Der Duft Showcase Review – 2020-2022

There’s always room for a new perfume brand, in the same way that there’s always room for a new piece of music, a new book or a new movie. And no matter how many cardboard-cutout scents come my way, I always feel a sense of excitement when an entirely unknown company’s wares slip through my letterbox. I featured one of these, Der Duft (launched in 2020 by Anselm Skogstad) over on YouTube a little while ago. Here’s a link to the video: Der Duft showcase review 2020-2022.

Skogstad is to be complimented for creating a brand that avoids insisting on contrived unifying themes for its scents. In his online blurb, he writes that he merely wants to release well-made perfumes by talented perfumers. How refreshing. Whether he has succeeded is, of course, a more complicated matter. Certainly, the opening stages of some of his fragrances are striking: the powder-geranium of Cinematic (Miguel Matos) is like a plush entranceway to a 1950s fashion boutique, and Privilege (Nathalie Feisthauer) treads a tenuous line between unashamedly synthetic marine notes and whispering florals. But the scents’ drydowns tend to be thin, less satisfying affairs, except, ironically, in the case of Skogstad’s own Monopteros, which starts off as a bit of a mind-boggling mess, but then settles into unexpectedly suave, stretch-your-legs-out-by-the-fire mossy-woodiness. 

By the way, during the broadcast, I didn’t smell Canvas (Freddie Albrighton) and Act (Prin Lomros). I can now report that the former is a sour-faced, green, seaweed-rhubarb-apple spike of anger, whereas the latter is an appealing, if predictable, lime-petitgrain-tobacco sunset haze.

Persolaise

[Der Duft showcase review based on samples provided by the brand in 2022.]

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