Summer Rerun: Andy Tauer Hyacinth and a Mechanic

Well, this one is actually kind of a rerun of a rerun of a rerun, since it dates back so long.

But it starts with ennui.

I do have things sitting on my desk that I should be looking at. Interesting things. Good things. But for some reason I just wasn’t feeling like it. Over the weekend Cinnamon mentioned Lostmarch Lann’Ael , which is something that I love and I know have a bottle of somewhere in the mess the closet where I keep the scents are. (Cinnamon, you can order this from Lostmarch- they don’t ship to the US, sadly.) I decided to go and take a gander in there and quickly gave up, knowing that I am just going to have to take a morning and sort it out- remove the bottles of mouthwash and bars of soap and back-up Erno Laszlo and put some semblance of order in there. In the meantime however I was just happened to grab bottle of Tauer’s Hyacinth and a Mechanic. H&aM started off as an experiment: a “Bottle Journey” where it was sent to person to person to try (and sometimes write about) and then to be sent on. The dear and dearly missed Gaia, The Non Blonde sent it to me, and after a goodly sniff (and I will admit, a small decant) I sent it to someone else, and at one point it was lost to the wilds on the post. I wrote about it, twice even, once about the bottle journey on PST and once about meeting Mr Tauer here:

Andy and I

“So, anyway, a couple of weeks ago Andy Tauer was in LA at ScentBar to premiere his Hyacinth and a Mechanic. HaaM was an experiment originally, starting with a ‘bottle journey’ where one would try and test then ship it on down the line to the next person. This was back in 2007 and at the time on PST I wrote:

‘I find the opening intensely green. Really intensely green. The truculently green hyacinth is paired with lily of the valley and a bare whiff of cold camphor to make a lush but identifiable Tauer scent. Like his Reverie au Jardin, which challenges how you think lavender smells, the tart, green whiteness of the opening is light-years away from what you think that a hyacinth should smell like, but somehow seems perfectly right, like a lightbulb over your head. “Oh yeah! That’s hyacinth!”

‘Then the mechanic pops up. He starts off smelling oily, a bit like the note in SMN Nostalgia, that leather and oily old-car smell that I loved in that scent but wished lasted longer. It then gets stronger, almost Kolnisch Juchten- like in its fatted roundness. This mechanic might be bringing a bouquet, but he also is bringing a sandwich. There isn’t a lot of development in this, it dances around from cool whiteness and fatted leather darkness. Do I have to tell you that I am in thrall?’

“I am happy to state that nearly 10 years later I am still in thrall. It’s everything I remember and I am thrilled that I was able to score a bottle, especially since it was a “come to the store and get it only during the time I am here” kind of deal. So I actually popped for a bottle despite telling myself I have quite enough scents for someone who is forbidden to wear them anywhere near work. Of course it is hardly a hardship to spend some time with Andy- he is one of the nicest people you could ever meet. Now all we have to do is mercilessly bug him to put this one into wider release..

Gotta organize this..

In any case, after all this, how is it? Still weird. Deliciously so. That Tom of Finland mechanic is still there, holding a bouquet is his mitts and with whom you are going to get seriously Lady Chatterley. And now for the sentence from that review that is the worst:

“$89 for 100ML, available only at the point of sale at the time of the event. I purchased my bottle at ScentBar.”

This part is probably the most annoying, because it’s doing something I kind of hate: going “nanny nanny boo-boo! I have it and you can’t get it!” but maybe it will convince Mr. Tauer to rerelease it?