There is a small sub-category of niche perfumery which encompasses the ability to capture a scent from real life which might be unpleasant or harsh. These are hard perfumes to review because while I admire the technical effort and skill required to create the smell I struggle with seeing it as something I want to wear. The very few brands, which almost defiantly stride into this area; ask of a perfume lover to consider if something sort of difficult can eventually be something you would still find time to wear. One of those brands is Agonist and its latest release Nordic Noir fits into this category.
Christine and Niclas Lydeen
I was first introduced to Nordic Noir at Pitti Fragranze in Florence last September. One half of the creative team behind Agonist, Niclas Lydeen, was there to tell me about it. He wanted Nordic Noir to represent that biting cold breath of air taken in extreme cold. The one where the frigid air interacts with the warm skin in your sinus passages. It stings a little. It can cause an uncomfortable pressure. It also smells incredibly clean. Not sterile; frostily clean. Mr. Lydeen and his wife Christine Lydeen again collaborated with perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin as they have for all of the eleven Agonist releases so far. M. Pellegrin gets this exactly right with it all being so true to life that I found it tripped over into unpleasant for me at first blush.
I left Florence with a sample and it has taken a few months for it to finally hit the shelves. That time allowed me to approach it in a much more cautious manner than most perfumes get from me. I loved the realism but wearing it for a couple of days? That would take some working up to. In the end I am happy I did wear it, funnily enough on one of the coldest days of the year with a blizzard to match and on a temperate winter day.
Fabrice Pellegrin
M. Pellegrin chooses a very interesting pair of notes to open Nordic Noir; cardamom and rosemary. There has been a lot of the greener version of cardamom in use lately. M. Pellegrin returns to the less green version which has a chilly demeanor to it. The rosemary adds back the green with an herbal aspect. The bite of the ice comes courtesy of spearmint, ginger, and heliotrope. M. Pellegrin pushes the concentration of all three. They aren’t present in overdose but they surely are here to make an impression. Spearmint and ginger form the stinging core of which the heliotrope ups the intensity. It is this accord which is the one I have to almost steel myself for. Orris comes along to add a rooty earthy quality of frozen tundra. When I first tried this the mint was too much and the ginger just annoyed me. After some time, I grew to enjoy the stiff breeze they represent here. The blond Nordic woods are represented by a very strong cedar made slightly sweet by vanilla.
Nordic Noir has 12-14 hour longevity and average sillage.
Like almost everything which carries the Agonist name Nordic Noir is not a perfume for the faint hearted. The Lydeens have shown a real commitment to their brand aesthetic and it not being for everyone. What Agonist has come to represent is it is a brand which will give the person who tries them something unique. Nordic Noir does this with the icy blast of a Nordic snow field.
Disclosure: This review was based on a sample from Intertrade Europe.
-Mark Behnke
