More Life: Drakkar Noir by Guy Laroche
The moment of perfume application is a sacred act, and there is no sanctity without submission. When we spray something ephemeral, it situates us in the present, and forces us to acknowledge the friability of the fleeting. Florida Water by Lanman & Kemp is used for cleansing and divination and smells like cinnamon-sprinkled orange blossom; it's a glint of citrus peel and clove that sticks around for 20 minutes, tops. Relique D’Amour by Oriza L. Legrand is more sepulchral: gauzy, cold, and vaporous, it’s as consuming as fog and just as transient. Acceptance that these perfumes don’t last is a memento mori that requires divine resignation.
When we spray something powerful, it’s another form of surrender— a spiritual act of earnest genuflection we perform when we allow ourselves to be possessed by something larger than we are. Evanescent fragrances are a gentle invitation to ground in the present, but bracingly strong perfumes arouse our consciousness like an epinephrine shot to the heart. They demand our unwavering devotion and insist upon our aliveness. Do you want to feel alive? In my opinion there is no perfume more insistent, more spirited, and more epiphanic than Drakkar Noir, with its evangelizing tagline, “Feel the Power.”
To celebrate the release of his mixtape More Life (remember Passionfruit?), Drake anointed his mortal body with a trompe l’oeil-style tattoo of the iconic matte black Drakkar bottle. I mostly hate tattoos and this one also sucks, but the medium is apt: cold and camphorous, it doesn’t just linger, it’s impossible to remove once it touches your skin. More life indeed: Drakkar Noir is the scent of vitality, a perfume as arresting and pungent as ammonia smelling salts.
The aromatic fougère by perfumer Pierre Wargnye was released by French fashion house Guy Laroche in 1982. Wargnye was best known for scents marketed to men, generally with an edge of something sharp and synthetic; imagine in your minds eye how the word “powerhouse” smells and you’ll be approaching his signature. If you look on Fragrantica you’ll see Drakkar Noir described as a quintessential 1980’s perfume, but this scent is eternal in a way that transcends our feeble Gregorian timeline. Drakkar is bone cold, immediate, and antiseptic, like an intravenous drip of Listerine. The opening is a bouquet garni of juniper, rosemary, lavender, and mint, all soaked in astringent citrus. Black pepper isn’t a listed note, but it’s there and it’s strong. Looking for the perfect pine scent? Everyone is. You can officially cross frou frou Fille en Aiguilles by Serge Luttens off your wishlist: if you have a 20 in your pocket and an Amazon prime account you’ll be smelling the forest through the trees in two days with free shipping.
Drakkar Noir is traditional men’s grooming to the core— if you don’t like the smell of Barbasol look elsewhere— but the sacrament of spraying this scent after a shower is a purifying act of aspersion. It dominates your auric field (as it should), with a baritone, swelling projection that promises a return to salvation. It’s perfectly, artfully balanced, and lingers, drying down to leather car interior and warm sandalwood. It pains me to say this, but Drakkar is a perfume that does not benefit from over-application. Layer on too much and it takes on a screechy, throat tingling, “contemporary masculine” synthetic sharpness that belies its messianic elegance.
While applying Drakkar is a near spiritual experience, its lingering sillage is borderline lascivious. The good news is that whether you’re feeling pious or porny, a judicious application of Drakkar will last all day, and leave you smelling like a six foot four Fedex ground delivery driver with nothing in his apartment but a bottle of this and a pull up bar. It’s rapturously unrelenting, intensely stimulating, and throbbingly assertive: now get on your knees and submit.