Monk (2005)
by Michael Storer

A green leathery musk. Kinda sweet but only just a little. I wish the musk and incense were more intense and smoky and cool but it just stumbles. Very airy in a way.

EDP review:

The only half-decent men's release from Storer but it still fails to fully convince or inspire me. I don’t get much incense from this at all – more of a musty smell you associate with an old decrepit building. Like Ava Luxe, there’s something amateurish and muddy about his creations that I, unfortunately, fail to appreciate.

This review of the original EDT formulation, posted July 2006:

Gothic ruined abbey, spooky stone, and the hint that an animal may be nesting somewhere near. A busy accord but not muddy.

Old stone castles in England smell like this, I remember the smell as a child visiting Orford Castle in Suffolk in particular. I always had the chilling feeling that there may still be some human remains in such a cold place. Quite disturbing.....


....of course there is the sweetness and cocoa too which pull back out of the twilight and into the comfort zone.
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This review of the EDP formulation, first posted on the male fragrance forum November 2007:

I liked the original Monk EDT but this, I think, is something special.

In my opinion Michael Storer has really come of age as a perfumer. The reformulated Monk EDP is an exceptional perfume, blended with great attention, craft and some really beautiful notes and accords.

This is a very "manly" perfume with much coherence. It works across the pyramid the notes of the top, middle and base blending beautifully while vertically through the pyramid there are themes which link top to middle and middle to base.

It starts with a wonderful bergamot and a subtle bitter orange. Next I smelled cocoa falling into civet and (wonderful) blond tobacco with musc notes and a sweep of rose. I love the way the bitter orange sits beneath all of this just brightening it. The beeswax adds a resinous touch. The orange leads into frankincense and civet. The tobacco, musk (ambrette?) and cocoa lead through to the sandalwood, vanilla, tonka and benzoin. The base has a pleasing sharpness and definition, though never loosing its resinous quality; the civet drops off somewhat, leaving a lovely vanilla and tonka, with the vanilla doninating. Right at the bottom is a wonderful jasmine note.

The way I perceive this, three threads run in parallel to create the accords of the top middle and base. There is mild masculine floral theme which runs from acacia through rose and linden to low volatility jasmine at the bottom. Then there is a musky resinous theme which follows galbanum with cocoa, musk, beeswax, cistus and tobacco through to vanilla, tonka and sandalwood. Lastly there is a sharp bright slightly acerbic/funky theme which flows from bitter orange through to francincense and civet. Throughout these connect up and balance in a very pleasing manner. The orange lives on into the beeswax almost suggesting honey, which sits beautifully with the cocoa....I could go on...

For those who knew the initial formulation, while the similarities are apparent, this is warmed up from the original EDT. The civet is stronger and in general the notes are more distinct without ever losing their balance and blend. There is a brightness and an articulation throughout that was perhaps missing before. There is less sweetness around the cocoa.

This is pure class, in my opinion on a par with great perfumes like egoiste.

Mmmmmm ... musty like a basement or a wet old library. Not really my cup of tea, especially considering I was hoping for incense. I can see the Goth reference here, but it's like a dirty Goth's dorm room, picture heaps of unwashed clothing. It does pick up a bit after a while, but I can't imagine spraying myself with this after I've just showered. I think I might get looks if I turned up smelling like this. That said, it is interesting.

I don’t get Goth from this scent, and I don’t find much incense. It opens with a strong musty odor which disappears immediately, and then moves into mainly a smooth, slightly musty, slightly muddy bergamot / galbanum, warmed by a base of ambergris and an introverted sandalwood. It has a sweetness — a vanilla sweetness — to it, which I feel is a bit out of place. And it has a powderiness that is tenacious. What Monk offers is the smell of memory. It’s an ‘oldness’ smell somewhat in the nature of Messe de Minuit, which I also do not see as Gothic. MdM is colder and more distant without prominent sweetness and with no powder, which is to say that Monk is warm and solidly present, sweet, and uber powdery. I don’t find it nearly as interesting as MdM: With MdM I think of a sepia photographs in black-paged albums and those stiff celluloid collars men wore a century ago. With Monk I think of my mother’s face powder musical box playing “Always”: This is a lovely memory for me, but it doesn’t supply a very masculine interpretation of Monk. Is it wearable? I don’t know… a bit more wearable than MdM’s near-mildew vibe, but not as interesting and decidedly less masculine. I can see this scent as working year round. Monk is linear, and it doesn’t seem to produce a straightforward sillage. What sillage it does produce seems to shoot at oblique angles from the skin, and that strikes me as really strange. This scent gives me the unusual experience actually warming the spot on my skin when I apply it. It quickly turns into a skin scent that lasts for hours.

I've tried this a couple times now, and every other time I apply, I catch a minor masculine vibe but it's meaningless in the which-gender-can-wear-this sense. As a female, I'd definitely wear this.

This is a warm June, and I might have other/additional thoughts about Monk in the winter. At this point, I don't specifically notice the tobacco or galbanum, which is fine by me cuz I prefer to focus on mild notes like musk, tonka, amber, leather.

I love the vanillic, musky, sweet, powdery opening. The middle simply grows milder, and reminded me of the praline base in Chopard Mira Bai until I made a side-by-side comparison. Monk is an octave lower than Mira, probably due to Mira's cassis upsweep.

You can see reviewers vary widely in their interpretation of Monk -- which tells ya, ya gotta try it for yourself.