Reviews of Nicolaï pour Homme (2003)
by Parfums de Nicolaï

Indeed, a damned fine fragrance.
Starts out with a beautifully bright lemon/ citrus... but quickly morphs into a citrus/ lavender warmth.
As the esteemed tvlampboy calls this a more friendly Gris Clair, I rather find this to be Caron's le 3Man perfected. While there is a certain discordance to the Caron (which may be its charm), PdN does this scent with such grace and suave handling of materials, it's as though Michelangelo came upon a da Vinci, altered it ever so slightly, and made a genius reflection upon a work of genius.

Darn.... do you ever want to just cop out and say 'this just smells GOOD'? Well that's how I feel about Nicolai Pour Homme. As already mentioned, lavender is at the heart of this fragrance and is present from application through drydown. When fist applied, the lavender is paired with mint and piney green notes (spruce?). The sharpness of the green notes fades, and for a long time the heart presents itself as lavender with the 'bite' removed by a mix of mint and tobacco. As the base emerges, amber becomes more prominent, the mint drops out, and the composition sweetens slightly. The transitions are seamless as the notes fade in and out. Throughout its life, NPH is constantly presenting a different face... but the changes are always discrete and happen slowly.

There is nothing at all jarring or obtrusive about this fragrance, it just makes you smell good without being overly loud or trying to break ground with some new accord. I could see this as being the fragrance to wear in situations when you're not sure if wearing a fragrance is appropriate. NPH is masculine but could be pulled off by a woman. It stays somewhat close to the skin, but I only gave it a 2-spray application. You'd have to appreciate lavender to some extent to enjoy this, but it's not a sharp, biting lavender at all.

Really, really nice fragrance.

The opening is a nicely balanced aromatic green… The note that is easiest for me to pick out is the lavender; in fact, the lavender grabs prominence and holds on to it through the whole fragrance. In the past several years, lavender has lost much of its charm for me, and I am disappointed that it is so prominent and lasting in the accords of this fragrance. It holds center stage from the opening to the last of the drydown. Except for the lavender and the aromatics that I assume are from the mint and geranium, I can’t pick out individual notes until the drydown where the benzoin, tobacco, and labdanum rise up to claim their own identity out of the amorphous green. I don’t get woods, and I don’t get moss. The fragrance has limited longevity, although it does remain as a discreet skin scent for an hour or two. I enjoy the skin scent phase of it.

The accords, lavender included, are so well done that I can’t help but admire the artisan quality they present, but, subtle and beautiful as it seems to be, it is also lavender, lavender, lavender, making Nicolai pour Homme a must try for the lavender lover. I’ll pass.

Nicolai Pour Homme is a scent that is very wearable for me. I love the opening. I don't object to mint as much as a lot of reviewers here do, but even so the mint is dealt with very delicately in this scent. This scent is green, but not too green, woody but not too woody. It's a fougère but not completely. It's masculine but not too masculine. I was addicted to it when I first bought it. I still reach for it frequently. People aren't used to a fragrance like this as it is so unique, so I get many compliments when I wear it. It's a nice one this.

Green and semi-fougère (without the coumarin), but very subtle and beautiful. This is a discreet and masculine perfume that is uplifting and energizing because of its cool freshness and green aura. The florals in the heart note are present, but not overwhelming, and the base is mossy-woody with tobacco and oriental touches. This is elegant and open, outgoing, and far from staid; and yet, it gives the impression of decency and uprightness, the mark of an honorable and forthright man.

Smells like an airy cypress with mint rather than a lavender and sage. Reminds me of Creed's Cypres-Musc.

Gris Clair's warmer, friendlier cousin. (Not really close enough to be a sibling, but definitely in the same formal lavender clan.)

I'm not usually a huge fan of mint (witness my general indifference to Live Jazz, Pasha and others), but the mint really, really works here.

The frag itself does warm up a bit as the wearing goes on, true, but this neverthelss a formal, almost aloof kind of frag from beginning to end. (Great for the office, but probably not a romantic dinner kind of frag, let alone casual Friday.)

Thumbs up, granted, but only with the provisos above firmly in place.

Fragrance notes: mint, galbanum, lavender, jasmine, spruce, cedar, geranium, tobacco moss, amber benzoin, labdanum
Nicolai pour Homme has two contradictory phases. I tried it for the first phase, and for an all-too-brief period the icy mint and spicy galbanum were interesting. Then NpH does a 180-degree turn and warms up too much! There are very, very ambery tones: balsam, vanilla, coconut, leather, butter. The amber, labdanum and benzoin make an ambery brew that is ponderously rich. Not woody enough to interest me, too sweet, not my style at all. A disappointment.

Nicolai pour Homme enters with a harsh blast of mentholated lavender. As the scent evolves the mint and lavender come to rest on a bed of powdery musk, woods, vanilla, and what just might be a dab of...coconut! Because there's no warmth to this scent, I find it oddly detached, enigmatic, and maybe even alienating. In the end, it creeps me out.

The drydown is a pretty standard issue woods, clean musk, and vanilla, but to my nose there's something unpleasantly "scratchy" about it. Not my thing.

It opens, quite bitter and minty, somewhere to the exotic left of Azzaro Pour Homme. It continues down this path: cool, enigmatic, with almost a sense of elegant melancholy as the previous reviewer has so aptly observed. A deep and sober scent, highly poetic and evocative ... but of what? Death, regret, loss, age, time itself? There seems to be a sort of 'Creed notes' about the final developments.

Strange but interesting stuff - quite different from anything else I’ve tried. De Nicolai’s site says there are also warm ingredients in it, but it smells cool and oddly melancholic to me. There’s mint in it, but not a candy-cane or Tic-Tac mint: maybe some wild herb in the mint family. I like it well enough to use it in warm weather for variety when I’m desperate for a change from citrus smells, but it really does not make me smile at every whiff like de Nicolai’s New York does. Certainly, no woman will be driven wild by the raw sexuality you exude (since you won’t) while wearing it.