I paid a silly price to blind buy this, but luckily it paid off. It's like the EDT but with the awful synthetic scratch removed. The EDT sends me into an immediate coughing fit every time I'm near it, and this redresses the balance. It is very similar to the dry down of Burlington 1819, it just lacks the dazzling expensive opening of the Roja Dove, which, given that that lasts all of three minutes and that the bottle costs 10 times more, who cares! This is a beautiful creamy almond and vetiver combo, soft and delicate but with presence, like only Guerlain (and possibly JC Ellena) can do. My favourite vetiver, my favorite citrus and, more specifically, my favourite grapefruit scent, hands down.
I reserved my predictions for this fragrance because I really hated the original Ideal and I didn't want that to be the case for this flanker. Thank heavens Ideal cologne is much better to my nose, citrus bite and creamy almond could go so wrong but here it is absolutely perfectly handled. My main gripe with the first ideal was that it was so synthetically sweet and uber strong that there was no nuance, nothing to cut through what I deemed a sickly, unfocused mess of a fragrance. No problems with that here, citrus fruits fresh and long lasting in the opening, light musky woods and a very light but vanilla/almond which is sweet and light more like a hint of sweet Marzipan than a heavy dose of almonds or heliotrope or that over done tonka bean in many new fragrances, which I just can't abide. This lasts nicely but is very close to the skin and I even bought myself a heavily reduced gift set right there on the spot...Guerlian have redeemed what I unpopularly thought was a real dud release with this decent flanker which is more toward one of my favourite citrus and almond combo's mandorlo di Sicilia. I'm happy with my purchase.
