A marketing team look longingly at the profits generated by Sauvage.
First off, what on earth is a colgne intense? A not-quite EDT? Or, more likely, a marketing ploy to avoid the supposed effeminacy of the word perfume, this being a fragrance that seems to aim itself fairly squarely at the men's market?
Anyway, this only occurred to me me after I sampled it, so didn't influence my overall impression.
From the outset, grapefruit or, on reflection, perhaps a sharp, cheap wine. Lots of it. This is offset by a fairly unobtrusive lavender, well blended, so it undercuts the tang of the top note.
From this point on, changes happen very quickly. It turns spicy and sweet, with an almost cola-like quality. There's an unexpected, very bitter blast of green cypress, gone almost as soon as it appears. Finally, it settles down to peppery citrus soap, and stays that way, droning away to itself persistently and boringly in the background. I did try to perservere with it, really I did, but ended up scrubbing it. Life's too short, etc.
There are things I liked here, most notably when the cypress gains dominance, but overall it is rather uninspired, with the spicy-sweet phase in particular both cloying and nauseating. It is, however, long lasting, considering that a) it's a cologne and b) it's a Jo Malone. Frankly though, I would have welcomed it if it had faded a little more quickly. Odd thing: it smells very pleasant in the bottle, but comes across as clumsily strident on the skin. An absolute pass from me.
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This is an absolutely underrated fragrance, it has an amazing woody aromatic! Smells like a very rich man!