One Man Show (1980)
by Jacques Bogart

I tried to avoid the top notes, as I do with most fragrances, and it dries down quickly to a creamy scent with what I think is castoreum and incense being prominent. I think if I had different skin chemistry this would be better, but this dry, almost dusty quality lasts a long time (when I said creamy, I didn't mean in a gourmand way; if there is any sweetness, it's minimal). Also, I think this would be good for layering (such as with Cuba Red) but I have yet to try it that way. This is certainly not one to spray more than two or three times, depending upon your skin chemistry. And it may be that different notes seem dominant, depending upon your skin chemistry. However, at 100 ml for less than $10 delivered (check around when the discounters are offering coupons, like just before or after the Christmas/New Year's holidays), it's worth a shot, especially considering the layering possibility. And if Kouros is just a bit too much for you, but you think you'd like it if it were less powerful, this might be the way to go. I look forward to "fiddling around" with this one.

Too much and it'll be called Everyone in the Room Show. The bergamot in this is really, really fizzy and haphazardly dances with the "80's fougere" powerhouse drydown making for a dizzying, average scent. Soapy orange.

Man, this is so harsh with a sparkling bitterness that takes a long time to give way to some woody sweetness in the drydown. After about three hours One Man Show smells rather good and much smoother and friendlier than the initial olfactory assault. Wear it for the hell of it! That is, IF you have a pair... It's an anti-scent in today's context.

One Man Show or the lonely man Show if you like, coz you are likely to be left alone if have this on. I tend to agree with foetidus on the standards issue. I wish i didnt have to come down hard on OMS having used it myself years ago i really thought highly of it back then, but seriously who wants to smell like a farm hand? lets match OMS for you guys if you dont already know, OMS is similar to Benetton's COLD and versace's discontiuned GREEN JEANS,i think what gives OMS away is that its harsh notes never give way to softer tolerable unforgettable notes that powerhouses are known for.

An interesting curio from a bygone era that somehow managed to survive. As one of the first widely (more or less) available Western fragrance products to pierce the Iron Curtain, OMS had been a bit of a cult and a status symbol in Russia in the years of primary capital accumulation, worn by a motley crowd of students, factory directors, the fledgling office plankton, petty entrepreneurs and hard-eyed boys with baseball bats practicing the fine art of bad debt collection. Walking down the streets of Moscow or riding the subway in those days, you'd think OMS was the official smell endorsed by the City of Moscow. Since then, its image has reverted to that of a dated budget smell for middle-aged nerds. But I digress. Its nostalgic value aside, OMS is a real viper of a scent, on par with Puig's Quorum in terms of brutal macho force (if not as complex) and equally difficult to wear if you are socially conscious. Whatever the intended notes (and there are quite a few) and progression, what I mostly get is a solid wall of something dry, leathery, harsh and bitter, a smell that has always reminded me of leafing through dusty pages in a second-hand book shop - not a bad connotation in my book, as a matter of fact. I keep a bottle at home for that note alone, but never venture outside wearing this beast.

Basically a stronger version of Photo by Lagerfeld, and in the same family not only as Lagerfeld, but also Francesco Smalto. All three fragrances "amp up" BIG TIME on my skin rather than "dry down" over the course of the day. Photo's by far the best of these three Eighties "powerhouses," but all three remind me very much of one another.

All I can say of all three in general (and One Man Show in particular) is APPLY IN MODERATION. (Otherwise, you'll need to call in HAZMAT teams to clean up the aftermath if you over-spritz.)