As many of you know, I am currently hitting everyone up for perfume donations for a perfume sale/charity fundraiser later this month. At the suggestion of the brilliant Victoria of Bois de Jasmin, I also emailed a few indie perfumers to ask if they would be interested in participating. I just had to share the response that I got from Tauer Perfumes founder Andy Tauer, who shall henceforth be known as “a bro among bros”. Andy emailed me to tell me that while he already contributes to charity both personally and through his company, it is his personal policy not to give products to any charity. But not five minutes later, I received another email: a notification that Mr. Tauer had just donated £3o to Refuge through Scents of Self! So today I will be honoring Andy’s graciousness and generosity with a review of my favorite Tauer Perfumes fragrance, Lonestar Memories.
Lonestar Memories is a saturated, deeply satisfying leather scent. Unlike the somewhat stranger Tauer Perfumes L’Air du Desert Marocain, Lonestar Memories feels instantly familiar. Natalie of Another Perfume Blog once described it as “[her] childhood in a bottle”, which I consider to be the highest compliment one could pay to a perfume. There was nothing in my childhood that particularly smelled like Lonestar Memories, but there was a man who embodied it.
For reasons that no one quite understands, my father has always worn cowboy hats. My father is a 5’5″ Jew from Brooklyn who occasionally gets mistaken for Steven Spielberg (and, bizarrely, Steve Jobs). He invented positron emission mammography, has four degrees, and can read up to 200 pages an hour. He doesn’t look like much of a cowboy, and yet he is one. My father is one part Captain Kirk, one part Tony Stark, and one part Neil Gaiman. He has always been deeply individualistic, from the day that he was kicked out of his orthodox Jewish Torah school at age five for telling the teacher, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
My father fills my life with Don Quixote-like adventures- “What if we can move nanobots to the brain using magnets?” “What if we subject these South American dancing worms to radiation and pretend they’re the urethra?” “What if I can teach myself Hindi in two weeks?” “What if I take up snowboarding at age 54?”- and it is nothing short of thrilling every time I get to help him prove his crazy, brilliant ideas.
When I smell Lonestar Memories, I smell my father’s confidence, his sudden grins, his ridiculous cowboy hats. I fully intend to buy him a bottle- no cowboy should be without it.
SCENTS OF SELF 
(… puzzled… they kick kids out of Torah school? they kick FIVE-YEAR-OLDS out of Torah school?? ‘course, I have yet to graduate from Sunday School, so what do I know about it?)
Your dad sounds fully as awesome as Andy Tauer. Who is, indeed, an awesome guy. Lucky you.
It was a very religious community! And he was quite obviously a troublemaker 🙂 We are now part of a much more lenient synagogue that never kicked me out of Torah school despite my own troublemaking tendencies!
This past weekend, I purchased a full bottle of Tauer’s Incense Rosé and I am totally smitten. I want to wear it everyday. It’s so good to know that he has a generous heart as well. I’m going to feel good about my next Tauer purchase!
The story about your dad is great. Perfumes can bring on the most warm and fuzzy feelings when they remind you of people you love. It’s pure joy.
Oooh, congratulations! I have yet to try that one. I was delighted to discover Andy’s donation, but I can’t say I was particularly surprised. He’s always had a reputation for being an absolutely lovely man in the perfume blogging world!
Andy Tauer is a Star and so is your dad – so they are not…er….a-Lone!
I want them to become bros!!!!
Andy is such a lovely man. The very first sample set I ever ordered was from him, so you can imagine my delight when my package from Switzerland (how cool is it to get mail from Switzerland?) came with a hand-written note.
Last week I tried a bunch of mainstream frags on to test, and later the same day put some Maroc pour Elle on a friend and got a bit on the end of my finger. That fingertip put everything else on my body to shame with its opulence and presence.
Your dad sounds delightful, and I love how you described him. (Yes, I got all the pop culture references. You’re a geek after my own heart, Ari, I predict we will get along very well :))
One of the great joys of being a perfume lover on the internet these days are all the exciting packages! I have yet to order anything directly from Andy Tauer, but a bottle of Lonestar Memories may be in my future, and now I’m all excited for the handwritten note!!!
It’s always such a relief to smell something made by someone who clearly truly loves perfume after too many mainstream scents. Like, oh, hey, perfume can smell like something other than plastic strawberries!
I am always delighted to meet other geeks, especially perfume geeks! So glad to have you here! 🙂
Lonestar Memories is a superb perfume and very evocative! It absolutely reminds me of the Texas Hill Country (where I live). It’s not on my full-bottle-wishlist (maybe it’s just a weeee bit too masculine for me to wear very often) but a great number of Andy’s other perfumes are! And he is such a wonderful person to top it all off.
Oh, Lonestar Memories is just divine! And it’s so exciting and encouraging to see Andy succeed without all the usual trappings of perfumery (big, pre-established brands, years of official training, etc).
OK 😀 1) Your Dad ROCKS!
2) Given my roots, I MUST try Lonestar Memories!
3) MUST LOOK MORE INTO TAUER’S FRAGRANCES. (Because he’s a cowboy in the best possible definition of the word.)
You MUST indeed try Lonestar Memories! And I need to try more Tauers too! I’ve only gotten my hands on three so far: LM, L’Air du Desert Marocain, and Un Rose Vermille.
You can imagine how I feel about this post! Love Lonestar Memories, love (though am not surprised) that Andy donated to Refuge, and love that your Dad wears cowboy hats. I’m all for sartorial statements.
Better a cowboy hat than an Ironman suit, which I suspect is his second choice.
I am coming to this discussion late, but I just wanted to say what a wonderful tribute it is to your dad! He sounds amazing and an absolutely perfect for the Lonestar Memories.
Thank you for sharing!