Obsessed for Men, from Calvin Klein was released in 2017. The perfumer behind this creation is Christophe Raynaud and Ilias Ermenidis. It has the top notes of Cardamom, Grapefruit, Lavender, Lemon, and Sichuan Pepper, middle notes of Cedarwood, Geranium, Labdanum, Leather, and Pineapple, and base notes of Amberwood, Ambroxan, Cinnamon, Patchouli, and Vanilla.
Everyone is so quick to slag off Abroxan but I think it's a very interesting base and can be put to great use in these modern scents. After wearing it became apparent this is fragrance of three distinct phases. Obsessed is a strange one really because it opens very nicely with much of the Calvin Klein freshness and the intriguing charm of things like Crave or CK2. Unfamiliar, fresh spicy notes of kumquat or starfish or some crap like that but never the less very nice. Then it becomes abundantly clear that it might just be one of these confused, messy generic fragrances, a dud of little significance and quickly dismissed like many others and I don't think this is entirely down to the ambroxan. Anyway....Thankfully and quite inexplicably that subsides and Obsessed has a 'third act' so to speak which adds another twist to the tale, in the form of a creamy vanilla type warmth and maybe just maybe... the Labdanum listed in the notes? If you read my reviews you might know that I'm huge fan of that resin and although I can't place it in here as such, the base does have a nice cosy drydown so I'm not dismissing the possibility. Now normally the fresh, unusual, hard to place, top notes, coupled with a crowd pleasing generic heart and a warm (or 'sensual' as they will market it as) vanilla/synth amber drydown sounds like my idea of a horrible frgrance trying to be all things to all people and doing none of them right. However, I quite like Obsessed. I kinda wish CK had the bravery to make a pungent, masculine call back to the original Obsession, now that would've peaked my interest. I'll have to wear this again but the opening was very pleasant, I have no issue with abroxan and the boring aspects weren't too boring and the creamy drydown is nice....so it's a like from me.