Zarkoperfume - Three picks

A relatively new niche house base in Denmark, three picks from their line.

Inception

Sinking again in the "minimal-futuristic-industrial" niche cliché. Inception is, basically, a bomb of cold metal, pollution gas, calone, carbon and aldehydes, with a subtle silky breeze of flowers, sheer and transparent like frozen among this industrial-azure noise; sour and venom green notes encrusted in the aldehydes, and a generic woody base. That's it, the olfactory depiction of any hipster "post-industrial" ambiance - with water (think of some Hashima island). The evolution is close to zero, the persistence - given it's all so dramatically synthetic - is deadly everlasting. Nothing new in the segment, but if you're into that...

5/10

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Oud'ish

The name is a bit deceptive (but I guess it's intended and ironical), as Oud'ish is basically an ambery scent with sweet, dusty notes of olibanum blended with a sort of abstract, thin, soft and sheer oud note, providing a subtle feel of dry, smoky, brownish and rubbery woodiness. Which is nice, by the way, as it smells like a sort of "empty" devoided note of oud, and that seems a clever idea to me – also, and most important, cleverly executed. In a way, this is not far from the drydown of early M7, less sweet and more green, also thanks to its green tea note. Moreover it has a bolder and cold "futuristic" feel all over, provided by a thin calone note (again...), which fluctuates over this warm, brown blend like an icy, sheer, industrial azure breeze. The contrast is indeed nice, you wouldn't say that (well, I did not surely), but it works somehow. The most interesting and compelling among the three I've tested from this house.

7/10

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e'L

E'L is another calonic scent which smells basically like Inception from this same house, just a bit toned down, softer, slightly gentler, with an abstract floral-woody breeze. Less aggressive and metallic than the other one, but we're close to it. I appreciate the attempt to offer another ozonic scent, in 2014, without pushing on the "sea-iodine-fresh" communication marketing, but trying to keep it more decontextualised and abstract; yet the smell is always the same – I mean, calone is calone, that bold, cold, metallic stuff, whatever way you try to place it. Uninteresting for me, but if you're into the genre...

5,5/10