Description
Special limited edition fragrance that is sold only when Andy Tauer makes a personal appearance at a store somewhere.
“Perfume is storytelling, says Andy. Perfume comes with a beginning and an end. And in between is the story that unfolds differently for everybody. It is a story that cannot be explained by notes or ingredients. It lives on skin and in the moment. Perfume must be experienced.
Hyacinth and a Mechanic Notes
Hyacinth; spicy green floral beauty. Some roses, maybe. In the air: the toolbox, the woods of workbenches, the sweet oily perfume of a garage and men at work. Leather, oily skin and flowers.” – a note from the brand.
Hyacinth and a Mechanic by Tauerville is a Floral Woody Musk fragrance for women and men. This is a new fragrance. Hyacinthand a Mechanic was launched in 2016. The nose behind this fragrance is Andy Tauer. The fragrance features hyacinth, animal notes, leather and woody notes.
yuri169 – :
Talk about unique! Smells just like the name implies. It smells like a mechanic and fresh hyacinth. I quite liked it! never before have I smelled such a true-to-life mechanic grease type of scent, except for maybe Or Noir, but that is an entirely different perfume. This was my second favorite after When we cuddle….After a while, the greasy mechanic shop scent mellowed out, and the hyacinth came out more. This is certainly worth a try if you are a hyacinth lover and are looking for something other than perfumes that (sometimes) end up smelling austere.
flexx – :
feels very masculine it starts with a rubber , diesel feel and dries down to a spicy woody perfume, it is nice, a bit spice for me but nice.
not on my to buy list, but i liked it
RedBullo – :
My final try from the Tauerville stories collection, Hyacinth and a Mechanic is the only entry that preceded the 2017 re-release for Luckyscent, having been available in 2016.
It’s certainly the most provocative of the trio, as I regarding it as primarily a floral / animalic mix, but the note listening is curiously more benign, a mix of hyacinth, rose, leather, and woods, and based on that list, I’d expect something a little bit smoother, frankly.
But Hyacinth and a Mechanic comes off slightly biting, skanky, and even a bit funky, suggesting that the note list omits some key contributor(s).
Regardless, it performs well, is year-round and unisex friendly also, and remains a decent deal at $89 for 100ml for a well-above-average strength for an EDT.
The animalic vibe makes me not a huge fan of it but I’m nonetheless very intrigued by the blend and partly want to keep smelling it like one nags a toothache—just to see what continues to happen, even if a negative result seems probable.
6 out of 10
leo221161 – :
Okay. Let me say first I worship almost all things Tauer and own most of his collection. I believe he is the best living modern indie perfumer and a master. I love everything except Vetiver Dance and Lonesome Rider. With that said, I love hyacinth and coveted this. When I finally got it on Luckyscent when it was supposed to be a special release and paid $89, all I could think when I applied it is “NO NO NO NO.” It makes me sad that this is a Tauer. I also own all the Tauerville Flashes. Every one. Love them. This is synthetic, fake, plastic and ugly. It is a nasty hyacinth with some oily plastic scent mixed in that gets uglier as it dries down. It turns into a scent gone wrong. There is nothing beautiful or wearable about this. Bad bad Andy is all I can say. When the fame and celebrity gets to where you can sell anything then it’s time to reassess. The ego takes over. Get back to the magic. I know, as an artist myself, that we love to get creative and push boundaries but this is not worth $10 much less $90. I feel that about all the Stories. I bought others, too, to my dismay. I wish I had saved the money and spent $160 on a vintage Caron or something else on my wish list like a Regina Harris or something else I refuse to drop $200 on. Chasing a dream that it’s time to let go of.
tna418intitytek – :
I was super excited to come across a sample of this. I get a bit of hyacinth and a bit of auto grease . . . but a lot of cinnamon and camphor and a really nice wood scent. The wood scent blooms and does get a little greasy. I guess this is more chainsaw than mechanic on me and I’m not minding.
I’m curios how this will be on the boyfriend.
giant – :
The Tauerville line started surreptitiously with a perfume called Rose Flash. It was initially a limited release and wore the familiar “Tauer” label, though the small print contained something new: “Tauerville Collection.” By the time it was released more widely it proudly wore the Tauerville badge on the front of the bottle. Hyacinth and a Mechanic also bears the Tauerville stamp but it leads with a single word.
STORIES
”
hyacinth
and a
mechanic
”
“Stories” reminds me of the start of the tale in Slaughterhouse Five, which begins with a single line. “Listen:” It grabs my attention and emphasizes that what follows is the heart of the matter. The title juxtaposes two words and leaves it to the ‘reader’ to interpret the meaning.
Hyacinth—Spring. Innocence. Blood. Love. Death. (Murder?)
Mechanic—Physical. Retro. Non-digital. Fetish.
The perfume can be read on an olfactory level. The topnote creates a sweet-smelling image of hyacinth flower. It’s followed by a plastic/leather note, the olfactory symbol of the mechanic. But the name Hyacinth also suggests ancient Greek mythology. The preface “Stories” emphasizes narration yet the open-endedness hints that tying the perfume to just one story risks missing out on all the others. A predictable reading would be nature (hyacinth) versus artifice (mechanic) but hyacinth is one of the highly fragrant flowers that yields no essence. A hyacinth accord is as artificial as a mechanic-shop accord.
Tauer grabs ahold of the inherent artificiality and shakes it for all it’s worth. It’s a beautiful rendering of the hyacinth flower; metallic, spicy and floral in equal measures. Fresh hyacinth flower has an oily spiciness that is watermarked with sweetness. The flower’s inky scent is balanced by a watery quality, giving it a chilled, silvery vibe. Tauer’s hyacinth accord starts with broad strokes, all angles and edges. It is raucous but balanced, easily holding its own against the plastic, vinyl leather of the mechanic. Both accords, the flower and the vinyl, keep their shape but lose their edges as they merge. After a few hours Hyacinth and a Mechanic folds in on itself. It coalesces into a purple-mauve kitty-purr, just as much violet as hyacinth. After a neon opening, the perfume has an effortless drydown and is surprisingly pretty. It’s like a splash-free entry following a big dive.
Is the titular “Hyacinth” the flower or mythic character? Wikipedia describes hyacinth’s subfamily: “The flowers are hermaphroditic, actinomorphic, often showy.” I suppose this could just as easily refer to the tragic Hyacinth, poster-boy for the perpetually unheeded maxim that runs through most Greek myths: Don’t fuck with the gods. They’re immortal and you’re not.
The story of Hyacinth and a Mechanic began in 2007 when Tauer passed a bottle around to a few perfume writers. I’m not certain that the perfume was ever made in quantity and I don’t think it was ever available for sale. Jump ahead 9 years. In late 2016, the perfume was available for one day each at two perfume shops, Fumerie in Portland, Oregon and LuckyScent in Los Angeles. The release was limited to two hundred bottles and the only way to get a bottle was to show up in person where Tauer would put a bottle in your hands. It’s as much a performance piece as it is a launch and it’s a great scenario for storytelling. The extremely limited release suits a perfume with the most condensed narrative possible. Two nouns. You fill in the rest.
Tauer has used many approaches to convey meaning through his perfumes. Romantic desert scenarios (l’Air de Désert Marocain, Lonestar Memories, Coeur du Désert.) The portraiture of the Tableau de Parfums series. Pure abstraction, as in the Pentachords. Rose essays (Incense Rose, Une Rose Chyprée, PHI Une Rose de Kandahar, Une Rose Vermeille.) “Stories” (plural) might allude to the many stories that can be told with two words and an imagination. If so, Hyacinth and a Mechanic tells its story and then closes the book. Or it could imply that more will follow, in which case Hyacinth and a Mechanic is a cliffhanger keeping us in suspense for more. I’m staying tuned.
(from scenthurdle.com)
Hernmeamymn – :
This fragrance has a little more Mechanic than Hyacinth, i.e. the effect of a body shop–oil, gasoline, etc. My friend said it smelled like Raid while I found similarity with Tubereuse Criminelle. The hyacinth note is not particularly realistic, but pleasant none the less. Overall still a nice fragrance; I just like his other stuff better 🙂