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Néroli in Acacia

Scents of Wood

thenotoriousrap

Strong, classic, masculine, aromatic, citrus, floral, dry woody.

An opening of spicy aromatic petitgrain and bitter orange, quickly followed by a nice, green neroli. Orange blossom floralizes and sweetens the neroli, while carrot seeds add a slight powderiness in the mid. Cashmeran and woods combine to create a very nice dry woody base. Claims oak, I don't really detect a significant oak note, more cedar if anything specific. Has a feeling of a classic EDC-style fragrance with a significantly stronger woody base.

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2 years ago

Hermann À Mes Côtés Me Paraissait Une Ombre

Etat Libre d'Orange

thenotoriousrap

Futuristic, masculine cold damp earth and rose done in a clean, modern way. Bladerunner

A bit peppery with a little synthetic sweetness in the opening. Quickly a slight grayish, mineralic, damp earthiness appears, casting a kind of veil over a fairly prominent rose and a cold, slightly plasticky incense note in the mid. A synthesized patchouli derivative woody base with ambroxan. This is a fairly linear scent with many interesting aroma chemicals and futuristic synthetics.

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2 years ago

Gucci Pour Homme (2003)

Gucci

bed72

I fell in love with this back in 2003 and still love it. Back then it reminded me of a Catholic Church. I was obsessed. I still pick that up but it is so much more than just a church scent. Big, rich, complex, and sexy as all get out. Hot priest vibes.

2 years ago

Beautifully sweet, with warming boozy rum and rich tobacco. The sweet ripe dark fruits, and rich cacao are delicious.

The leather is subtle and the vanilla is sweet and indulgent but doesn't lead edible on me. .

The tobacco is something else I have to say. Smokey and rich. The leather is just the right depth to add a comforting familiarity of a well worn leather jacket.

Cosy, delicious, comforting, and amazingly masculine.

2 years ago

Bergamote 22 zaps me into believing I'm ready for a busy work day. Lasts a good 4 hours before fading into a nice musk and vetiver scent. This is my favorite Le Labo to date

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2 years ago

Spicy, leathery gingerbread at the outset that swiftly turns into a very potent dark rose. This gradually diminishes, turns slighty medicinal in the drydown, then there's a soft, pleasant incense to round it off.

This is a perfectly acceptable scent, and that intense rose core is very striking, but overall that's not enough to make this creation particularly noteworthy, pleasant though it is.

2 years ago

The opening is salty and mineral and seaweedy. This isn't the still scent of a tropical beach somewhere, it's somewhere more exposed, on a north sea coast, sliding shingled stone underfoot, and with a bitter wind blustering around you, the sea blue-black and choppy.

That briney, somewhat vegetal tang never fully leaves throughout the scent's lifetime. It does grow darker though, definitely a heavy woodiness, but it's decaying driftwood, drenched in the ocean and thrown up in a coastal cove somewhere, still cold and wet, and with the sea's scent permeating its structure. It's very musky too, the combined effect of artificial oud and ambergris, I guess.

Revived for the third time, quite how this distinctly polarising creation ended up in Tom Ford's Signature Collection must be down to the fact that those who love it REALLY love it, and the company forsee this group driving sales for the forseeable future. Though, frankly, I would not be at all surprised if it it falls by the wayside yet again.

Which would be a proper shame: it's my favourite of the current Tom Ford line, by several light years, and a reminder that the house used to take really quite bold risks with their releases. Savour it while you can.

2 years ago

Almost archetypal CDG cedarwood, mixed with pine, frankincense and patchouli. The obligatory obligatory house style left field notes come into play as well, in the form of a grey, metallic tang, and something that reminds me of nearly-dry gloss paint.

If you are at all familiar with the CDG range, there aren't many surprises here. It's pretty linear, obviously designed to appeal to a fairly mainstream audience, but is none the worse for that. Apart from an uncharacteristically strong opening, it has the airiness and lightness you would associate with the brand, and it while it won't revolutionise your world, it's still an attractive, slighly off-kilter scent. Suitable for most occasions, apart from the height of summer.

2 years ago

This fragrance is such a bomb. I just got a 10ml bottle from a discounter because it currently is not sold in the U.S. As soon as Aaron sells this in the U.S. I’m getting a full bottle. Aaron also has other scents in his line that are amazing!

2 years ago

One of the best allrounder fresh-woody scents. for a cologne it preforms like a eau de parfum, with a fantastic longevity (8-12h) and a medium sillage. It‘s fresh with being weak, also woody-Leathery with a very masculine vibe. It’s nickname with my wife is my “Dad-smell”. It’s reliable, perfect value for money and out of this world preformance for something that is marketed as a cologne. I would not recommend it for guys under 25, it would smell a bit out of its place but that‘s personal. If you want a classy, dad like, italian luxury at it’s finest, then AdP Colonia Intensa is the fragrance for you.

2 years ago

A good take on Oud, combining Oud with mineral/aquatic notes is done with good skill. It creates a good allrounder-scent with medium sillage and a good 6-10 h on skin. A Metallic-mineral opening, combined with some spice notes and a not so animalic Oud dry down. I get why people have sort of love/hate relationship with it, but to me it’s a good allrounder, a workplace/holliday everyday scent.

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2 years ago

Mercedes Benz Club Black

Mercedes-Benz

cheapus

This is the biggest cliche you can write when reviewing this one, but… best budget Vanilla fragrance you can buy. Literally the only real contender it has is Liquid Brun, which is a Althair clone, which APPARENTLY smells a decent bit like Club Black y to begin with. I would also throw Zara’s Immortal Vanilla into the conversation, although that’s marketed exclusively to women so you’ve got to get over that before you buy it, and some people find the Coconut note in that really off-putting, either because it’s too synthetic for them or they find it too sunscreeny, both of which I can’t argue with, if that bother you it bothers you. But yeah, if you tied me to a chair and made me choose, until I get my nose on Liquid Brun I’m picking this one. Best budget Vanilla on the market.

You have to know you like Vanilla though because that’s pretty much the main thing you’re getting from it. It does take on a slightly salty aspect as it dries down which I think might be the Ambroxan, and I guess the incense makes it a bit lightly smoky, but I don’t get any of the Bergamot, I don’t get any of the florals, I don’t get much of the woods, if they’re there then they’re playing a VERY background supporting role on my skin, for me this is pretty much just a very tasty-smelling Vanilla, so if you want a bit more nuance from a perfume with that note then you probably should look somewhere else at the Cheapie end of the scale. The Immortal Vanilla I already mentioned would honestly be a good place to start.

2 years ago

In my personal opinion it leans more to being the masterpiece of Julien Rasquinet than just a fragrance. it‘s the perfect blend of spicy warmth and freshness at the same time, meeting manly woody, leathery warmth and comfort. In that same way it blends oriental and western style fragrance in the most briljant way. It’s special but approchable, really present but not overpowering, it’s elegant, gentlemanly but also mystirious and hard to capture. It’s story of the enclave in Oman is a very good one, capturing freshness and desert heath really tells the story of it‘s duality in a very scenic way. Overall: a very versitile scent that you can wear in a suit in a boardroom, in shorts allong the italian or French coast or on a rainy cold day. To me, it will always bring a smile to my face.

2 years ago

An oriental Woody spicy scent that lingers and transports you to the warmth of the desert and the spice of the silkroads. It’s not to harsh, yet present and smooth. Great scent that suits any occasion, maybe not for the hottest days of the year, but that‘s a personal choice.

2 years ago

The more I sample ELDO fragrances, the more I come to realise that, although the house projects an image of producing work that is adventurous and edgy, their scents are actually really rather conventional, but given a mild twist (I haven't, to be fair, sampled the notorious Secretions Magnifique).

This image seems to infect reviews of their perfumes too. Case in point: Archives 69. There are so many that class this as being unwearable, whereas I smell this and think, that's really nice. And then I think, do I just have a tolerance for really weird shit?

Whatever. This is peppery camphor at the outset, and it settles down to a frankincense- floral core that at times smells oddly like rose, though the notes list it as vanilla orchid. Not that I would have the slightest idea what that particular flower smells like, but it smells like a rose, apparently. There are sweet fruity notes too, with the prune especially evident, along with the odd whiff of orange. Finally, there's an animalic, musky patchouli to earth it all down and stop it being a disparate, unconnected mixture of scents. By the end, it settles to a mild, powdery incense.

I like this a lot, and it's my favourite ELDO creation by a very long way. It still doesn't strike me as being particularly experimental, and this may in part be because it's supremely well blended. Kudos to Christine Nagel for managing to pull that off. Possibly a full bottle purchase is in the offing, once my little sample is finished.

2 years ago

Cheapo alternative to Wood Sage and Sea Salt, sharper in tone and with more pith. It's a clean and minimal vetiver, bitter and a little herbal, with the salty sea air vibe of the original.

Relatively short-lasting (also like the original) No, it's not as subtle, and the sharpness threatens to become headache-inducing, reminding me of whatever ingredient it is that's in some Issay Miyake creations that produces the same reaction. Still, it's very pleasant and ideally suited to the warmer summer months.

2 years ago

I so wanted to love this. Marine smells are a positive weakness of mine, as long as they don't stray into dreaded blue territory, and the scene this is intended to evoke (walking along the beach on a cold, breezy day, the waves all dark and choppy) seemed right up my alley.

And it does evoke that scene to a degree: there's an ozonic quality, an airy freshness, then it dries down to a salty wood base that combines with something that reminds me of candlewax, for some reason. It smells very pleasant: and that's the problem, namely it never moves beyond the realm of pleasant. I wanted to be wowed, transported, to be faced with the sea in all of fury and glory, but it's too tame for that, too insipid, and then it dissipates so quickly that even those initial associations are gone and what remains is an agreeable vetiver-wood combo that isn't a million miles away from so many other scents on the market.

2 years ago

TX Maxx bargain bin special. Citrus infused cedar wood and leather with a pleasing, slightly bitter pine backdrop morphs into something lighly spiced and floral. The base is a pungent patchouli that is not dissimilar to an unwashed metal ashtray.

This is lot better that it need be for its price point. There's nothing terribly radical here, and at certain points it veers towards Ombre Leather territory, but it has more development and interest. Not at all bad for a cheapie and worth investigating.

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2 years ago

Opus XIV – Royal Tobacco

Amouage

cawdor

This is magnificent, but far removed from what I had anticipated. I had expected to smell like an unfeasably wealthy Arabian prince who chain-smoked his way through 60 Marlboro Reds a day. Instead, this is oddly close to a gourmond, especially in the opening, which is a blast of fenugreek, aniseed and liquorice, mixed with soft caramel and chocolate. It's Amouage, so it's very powerful, undoubtedly too potent with even a hint of warmth in the air, but it positively unfurls in colder weather.

As it settles it mellows to a birch tar amber incense, heavy on the frankincense, mildly animalic, mixed with musky rose. It's still sweet, still herbal and spicy, but much more reserved ( and hence, wearable in general company). Oddly, I don't really get much in the way of tobacco at all.

As with most Amouages, its stength means spare application is necessary, but it's one of the more approachable house creations, and one I would wear in most situations.

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2 years ago

Silky Woods

Goldfield & Banks Australia

jspilo

The silky part is nice but it classes with the woodsy part. It’s a nope for me.

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2 years ago

Gentleman Eau de Parfum Reserve Privée

Givenchy

ak7

Mature, seductive but playful. Gets a lot of compliments because of that bold iris in the heart of the fragrance. The fresh bergamot disappears in a few minutes after you spray it but the chestnut note which follows is absolutely dreamy and pretty much lasts for 3-4 hours. Even though the notes list whiskey in it, don't let that put you off. It doesn't have that boozy, harsh alcohol smell but a more smoky finish. Lasts about 10hrs on clothes.

Can't wait to rock this more often when it gets a bit more colder outside.

2 years ago

Someone is wearing Tobacco Vanille, which they insist has been reformulated by aliens and, smelling it, you are not certain that it hasn't.

At the same time, they are crushing gabalnum in an unwashed metal ashtray, before suddenly abandoning it, deciding instead to recreate Ken Russell's Altered States by clambering into an empty galvanised water tank.

However, this fails miserably as they forget to actually fill it with water. Defeated, they lie there on the floor staring up at the grey, polished walls and decide to burn some incense before passing out.

You suspect said person may have been ingesting sizeable quantities of hallucinogens.

This is such an odd perfume. It uses several ingredients you would normally associate with a warm, comforting scent, but offsets them against the prominent copper note to create something that's cold and distinctly unsettling. I don't wear it often, but when I do, I kind of love it.

2 years ago

Imagine someone has taken several kilos of the cheapest smelling pot pourri, distillied it down to a few drops of the harshest and most intense scent imaginable, one that makes your nose hairs combust if your dare apprach it within a 50 meter radius, and you have Oud al Layl.

So it was a scrubber. In fact a five times scrubber, because that's how many attempts it took to get rid of this unspeakably vile, tenacious concoction. By the fourth attempt, it diminished to a level where it was bearable and there was the suggestion that somewhere in amongst this hideous, beyond beast mode creation, there was the beginnings of a mildly tolerable perfume. But frankly, that's about the only positive I could find: there are some fragrances that are challenging but which reward investigation, and there are others that are just nasty, clumsy and cheap. Oud al Layl falls in the latter category.

Reader, I hated it (if you hadn't gathered that already).

2 years ago

Nice sweet amber fragrance. I use it to layer. Very versatile and affordable.

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2 years ago