Comme des Garçons PARFUMS Series 6 Synthetic: Tar – smells familiar and yet new and exciting

Photo: perfumeniche

I was talking to someone about perfume the other day, and when I mentioned a new release, that caught my interest. She said she wouldn’t buy it because it had synthetics in it. Her reaction caught me by surprise because the fact is, most perfumes today have synthetics in them. Take the venerable Jicky, for example. It had three synthetics in its formula when it was launched in 1889. So maybe it’s time to get in touch with our inner synthetic with Comme des Garçons Series 6 Synthetic: Tar.

Comme des Garçons, the Paris-based Japanese fashion brand launched in 1969 by Rei Kawakubo, is known for its avant-garde designs, labelled 'anti-fashion.' And the fragrances they produce reflect this ethos.

In 2004, they really thought outside the perfume box when they launched Comme des Garçons PARFUMS Series 6 Synthetic. The series has five scents: Tar, Garage, Dry Clean, Skai, and Soda, and each one is inspired by the smells of life in the city.

The first time I came across Tar was in a men’s clothing shop in downtown Toronto. It was sitting on the counter near the cashier, and I picked it up as I was being cashed out. It was packaged in a heavy black plastic bag in a plastic bottle. Synthetics in synthetics, get it? Bit gimmicky, I thought dismissively as I spritzed it on the inside of my arm. My flippancy disappeared the moment it settled on my warm skin, and a note of plastic followed by a note of petroleum triggered a long-forgotten childhood memory.

A family road trip to visit my uncle and his family in Windsor. The six of us are packed into our big boat of car. There are sandwiches and drinks for a picnic along the way, the radio is blasting, and all the windows are rolled down to give us some relief from the stifling summer heat. We drive through the city and stop for gas at the last station before the on-ramp to the highway. Dad guns it, and we kids all cheer. The adventure has begun. We calm down and lean into the drive. My head tilts back. Utility poles fly by as the smell of the hot asphalt highway drifts into the car and melds with the fumes from the gas pump.

 As we get to the outskirts of the city, we drive through a construction site. Lingering gas fumes from dump trucks and earthmovers, plastic debris on the ground, new blacktop over freshly turned earth, cigarette butts and plants along the side of the road – no people, pets or food. It smells familiar yet new and exciting. Isn't that what Comme des Garçons is really all about?

While Tar is built around ‘chemical’ smells, notes of fresh, citrusy bergamot and vibrant, spice-tinged laurel temper them. They give depth and dimension to Tar by adding organic notes that take the edge off the ‘industrial’ chemical notes so that Tar never smells acrid. Sandalwood at the base is creamy, woody, and warm. It offsets the cool aspect that chemical smells can have and makes Tar more accessible and wearable than it sounds.

Tar is the smell of gas fumes at the pump, the chemical smell just before a plane takes off, and the smell of new rubber tires, and I find it exciting to wear.

Check out Comme des Garçons PARFUMS Series 6 Synthetic: Tar in our Shop.