worry about the associations. Not everyone will have that particular association, and as I spend more time with the fragrance, my own link to toiletries is lessening. That’s just how olfaction tends to go.)
The recent chatter about Sauvage Parfum, plus love-to-hate-it mention of the EDT by a fragrance YouTuber I like, piqued my curiosity in a fiendishly self-destructive way, and I dug out my old sample of Sauvage from 2015, grabbed a tester strip, and sprayed. Hoo boy.
But, while I smelled exactly the lavender-Ambroxan puff that put me off, something else pulled me in. The opening: hey, that’s good! I never had a problem with that aspect, and it was nice to experience it again. It’s certainly in the same realm as Bleu de Chanel and Aventus, big pop hits that I’m happy to just kick back and enjoy without being pretentious about it (I still have my Quorum, Leather Oud, and Mitsouko as close friends). And yet there was something weird just behind all the sweet fruity freshness. Something peppery and sweaty, slightly nauseating, but intriguing if only because I suddenly wanted to crack the code with this one: both why it keeps selling so well and what Demachy was on about. The guy was under a specific commercial brief, no doubt, but he’s also no amateur and no fool. I suspected something more interesting at work, so I spent more time with Sauvage over the next few days, finally daring to wear it on skin, tentatively, and then for a full day. The stuff intimidated me.
I know, that will sound hilarious to some of you, especially those who love this one as a “freshie,” but to me the heart of Sauvage, what it really has to say, is in that big crazy dry down. The fruity-fresh opening doesn’t even last all that long anyway. And that dry down, as I said above, is really weird. To me, it’s not obvious, or generic, or a commercial concession. That comes in the top notes. In the dry down we have this scratchy, peppery, sweaty, almost sour effect, plus that airy effusive Ambroxan (bolstered by Iso E). If Sauvage were just an easy commercial play it wouldn’t be as divisive as it is. This one causes love or revulsion (not just love and indifference). It also, based on what I’ve seen in threads here, causes a lot of “first I hated it then I loved it then I hated it now I love it” reactions, or “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to think each time I wear it” reactions. And yes, that makes sense, because I really think what’s being proposed with this one is more challenging than “must be a huge commercial success” would suggest.
First, even before I started to come around to respecting Sauvage, I began to see that it was, structurally speaking, a sound composition. It has the light-dark contrast most good or great fragrances have: the opening freshness vs. the dark sweaty base. More notably, it has a coherent through-line via pepper: from the peppery aspect of bergamot at the start, to szechuan pepper and elemi in the middle, to the peppery-scratchy texture of the woody-amber in the base (I’ve seen “tobacco” mentioned as a note and indeed the base has a rough tobacco-like texture). Sauvage unfolds in two main stages, and does so coherently.
But what really made this weird hit suddenly comprehensible to me was seeing a few folks here mention a cactus leaf or cactus juice note in the middle and dry down. And you know what? That entirely makes sense, and while I’d like to sniff some cactus juice again to compare, this is what explained the whole weird ambience of the Sauvage signature to me. All the marketing for this stuff, across its three iterations, are about the American West: open plains, dust and sun-scorched rocks, driftwood and cacti. A sweaty Johnny Depp. The fractionated patchouli, vetiver, and “tobacco” in the base create a distinct man-sweat effect, with the cactus-like note adding to both that and an evocation of the western American desert. The Ambroxan does indeed create a big (okay: massive) arid cloud of “atmosphere,” and it’s not a stretch to think “big sky,” not to mention the sun-baked wood element of the chemical. As soon as I saw the signature Sauvage base in these terms, it made sense. I now think Dior are being quite direct in their marketing for Sauvage; I strongly suspect the brief was to create the scent of a slightly brutish man in the American west, in the dusty desert. And then clobber on top of that a big fresh opening and blue packaging hue to compete directly with Bleu de Chanel.
By the way, though I realize they’re very different scents, Tauer’s L’Air du Desert Marocain also uses a big woody-amber aroma chemical to create a dusty, arid desert effect, come to think of it.
Big, slightly brutish, aggressive, desert vistas, heat, cacti, driftwood, sweat: it’s all there. It’s what’s listed on the tin, as much as the Bleu concessions. I find it evocative and often, still, sort of off-putting, but when worn lightly, it's compelling, in the same bitter man-heat way evoked by classics like Quorum or Kouros or Aramis or Leather Oud. Each of those is divisive, too, in its way. I think Sauvage is actually a calculatedly brutal (ahem: wild) composition, and decidedly weird. But because it starts with such a “hey, like me!” commercially fresh opening, plus slick blue-juice packaging, we all go in expecting (and briefly getting) something easy, generic, expected, and safe. Sauvage starts there, yes, but what it really has to say is more intelligent, I think. My sense is Demachy was working with BOTH the desert concept AND the “give Chanel Blue a run for its money” mandate, and this was the result. Our own expectations, for either a new entry in a classic-fragrance style (why isn’t this Eau Sauvage?!) or just abject commercial selling out (BdC/Fierce/Aventus clone!), distract us from taking Sauvage on its own terms. Love it or hate it, if it were merely just generic and boring, more of us would be indifferent. But Sauvage is a bigger provocation than that, and while I’m still not at all sure it’s “me,” I’m glad I’ve come around to respecting this stuff. At the very least, I find it truly fascinating.
I’m coming to the conclusion that Dior Sauvage is misconstrued. It presents itself as Dior’s answer to Bleu de Chanel, and it’s been a huge mainstream hit. I have no doubt it was exactly Dior’s intention to respond to Bleu de Chanel, and I have no doubt Sauvage has been calculated to be a big mainstream hit. However, I think Sauvage is at the same time actually quite a bizarre and challenging composition. I’ve seen others here and there liken it to Fahrenheit (in spirit, not smell), since both share an odd chemical effect that is nevertheless attractive to many people. We should keep in mind that bizarro Fahrenheit was a huge hit when it came out, and I remember smelling it everywhere. Like Sauvage, it was loud and effusive, and while popular, it absolutely had its detractors (and still does). I’m starting to see the “fresh and likable” opening of Sauvage as a bit of a feint, a friendly hello before it quickly moves to its real business, which is that odd, at times off-putting, sweaty-bitter-airy dry down. That dry down is WEIRD. It’s loud and scratchy and indeed sweaty, and I also think it’s Demachy rather wittily completing the brief for Sauvage, if we assume, as the marketing strongly supports, that the brief involves big wide-open dusty swaths of the American West, along with the sweaty, rough man to fit such a setting.
To be clear, until very recently I loathed Sauvage. Not because I thought it literally smelled repulsive (I don’t know of too many fragrances that do, honestly), but due to a combination of the Ambroxan and other notes, most likely lavender, creating a “dryer sheets” effect, very reminiscent of the toiletries and laundry aisle of the drugstore — plus the fragrance being so damned loud. Not just loud, but doubtless it causes crazy anosmia to where most guys are spraying on far too much of it thinking they’re still not smelling it much at all (doubtless a high dose of Iso E Super doing its thing again). So: dryer sheets, which while not offensive, is just not a sexy smell, nor even to me particularly fresh, just functional fragrance. And then you amp that up and I’ve had several times dining out where a huge chemical cloud of Sauvage from a fellow a table or two over distracted me the whole time.
(By the way, a European friend told me dryer sheets are far more common here in the States than in Europe, which might explain why Demachy was willing to go with this accord and not worry about the associations. Not everyone will have that particular association, and as I spend more time with the fragrance, my own link to toiletries is lessening. That’s just how olfaction tends to go.)
The recent chatter about Sauvage Parfum, plus love-to-hate-it mention of the EDT by a fragrance YouTuber I like, piqued my curiosity in a fiendishly self-destructive way, and I dug out my old sample of Sauvage from 2015, grabbed a tester strip, and sprayed. Hoo boy.
But, while I smelled exactly the lavender-Ambroxan puff that put me off, something else pulled me in. The opening: hey, that’s good! I never had a problem with that aspect, and it was nice to experience it again. It’s certainly in the same realm as Bleu de Chanel and Aventus, big pop hits that I’m happy to just kick back and enjoy without being pretentious about it (I still have my Quorum, Leather Oud, and Mitsouko as close friends). And yet there was something weird just behind all the sweet fruity freshness. Something peppery and sweaty, slightly nauseating, but intriguing if only because I suddenly wanted to crack the code with this one: both why it keeps selling so well and what Demachy was on about. The guy was under a specific commercial brief, no doubt, but he’s also no amateur and no fool. I suspected something more interesting at work, so I spent more time with Sauvage over the next few days, finally daring to wear it on skin, tentatively, and then for a full day. The stuff intimidated me.
I know, that will sound hilarious to some of you, especially those who love this one as a “freshie,” but to me the heart of Sauvage, what it really has to say, is in that big crazy dry down. The fruity-fresh opening doesn’t even last all that long anyway. And that dry down, as I said above, is really weird. To me, it’s not obvious, or generic, or a commercial concession. That comes in the top notes. In the dry down we have this scratchy, peppery, sweaty, almost sour effect, plus that airy effusive Ambroxan (bolstered by Iso E). If Sauvage were just an easy commercial play it wouldn’t be as divisive as it is. This one causes love or revulsion (not just love and indifference). It also, based on what I’ve seen in threads here, causes a lot of “first I hated it then I loved it then I hated it now I love it” reactions, or “I honestly don’t know what I’m going to think each time I wear it” reactions. And yes, that makes sense, because I really think what’s being proposed with this one is more challenging than “must be a huge commercial success” would suggest.
First, even before I started to come around to respecting Sauvage, I began to see that it was, structurally speaking, a sound composition. It has the light-dark contrast most good or great fragrances have: the opening freshness vs. the dark sweaty base. More notably, it has a coherent through-line via pepper: from the peppery aspect of bergamot at the start, to szechuan pepper and elemi in the middle, to the peppery-scratchy texture of the woody-amber in the base (I’ve seen “tobacco” mentioned as a note and indeed the base has a rough tobacco-like texture). Sauvage unfolds in two main stages, and does so coherently.
But what really made this weird hit suddenly comprehensible to me was seeing a few folks here mention a cactus leaf or cactus juice note in the middle and dry down. And you know what? That entirely makes sense, and while I’d like to sniff some cactus juice again to compare, this is what explained the whole weird ambience of the Sauvage signature to me. All the marketing for this stuff, across its three iterations, are about the American West: open plains, dust and sun-scorched rocks, driftwood and cacti. A sweaty Johnny Depp. The fractionated patchouli, vetiver, and “tobacco” in the base create a distinct man-sweat effect, with the cactus-like note adding to both that and an evocation of the western American desert. The Ambroxan does indeed create a big (okay: massive) arid cloud of “atmosphere,” and it’s not a stretch to think “big sky,” not to mention the sun-baked wood element of the chemical. As soon as I saw the signature Sauvage base in these terms, it made sense. I now think Dior are being quite direct in their marketing for Sauvage; I strongly suspect the brief was to create the scent of a slightly brutish man in the American west, in the dusty desert. And then clobber on top of that a big fresh opening and blue packaging hue to compete directly with Bleu de Chanel.
By the way, though I realize they’re very different scents, Tauer’s L’Air du Desert Marocain also uses a big woody-amber aroma chemical to create a dusty, arid desert effect, come to think of it.
Big, slightly brutish, aggressive, desert vistas, heat, cacti, driftwood, sweat: it’s all there. It’s what’s listed on the tin, as much as the Bleu concessions. I find it evocative and often, still, sort of off-putting, but when worn lightly, it's compelling, in the same bitter man-heat way evoked by classics like Quorum or Kouros or Aramis or Leather Oud. Each of those is divisive, too, in its way. I think Sauvage is actually a calculatedly brutal (ahem: wild) composition, and decidedly weird. But because it starts with such a “hey, like me!” commercially fresh opening, plus slick blue-juice packaging, we all go in expecting (and briefly getting) something easy, generic, expected, and safe. Sauvage starts there, yes, but what it really has to say is more intelligent, I think. My sense is Demachy was working with BOTH the desert concept AND the “give Chanel Blue a run for its money” mandate, and this was the result. Our own expectations, for either a new entry in a classic-fragrance style (why isn’t this Eau Sauvage?!) or just abject commercial selling out (BdC/Fierce/Aventus clone!), distract us from taking Sauvage on its own terms. Love it or hate it, if it were merely just generic and boring, more of us would be indifferent. But Sauvage is a bigger provocation than that, and while I’m still not at all sure it’s “me,” I’m glad I’ve come around to respecting this stuff. At the very least, I find it truly fascinating.
