Reflection exudes class and sophistication at every turn, a perfect name for a perfect scent. It opens somewhat harsh and sharp due to the pink pepper, rosemary and petitgrain, but soon begins to softly settle into bright white florals of neroli and jasmine, on a powdery bed of orris and ylang. The dry down is mainly comprised of those same florals, with a soft sandalwood. It’s very simplistic but in a fantastic way - a masterpiece. Reflection is everything a clean masculine fragrance should be, it’s perfect for every occasion and is incredibly versatile - but I love it best in the spring. The performance is really good, at least from my bottle, and when you catch whiffs of this beautiful sillage throughout the day it really is addicting. Overall this fragrance is stunning, a truly fantastic interpretation of a modern sandalwood. I do think Reflection 45 is even better, stronger and more rounded, however the price is insane and the original scratches that itch more than enough. Saying that, I do plan to get my hands on Reflection 45 when my bottle of the original Reflection runs out.
10 out of 10 smoky rich gourmand with bombastic performance😍😍🙌🏿🙌🏿👌🏿👍🏿💪🏿
Acqua di Gio Profumo exudes confidence and maturity while still staying true to its roots. It opens with salty aquatic notes and bergamot, just like the classic Acqua di Gio, before an aromatic heart of sage, rosemary and geranium begin to take over. The dry down is addicting - sweet Incense and patchouli contrast the fresher notes beautifully to create something truly unique. The longevity of this scent is fantastic and the quality is actually quite impressive, which I honestly don’t see too much from Armani’s releases. This scent is quintessentially masculine and mature, it means business and makes you smell important while still managing to be very mass appealing. This scent is one of the few designer freshies that continues to impress me every time I wear it. Perhaps it’s the combination of fresh aquatic notes with such contrasting dark notes. It’s very creative and still holds up to this day, I will always have a bottle of this. I’m very interested to see how the new Acqua di Gio Parfum compares to this as it’s supposed to be a re-release of Profumo.
Cool water opens with a fresh burst of sweet aquatic notes and lavender, with sharp green touches of mint and rosemary in the background. As it settles, a heart of synthetic florals comprised of neroli, jasmine and geranium begin to combine somewhat harshly with the mint. The dry down is where the more masculine notes of sandalwood, oakmoss and cedar begin to shine through alongside the aquatic green notes. Objectively speaking, Cool Water is not a great fragrance due to its synthetic and low quality ingredients. However for the price, I think it’s pleasant enough for most people and gets the job done. For me though, this scent is very special. Cool Water is so nostalgic to me for some reason, I must have smelled it as a child but can’t place where. This fragrance takes me to a point in time which I can’t quite place, but is kind and comforting nonetheless. I think this scent is a timeless classic and will always be a part of my collection.
Took a chance and blind bought it discounted.... As others have said, the opening is quite OTT lemon. In fact I find the first five minutes quite horrible, too savoury and very like Pino Silvestre, which I find repulsive, but then it becomes an exquisite green piney aura (slightly pesto-ey too), addictive and delicate somehow whilst being powerful. So glad I snapped this up while I had the chance! .... Wearing this again as we go into spring, it's breathtaking. I still find the first minute or two a bit much, but it's fleeting. This is definitely a perfume which is best experienced passively, i.e. without burying your nose in it.
I love that everyone has such strong feelings about this. After blind buying Myths Man, I bought the woman version (for me everything is unisex). I expected, and wanted, a difficult, interesting, melancholy fantasy in a bottle, something I'd not be able to stop sniffing, and I was prepared for it to be worse somehow than the Man. I got what I wanted, and am happy to say I like it more...the man version has a sort of sharp, acrid floral pungency which is gone here. I am an avid hiker, and I'm looking forward to wafting through the forest in this, literally and figuratively. It's a lot more subtle than I expected and I find it a beautiful and unique green scent. Update: I know what this reminds me of... If you enjoy the mouldy undercurrent of Coromandel, this is that, with the citrus and chocolate stripped away. It's the ghost of Coromandel wafting through the serene graveyard. Another update: I've smelled this aroma while hiking in the forest on a hot day when I had recently rained. It was so similar I almost thought someone in the group was wearing the perfume, which or course wasn't the case. Another update: Haven't touched this for months and now I've worn it to bed. This perfume is INSANE. It's so serious, so weird... When you smell a vintage chypre that's turned, this is almost like that, but not, as in it doesn't actually smell like it's off, it just has the most hardcore chypre combo I've ever smelled, eschewing anything pretty, delicate, sweet or sparkling and burrowing straight down into the dank moss and skank. To me it doesn't smell like urine, but I get why some may see it otherwise. I can't imagine ever wearing this out, and I wear some pretty crazy frags sometimes. I think my friends would probably be concerned for my sanity if I did. But I love it! Update after months of not smelling: Good golly this is a crazy perfume. It never fails to take me aback. It's like boiled spinach with the soil left in. I can't imagine ever wearing this outside but it is a truly genius, audacious scherzo of. a scent that deserves to grace the most unwearable masterpieces lists alongside Secretions Magnifiques, Sombra, etc.
Duro is an animalistic beauty - it’s rugged, masculine and dirty without being offensive or overly challenging. It’s pretty linear from the get go as the fragrance doesn’t seem to change much over time, however that doesn’t mean it lacks depth or complexity. Unfortunately official notes aren’t listed by Nasomatto, however this is an incredible leather scent with woody and animalistic notes, I mainly get oud and maybe civet/castoreum. Unidentified warm spices in the base round off the scent and smooth the edges of the harsher leather and woods. Duro is very dark and bold with a lot of character, this fragrance is unapologetic and loud. It will definitely get you noticed and is a confidence boosting scent, however I’m unsure how appealing it would be to others. Regardless, this scent is very high quality as expected from Nasomatto and one of their most underrated releases.
Gris Charnel starts off very green and fruity as the fig and black tea note are most prominent, this opening is very unique and addictive - drawing you in further. As it settles on the skin, it grows warm and sweet with cardamom and tonka, with a gentle floral heart of iris. The result is absolutely stunning. In the dry down the cardamom, fig, black tea and iris are blended beautifully together to create an incredibly smooth and inviting scent. A slightly dark and earthy base begins to grow as sandalwood and vetiver make an appearance, however this is very subtle and only adds to the depth of the fragrance. This fragrance is very unique and creative, and will have you smelling different to everyone around you - all for a very fair price in my opinion. It’s very mass appealing to those around you and I actually prefer the original EDP over the new extrait version. It’s become a modern classic that really put BDK on the map, and for good reason because this fragrance is incredible.
Aoud initially opens with fantastically bright notes of lemon, geranium, jasmine and ylang however quickly develops more depth and complexity as the oud, rose, saffron and ambergris become more prominent. These notes blend together so beautifully, and this opening blows me away every single time I wear it. The dry down bears a noticeable similarity to Amber Aoud as the composition of rose, oud and saffron is the same. However as it lacks the fig and intensity of the ambergris, the resulting scent is much less sweet and instead more dry and woody compared to Amber Aoud. The warm spices of cinnamon and nutmeg are also slightly noticeable, however the rest of the notes are so well blended you would struggle to pick them out. To me this is the best rose-oud fragrance money can buy, and my absolute favourite from the Roja Aoud line. It perfects this classic scent profile with ingredients of the highest quality which will leave you breathless. I would advise against following the hype and trying this before buying Amber Aoud as this is much more regal and refined, a one of a kind fragrance and a true modern masterpiece.
I have recently acquired a vintage bottle of Aoud, the first batch ever created back from its original release - the old paper label and blood red juice is absolutely beautiful. As for the scent, it’s stunning: an absolute work of art and compelling masterpiece. In the opening, the rhubarb note is more noticeable than in current formulations, while the lemon and verbena have a slight aged bitterness. The rose and jasmine stay true to my current bottle, however here I find the geranium to be more prominent which gives the heart a certain greenness. The oud here is far dryer and almost ‘dusty’ which might just be due to its age, while the ambergris has a lot more depth - bringing that addictive saltiness combined with a deep leathery amber sweetened with saffron and sandalwood. This perfume is magical to me and I feel these vintage batches are worth seeking out if you already love the current formulations of Aoud.
Naxos smells like an Italian coast on a warm summers evening. It opens with bright and invigorating notes of lemon, bergamot and lavender, giving the fragrance a fresh sparkle before developing a sweet heart of honey, vanilla and tonka. The dry down is where this fragrance shines however - the honey and vanilla are joined by incredibly warming notes of spicy cinnamon and smooth tobacco leaf, leaving an alluring scent trail. Naxos is a very interesting fragrance because of the way it changes depending on the time of year. When worn in the winter, the tobacco and honey dominate the scent whereas in the summer, the lemon and lavender are more prominent - it’s incredible either way. It’s versatile enough to wear all year round, however my favourite time to wear this is on a warm summer night out, particularly on holiday. It’s easy to see why Naxos is Xerjoff’s most popular fragrance. The quality is brilliant and the scent smells so natural and realistic, and the 1861 collection are the only fragrances that aren’t hideously overpriced from the brand. The performance is brilliant too and as it currently stands, this is my most complimented fragrance out of my entire collection - people just seem to love it.
I rather cheekily I fear, sent a formula for my own fig perfume to Christophe for comment.... still waiting. Haha Anyway, this is quite possibly one of the most incredible fig perfumes a fig for fig lovers, not the popularized sweet, dried or caramelized fig or indeed coconut inflected fig leaf type perfume this is pure, barely sweetened, fig business for the hardcore enthusiast. It has velvety texture and a cooling effect, the accord I perceive as containing a lot of stemone (which I think is the most abundant molecule in real fig?) and it's almost similar aura to geranium, dry, cool, almost minty but floral as well. Great observation of fig because there's some of the tree there, something of that milky aspect and greens, texturally fascinating and balanced really well. Having said all of this, it might be a little too raw for me to wear? As much as I can admit that L'artsian Parfumeur or Armani or Acqua di Parma's figs are a little pleasant and sweetly sanitised, far from the visceral study this perfume is, but I hate myself for saying this...a bit more wearable. I need to sample more, perhaps something will click? Because I'm prepared to get on board and love this, I can accept it's brilliance already.
Very strange this one... but I kinda love it!!!! Absolutely eternal on the strip and skin and clothes and anything it touches frankly. Confusing, bitter and razor sharp greenery in the opening, needling through a some signature heft, yet lightness of Christophe's creations. The rhubarb aspect of this stays strong and present, driving this perfume but it's no Rhubarb my love, this is more aloof, queer and modern.
Eros EDP opens with a strong dose of synthetic smelling apple, lemon and mandarin. It soon develops a sweet aromatic heart as the apple and citrus is joined by mint and vanilla. The scent dries down similarly to the original Eros, however I find the mint and vanilla is toned down here with more emphasis on the apple and citruses. I have never liked Eros EDT due to that sickly sweet and synthetic mint/vanilla mix. However with the apple and citrus being the main players here, I find it a lot more tolerable and pretty pleasant. However overall the scent itself is very synthetic and nothing special, there are much better options in this price range these days.
I bought some cysanthemums for my living room, and in the same week I tasted wild chrysanthemum tea, and it got me wondering about cysanthemum in perfume. So I searched on here. This perfume grabbed my attention, and reading the reviews made me really want to give it a go. Of course it's extortionately expensive, and may or may not be discontinued. Long story short I blind bought a discount bottle from Ebay, and it has just arrived. Possibly the best, most astounding opening I've ever experienced from a perfume. Sharp, vetiver pickle with chocolate flakes and incense, Chinese chrysanthemum tea and rose (it's there if you seek it out). It shouldn't work... The tangy, floral shimmer dissapates and the elemi brings you into its warmth. I don't know where it's going next, but needless to say I don't regret this blind buy.... I think this will become my new all-time favourite scent. Update: I'm a couple of hours in now, and in the third stage. Beautiful! Another update: on further considation, there is a negative side to this. The notes are difficult and astoundingly persistent. After a few hours, there's an almost acrid, putrid aftereffect (the vetiver I suspect, I tends to sour on my skin), which remains after showering and is permanent on clothing. It doesn't stop me loving the perfume, but it's worth knowing about. Perhaps performace can be too good after all.
Smells like Fusion d'Issey.
Nothing like le beau as that is sweet. This is Issey Fusion.
Amber Pour Homme is the scent of a refined and modern gentleman. It opens with bright and juicy top notes of neroli, bergamot and orange blossom before developing a warming and musky heart of myrrh, geranium and vetiver. This smells like a fantastically expensive and classy bar of soap, with natural spices and florals. In the dry down is where this fragrance shines - sweet saffron and vanilla join the myrrh and musk to create a warm and enveloping scent bubble. Labdanum, leather and patchouli add a smooth darkness which builds mystery and sensuality while still staying somewhat bright and airy. Prada has always produced fantastic soapy fragrances, and this one has to be the best of the bunch. Unlike their modern day releases, this scent is creative, unique and masterfully executed with high quality materials. If you want to smell clean and soapy without being generic then this is a must have, it’s just a shame this kind of execution is no longer seen in Prada’s current releases.
Opening with sharp olibanum, warm cardamom and sweet saffron, Secret Tryst takes you on a romantic and complex journey from start to finish. These notes comprise the majority of the scent profile, creating a spicy and alluring experience. It starts off sharp and tangy, but quickly dries down to an incredibly smooth and well-blended scent. This is a fragrance that is perfectly unisex. It combines masculine notes of earthy vetiver and patchouli, with gentle touches of sensual femininity with rose and jasmine. Saffron, labdanum and vanilla bridge the gap to unite these notes, leaving you with something beautifully romantic and unique. A tryst is a private meeting between two lovers, secretive and scandalous which is conveyed perfectly in this fragrance. Secret Tryst is the epitome of high class and romantic sensuality, exquisitely crafted and perfect for date nights between couples, or to attract those around you. A must have fragrance in my opinion.
So I think I've previously said enough about this brand having only tried a handful, and not really being a fan of the marketing or aesthetic here, I'm trying to judge the perfumes themselves fairly, because the folks behind the brand have opted for an array of different perfumers and a shitload of bases to cover, so I guess fair enough. If the samples were a bit cheaper or the brand sent me them, obviously I would've sampled more and could give a better impression. I feel the brand has taken Tom Ford's 'let's have a few naughty/sweary names' approach and gone apeshit (not one of their names GONEAPESHIT haha) with it, but anyway. Fig Porn is a okay perfume I suppose and I get the fig accord here but it's overly sweet, too much ethyl maltol (which is actually essential in fig accords but used sparingly) and it just seems a little naïve and not really studying the fig which has much fresher aspects and stemone and such. I get that this is a sticky, dried fig or whatever...super sweet something I'd actually thought was lacking in fig perfumes but be careful what you wish for I guess? At least Figuer eden and Philosykos and Fig my love, etc...all very different examples of figs BTW, but one thing they have in common is that fresh and realistic feeling, sadly lacking in fig porn. I mean a disclaimer could be... READ THE NOTES!!! It's not supposed to be a fig perfume, There's loads of other shit in there, we flipped it. We subverted it. We're SO cool, you fucking idiot! I guess that's where this brand just starts to piss me off again with it's smartarsery and contempt for the customer. As I see it. (Sorry my contempt for the brand keeps rearing it's ugly head) So it's a fruity, densely packed opening reminding me of carmelised, fruity floral nothings of the desginer realm, like angel but without the earth. Fig porn does however dry down much better and much more appealing as a more lactonic aspect softens everything and it smells way more balanced and actually more figgy. So all in all not bad if you survive the opening assault of ethyl maltol which I perhaps hastily thought was clumsily dosed but becomes far more agreeable as the perfume wears on. Fig porn is okay by me.
Oh Dangerous curves, How I love the OTT perfumery of thee. Instantly smashes you over the head with perfumey, perfume stuff, I describe it as the excitement of smelling the air as you approach a perfume department, which many would think to be the more tenacious, divisive stuff, a cloud of ambrox and woody ambers (which it almost certainly can be) but I have a much more romantic meaning in mind, it's the tingle of labdanum and the heady swoosh of roses freshened with fruits and pink pepper, floralisers and all that shit! This is the stuff that gets me primed with anticipation to smell some new perfumes and probably tricked into buying stuff I really shouldn't, but hey ho! Dangerous curves is a perfume made for Transgender model and socialite Amanda Lapore and it's just as much of a warping of the Marilyn Monroe aesthetic, in olfactory form. This is a BIG perfume but it's not vulgar or too much it's actually very refined for all it's power. I actually get a resinous opening to me, spicy, labdanumish, somewhat sharp, full bodied mildly fruity. Then all the sparkle and effervescent booze of the champagne which I often associate with cognac materials. An indolic sort of civety blast just washes over, the most subtle nod to classic perfumery and then it's gone. The rose is quite powdery to start off but then you get that cosmetic iris feel but it's more ionones than irones, it's nothing like Malle's Lipstick rose or anything of the sort, I'd say it's merely a smudge of lippy. What it did remind me of was Amouage Lyric Man and woman, as she settles in to a lovely soapy, airy rose accord, really lovely but doesn't quite have the same whispy, floating smoke quality (not smoky) because there's some other heavyweight ambery type accords in here but possibly led me to believe there may have been some olibanum which could add to that bubbly, airiness? I think it's fantastic anyway, lots of common themes perhaps but the execution is so different and allows for quite a busy composition to feel like it has breathing space, not an easy thing to achieve. Throw expectations out of the window and enjoy this perfume for the lovely experience that it is. Wonderful.
Everyone seems to find this too sweet, but isn't that what you want with a scent of this nature? I do! The sweetness gives an overall gourmand feel, a sort of honey-tobacco tiramisu... delicious. Despite the honey being very strong, it's more syrup than realistic medicinal honey, giving a sumptuous, gooey sort of glaze all around. This is strong but not loud, although I must say it creeps up on you over the first hour. I'm very glad there's no vanilla, as its been done so many times. And by the way, if you want a super sweet shouty tobacco go for TF Tobacco Vanille, which is very obnoxious (although I do like it). This is classier, richer and more unashamedly opulent. It's a love for me.
So a few folks had remarked about the miraculousness of this tuberose centric fragrance oh into the fact it contains no tuberose natural material (I think I read that somewhere?) and knowing Christophe's tongue in cheek trickery the name sort of alludes to this too. Anyway I think it's difficult (and also conversely quite easy) to judge, because having smelled different tuberose materials of natural origin and bases and recreations and stuff like that, I have to say, tuberose is pretty changeable stuff. I thought I knew what it was, but I don't really. That being said this perfume captures some of the raw elements, it's salty and waxy and strange, mildly sweet but this isn't a fun, exotic tuberose, a pink hued, bubblegum kitsch thing, nor is it particularly green and crunchy or indolic. It's a peculiarly sterile, antiseptic, floral and to borrow from a pal 'smells like the halls of a junior school' and I get all that weirdness. So it shares tuberose's complex nature and I enjoy it as a perfume spectacle but I don't like it or want to wear it... Until the drydown. After hours and hours IT SMELLS GLORIOUS!!! The base materials the floral parts go all powdery and musky but not at all sweet, it's divine!!! but can I wait that long through all that rubbery, waxy strangeness....maybe??? the jury is still out.
Wow this is really nice and very unique. Sweet, metalic, fruity. Very unisrx
This is a strong-ass perfume. It's love-hate for me. It's wonderful at arms length but gives me a headache up close. I get no florals, no violet leaf, no rose. Absolutely do not overspray. Those of you saying the performance is bad need to visit the ENT specialist. All in all, it's BONE dry, crackling embers, artisan wood smoke. Not easy, but probably worth the effort.
This is like the growling little pet in Despicable Me. It starts out snarling and yapping, delusionally full of machismo and bravado, before suddenly rolling over and showing its true colours as a fluffy little poopykins. It's as complex and dynamic as a Tom Ford gets, and in my opinion could be technically the best perfume from the brand I've experienced. Every wear is different according to temperature, mood, many factors. I absolutely love this, it's a proper perfume that goes on a journey with twists and turns.
Wtfffffff. Smells nothing like MB Legend 🤣
