West Side (2006)
by Bond No. 9

West Side is my wife's favorite Bond No9 fragrance. While she loved it from the first sniff, it's taken some time to grow on me. This fragrance is mostly rose, baker's vanilla and amber, although it sometimes seems to me that there's a tobacco note hidden behind the vanilla. While not gormound, it occasionally drifts into a cake batter like aroma when over applied. Like most Bonds, West Side is a powerful fragrance and a little is a lot IMO. At it's lower tone, I've found I like this fragrance a lot. I think it is one of the few unique Bond scents and quite versatile for any woman to wear. There's something youthful and something serious about it all in one. Although listed as unisex, most guys won't want to wear this.

While I still prefer Chinatown and So New York over West Side on my wife, I will endorse this as a great "go to" modern fragrance in my wife's wardrobe. Twist my arm and I have to give it a Thumbs Up

Are you sure there isn't a little chocolate in here?
Because of the ylang and rather heavy dose of vanilla I think of this as Banana Cream Samsara.

This has become my wife's signature scent.
I blind-bought this hoping I would like it.
We both sprayed it on and she said she REALLY liked it.
I thought it was too feminine, but could be worn casually by a male.

It is STRONG and could sometimes come off with a "grandma" vibe but with a modern twist. There is an undertone that smells similar to a pouch of chewing tobacco, but it's pleasant (which lends it to masculinity at times).

It's very unique and you'd be hard-pressed to run across someone else wearing this.
Wear this if you want to be NOTICED for your fragrance. My wife has received a tremendous amount of compliments from men, women and children when wearing West Side.

She used ½ of her 50ml bottle and I bought a 100ml bottle for her and took possession of the smaller bottle for myself.

Genre: Woody Oriental

Finally! A Bond No. 9 scent that doesn't come out of the bottle smelling exactly like something else. There's a massive rose here, and something that smells to me like an unlisted patchouli note, but the rose is far too sweet and winey to conjure up Voleur de Roses. West Side remains quite sweet as it develops, though the rose mellows to make room for other, somewhat indolic floral notes. There's some obvious vanilla in the foundation, along with a faintly animalic amber, and it's the floral, vanilla, and amber combination that dominates West Side for several hours on my skin. With time a raunchy little musk note pops out of the shadows to lend the scent a palpably "naughty” edge.

Later on the pendulum swings back, as the rose detaches itself and moves forward once more. Then, over a couple of hours, the entire composition slowly folds down into a soft amber and vanilla drydown. West Side has more character than many of the other Bond No. 9 scents, and its relatively long lifespan is another advantage. While I don't think it's earthshaking, I do consider it one of the line's more worthwhile scents.

I know a couple of Michel Almairac’s roses. Voleur de Rose for l’Artisan Parfumeur and the inexpensive but spectacular Cabaret for Grès. Voleur is a beautifully simple-to-wear patchouli rose with and earthy/fruity bent. Cabaret is a long-lasting musky rose/incense and one of the best perfumes available for about 25 bucks. Clearly, the perfumer knows his way around a rose garden.

If you like West Side, it is a richer, more complex perfume than either of the above two. If you’re not fond of it, it’s just more complicated. West Side doesn’t have the transparency of Cabaret or the succinctness of Voleur, but it is a well considered take on the gourmand-floral. West Side is built on a woody rose/vanilla core that gets pulled this way and that by a number of modifiers, making it a difficult perfume to categorize. Peony pulls the rose in a loud, frazzled direction. A sweet milkiness, I assume a sandalwood analogue, pulls the rose in a woody/creamy direction. Vanilla takes the rose toward the gourmand, but it’s not a Willy Wonka over-the-top dessert frenzy. It smells a bit like a rich, creamy porridge with rosewater. If the ‘neither/nor’ thing bothers you, West Side might not be your cup of tea. But if you like the idea of a perfume that presents a different face to different perspectives, give it a go.

West side isn’t my bag, but I can dig it, baby. It’s nicely composed, it wears very well over time and has an unhurried, zaftig sensibility. It’s dense and cozy, more a ‘come hither’ fragrance than a sillage monster.

from scenthurdle.com