Cacao Porcelana
Atelier Materi (2019)

Cacao Porcelana is a pleasant milk chocolate tonkabacco, not overly sweet, with good longevity and minimal projection. It’s a cozy scent that would be easier to recommend at a more accessible price point. Good of its type, though, so well worth checking out if cocoa powder is your thing.

Last fall, I bought a discovery set of Atelier Materi scents, for the very reasonable price of 18 Euro. I saw their striking presentation, in beautiful cobalt bottles with what appear to be concrete or stone caps, and that was enough to get my attention. Now that I have worked my way through them, I have found two that I feel excited enough about to review. One is Cuir d'Iris, and the other is Cacao Porcelana. They both suit my personal style–iris and leather, and interesting gourmand–more than the others I tried, primarily because I find most of their scents too heavily reliant on woody amber base ingredients. Cacao Porcelana uses some woody amber, but the perfume has enough other interesting qualities, that I think it is worth a positive review.

Atelier Materi's house copy says that each of their perfumes explores a single material drawn from nature, not unusual marketing talk in the modern perfume world, but I think it is accurate, in that said single materials are expensive captives that smell like streamlined renditions of their natural referents. The house keeps their nomenclature simple, they don't indulge in much poetry, and their linguistic simplicity suits the perfumes' olfactory style. They are not complicated, kitchen-sink compositions, and I agree with Fragrantica's Sergey Borisov, that house perfumer Marie Hugentobler's work is a lot like some things Jean-Claude Ellena did at Hermès, particularly the Hermessences, which share their focus on a single material or accord, economy of style, and use of a limited palette of modern ingredients, rather than opulent naturals, which is why AM's perfumes. probably, have a relatively heavy hand with woody ambers, rather than unruly patchoulis or funky resins. I think these base ingredients suit some accords more than others, I don't like them with citruses or most florals, but they blend well with Cacao Porcelana's interesting concept of cold, rather than cozy and warm, gourmand chocolate.

The perfume doesn't smell like raw cacao or cocoa powder, so much as a near desiccated milk chocolate, and its blend of milky and lactonic, with stony and cool, textures is both intellectually interesting, and attractive smelling. This is not a chocolate that loves you up, wraps you in a cozy blanket, and makes you want to gnaw your arm. The actual chocolate accord reminds me of Pierre Guillaume's Musc Maori, but Musc Maori is like a milkshake with a side of melted butter, a hyper-real gourmand pastry kitchen on steroids. Cacao Porcelana smells like that same milk chocolate, worked into a piece of satiny stoneware, neither rough nor glossy, an elegant, and original, use of an accord that sometimes tries too hard to make you love it. It does not change over time so much as seem to sink into itself, the cool exterior turning to an only slightly darker tone, from chilly Cadbury's Extra Milk to cold chocolate ganache. I think this is why I can tolerate its woody amber base, because that same ingredient is jarring and dissonant in another chocolate perfume that I want to like, but just can't, 4160 Tuesdays' Silk. Lace, and Chocolate (although, Valentine's Day is coming around again, and I will give it my traditional annual try, because I adore Sarah McCartney so damned much, and I have a dogged, Quixotic desire to find it gift packed with lingerie, come every February, because I am a cheeseball romantic, and so is my boyfriend), a more extroverted chocolate gourmand that would work much better, with a proper resiny amber base, rather than its metallic faux ambergris.

Atelier Materi's complicated note pyramid doesn't really scan, to my nose. I can't find the curried scent of immortelle, or dried dates of davana, or anything I recognize as jasmine. This comes back to the point I made at the beginning of this review. I think these perfumes are constructed from the kind of lab grown or manipulated materials that take tiny slivers from each of these natural (and I hate this word) “notes,” so that it is, possibly, enhancing its main chocolate accord, with pinpoints of each, such as the maple aroma of immortelle, minus its scrubby and wild herbal qualities, the aromatic fruitiness of davana, minus its raisiny richness, and, perhaps something spicy from “Indian,” which I assume to be Sambac, jasmine. I admire the level of detail the note pyramid provides, because these days, more often than not, we are given generic three-word descriptions like “florals,
amber, and musk,” and, while I understand that these things are, often as not, more marketing blather, than actual descriptions of a perfume's profile, I also appreciate the opportunity and intellectual challenge of decoding how a modern IFRA-compliant perfume this delicate and sophisticated, is constructed, and I appreciate the pyramid's precision, which fits with this house's immaculate image.

Minimalist contemporary perfumery can be brutally dull in its straightforwardness, as if 2021 consumers lack the imagination to find pleasure in something that is not obviously and completely self-explanatory, even if the explanation, like “White Tea” (and, this is a random example, I don't mean to beat up on it in particular, but it was the first thing that came to mind) is so fanciful that it's, basically, a lie. But there is something serene about Cacao Porcelana, that I keep coming back to. Perhaps I just want a chocolate perfume that I can comfortably wear in summer, or perhaps this perfume has foxed this wearer of shamelessly excessive, sticky, resin-powered gourmands into considering something more tasteful that still fits within the same family. It would be nice to have something like this in my collection, for times when I want something contemplative, well-mannered, and softly-spoken, but not in the mood for Iris Prima or Tam Dao. The retail price (220 Euros, whatever that translates into dollars) is terrifying for what it is, so I will be looking for it on the decant sites and gray markets, and hoping it finds its way there.

Cacao Porcelana has projection that I can charitably, but also honestly, describe as intimate. It is more than a skin scent, but it takes several sprays to make it detectable past my fingertips, at which point its woody amber threatens to overshadow the perfume's delicate charm. It performs much like its relatives in the Hermessence line, with maybe six or seven hours of detectable wear, and longer on fabric. I like it, it's interesting, and it's obviously a quality perfume, and very easy to wear, with a pleasing versatility and elegance. I have paid a lot more than its retail cost, for some perfumes in my collection, but they are either rare, vintage, stunners, Chanel, or all four, and its price is the one serious complaint I have with this otherwise very nice perfume. I am edging towards four stars but sticking to three, and perhaps considering adding a half. The discovery set is worth exploring, especially if you like Ellena's Hermessence series. A well groomed, French manicured thumbs up.

February 28, 2023
Edit: Damn it, I can't stop thinking about this perfume, so I'm not sure whether to toss out the rating system in this case, or reconsider how the I use it. It has been a while since I've written a review, and I always left at least an extra star for "I just like it and I can't explain why," so I think this deserves at least four stars, contingent on a refresher revisit. I'd love to see the packaging in real life . . . . but those prices tho--