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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

Someone has crushed up a tube of parma violets sweets, poured them into a full makeup bag, then has given it a good shake, the contents spilling into the interior in the process.

This done, the entire concoction is tipped over you while you sit in the shade of a lilac tree, sipping orange juice.

This is sweet and floral, very powdery and more than a little sickly at times. It's partly redeemed by the patchouli-amber base and had this been given a little more prominance, it would have provided more balance overall.

Marketed as a perfume for young, carefree women, it remindes me instead of the sort of thing Are You Being Served's Mrs Slocombe would douse herself in, in preparation for a day of standing at the store counter, looking at all the customers with a supercilious expression.

I didn't completely dislike this, oddly enough, but as perfumes go, it's a competent but rather unremarkable creation, one that doesn't really distinguish itself before fizzling out in a dusty pink whiff of anonymity

I can never work out Issey Miyake's marketing strategy: some of their best releases seem to get very limited distribution and disappear without trace. This, on the other hand, seems to be getting a sizeable push. Maybe it's because they have golden boy Quentin Bisch at the helm, or maybe they think they have a sure fire, mass-pleasing scent on their hands.

Which this assuredly is. It's clean and minimal, ozonic and oceanic, which means it has that salty, seaweedy odour at the outset, offset with a mild, astringent note of ginger. At times it almost seems powdery. This settles to oakmoss and wood, along with a hint of vetiver, accompanied by the trademark Bisch metallic tang.

A couple of things surprised me about this. One was its restraint, and the other was how successfully Bisch has managed to integrate his style into the Miyake DNA. A lot of the Miyake fragrances have a sharp, almost bluntly strident note that dominates, especially at the outset. This manages to avoid that, but at the same time, it's unmistakably a house creation. It's well-blended, and although there's nothing particularly original in the composition, it smells really pleasant. There's something very stark and sheer about it all, and you can easily imagine its wearer occupying one of those uncluttered converted warehouse New York lofts that at one time everyone seemed desperate to emulate.

It's resolutely mainstream and there's nothing here that pushes the boundaries, but those sorts of fragrances have their place too. I could see this fitting into almost any sort of setting, and at most times of the year: so in that respect its almost a textbook example of a dumb reach scent. I'm not sure I'd pay full price for this, but might be tempted if a bottle becomes available on the grey market.

A trip into outer space. Or maybe inner. Or maybe both. The overexcited description of the perfume's inspiration certainly implies as much, as does the 2001 inspired promo film accompanying its release. There is much talk of supernovas and infinity and reverberations of cosmic ambers. So far, so purple.

Ignore all of that: what does the perfume actually smell like? Kind of gorgeous, actually. It takes stock ingredients and combines them in unexpected ways. The opening, peppery blast of incense? It sparkles somehow. The juniper-wood undertow has unanticipated spaciousness and depth. The dirty, mineral, ambergris base is dark and a little bewildering. It really is suggestive of outer space, or the idea of outer space, the reality apparently being the much less palatable scent of burnt meat, gunpowder and piss.

Like all the Rubini perfumes, this reveals its secrets slowly. I’ve been wearing it a lot over the few months, and every time a new facet sneaks out. It also blooms in the open air, and especially in the cold, which allows the individual notes to really emerge. Both ambitious and deeply romantic, it's probably my favourite of the entire line, edging out the greasy overalls and petrol scent of Nuvolari. I'm a bit wowed by it, actually.