Mr. H epitomises the idea of a strong, confident man who is also stinking rich. This scent is dry, woody and earthy yet maintains a freshness about it, almost slightly fougere in its qualities. Obviously the price cannot be justified, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that this is one special perfume. This is a patchouli scent all in all, probably the best patchouli I’ve ever had the pleasure of smelling. It’s rich and earthy, dark and damp, highlighting all the natural brilliance of this incredible material - it feels like the plant is right there in front of you. Patchouli is technically a part of the mint family, and you definitely get that here - it’s very sharp and attention grabbing, with that tangy freshness that you would expect from a normal mint, yet much drier and earthier. I believe it’s that sharp tang that gives the scent a slightly fougere feel, alongside the beautiful aromatic green twang of pine needles. I always loved the smell of Christmas trees growing up and this takes me right back. A dry tobacco in the base helps elevate the masculinity and smooth everything out, but the patchouli and pine needles are the stars here. For such a simplistic note breakdown it might not look like much on paper, but the level of quality and depth is as astounding - as to be expected from Henry Jacques. I used the last drops of my sample to write this review, likely to never have it on my skin again after today. I will always remember this beautiful scent however, but could never justify spending a whopping £6.5k on it.
Soir D’or translates to ‘golden evening’ which is a beautiful name but does not remotely match the scent itself, a pattern I’ve noticed with a lot of Burdin scents. This is a very pleasant musky floral scent which comes across very clean, soapy and powdery. The gentle, hazy nature of heliotrope is the dominate note here, backed up by clean jasmine and Lily of the valley which gives it that intensely soapy feel. Soft touches of sweet pear and litchi are joined by hefty doses of synthetic musks, furthering the soapiness even more. I must say, as soapy fragrances go this is fantastic. It does lean feminine but I would happily wear this when I want to smell fresh and clean, it smells like the most amazing clean linen. Definitely doesn’t represent an evening wear fragrance, but is gorgeous nonetheless.
À somewhat pleasant opening shortly turns into a nauseating soup of aroma-chemicals. It's heavy handed and genuinely almost made me throw up, and I own Secretions Magnifiques. This is possibly the most offensive perfume I've ever put on my skin, which I'm surprised by considering how gently it opens. I've showered and it's still as strong as it was before. Fuck my life.
Sans Témoin means ‘without witness’ which seems a very vague and confusing name for a fragrance, but that aside the scent is very nice. It’s a fairly standard warm spicy amber affair with sufficient sweetness and comfort surrounding it. The amber is the star, which is sweetened significantly by a creamy friendship between vanilla and tonka which compliment each other very well. The rich earthy contrast of patchouli and soft musks balance the sweetness brilliantly and give it that sharper, spicier edge to pique interest. Overall this is an enjoyable wear, but not something that wowed me. It reminds me heavily of a certain niche Amber I’ve smelled before but I just can’t place what exactly. It’s not groundbreaking or particularly unique, but definitely smells great.
En Garde is an apt name for a scent which definitely demands attention and dominates the senses. This is a green woody scent done very well I must say, even if it’s not my ideal style of fragrance. A prominent soft note of cedar lies at the heart of this scent, elevated by a green aromatic touch of pine. The pine in here is fantastic I can’t deny, it smells brilliantly natural and comforting - like a peaceful walk in amongst the trees. An overdose of pink and black pepper provide a powerful kick, which compliments the soft rosiness of geranium. Pine is often hard to get right and convey the right feelings, but this scent does it brilliantly. Personally I like my woody scents a bit richer with the addition of mosses and more florals, but if you’re looking for a masculine piney cedar then this is a strong contender to consider.
I smelled this at the Palais Royal store. It has incense first and foremost, then thyme. It's pretty lovely, I want to try it on my skin. Update: I have a bottle and it's becoming a favourite.. The opening is a massive, photorealistic, bone-dry whack of thyme. Imagine the lavender of Pour Un Homme de Caron before that gives way to the softer vanilla etc, it's like that but thyme. Not really like a perfume, more of a spa aromatherapy treatment. But then, oh my god, the incense dry-down.... If you love incense perfumes as I do, check this one out. The dry down introduces just the slightest touch of something sweet, with a lovely, non-burning, churchey incense, and the delicate remnants of the thyme, and it stays like this (quite close to the skin) for much longer than I expected. So while the opening didn't make my heart skip, the dry-down does. I mean to be honest, the Lutens-Sheldrake dream duo can't really do any wrong for me, so I'm glad this didn't disappoint either. If you know the others in the line, it is instantly part of that DNA, but it's probably the most different, in terms of not being fresh aldehydes, soapy etc. Update: Today I sprayed CDG Avignon on one arm and was immediately reminded of Point du Jour, and wanted to see if the similarity was real. So I sprayed PdJ on the other arm. While the opening of the latter is herby, it quickly dries down into the incense that indeed is extremely similar to Avignon (disclaimer: I only have a sample of Avignon so haven't spent proper time with it). This isn't a bad thing in my book, and I prefer PdJ, as it performs better on my skin. ....and I just went to the "reminds me" section to put in Avignon, and voilà, it's already there, told you so lol.
Layer with New York Intense. You're welcome 😎
Amoroso translates to ‘Love’ - do I get that with this fragrance? No I do not, but that doesn’t make it a bad scent, just incorrectly named. Overall this is a clean fruity aromatic which is exceptionally smooth and pleasing to wear. I get a strong connection to the sweet greenness of fig, contrasted by the masculine aromatic confidence of lavender and Vetiver. The spices I don’t seem to pick up as much as expected, but that’s fine by me as it smells great as is. There’s a freshness from bergamot, alongside a woody base to leave you with a gorgeously clean and sophisticated scent. As I said I don’t think this conveys love or romance in any way. It smells brilliant, one of those scents you keep having to sniff your wrist for, but I don’t think it’s actually interesting enough to warrant buying a bottle.
The new Guilty Elixir - did we really need another elixir on the market? I actually thought I quite liked this scent when I first sprayed it, but after 5 or so minutes things quickly headed south and I can safely say it’s not for me. I can see they’re trying to be unique by combining the pure freshness of white florals with warm spices, but it doesn’t work. The delicate nature of the orange blossom is completely trampled by cheap vanilla and ambrofix, whilst the nutmeg and pimento just create this synthetic harsh spiciness which just feels so out of place. This is simply a bad fragrance, it doesn’t smell high quality or well made - and for the price they’re asking for? Forget it. This smells like something Paco Rabanne would release.
Colonia Futura is an interesting name for a scent which doesn’t feel futuristic or modern in the slightest, instead rather demonstrating a very classic and old school fougere scent profile. That’s not a criticism at all however, I actually think the scent is quite beautiful. The lavender in here is front and centre and smells photorealistic. That sharp green floral aspect is made even sharper by the juicy addition of lemon, bergamot and grapefruit which give it this classical men’s aftershave feel. A touch of dry sage and clean Vetiver round everything out very nicely. This scent is technically brilliant. If you love classical fougeres this is a must try, especially for the price it can be found at. Albeit a simplistic scent profile, it does this masculine perfume family incredible justice.
Under The Stars is yet another boring and unimaginative fragrance from Margiela (surprise surprise), but I can see they tried to take a small step outside the box. Yes it smells like leather, but it’s obnoxiously peppery to the point it’s bordering unpleasant. The leather itself is the most prominent note, being fairly smooth and dry with a strong masculine appeal. However, the overly synthetic oud accord doesn’t add much value I find, combine that with an overdose of black pepper and you’re left with something quite messy. Sure it’s pleasant enough, it’s alright at best. But for the prices Margiela is asking for these days, absolutely not. I’m not the biggest fan of this house anyway but there are far better offerings from them.
Sprayed it on card and it smelled exactly like my most detested fragrance of all time, Santal 33, goddammit it I hate that scent and couldn't believe I'd accidentally bought 30ml of a dupe thereof. BUT, on skin, thank christ, it's not that. It's got a sandlewood vibe but is more subtle and fresh, light. It kind of smells like it could be a Guerlain Homme flanker. Very nice!
I strongly advise against blind buying this. I almost got a 50 ml bottle without sampling and that would’ve been a mistake. I can see this being a beautiful fragrance with the right chemistry, the boozy coconut opening was great for me as well. Not a sweet coconut on my skin, and I really enjoyed the first 30 mins of wear. Enter the tobacco… I don’t dislike this note at all, tonka I love but couldn’t detect here. All I get is very dry, heavy tobacco, and it doesn’t morph into anything else. Headache inducing. 4 hrs into my first test had to go wash this off as I got tired of feeling like an ashtray. Gave it another try a couple months later, result is much the same, interesting opening then tobacco blasts through and ruins everything. Performance seems on par with other offerings from Nishane, sadly this didn’t work for me. Do yourself a favour and sample first.
À warm, orchard apple opens this perfume, the sort you'd make cloudy apple juice from. Then as it dries down cinnamon and aldehydes (ever so slightly cheesy) are revealed, then finally the trademark EDP musky base. Bizarre, complex and wonderful. Update after two years of owning: This is a very strange, stark combination of aldehydes and spice, with fruit, but not in an old-school way. The fruit is like weird, plastic, abstract fruit, or maybe some apple slices in a condom, and eventually dries down to a musk with wafts of apple pâtisserie. It's a series of notes found in orientals of days gone by, but presented in such a skewed manner as to be unrecognisable as such. Pure genius, although I can understand why it lurks in the background behind other Malle scents. This one isn't loud, it isn't a show-stopper, it's more of an intellectual, academic study of old-school perfumery through the most aloof niche lens.
Rose de Russie + Géranium Pour Monsieur via the exquisite craftsmanship of Jean-Claude Ellena. Wonderful! Smells 100 times better on skin than on card.
This is very nice. It opens with full on caramel spice, then dries down to be basically identical to Fate Man. So for me it's a less bold, less complex Fate Man. It's very similar to the spicy skyscraper Serge Lutens scents such as L'Inommable or Serge Noir. The elephant in the room for me is tobacco. There's loads here to my nose. Lovgevity is mega, more than 16 hours and still noticeable.
Crystal Saffron done cheaper and less obnoxious.
You can call any old shite "oud" these days. Aside from the z-grade oud accord, the rest of the notes smell cheap and are instantly forgotten.
Smells like a Loreal for Men shower gel (cheap chemicals). I don't mind it in a shower gel but as a niche perfume, no. Cementing my disdain for this brand.
Very synthetic smelling lemon overdose, some other chemicals, blah blah. I'm starting to get bored with this brand and I'm halfway through the sample set. This smells cheap, synthetic and obnoxiously strong.
Chemical assault disguised as iris-violet. Could be some sort of Armani jock scent. Awful.
Very true to Guichard's style, heavy, synthetic, beast-mode screamer. If you want a slightly less obnoxious coffee patchouli scent, try Épices Exquises, although that one is also pretty loud. This one wore me down and put me in a bad mood until I was able to scrub it off.
I'll echo what others have said. It's a bog-standard white floral akin to many designer scents. There's no indolic side whatsoever, nothing to make it stand out, no emotional reaction, no edge, no true beauty. Neeeext
Smells like the new version of Oud Minérale, synthetic and metallic. It's no surprise who made this, as like all of the perfumes in his own brand (Matière Première) there's a backbone of harsh, screechy fixatives. Some people will like this - those who can tolerate the amberwoods - I don't really.
This one is less off-putting than Them, but while I appreciate the craft of it all, I can't wear it. There's a lot in here I'd normally like, but it's underpinned by a sort of harsh, gasoline, leather or maybe oud backbone that's too strong and is giving me a headache.
