Tango
Aftelier

Can a leather skin be cured by the sea? Because that’s what Tango smells like to me, at first. There’s a mentholated, charred smell, like sweet black rubber mixed with the salty grime of marine silt, smoke, rocks, and sun-baked minerals. Although I know that there isn’t any ambergris in Tango, it suggests itself as thus to my mind through Mandy’s use of choya nakh, a destructive distillation of sea shells typically used to give traditional Indian attars a smoky, leathery undertone.

Someone on the sample pass I hosted made laugh with his experience with Tango in a Lyft ride to work: “I’m pretty sure the fellow passengers must have thought I lived with a ferret.” Yes, Tango is quite gamey and grimy, at least to start with. But there is also a light-strobing note in Tango that smells like one of those fizzy, orange-flavored vitamin tablets dropped into a glass of water after a heavy night out; sugary, viciously upbeat, and with a lime-carnation effervescence that recalls Coca Cola from Mexico. The fizzing orange and champaca florals sift through the oud-like funk, separating it out into bright, shifting layers. Sometimes, I visualize Tango as a coat that Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite might have worn in Groove is in the Heart – a thin citroline pleather in bright orange, lined with brown bear fur.

The contrast between the gamey, tarpaulin darkness of the seashell-cured leather and the candied, joyful buzz of the citrus is truly what makes this perfume sing, and yes, transcend its own raw materials. I don’t find myself, for example, picking over the debris of champaca, or ginger, or choya nakh in my mind when I wear it; I’m just thinking that it’s such an unusual and quixotic perfume. That feeling is what elevates Tango to art, rather than just a smell, or a loose grouping together of essential oils and absolutes. Vivid images jump into my brain when I wear it, a synergistic and synesthesiastic experience: sunshine on petrol, milk on dirt, orange fireworks across a dark, starless sky.

In the opening, I get the fizzy-powdery "Refreshers" effect mentioned elsewhere, swiftly followed by the much-discussed "toasted seashells" note. This comes across as both animalic & strangely aquatic, a little like ambergris. The effect is like the contents of one of those orange PVC bags we used to hold our swimming kit at school in the late seventies/early eighties, with a stash of sweeties stuffed inside. It's an odd combination, not actually offensive, but certainly different to anything else I've smelled. Fifteen minutes in, the animalic note fades, & a mildly spiced, sweet tobacco takes its place. At this stage I begin to enjoy it, but I don't get the orange or floral notes here. Two hours in, it morphs into the same sugar-dusted cinnamon pastry accord that I noted in Amber Tapestry. It all lasts a good seven hours before fading.
The reviews for this one are all over the place; it seems to smell different to each person who smells it. It's not one I can imagine wanting to wear, but it's definitely one to sniff if you're feeling jaded about sampling, or feeling like everything smells the same these days. Unfortunately I believe it's been discontinued...

This starts with an impressive and agreeable animalic smell, which I wish lasted longer. It transitions into something that smells edible, tasty, and a little sweet.

Genre: Leather

Tango opens up smoky and spicy, with hints of both coffee and tobacco, (neither listed,) soon joined by a note that suggests burnt sugar. The smoke billows in great clouds, joined by a rather dirty, raw leather that throws the whole composition into cowboy boot territory.

As the scent develops the smoke comes even further forward, and Tango starts smelling like a barbecue. By this point the sweet notes from the opening are submerged, and in their place come astringent herbs and conifers, with something like the camphoraceous chill of wintergreen (?!) behind the smoke. This phase in Tango's evolution reminds me very much of Tauer's Lonestar Memories, though Tango is cooler, more resinous, and quite a bit less dry.

It's quite some time before the floral notes emerge, and when they do they're sweet, potent, and exotic. I soon recognize the champaca flower from Ayala Sender's wonderful Rebellius, with its fleshy, sweet-smoky aura, and it's this, along with leather and spices, that forms the heart of Tango. The whole effect is indeed strangely Latin in its steamy, smoky extravagance.

The drydown adds vanilla to the persistent sweet florals, with the smoky elements pulsating in the background. It's a sultry base with a nocturnal character that suggests a dark club in a seedy tropical port. If you love Habanita, Havana, or Giacobetti's Dzing!, you're liable to enjoy Tango. It's a potent brew with plenty of depth and development, and if it's not quite as deft as its champaca cousin Rebellius, it still holds my attention.

Every once in a while, I come across a perfume in my sampling that simply smells like nothing else I've ever smelled. In a world where designers do nothing but copy each other and most niche brands get by simply reinterpreting the same few basic formulas, that's saying a LOT. Thank goodness for true niche perfumers and perfumes like Tango.

In short, it's based on smoked seashells. Not some chemical that people have decided smells "marine", but honest-to-goodness essence somehow distilled from actual smoked seashells. Take a moment and let that sink in...

So what does it smell like? It's a burnt mineral smell, reminiscent of sweet smoking resins, but also like a rock that's been sitting in an aquarium, soaking up the smell of brine which has, in turn, soaked up the smell of fish and seaweed and algae. Like concrete infused with the smell of a store full of aquariums on which someone has burned something.

This is mixed with orange on the top (though it mostly acts as a sweetener - I would never have figured out orange without reading the notes), as well as some smoky pine. Officially, this is mostly sold as a champaca scent, but I can't smell any peachy flowers or figure out how they contribute to the watery fishy mineral smell, so curious champaca lovers may be in for quite a surprise.

An hour or so in, a chickory-ish coffee note slips in, a strange partner to the sweet mineral smell that somehow manages to work.

In a world of marshmallow fluff perfumes and $250 niche scents that all regurgitate the same formulas, I love that Tango exists. That being said, it's not a comfortable perfume. Any perfume that smells vaguely fishy is never going to appeal to very many people, myself included, as an everyday scent. That being said, if you're on the verge of burning out on sampling perfumes, do yourself a favor and sniff Tango, just for the jolt of something truly different.

This is a review in Trevért which I don't find in the directory.When the news came out about the new Trevért by Aftelier I was impressed by the description and that magical green colour of the liquid. I was sure that I would like it. I was one of the lucky ones to get a small sample. I tried the fragrance both at the colder North and the warmer South of Europe. I insisted after my first unsuccessful trial. I finished the sample and I can sincerely say that Trevért is not the kind of green perfume that agrees with my tastes. It is too purely green in a simplistic way that lacks in depth and character. It is coniferous alright; however, I didn't like having the aura of a pine tree as such. I would have rather liked if some other green notes were added to lift up the whole composition. As I said it is a matter of taste; Trevért is interesting and some will certainly find it captivating. I didn't like to wear it but I still liked to look at the deep green liquid!