Original Vetiver (2004)
by Creed

Fresh, fresh, fresh. Clean, just laundered light green with a tinge of foody vanilla(veryvery light tinge).
I am sure I am not the only one that notices OV is a copy of Mugler Cologne. However, the 'hand-of-Creed' is very evident, and I think I would have bought the Creed if I sampled it before the Mugler. There is something about the Mugler that bomes annoying if oversprayed, especially in cold weather. The Creed on the other hand is dynamic enough so you can overspray and not regret it.
But for the money, Mugler is the obvious choice. However, if a bit more sophistication and a better drydown is your desire, spend the money on Original Vetiver.

Creed Original Vetiver

Notes: Vetiver from Haïti, Mysore sandalwood, iris from Florence, musk and ambergris, deep wood notes, mandarin, bergamot from Sicily, ginger (from creedfragrances.co.uk)

Lemon, bergamot, amber, musk, and rosewood are the most prominent notes when Original Vetiver is first sprayed. I am wondering where the vetiver is. Even after the fragrance has dried and is starting to settle, I do not smell any vetiver. What I do smell is basically a very woody-lemony cologne with soft amber-musk base. It's really not bad, but I would not classify it as a vetiver fragrance. The ingredients seem to be of reasonably good quality, however, I am having a very hard time getting excited about this fragrance. OV is Boring with a capital "B". It just SITS there, being lemony, woody and a tad spicy--in a nutshell, OV is mostly a soapy traditional scent and a bit thin on the base notes. This fragrance has none of the sparkle and beauty I would expect from a traditional scent made by a prestige house. I hesitate to suggest it as a good, all occasion, light and fresh fragrance because it is too expensive for what it is.

I'm embarrassed to say that when I wrote my initial review of OV, I was mistaken. Stupidly, I bought my bottle of OV from eBay. Little did I know when I wrote my review that I had bought a fake. And not even a good one. I didn't realize I'd been stiffed until a couple of weeks later when I sampled the real thing at Neiman Marcus. Since then, I've bought a bottle of the real deal, and it is fabulous. A beautiful fresh and VERY GREEN scent that at first does seem like a ripoff of the TM Cologne. However, give it some time and you'll see the difference. Whereas the TM is a rather static, linear work, OV truly evolves beautifully over time, starting with a bright green, citrusy top note, then the vetiver slowly creeps in and lasts for a good three hours. After that, OV makes a 180 back to its initial green ways, drying down to a sweet musk. Beautiful work.

Below I've kept my initial review just for laughs and a lesson not to buy Creed from eBay!:

I just bought a bottle of OV blind on eBay, based purely on the positive reviews of it on this site. Am I smelling the same "Original Vetiver" that all of these rave reviewers smelled?! This now is tied with Pinaud's "Lilac Vegetal" as the nastiest, most foul "fragrance" I have ever smelled. All I smell is SOAP - a very LOUD Dial soap. The kind of soap that sucks out every drop of oil from your skin and dries it to a crisp. I don't smell the slightest bit of citrus, "cut grass", or even vetiver in this. This is a totally vile, single-note chemical floral so awful that if you ever wondered what a migraine headache feels like, all you'd need to do is take one whiff of this heinous stench. The Bush Administration could have used Original Vetiver on the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay rather than water-boarding - one spritz of this stuff will make a person confess to anything! If I'm not smelling the same fragrance everyone else on this site is raving about, then Creed needs to get with the program, improve their quality control and start pouring the right fragrances in the correct bottles. Why would anyone want to smell like this? To attract bees?

Lemme start by saying how much I've really, really, really tried to like Creed. Anyway, this one starts out innocuously enough, but by the dry down, you're stuck in soapy/grassy hell for the next 24 hours -- kinda like a really bad acid trip or something. And go ahead and try to wash this thing off! Can't do it! Hey, if you dig vetiver to the extreme, this is the scent for you. Go easy, though. Too much of this bad boy and the sillage gets imprinted on your cerebral cortex, just like The Phone Company wanted to do in "The President's Analyst." Remember that movie? Great flick! I'm neutral on the scent because I just don't dig heavy vetiver, and that's not Creed's fault; it's my problem and I guess I'll just have to deal with it. But a big thumbs up on the movie! Check it out!

At best this smells like a bar of Dial, or a Crayola scented crayon (Baby Powder mixed with Cedar Chest maybe?). At worst it smells like a grass clogged lawnmower. I don't understand this at all. The gradient green bottle is nice though, so at least there's some investment to keep after you dump the $250 liquid out.

What a blast of fresh cut grass!! Uplifting and masculine with a pleasing lack of sweetness. Very good duration and silage. A complex scent with interesting development. Unlikely to offend anyone (unless you over-apply massively).
16/05/06

Edit 21/06/09 - Well I stand by most of that except that I can't wear it anymore because of the everlasting musk in the base. It endures through several showers and interferes with my scent choice the next day. It would be wonderful for somebody who wanted to wear it every day, or several days in a row.
Changed from thumbs up to neutral.