Reviews of A*Men Pure Coffee (2008)
by Thierry Mugler

I found this one at nordstroms when it first came out they ,the fragrance makers found a way to use coffee in there creations, this is preaty kool,ever walk by and then you smell fresh coffee beans its like wow thats very nice so there now useing it in fragrance,and colognes as base notes and when the notes are perfect then the scent is very very nice, so i say keep going use the coffee in scents.

A*Men Pure Coffee is definitely an improvement on the original A*Men – the birch tar note has all but disappeared, now replaced by a very agreeable coffee note. Unfortunately, during the drydown, the coffee note morphs from something pleasant and natural into something synthetic and slightly annoying.

This would probably be great for layering but, on its own, could become boring after a few wearings. Also, I don’t like the fact that it’s only available in 100ml rather than the two usual sizes (and what a huge flask it is). Sillage and longevity are pretty good.

[Original submission date: 14 April 2008]

Thierry Mugler A*Men Pure Coffee

Flankers have become the perfume equivalents of movie sequels. Just like movie sequels the more numbers that go behind the title the less original and interesting it usually is. There are exceptions to both rules Cartier Declaration and its flankers and The Godfather. What makes both of those cases stand out is the artists behind them chose to use the original as a stepping-off place to create again as opposed to an original to be copied. In 2008 Thierry Mugler decided to turn to Jacques Huclier who created the original A*Men, 12 years earlier, and Christine Nagel to create A*Men Pure Coffee. One of the consistent criticisms of A*Men as a scent is it is too overwhelming and the notes and accords are layered on with a too-heavy hand. While it is true that A*Men could never be considered a subtle scent I am not one who agrees with that criticism. I think A*Men was an attempt to take a number of very strong notes and try and make them into a balanced whole, which succeeds in my opinion. A*Men Pure Coffee seems to indicate that M. Huclier has heard that criticism and in Pure Coffee attempts to turn down the volume. The way he does this is to use coffee as an accentuating note which allows particularly the chocoalte present in A*Men to come forward. The top of this starts with a roasted bean flavor of coffee. This is different than the coffee present in the base of A*Men which is more of a brewed coffee accord. This accord is the smell you get after you've ground the bean. The astringent oil is present as well as the coffee aroma. I've always noticed the chocolate in A*Men but in Pure Coffee it seems like the chocolate has gone from milk chocolate to dark chocolate as the accord now comes in as almost bittersweet in character. Thie interplay of coffee and chocolate is what makes A*Men Pure Coffee different than A*Men. What makes it the same is the base as patchouli comes in followed by that brewed lighter coffee note present in the original. I will say that while the base is unmistakably A*Men it does seem more muted than in the original. A*Men Pure coffee has proven to be that rare brew that actually improves on the original.

As Sir Slarty put it, its A*Men with coffee, not chocolate, thats exactly what it is. To pure coffee lovers (not that mochalattefrapaccino crap you get at Starbucks) it smells amazing. But how does that work out as a fragrance? It seriously smells like you just ground some coffee that morning and got some of the powder on you. Good smells, not that good to "wear".

i like it......to me it is more what New Haarlem should have been like.....the coffee note being stronmg yet not pungent and nowhere near bitter....there is a sweet nutmeg-vanilla like sweetness that begins to permeate in the background within 5-7 minutes of intitial spray....the gourmand sweetness is light and fluorescent and refreshingly simple without the overbearing tar effect of the original. Overall, an easy recommendation to at least 'try'.

I like this, I feel like they re vamped A*MEN and fixed everything I didn't like about it and gave me Pure Coffee! Glad I found it.

My favourite gourmand - I much prefer this to A*Men. I feel like it sits somewhere between A*Men and B*Men...

Pure Coffee opens with a very potent arabica coffee note, present for mere seconds. I'm pleased that it doesn't last too long, because it's not "blended" into the fragrance - simply sitting there seperate from the rest. I could swear there is also a steamed milk smell for those short seconds, but I could be creating a scent association here.
After the coffee has passed by, a mouthwatering dark chocolate and vanilla accord lingers and appears/disappears for hours and whenever it comes back, it makes me want to take a bite out of something! A sweet tar note also hangs about, but it's nowhere near as pronounced as in the original A*Men.
The dry, but sweetened, patchouli/woody drydown lasts for hours and is very agreeable with my skin.

This is very obviously just A*Men enriched with coffee instead of chocolate. That would have made for a more interesting fragrance, a mocha-like fragrance (Rochas Man) with A*Men's power. The coffee fades dramatically into the usual heavy vanilla nd patchouli drydown of A*Men. Not a bad thing in itself if you happen to like A*Men.

Every note in it except coffee is nice. Coffee note is not very successful but not disturbing either. Main problem is coffee is not integrated with the rest; stands in the front like a brown spot.

I actually really like this alot, the scent opens up with notes very similar to A*MEN with, obviously, much more coffee. I LOVE the drydown which is fresh and clean. If you have A*MEN then this is very very similar so need need to duplicate but, overall, really nice!

For me. there's something just a bit disagreeable in the drydown, and the top notes are not appealing to me at all (as another reviewer said, more like stale coffee). It's almost like an anistic coffee smell in the drydown Some might really like this, presumably, though. I was hoping for something like that aromatic sensation of sniffing a fresh bag of high quality coffee, but don't expect that kind of thing with PC. Instead, this is "heavier" than I thought it would be. It's certainly not terrible, and I'd gladly trade a bottle of a few things I have for this, but I don't think I'll feel the need to buy a bottle of it, unless I get a great bargain or someone wants to swap for it.

whenever i go round town with a small bag of fresh grounded coffeebeans from the shop, people cheer on the delicious smell all the time.

this stuf is nothing even remotely like it.

now, i do kinda like the original a*men for what it is, even owned a bottle in the past.
this is a*men with more chocolate added.
to me, this is a*men gone bad.

This is basically Amen, if you want a better coffee fragrance buy New Harlem by Bond No.9, Then you can layer Amen original with New Harlem, then you will have 3 fragrangces at least. PC can smell vile, AMen if not used within the shelf life is rancid a bit like Creed fragrance. But basically save your dosh. It potent on first application and then Amen! Name says it all!

Arabica Coffee, Patchouli, Musk, Moss, Cedarwood, Vetiver--Sounds delightful, yes? Nothing wrong with Pure Coffee, but hardly memorable. Mildly sweet. New Haarlem gives you more wow factor. I prefer Black Vetyver Cafe overall. Also, PC takes about 20 minutes to come together. The top notes suffer from "attention-deficit dis-odor."

A Limited Edition flanker worthy of the "Angel" name. It starts off familiar to the original A*Men with a punch of bergamot, bitter coffee, and what seems to be that familiar rubbery "tar" and patchouli accord that's ever-so-present-forever in the original, but this opening quickly subdues itself and you catch a moment of what smells like lemon scented nail polish remover and mom's face powder. It settles into a spicy chai tea with milk smell with an undertone of lavender. Beautifully done, but what amazes me is the lack of that signature punch of patchouli that holds the scent together in all of his scents to the very end. It's there, but very minimal and is definitely not the last note you smell in Pure Coffee. Sadly it's a mostly quiet scent that disappears in 2 hours using 2 sprays to the same spot. No help when you spray it directly to clothes either. 2 sprays with the original A*Men can clear a closed room! Easily wearable for a year-round scent, but up the sillage and add more fixatives to the base please! Somehow it did remind me of Armani Attitude for Men, but not as textured or with those clean laundered notes juxtaposed to its dirtier notes of amber and patchouli. As short lived and subtle as Attitude was, Pure Coffee is even sheerer and weaker. Oh well, hopefully if it becomes a permanent offering, they might tinker with it a little, but I certainly doubt it. They certainly didn't do anything to A*Men Summer Flash when they renamed it Ice*Men as a permanent offering.

This is the only gourmand scent I've liked enough to buy (and at full price, too!). I'm surprised at the reviews that liken the coffee notes to that of cheap, burnt coffee. What I note is a rich espresso-chocolate aroma. Hints of vanilla balance the coffee notes and become more prominent as the fragrance develops. Eventually the coffee notes are gone and replaced with light chocolate and vanilla notes. I catch slight undertones of musk and cedar, which temper the sweetness of the 'mocha latte' notes. If starbucks ever markets a fragrance this would be it.

Even if you're cringing at this review, give it a try (assuming you're at one of the few department stores carrying this). I generally hate sweet fragrances, but AMen Pure Coffee is just done right. It lasts a long time on my skin (it is still very noticeable after 6 hours) but doesn't project too far. As of now I've only had it on my wrist and hands. Tomorrow I'll test drive it to work...

I know this is a limited release, but my only gripe is that nothing smaller than 3.4z was available. The bag-of-gourmet-coffee-packaging is a trip.

If I had never smelled the original A*men then I would have given this a thumbs up, but this was a disappointment to me the same way Fleur de Male was: the topnotes are new and exciting, but the drydown smells exactly like the original. Pure Coffee starts off smelling just like the name implies. It's like walking into a Starbuck's and smelling all the brewing coffee. Unfortunately once the topnotes die off you're left with an exact clone of A*men, which isn't a bad thing but it makes owning both scents redundant.

At first I thought: vile! I love the scent of freshly ground coffee beans or freshly brewed coffee, but this is old stale coffee or possibly the old coffee beans they provide in perfume stores for you to refresh your nose between scents... It gets better, meaning it gets more like the original A Men - warm, sweet, earthy - but why should you need another A Men with the refreshing lavender topnotes replaced by stale coffee? It's also annoyingly strong and possibly headache-inducing - I just couldn't get it off my skin! It gets a neutral rating for the decent drydown, which is basically the drydown of A Men. The nauseating top deserves a thumbs down, but they say you shouldn't judge a scent by its topnotes...

I love this scent. After the initial coffee scent it turns into something that I think is a little better than the original A*Men.

I fall in love from the pure coffee sent....it s so black!!

I'm a hands-down fan of this fragrance. I've never tried out the original Angel Men, so can't compare the two, but this Pure Coffee version is like distilled joy in a bottle.

It starts off with a whiff of dry woodsmoke, but then immediately stampedes into rich burnt coffee and vanilla interwoven with various notes of chocolate, from bitter to dark to sweetly milky. It fades in and out all day. I'll be typing on my laptop and suddenly the most wonderful aromas of burnt sugar, espresso and steamed milk will waft into my senses and I'll think, "Hey -- what smells so good? Oh, it's ME!"

It's nowhere near being green, or animalic, or anything resembling a traditional masculine. It's a rich gourmand scent that's like taking a blowtorch to a bucket of dark creme de cacao, and it's probably one of the few fragrances you could actually wear to a restaurant without disturbing the surrounding diners.

At first sniff, I got a little disappointed, cause Amen Pure Coffee is not what I'd imaged. Amen PC was totally Amen with that sweet, deep, stronge. Full of chocolate. But after about 15minutes, everything changed. The smell of pure coffee mixing with chocolate was so wonderful that I couldn't stop enjoying its smell. A wonderful scent for spring. Smooth, soft, warm, and attractive. Amen PC's so much more nature than Amen. Easy to wear. Easy to enjoy. Easy to get everyone's attention. I love it!!!

What a let down. I like the smell of coffee, and so I expected to like this one. The coffee scent in this is a stale/burnt cooffee-in-the-office-coffee-pot that has been there for days smell. Not attractive or desirable...to me anyway. I think it takes away from the original A*Men scent as the coffee part hangs around through out the scent life.
Neutral at best (and that is stretching it). Only buy if you love that coffee smell regardless of freshness.

A*Men Pure Coffee is a kinder gentler variation of A*Men. A*Men Pure Coffee comes in a eye catching box that sort of mimics a small bag of Coffee. The box has a unique sent spot on it that sort of smells like the actual product, however the sample spot is not quite the same as the fragrance. I would not make purchase decision based on the scent spot affixed to the box, you will need to try this on the skin to perceive the true scent. Inside the box is a 3.4 dark brown rubber flask with a golden anodized star protruding from the flask.

A*Men Pure Coffee starts out with a burnt coffee and chocolate theme, then as time progresses, a slightly toned down version of A*Men emerges. The addition of more coffee notes is pure genius. Just as coffee clears your nose at the perfume counter, the coffee notes do a good job of taking some of the edge off of the A*Men scent. To me, Pure Coffee is smoother and a bit more earthy than the original.

If you loved the original A*Men, you are probably going to love Pure Coffee. If you hated the original A*Men, then you might want to revisit this new offering. The coffee is an interesting twist that helps to smooth and blend the fragrance out just a bit. You might even change your mind.