Tactics (1979)
by Shiseido

The epitome of the sharp, angular  herbal-floral concoction. A strange fragrance, one of the first i inhaled in my adolescence taking it from a shelf  in the bedroom of the old brother of one of my best friends. I looked and tasted it recently in a shop inside a commercial center and it was a flash back. This fragrance owns uniqueness, it's tremendously sharp, silent, citrusy, rooty and metallic, the monolitic smell is something that reminds slightly a detergent soap and for the rest urine, rain over the asfalt and brass. I detect lime, bergamot, geranium, may be violet,cedarwood, fluid vetiver and herbs. Shiseido probably reproduces synthetically the laundry-detergent effect the others reviewer talk about. Unique, out of the mainstream but very hardly appealing for its algid  refractoriness.

30th October, 2011. (Last Edited: 22nd November, 2011.)

I think I was 16 or 17 when someone give me this present, probably it was 1988, 1989.
A strange scent, green and fresh but no more memories at all about it. Very hard to find, I don't think it is on production again. Not a shame anyway...

3rd January, 2011.

Its great because it is the simplicity itself.I guess in 1979 this was quite up to date but of course today...one will encounter very easily 101 cheap shower gels which have probably inherited this fragrance composition.Green and citrusy,the citrus ,being the main theme here,is sparkling and just slightly sharp but that's how it is supposed to be in compositions like that(or WAS supposed to be back in 1979 anyway)and once again...simple -...yet masculin which for me is quite important factor when forming my final verdict.

16th December, 2009.

A smooth, dry green floral fragrance with a somewhat powdery (almost dusty) woodsy base. There may also be a touch of white musk in here, providing a slight "laundry detergent" or "cashmere" quality, but the predominant scent to me is green and floral. It is, for this sort of scent, very long lasting - almost all day. The fragrance I would compare it to is L'Artisan's L'Eau du Caporal, only without that fragrance's signature mint. Pretty good stuff and not dated at all considering its 1979 release date.

6th March, 2007.

Love at first sniff. Warm wet earth, grass sprinkled by a light rain, a wildflower accord and a clean artificial note that all blend together into a refined and meditative scent that somehow manages to be both comfortable and enigmatic. Unlike anything else out there, although some of the notes do remind me of the venerable Tabac Original.

6th September, 2006.

A strange scent and quite difficult to describe. My first impression was that I didn't much like it and, even now, it can still remind me of a superior washing detergent. But it is a fragrance, if you'll pardon the pun, that really gets under your skin and has you compulsively sniffing your wrist, partly in pleasure, partly trying to penetrate its secret. It is poetic and unique, and somewhat monolithic in that the opening notes never change much, they simply get more subdued. It somehow manages to smell both conventionally clean and eccentrically weird at the same time. I still think the detergent analogy is a good one, but a detergent layered with overtones and undertones of mystery and refinement.

13rd November, 2004.