Pi Neo (2008)
by Givenchy

Simply average and bordering mediocre. This feels like an idle attempt to create a "modern" scent. It doesn't even smell like it would be something popular or mass-appealing. A rather redundant release if you asked me.

I almost laugh when I read the promotional material for PI NEO. If this is what the future smells like, I'd rather stay in the present. Paradoxically the decision to do yet another take on an already overdone genre seems rooted in the tried and tested past. In fact the only thing remotely futuristic about Pi Neo is the glass bottle! I feel the Givenchy team should have taken more risks and be more daring in the use of synthetics. Even if the end result polarises opinions, they would have been forgiven, for PI NEO as it stands is just painfully nondescript, and lacks that little edge or aberration that makes a fresh scent like Azzaro Chrome interesting. Perhaps in their haste to synthesize a bespoke scent for Neo, someone must have forgotten to upload the 'Grow a Set' (GAS) module into the creative team. But on the other hand they really didn't need to do anything groundbreaking for the majority of the consumers have not taken the red pill...

Notes:
Top: Bergamot, Orange, Mandarin, Toscanol
Middle: Cedar, Patchouli, Safraleine
Base: Cosmone, Vanilla

Taking a page out of the Frederic Malle promotional schtick, Pi Neo is Givenchy coming clean about modern synthetics in its fragrances (inconcert with a modicum of natural oils)...and hoping to turn it into a positive (not that properly utilising quality synthetics is inherently bad or anything). Promoted as a 'fragrance that evokes high-tech adventure and the virtual world' (with Neo from The Matrix as its muse), regretfully Pi Neo is nothing but a fairly mediocre woody-oriental made more interesting because of the details disclosed in the promo materials of proprietary synthetics used in its formula.

The opening is a citrus burst with Toscanol (R) (read: an aerated 'fresh' anise note), a woodsy heart with a parched, slightly leathery-cedary note (Safraleine) and a base composed of muted vanilla and Cosmone (one of the 1000 new synthetic musks on the market). No Givenchy, this 'boast' of a marriage of 'high powered synthetics and naturals' won't work because the more astute amongst us know that thats nowadays pretty much the formula for any half decent fragrance..its not what you have or use, its how you use it. On the upside, Pi Neo will atleast make basement geeks smell better.

Rating: 5.75/10.00

I can see only a dubious relationship between ∏ Neo and the original ∏: the relationship is quite tenuous… there is a vague vanilla note in Neo’s background, but the main delivery of this flanker is a completely different story from its progenitor. Neo is a fresh, light, synthetic, sweet, (but not as sweet as the original) offering that is pretty much like 80% of the recent men’s fragrances, except that I find this one a even more synthetic than most… I find that hard to believe and completely unforgivable. About the only identifiable note that I can determine among the sweet genericness of ∏ Neo is a light anise. The word “generic” has rightly been used in many of the reviews, and that is the exact word that pops into my mind when I smell this. Light sillage and inadequate longevity.

I pair this with Sean Jean's I Am King and the resulting scent is incredible! In just one week of doing this I have had 6-7 people asking me about the cologne I was wearing. As far as wearing it by itself, it is very middle of the pack. Not bad by any means but, just nothing special that makes you recognize it. A nice drydown though. I tend to think this is more of a summer scent

A nice hi-tech fragrance. It really smells like "technology", it is very modern, it is apparently generic, but if you smell it with more attention you will really perceive it as being very reffined. For example, I hate patchouli which is overdosed in many men fragrances( like patchouli and bergamot are everywhere), but in this one you only get a hint. Givenchy does not disappoint me. But still, by far, my favourite line is Very Irresistible.