Moustache Rochas for men

Very funny name, I imagine that Dr. Richard Burke (Tom Selleck's character in Friends) was wearing it...

Moustache is nominally a masculine citrus, floral chypre. It falls into the same category as Chanel Pour Monsieur, Monsieur de Givenchy and even its own sibling Eau Sauvage. But something about the twists of its construction leaves a crisp dryness akin to Guerlain’s Vetiver. Moustache’s lime and peppery carnation give an astringency similar in tone to Vetiver’s licoricy-vetiver dryness.

All of Moustache’s elements play off its central strong chypre base. The dryness has a scrubbed and starched quality that stands out brilliantly against growling animalic undertones. It’s as if Moustache’s affable eau de cologne-like gentleman’s chypre hides a bit of a snarl. Like an ongoing dare. What’s marvelous is that this tension lasts through the entirety of the scent’s evolution.

There are through-lines to many of Edmond Roudnitska’s pieces (Eau d’Hermes, Eau Sauvage, Diorella) but I find that Moustache, an early work by Roudnistka and his wife Therese, shares a particular quality with one of his last pieces, Mario Valentino’s Ocean Rain. Moustache has an interestingly dusty, dry-soil feel/scent. Ocean Rain has an underpinning of the flat scent of clean soil in water---mud. My bet is that it’s largely due to the moss.

I don’t mean to ridicule Roudnitska’s work by comparing it to dirt. On the contrary I only mean to point out that the beautiful complexity of his work comes from so many different directions and reflects a far-reaching creativity.

Eau Sauvage, Chanel Pour Monsieur, YSL Pour Homme, Rochas Moustache. A "this is how we do it" version of the classic chypre enriched with a pine note, animalic hints (civet) on a slightly sweet base. Great.

Rating: 8/10

This one reminds me a lot of some of Serge Lutens' creations, notably Chypre Rouge, in that both have that note in them that is slightly reminiscent of urine. Sorry to say that. Nevertheless, if one discounts this lingering note of unflushed urinal cakes, it is still a very mature, serious and unique perfume, coming as it does from a time long gone by. You definitely need guts, if not nerve, to wear this. I think of leisurely gentlemen, enjoying life in pre-war Europe, when I smell this, or of my grandpa's aftershave that has gotten so deeply engraved in my childhood memories.
My vote is 9/10.

It is a classic chypre, gentlemanly and subdued.

The vintage version is a traditional scent, having an analogous feeling to Eau Sauvage in terms of common attributes with classical EdTs launched around mid XX century - for a person my age (45), this means that when you smell these, you actually get a whiff of how your grandfather smelt like when visiting your parents for family reunions.

However, the contemporary version has very pungent and "buffling" citric notes, the sort of notes that makes one wonder what is it that is being smelt: "citric" might work as a joker, but it does not define what is being percieved.

After these pungent notes fade away, Moustache settles in a talcum-powder - like basenotes, faintly reminiscent of the ones found in Habit Rouge: even though there is vanilla, its presence is not so evident as in Habit Rouge. In that sense, I have the feeling that Amber is more prominent.

I have a vintage bottle of this(one with the blue sticker). When I first read about this, I read about it having an old powdery lemony scent to it and it pretty much hasn't let me down in that regard. You can definately tell it was made by the same nose that made Dior Eau Savauge(Edmond Roudnitska) but is more of an ambery baby powder smell then a nice light citrus cologne like Savauge. Even if I'm only in my early 20's, I can appreciate a classic cologne like Moustache. Though not something I'd wear often, I appreciate where it came from and can see an older ma wear this.