The Cologne That Smells Like Bon Iver
Bon Iver is as synonymous with autumn as hot apple cider. And when the Christmas season is over, Justin Vernon’s music works beautifully as the soundtrack to rest of the cold and dreary winter (it’s probably what the Celestial Sleepytime bear is dozing off to on his radio).
Whether you’re looking for a new cologne or trying to match your scent to the season, we stumbled across Memoire Archives’ Cabin Retreat. The brand seeks to “capture the essence of time” and have you “embark into [the] sensory explorations of places and emotions,” and we’ve gotta say it achieved it since our office playing “Holocene” for the hundredth time.
Cabin Retreat falls under a fougere (French for “fern”) fresh fragrance. Fougere is one of the main olfactive families of perfumes and is a popular choice for masculine fragances; their compositions include notes of lavender, geranium, moss, and woods making them fresh and clean, yet warm and woody.
We loved this fragrance for not smelling like a typical men’s cologne, i.e. musky. In fact, it was its atypicality that made it stand out for us: its main notes are cedarwood, oakmoss, and sandwalwood. Initially the oakmoss is present, smelling earthy and tempering the cedarwood. As the day goes on, the cedarwood becomes more apparent as does the sandalwood, but both together prevent the latter from smelling too sweet. This layered complexity where each note balances the other creates for that calm, fresh take on ‘woody’ rather than it feeling warm, spicy, and sweet as colognes in this space usually can. Wanting to smell ‘woodsy’
is such a common trope in mens’ fragrances - it’s difficult to throw a rock and not hit a guy who doesn’t want to smell like he’s just hiked the Pacific Northwest in his Arc’Teryx and Chacos. It’s like the back wall of plaid shirts at J. Crew - reliable and all around well-liked! This take however is gentle but nonetheless still seductive.
We enthusiastically support this fragrance and hope the brand continues to push ahead with new ones.
