The Best Colognes and Soaps from Culty Fragrance Brand Claus Porto

It’s a one-stop shop if you want to smell like a distinguished Portuguese gentleman.
Claus Porto  Products on fancy background

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I’m a grown adult, but I definitely thought of Bowser’s shell when I walked into Claus Porto, a fancy Portuguese fragrance store in Nolita, New York. I can’t be the only one. The space is a moody cavern coated in white spikes. Now, if I had more sophisticated reference points, I’d have known the design was inspired by Casa dos Bicos, a historically spiky building in Lisbon. But I’m no sophisticate. Which is why I was there! To spritz my way into distinction, into what I imagine a rich, old Portuguese dude smells like. Lush greenery, salty sea breeze, a hint of port breath, burnt custard…Catholicism.

Claus Porto sells a range of fragrances as well as incredibly packaged soaps, moisturizers, shaving stuff, candles, and so on. The brand was founded in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city in 1887, but they’re in the middle of a big push into the U.S. market. (The store, their first in the U.S., opened last fall.) The wrappings are gorgeous—especially in this world that’s gone so minimalist I can’t find where I’ve decluttered away my joy. The thick paper on the soaps has that 19th-century illustrated advertising look, while the fragrance bottles are more art deco. The fonts? They’re good.

An employee wearing a white lab coat over a flannel shirt and Dr. Martens whisked me from scent to scent, starting with the $24 stamped, triple milled soaps. I inhaled the tobacco blossom soap deeply, which has spicy baking notes of anise and “cinnamon, for kick,” my guide said, kicking her leg. Wild moss won me over, sweet from honeycomb but grassy and green, a little woodsy. Grapefruit fig: juicy! Pear sandalwood: churchy! Verbena: bug spray! But the butter lettuce soap—oh yes—was something special. It’s got a crispy clean scent with subtle lilac, plus apple and cucumber. Salad’s, uh, never smelled so sexy.


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Spring Lettuce Soap

The back of the store is fragrance alley. The classic cologne, Musgo Real (pronounced mush-zgo ree-al), is a brutish patchouli with a powdery lavender wink. Others in the Musgo Real collection include my favorite, Oak Moss, big forest vibes with a zip of lime, and Black Edition, which is a delicious spicy combo of cardamom, nutmeg, cocoa—sounds like a cookie but I swear it’s got depth and danger.

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Claus Porto Musgo Real Cologne - Oak Moss

I learned that the Agua de Colonia collection of fragrances is inspired by five regions in Portugal. Number 1, Agua Vetiver, “takes us back to a cloudy day on the plains of Alentejo,” per the marketing materials. It was creamy, cedar and milk chocolate, per me. Number 2, Agua Geranium, “takes us to an exotic garden in the heart of Lisbon,” and was a lot of green leafies up top with a sultry musk backbone (garden sex). Number 3 was high in pepper and pine, low in jasmine (a blend that works, unexpectedly). Number 4 was bright citrus with that hint of white port I was after (vacations I can’t afford). Number 5 was bergamot and cypress, or as I think of it: spa wood.

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2 Agua Geranium

You could, if the mood strikes, wash your hands in a gigantic marble sink—under careful supervision. I lathered my hands with the liquid Cerina hand soap. Unlike some other unnamed, expensive status hand soaps, the perfume didn’t stick on my hands to ruin my dinner. It was woodier than the aquatic bar soap version of Cerina, and subtle. I hope every restaurateur trying to flex in their bathroom is reading!

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Claus Porto Cerina – Liquid Soap

Did you know Claus Porto was only the second company to sell soap on a rope? You can buy soap on a rope there for $28. Oak moss, all the way.

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Claus Porto Musgo Real Oak Moss Sopa On A Rope

At this point, an impressively tanned and blonde tourist in a hot pink puffer coat swished past me as as a man holding a Nespresso bag walked in to announce he’d been to the Claus Porto store in Porto. Things were getting hectic in the spike cave. I stuck a paper sample strip of Le Parfum, the most expensive bottle in the store, in my pocket and kept revisiting it on my walk home. It’s fig at the core—earthy, overripe, divisive—but it mellows out in a summer crush of mandarin and sweet cedar. Inhaling, I’m wearing a newsboy cap and handkerchief around my neck, drinking vinho verde on a stone-paved street in Lisbon. But the smell will do for now.