Rocabar (1998)
by Hermès

Cedar and Balsam with a little cypress and vanilla to warm up the dry down. Rocabar is a very pleasant, refined, gentleman's fragrance. It is like comfort food, perfect for relaxing at home with a fire, a great book, and a cup of tea. For me, Rocabar is primarily a fall and winter fragrance, with good staying power that stays close to the skin. I enjoy it and recommend it to any one that is looking for a quality, warm, uncomplicated woodsy-oriental. Very nice.

12nd September, 2011.

Very "perfumey" - and normally I have no problem with that, but this doesn't work for me. II find it cloying and the vanilla in the drydown unpleasant.

That said, I could imagine a suave man or woman in their 50s/60s really pulling this off. Old world sophisticated but too powdery and sweet for my tastes.

29th August, 2011.

This definitely smells sort of old fashion when you first put it on. I wouldnt put it on right before leaving the house. When it dries down a bit it is a good smell on the sweet side to me with a little soap added. Something about it reminds me of old spice but doesnt smell cheap. I think it is an old school sort of fragrance something you would smell on an established gentleman not and up and coming 20s-30s guy. I wouldn't buy a bottle I don't think, but if you like sort of old fashion masculine you will like this, similar to givenchy gentleman I would say that era

23rd March, 2011.

On application there is an old fashioned, stinky perfume aspect to this, which initially brands the scent as old fashioned. As it settles in, it becomes more mellow and I am more able to appreciate Rocabar's quality. This really is a beautiful blend of wood ashes, pine, juniper and cedar, with a touch of vanilla. I did not find this sweet or overly vanillin, as some have. I think it is a fragrance for a mature man. Suitable for cooler weather. A horseblanket it is supposed to invoke? I can actually get that.

6th February, 2011.

Rocabar is a coniferous, soapy, chypre scent, very green, spicy and almost mentholated at the beginning although finally  too sweet and mellow in its kind of creamy dry down. The top notes produce a sort of mentholated, crisp breeze, balsamic and bracing. The blast is a kind of frozen one due to the combination of the spicy lavender over a woodsy cocktail of juniper berries, green leaves and woodsy needles. The transition to the middle woody notes developes the mentholated, balsamic, aromatic theme with cedar, pine and cypress whose i smell the green aroma of needles. I love this fragrance until this point of the development in which its woodsy temperament is real and natural. The final part of the development introduces the strongly sweet presence of balsams. The smooth cushion embraces the elements of the forest in a sweet, smooth embrace may be too daring  in the engage of casting a creamy base for the bosque. The outcome is a sort of syrupy and vanilla, aromatic, mentholated cream. I was expecting a nice early bird scent while otherwise what i disclosed is a cold evening time one.

5th February, 2011. (Last Edited: 15th March, 2011.)

Rocabar is very sweet and vanillic, which at first made me discredit it. Since then, I've realized that the wood component is uniquely seductive and beautiful. In the quest for woods, I've tried Visit, Tam Dao, Rush, Gucci PH...all the usual suspects. I've found that the dark, resinous earthy wood in Rocabar, if you take the time to find it under the sugar and spice, stands above the others in a way that I didn't initially appreciate. To me, this scent like no other represents the oft-idealized december night walk through the snowy pine forest of the mind. The dry wood smell is surpisingly cold underneath the warmth of the sweeter components, and it includes the needles on the dry branches, and a bit of the soil. The only problem you'd run into with Rocabar is that some seasonal home scent products are very similar, and younger audiences might think your cologne smells like a Glade Winter Edition Plug-In Illuminated Scent Oil Pyramid, or something like that.

31st October, 2010.