Cuadra

Cuadra is Paul Schutze's scent of architecture: the brilliantly hued Cuadra San Cristobal, a horse ranch built by the Mexican architect Luis Barragan around geometric reflecting pools and fountains. The London artist and self-taught perfumer set the architect's hot signature colours against the vast reflected skies of Mexico, and the brand calls the result exotic and intimate, a passion contained and refined. The notes come as one list rather than stages: coffee leads, with bay leaf, tobacco, bergamot and hay, then jasmine, oakmoss, sandalwood and a trace of oud. Wearers describe an opening of bergamot and the smell of coffee and cocoa, drying to a light coffee-tobacco scent. One voter hears mostly laurel, with coffee falling in line behind it, and another finds coffee grounds and bay leaf together. It lasts well by most reports, with a moderate trail, and it suits autumn and winter best, for leisure, evenings and the office. Opinion is split: some find it enveloping and hypnotic, while one wearer finds it flat after a nice opening and misses the oud. It sits closer to an aromatic coffee and tobacco scent than to a sweet gourmand, and wearers read it as unisex. Sold in 50 ml, it is worth a sample first, because the laurel and coffee carry the whole composition.