I’m not sure which stores I’ll be hitting on my next trip to Paris, Jovoy for sure, but I know which hotel I’m staying at because there is only one hotel which has the right smell for me, Hotel Costes. If it was just for the eponymous fragrances and body wash available en suite that would probably be reason enough but the real reason is the shop which not only offers the Costes line but also Olivia Giacobetti’s IUNX line. This is the only place in the world you can get it. For those who don’t know the history, Mme Giacobetti opened a standalone store in Paris, in 2005, with high-tech domes which allowed you to encounter the fragrances in a very unique way.  It turned out to be the wrong time for this kind of endeavor with truly unique fragrances just as people were starting to watch their wallets. When IUNX shut their doors I worried these fragrances would be lost as they are some of Mme Giacobetti’s best creations. It seems Mme Giacobetti also feels these are fragrances worth fighting for as well and in late summer of 2011 she opened a store in the Hotel Costes.

Mme Giacobetti is releasing the fragrances one or two at a time every few months until I hope all twelve are able to be purchased. Currently there are six of the twelve which have been re-issued and L’Eau Argentina is the latest to be resurrected. According to the original descriptions L’Eau Argentina is supposed to be the “fragrance of wise men” I’m not sure I think wise men when I wear L’Eau Argentina although I am thinking men and they might be wise. What comes to mind when I wear L’Eau Argentina is the Gauchos of the Argentina Pampas. These rough riders were the Argentinian equivalent to American cowboys. Mme Giacobetti creates in her sheer style a fragrance to bring alive the grassriders of the Pampas.

L’Eau Argentina opens with a strong mate’ note which contains a strong feel of dried grassiness. The mate’ also has a bit of metallic sharpness to it which many have trouble with when using this note. Mme Giacobetti instead goes with the flow and adds some violets and iris into the mix to harness this character. To keep the wide open spaces feel hemp is used which gives a richer almost narcotic grass quality and it is cut with a note called rice straw. The rice straw is used to tame the hemp and keep it from overwhelming the final phases of L’Eau Argentina.

L’Eau Argentina has average longevity and average sillage.

So many of the great risk takers in perfume released their fragrances at the wrong place and the wrong time. I am extremely happy to see that IUNX is not going quietly into the night but is instead riding headlong into the future like a Gaucho.

Disclosure: This review was based on a decant purchased form Surrender to Chance.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor