Ahhhh...Mark Birley For Men, it's amazing that this fragrance has been around for nearly 20 years and yet you never see it anywhere...I mean who sells it? For a British brand it's not exactly readily available in Britain. Just briefly on Birley himself I kinda like the idea of a multimillionaire creating his own fragrance and tasking two of the best in the business with the challenge of getting it right. Oh how they got it right! This fragrance is wonderfully fresh, masculine, refined and with a hint of mystery. The opening to me is a lovely blend of citruses, leaning more towards lemon but still with accents of bergamot & orange. Then after the initial few seconds the sweet, refreshing citrus is bittered by musk and it's then you realise Mark Birley is a little more complex than your run of the mill citrus. The primary players in this fragrance are vetiver, Cedar, carrot seed and incense which give a subtle spice but ultimately an overriding clean quality. I can't say I detect violet (listed here) or that this is particularly powdery. The smell is very addictive and nods at a more balsamic, incense type fragrance but with the light touch and cleaness of a vetiver/citrus combo. It's great and in my book is worthy of the praise it receives. To echo other comments regarding longevity and projection which are not good but acceptable at about £60 for 125ml which is around a higher end designer price such as Dior or Chanel. Just treat it like a cologne and spray more, also put some on your clothes to get the lasting effect. Really keen to try the other Birley fragrance now, which is leather based.

Basically I can sum up Tralala in a few notes... Musk, vanilla, BOOZE, and saffron. I'll just mention the saffron it has an odd sharp quality and is pungent but I love it in fragrances. Although it's not a major player in this one, you can detect it and it adds to overall opulence. Quite a theatrical bright, rough, almost gourmand opening which is pretty spectacular in truth and the whisky element is present straight away. A whisky note is not something I like in many fragrances I'll be honest but here in Tralala it's somehow exceptable. As it calms the fragrance becomes quite smooth and vanilla like almost like a milky drink with alcohol in...a white russian prehaps? (But far dirtier of course!) In fact I had a bourbon whiskey float cocktail a few weeks back and this reminded me heavily of the curdling combo of strong booze and ice cream which is not such a pleasant thing! So as Tralala rages on my skin it starts to become cloying and there's only so much I can take of the musky vanilla which does get a bit much after a while. It's a little more complex than I'm giving it credit for and after you get past the cloying faze and it really dies down it goes nice again, even a bit soft and leathery. So all in all an interesting fragrance and great longevity one of the stronger Penhaligon's I've come across. Tralala is an acquired taste maybe but so is the creepy dolls head stopper on the bottle. I wasn't familiar with Meadham & Kirchhoff's fashion house before but I get the picture with the style and this scent certainly ties in with the look of there clothes, bold and slightly eccentric!

In my experience Penhaligon's deliver very well blended compositions and LP No.9 is no exception. Usually when looking at the notes (especially on here) I'm a little perturbed by the main note sometimes and clove isn't one of my favourites. However, Penhaligon's deliver yet again on quality and none of the notes in this are too prominent. It has a opening of bergamot with the warmth of amber and the spice of cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. LP No.9 is also peppery, dark feeling and musky...typical complexity which comes off as effortless simplicity. It's quite intoxicating really and very masculine, I've got to admit I'm really taken by it. Longevity is not bad at all either and it projects pretty well.

Okay so I tried this new 1 Million and I have to say it hasn't really changed my opinion much. Without doing a direct comparison with the original 1 Million EDT I can't comment of the differences but to me (from memory) they smell very similar. I removed 1 Million from my dislike list on here a while ago. I had indeed taken a instant disliking to it, although admittedly this kind of strong sweet fragrance should be right up my street. After sometime I tried it again and thought I had maybe been a little hasty and it wasn't all that bad. I'm not someone who bashes a fragrance just because of it's popularity with the masses or gaudy awfulness, I like to think I judge on it's merits. Trying this new one however has firmly cemented my dislike of this fragrance once more. I literally (or illiterately more aptly) cannot describe the reason why I'm just utterly repelled by the cheap sweetness and opening which lasts for hours. If you can stomach it to the drydown it becomes okay after several hours but even that can be said of some truly awful fragrances I hate! If anything this Absolutely Gold version is stronger and projects more than the original, the mind boggles at how and why this is possible. Well it confirmed a nail in the coffin for my relationship with the whole 1 Million range, I simply don't like them.

I don't usually talk about Longevity as a way to kick off my review but this stuff is VERY long lived on my skin and I'm notoriously unforgiving, so trust me folks... this one lasts. I tried Black XS Potion on the back of my hand yesterday afternoon and despite washing my hands several times since then & showering this morning I can still very faintly smell it on my skin. As for the fragrance itself, I thought despite the glaring similarities to the original that the opening was a little deeper. Similar to the way that A*Men flankers are different but still in essence the same thing, just with more emphasis on certain aspects. These aspects in this case are a intensity of labdanum and booze which give a slightly sharper and more high end feel to what is essentially the same very sweet, fruity, wood fragrance as the original. As it dries down it's harder to identify the difference it's still a bit chocolatey like the original and still has that dense wood, tulu balsam and berry notes. So if you're expecting a vast difference be prepared for disappointment, however if you like the original you might even like this better. The projection and longevity are huge as I mentioned and I much prefer the bottle for this one due to that cool wax seal thing. The same can be said of this as the original, something inside me loves the initial smell of Black XS and it's sweet unique nature. In perspective though I can't help but find it cloying and unpleasant after a while and not something I'd be happy to wear, especially with it's strength and persistence.

I can't believe the negativity aimed at this fragrance from the majority of reviews here. On the one hand I agree that play sport is never going to wow anybody with its generic fruity musk and woods but for me it's a solid citrus release from Givenchy. Another criticism could be that it doesn't retain much (if any?) of the character of play or play intense which are popular fragrances and Play Intense is a real true love of mine. Not only does Play Sport smell very good, those top notes last very well as does the fragrance in general, longer than many niche citrus fragrances I've tried. The opening to my nose is a gorgeous bergamot and mandarin orange which is fresh and zesty then the musk and amyris wood give play sport a solid platform for the citruses to shine for about 6 hours. I like this...it's never going to inspire the same fan base as Play Intense for example because it's quite a flat composition. If you're looking for a clean linear citrus with good lasting power then play sport should not be overlooked.

Wow! Love the opening of this fragrance straight up cypress and olibanum and you pretty much know what you're going to get for the remainder. Yes it's a gorgeous incense fragrance along the exact same lines as Heeley Cardinal, Montale Full Incense and CDG Avignon. If you like any of the aforementioned fragrances then this will float your boat too, luckily I have samples of all four and have tried them side by side to identify differences and there are some very subtle differences. I have to say I might be imagining it but find this a touch fresher and has a different opening too notes. LLDH is of extremely high quality. Non of these have huge lasting power on the skin but do very well on clothing(as most scents do) I found this one to be much the same. I love it...but then again I love the others too!

Well there had been speculation for a while about this one and finally here it is. Interesting though because one thing A*Men and it's flankers have never been is woody, so the addition of woody notes is welcome & needed. I can't say I'm not excited to try it but I think we need to manage our expectations here people. Lets not get too carried away imagining it will be some holy grail, that only leads to disappointment. Bottle looks awesome though! Roll on 7th of July!

Okay I'm pretty impressed with this scent after an unsure first impression. I can tell you straight away that it's not as loud as AMen or many of the other flankers and has a toned down feel, no over sweetness or caramel. This refined approach is what makes me like the Pure Malt/Coffee/Havane/Wood range more than the original, which is so complex frankly it needs reigning in a little. It's these differences which set them apart but retain the common theme brilliantly. What I mean is that in my minds eye (or nose more accurately) I smell a new AMen flanker and think hmmmm...that's the signature AMen accord I enjoy without fully appreciating the differences. It's only when you try them against each other do you realise just how different they are and pure wood came to life against the others. I didn't find this particularly woody at first, which is strange because it's usually the top notes which are distinct in these flankers, before settling to something more familiar. This starts out quite boozy and Pure Malt like then the wood starts to emerge and it's almost a peppery, dry edge to it. This almost reminds me very slightly of if Comme des Garcon did an interpretation of AMen. Don't get me wrong though this is not a woody scent in the usual sense of the word it's very much a gourmand oriental, an authentic AMen experience but with non of the cloying thickness. It seems to somehow have added some savory touches to that indulgent dessert that is the AMen accord. Sanding down any sharp edges to use a woodworking analogy, its softer and smells positively woody compared with say Pure Coffee for example? I like it, it's also not as intrusive as Pure Malt or Pure Havane and dries down quickly, not projecting as much...but that's totally fine for me.

Understatement and balance are the key things here. I'm sure there's many a similar fragrances I wouldn't like because of overuse of certain aspects. For example like too white floral, or too much of a particular spice like ginger or cardamom or the citrus notes seeming cheap, Roadster sport doesn't suffer from any of these. Roadster sport opens with a gorgeous citrus combo with orange in there too. Then a distinct white floral which in this toned down context is absolutely perfectly balanced and doesn't detract anything from the fragrance. You can definitely smell the herby nature of sage and the patchouli is not dirty at all but clean and green with some nondescript woods in the base to round off a lovely dry down. I really like the smell of this fragrance it's incredibly well done, more classy stuff from Cartier.

First of all... no matter how bad or boring the majority of Lacoste fragrances are (and let's face it they are!) I'm always keen to try anything from them just on the strength of eau de Lacoste Blanc which I love with everything I got! Now personally where the bottle is concerned, it's not bad but I'm not crazy about the presentation. What I do like is the shape of the bottle, it's a squat lil cube like Encre Noire or something? Seems like an obvious choice to make a cube but not many others copy that format. Another small criticism was my first impression of the sprayer was not good it squirted out a feeble jet rather than a mist, which also soaked my trigger finger. Anyway the juice is the important thing, so what is live like? Well unfortunately it falls victim to crowd pleasing and in epic proportions. The opening citrus makes way for a predictable but not unpleasant scent which seems very much like other sports fodder. It's kinda green but not natural at all and woody I suppose but I really don't get the typical signature of guaiac wood nor did I really get any liquorice. I may have to try this again you know because there's some interesting ingredients which seem to have been blended out of all recognition into a generic mess. Not bad, not good either and the longevity was poor on my skin.