L'Anarchiste
Caron (2000)

L'Anarchiste! How curious this concoction really is, as it opens the mint that stands out in a way seldom encountered in fragrances of any kind. At first, the brain thinks, 'this seems out of place,' but after just a bit of time, it starts to make more sense, especially as a black-tea-leaves-in-a-tin note surfaces. This is where the magic of this peculiar scent begins...

As the minty freshness meets high tea settles, the orange flower is actually more noticeable, somehow further enhancing the tea effect, but the mint becomes more subtle, with its more herbal shades remaining. There is also a lavender (not listed in the note pyramid) that seems to complement this. A warming cinnamon also fades in, ushering the woods that start to become apparent in the base.

The drydown is a pleasantly musky and woody, and far more conventional, but still quite nice. Interestingly, its reminds me of the drydown found in Bogart Witness, vague apple-pie like, due in part to the cinnamon in both, I'm sure.

8/10

This is funky. We see L Anarchiste's notes and we are looking forward to trying it.. Mint has a fresh and stylish scent in itself. Cinnamon is a pleasant and ever-attractive aroma. What could be better than their combination. But in this fragrance, I don't know what has been done to them that they've become such a horrible smell; These notes seem to have been vomited here. Empty of freshness and taste. Considering the smell it gives, I think a suitable name has been chosen for it.

A complex musky/aromatic/boisé fragrance combining a sort of initial old-school radiant neroli-centered spicy (mostly cinnamon)/waxy-nectarinic/aldehydic/floral accord with a futuristic darker minty-metallic vaguely surgical aura (the central part of the trip) sliding down towards a muskier/woodsier accord quite musky and drier (with a sheer sandalwood-presence). Fresh, apothecarian and vaguely dandish/exotic L'Anarchiste strikes for audacity and peculiarity. Points of olfactive connections with Ck Eternity and Givenchy Insensé but L'Anarchiste tells an its own particular orangy/minty/medicinal story. Dry down pushes up a sort orangy/woodsy vibe with dominant vetiver and hints of suede, powdery tonka and musk. Mint waves throughout around. Perfect for "white-linen" south-american seasons

Smells like rain at first, a 50/50 mix of rain in the city and in a forest.

Then come out fresh cut red wood, pepper, and a recognizable mint - orange blossom - mandarin. A grassy, wet vetiver too.

I also once had a powdery, aldehydic experience in the heart and drydown. Wearing it again now, and this over it's a cedar powerhouse to me.

It's one of the most natural smelling scents I've had so far.

Not bad. Later on it becomes mainly sandalwood-musk-vetiver. Very unique although not my thing.

Caron L'Anarchiste (2000) is the perfect example of what happens when you put an artistically-minded perfumer with zero interest in commercial viability as creative director of a storied perfume house (then) owned by cosmetics conglomerate that didn't really know what to do with it. The results of this esoteric mixture was a masculine fragrance not just out of touch with Caron's legacy, but also completely out of touch with the times; although that's what makes L'Anarchiste so damned glorious. Here is the answer to the "what if" of what happens when you try to take an accord typically associated with mid 20th century men's grooming products and build it up into a full scale eau de toilette fragrance that can last a day. Nobody asked for this, and nobody really knew they wanted this in their lives, but here it is. I suppose the name is apt too, because this stuff is sheer anarchy against mainstream perfume conventions of the day; L'Anarchiste isn't sweet or aquatic, it isn't light or apologetic, and it doesn't feel particularly sensual or club-worthy either, marching straight out of grandpa's medicine chest with fanfare and flags waving. You don't see such dry metallic exercises in mint among men's perfume beyond the 1960's and there's a reason for that, yet here is L'Anarchiste saying "hey now, hey now, the boyfriend's back", but dubbed in French. If you ever wanted a fragrance that screamed apathy for social norms louder than a Dead Kennedys or Bad Religion record, L'Anarchiste is probably going to be your new cuppa.

The opening of L'Anarchiste is a big blast of peppermint, almost at medicinal levels of menthol, with what feels like some camphor too. Anyone who's smelled Avon Windjammer (1968) or the "steel" component of the Avon Structured for Man (1969) vanity set knows what I mean. Bracing, cold, metallic, and masculine is this opening. Richard Fraysse softens this opening just a bit with mandarin and neroli, more so in the black bottle re-issue than in the original copper-color bottles according to the house itself, due to backlash over the original formula's opening; but the citrus and neroli is in both iterations. The heart of lavender, cinnamon and clove does remind me a bit of Le 3ème Homme (1985), Fraysse's previous masculine for Caron with Akiko Kamei, but the resemblance is fleeting once a dry pencil shavings cedar takes over. A sandalwood note (of some fashion), and white musk smooth out the dry down, while vetiver smoke also weaves in to darken the finish. The final aura of L'Anarchiste is cold, metallic, smokey, synthetic, brooding, but also with enough warmth and sweetness to project off skin rather than fade like the old colognes and aftershaves it models. L'Anarchiste is the anti-establisment robotic parody of the square-jawed clean-shaved slicked-hair white male paradigm of 1950's masculinity, or the band Devo in scent form. Wear time is about 6 hours so longevity is a tad sub-par, but you won't want for projection. Best use is basically whenever, because L'Anarchiste is too bizarre for contextual appropriateness. The minty personality also makes L'Anarchiste a poor winter companion, but the other three seasons seem to work well for the stuff.

Estée Lauder tried something like this with Metropolis (1987), and that scent sunk faster than the Titanic, plus sells for stupid money to collectors, so this may be as close as many (including myself) ever get to owning an unnatural toilette-strength mint chypre-type scent that isn't laden with softeners like vanilla or amber to keep it civilized. Unfortunately, L'Anarchiste was a commercial disaster for Caron too (that everyone evidently but Caron saw coming), so the original retail life of L'Anarchiste was brief. Unlike Estée Lauder's Metropolis, Caron put their whole chest into pushing the stuff so a lot of it still exists, then Fraysse somehow got the green light to re-issue L'Anarchiste in the standard Caron bottle with the aforementioned slightly-softened opening. After the shake-up when Cattleya Finance bought Caron from Alès and IFRA cracked down on the house's failure to keep up with regulations, the scent was pulled from their website, and since the Fraysse family was ousted in favor of Jean Jacques as house perfumer, who knows if there will be a round 3 for L'Anarchiste? If so, it will keep on being the black sheep of the men's stable during the Fraysse era at Caron; but L'Anarchiste still has to compete with Caron Yatagan (1976) for most-polarizing masculine fragrance the house has ever made. I like it, even if I'm in the minority here, so test your senses before testing your cash on a bottle. This stuff seems to have dried up in the aftermarket, although prices are not mega-dumb because L'Anarchiste is unpopular among hobbyists, so a sample to sate curiousity may be enough. Thumbs up.

This was synthetic, potpourri, and confusing to the senses. It felt like a sterile office vibe. Didn't work for me