Dirty English (2008)
by Juicy Couture

I remember the first time I sprayed this on my skin, long before joining Basenotes. My reaction was "Omg, what the h...?" Post-Basenotes and a hundred different scents later, my nose takes another shot at DIRTY ENGLISH and finds its spicy top a little overpowering but far from the stink it once was. It settles soon enough to unveil a blend of spice-tinged leather and woods, in particular cedar. Sillage and longevity is just about average on my skin, rather surprising for a scent that starts so promisingly. Overall this is a decent take on the masculine woods and spice genre, but apart from the controversial opening, it descends into 'middle of the road'.

I enjoy this scent. It starts off really boozy, spicy and leathery, but dries down rather quick and turns into a creamy, leather scent with hints of nice woods. Very good scent in my opinion. My problem is that is has very low sillage and longevity on my skin. Still, a quality scent that I'm very glad I bought.

Wow, Vibert captured this scent in a single sentence: "Once past its rather jumbled array of citrus and spice top notes, Dirty English resolves into a boozy, animalic leather set alongside a dry, scratchy, spiced conifer wood accord."

That is an excellent description of Dirty English. The leather accord dominates on my skin, and I'm glad it does. A hint of spices, wood and amber are there in the background, and serve only to make the scent a bit more approachable.

After the somewhat unpleasant topnotes, this is an wonderful dry, spicy leather scent. Juicy had some guts to introduce something like this in today's fragrance market.

By way of a prologue: The cashier at the local pharmacy refused to wait on me while I was testing this. She winced, made gagging faces, wailed “I can’t take that perfume!” and waved me over to another counter. I was wearing one(!) spray of Dirty English on my left wrist.

Me, I don’t think it’s all that bad. (Though it’s perhaps deceptively loud.) Once past its rather jumbled array of citrus and spice top notes, Dirty English resolves into a boozy, animalic leather set alongside a dry, scratchy, spiced conifer wood accord. To my nose, these two fragrance blocks do not blend, but rather run their separate courses in tandem. There are moments in the music of Charles Ives where the orchestra plays two different tunes in two unrelated keys at once, at the same volume, and that’s what the heart of Dirty English smells like to me. In music or in fragrance it’s a clever trick, one played successfully with different materials in scents as diverse as Angel (fruity floral and patchouli oriental), Baldessarini (spiced fruit and dry cedar), and Aramis 900 (amber oriental and aromatic green chypre).

The first key to success in this maneuver is balance. The two opposing fragrance blocks must be of nearly identical weight in order to maintain tension. This kind of balance is relatively easy to achieve for brief intervals, but to make it endure for any length of time is an act of great art. The second key is distance: the two blocks must be distinct enough to contrast with one another, yet share just enough in character to relate in some manner. Otherwise, the result is more of an olfactory stunt than a fragrance. (Smell Annick Goutal’s Eau du Fier or S-Perfume's 100% Love to see what I mean.) Dirty English succeeds admirably in terms of balance, but I’m not sure that the distance between its boozy leather and its dry cedar blocks is as well judged.

I must admit to some bias here. You see, I find the scent’s animalic leather aspect far more interesting than the dry woods. Set by itself, I imagine the cedar/cypress/cardamom complex in Dirty English would smell like any one of a thousand cheap, generic masculine scents that clumsily ape Jean-Claude Elléna’s superb Déclaration. Meanwhile, the boozy leather on its own might smell something like Czech & Speake’s Cuba, or maybe a tamer version of Idole de Lubin. To my disappointment, it’s the scratchy woody amber behind the cedar that endures to dominate the drydown, while the leather, booze, and spices peter out after about three or four hours.

Even so, in a fragrance market where the men’s fragrance aisles are crowded by bland, cynical scents distinguishable only by their packaging, the nose, creative director, and marketing team behind Dirty English deserve high praise for producing and promoting something with a real personality and a clever structure. I consider it a step, albeit a slightly faltering one, in the right direction. I hope it works.

Finally, a current release worth wearing. Will wonders never cease.lol.

A confusing opening to say the least of orange, cypress and spices thrown in the mix. It's chaotic, but that's part of the charm and dirt. The woody aspects of this scent are well accounted for as well. It lists Sandalwood,Cedar,Agarwood and Ebony.

If you think you may enjoy a volley of spicy woods with a hint of leather and vetiver, give this a sample and don't let the name stop you. Sillage and longevity are acceptable ( approx. 3-4 hours).

Thumbs up from Aromi for Dirty English.

powerful and musk dirty ,restrained by leather.has several things going on in there but it is blended nice. the leather calms it down