Spears on the Vanity: My Take on Neandertal is and Neandertal was

I have a soft spot for scents that refuse to sit quietly in the background. Neandertal doesn’t just raise its hand, it sharpens it into a spear. The flacons for Neandertal is and Neandertal was are sculptural, tapering objects that look like they could have been dug up from an archaeological site or dropped from a meteor. Set one down next to your everyday sprayer and watch which one your hand reaches for first. Mine went to the spear.

Names matter. Neandertal is feels like the present tense distilled - immediate, alert, built for skin and now. Neandertal was reads like a memory in three dimensions - shadowy, resonant, a little haunted. I’m not here to spoon-feed note pyramids, because that kills the thrill, but here’s what my nose and brain argued about while testing them:

• Neandertal is opens with a bright spark, then pivots to something mineral and skin-warm. Think flint struck in a quiet room, a clean density that clings without smothering. It projects like a thought you can’t shake.

• Neandertal was moves lower and slower. I get a dim ember glow, a textured dryness, a hint of smoke curling around polished stone. It’s less about being noticed and more about being remembered.

The bottles are not a gimmick. They inform the wear. There’s a physicality to holding that spear-like glass - your brain clocks the weight and the angle, and suddenly the scent reads differently. Conceptual perfumery can veer into art-school cosplay. This isn’t that. It’s rigorous and useable, clean-lined but not sterile.

If you collect niche perfume for the thrill of the unknown, these two live in that sweet spot between avant-garde and wearable. They’re modern in architecture, primal in mood. I wore Neandertal is to a gallery opening and it sliced clean through the air. I wore Neandertal was on a rainy morning and it felt like an echo that finally found a wall.

Practical bits for the search engines and the curious: expect sculptural bottles, spear-shaped flacons, niche fragrance with a conceptual spine, mineral-woody vibes that flirt with smoke. But skip the spreadsheet thinking. Try both on skin, side by side. Let them settle. Then decide which tense you’re living in - the is or the was.