Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex

How in the world did I miss Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex?  I love Bvlgari Black, adore Le Labo Patchouli 24, still mourn for Annick Goutal Eau de Fier.  Smoking huffing creosote perfumes are everything.  Why?  Because after that crazy open where you think, I smell like turpentine and tar! it softens down and turns into the most cuddly turpentine and tar you can imagine.

I blame the creosote posts in my farming childhood. I loooooved the smell of creosote-coated wood, makes my eyes roll back in my head.  Hard to find now, I think they banned them decades ago.

Notes of bergamot, black pepper, fir, laurel leaf, neroli, Nutmeg, champaca, geranium, jasmine, osmanthus, rose, ylang, resins, cade, cedar, civet*, Frankincense, leather*, patchouli, sandalwood and vanille.

Antonio Gardoni did this in 2018 (?!?! where have I been?), and I’m a big fan of his art.  The open is just chugging fierceness. It was intended to evoke a hot, dense, Cretaceous  jungle.  Not an expert on actual Cretaceous-era jungles, but this does smell greenly fetid, under laid with big old white indolic flowers, dinosaur hide covered in dried and fresh blood,, some Bronto flesh and Tiger Balm still hanging from its jaws.

I found this review of Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex on Basenotes:

“To get away, The Rock swerves and leaps out the car, doing an amazing roll on the sidewalk swiveling around and shooting his Uzi at the semi. The brand new Lincoln Town Car, however, is not so lucky, and careens over the sidewalk through the window of a flower shop, killing the proprietor and sending flowers everywhere. The bad guys, not being very smart, swerve to follow it and crash into it from behind, and the bullets flying from The Rock’s Uzi hit their gas tank and blow them up in a grand fireball. The local fire department never show up because they’re still busy dealing with the destruction in another part of town caused by the rest of the cast. An hour later the fires have pretty much gone out on their own, thankfully, and the quiet street is littered with hot metal, diesel fuel, and the contents of the flower shop, all permeated by the smoke.

Antonio Gardoni wanders through, and thinks, “good god, I should bottle this.”

Kafkaesque has a great and much, much longer review of Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex with the changes in the drydown.

Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex is not going to be for everyone.  Well, maybe not for a lot of people, but it absolutely hits on conjuring up what they intended.  It last forever, probably about as long as the Cretaceous period.  The secret, though, is that if you just wait, there is this amazing very comforting fragrance a couple of hours in, and the sillage on it is breathtaking – gorgeous smoking incense and tar early on, and just cuddly spiced hot tea after.  It is worth waiting for, even if you don’t love the open.

And you want to know what is really great? Combine Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex with Zoologist Bee.  More on that later.  Miss March hated Zoologist Bee, and I love it, and I’ll tell you why next week.  Dinosaurs and Bees together? Who knew?

Final Grade – A+, but with the caveat that it is an acquired taste that not just a few refuse to acquire.

So do you love these smoky scents or are you on the Nonoooothanks list?

  • Neva says:

    I think, I’m in the “no, thanks” camp having in mind Hiram Green’s Hyde. Can you compare T-Rex with it?

  • rosarita says:

    I sample everything Zoologist releases but this one triggered a gag reflex and I have no desire to repeat it.

  • Musette says:

    Omgosh! That’s my Uncle Leonard up there! (waves wildly… with my Tyrannosaur-adjacent arms)…. that being said, this sounds much like something I would love to smell – but not to wear. Then again… (I would stroke my chin in contemplation but…. y’know… the arms 😉

    xoxoxo

  • March says:

    LOL well more for you! Can’t wait to hear more next week!

  • Dina C. says:

    Very entertaining review, Patty. I don’t think I could wear it, but I love love reading about it! 😀

  • HeidiC says:

    This one is just STONKING. I got a sample when it came out (I always get a new Zoologist sample) — on the first whiff, I laughed. But then it just got bigger and bigger and more stonking until I was like “good god, get this off my arm!” but no amount of scrubbing would scour it off! But a good friend said it reminded her of a favorite headshop in Colorado, so I was happy to pass it along. Zoologist scents are rarely boring!

    I’m not usually into big-time smoke — I like birch-tar leather scents, or smoke-adjacent scents like Lampblack — but this was a bit much!

    • Patty says:

      I mean, that makes sense, and I did forget to mention that it lasts like plutonium But like lasagna, it is BETTER the second day. 🙂

  • Filomena says:

    T-Rex is my favorite Zoologist fragrance.

    • Patty says:

      My kindred spirit. I think it is amazing, and I’m just mad that I missed it when I was moving and doing other stuff besides sniffing perfume.