Reviews of Lyric Man (2008)
by Amouage

A quality, well-done bergamot and lime make for a great opening, but I don’t smell that accord in this opening… the angelica blasts immediately from the bottle of dominate the opening accord… no bergamot and lime for me… just angelica. Angelica is a usually a hit or miss fragrance for me and the angelica in Lyric misses – I’m neutral about its particular olfactory presentation in Lyric, but its presence denies me my enjoyment of the opening accord. When the angelica abates enough I get a little galbanum but I don’t get rose, orange blossom, ginger, or nutmeg. I get saffron. Saffron is another note I try to avoid – if it’s too strong in the accord, it overwhelms everything else and I find it a bit unpleasant. Unfortunately saffron is a note that has outstanding longevity and for me it doesn’t disappear once it note its presence… I never lose the saffron, so, to my nose, the base notes are contaminated by the saffron note. I can’t judge the base any more than I can judge the opening or the heart.

I am assuming that Lyric is like other Amouages in that it uses quality materials. I think those quality materials are very well assembled, so, in spite of my dislike, I can’t give this a thumb’s down. It is a quality fragrance but the angelica and saffron ruin it for me.

Lyric Man has gotten some very enthusiastic press since its release, but I’m not dancing in the streets about it. Don’t get me wrong – the stuff smells fantastic. It’s a well constructed woody rose scent, with a big, sweet plummy note, oriental spices, and heady florals at its heart, all balanced by dry frankincense and just the lightest dab of piercing oudh. It’s also smooth and well blended, with a seductively deep, soft, mahogany surface that's a close match to its bottle.

Trouble is, high quality rose fragrances for men are now easy to come by in the niche market, and Lyric Man needs to shoulder its way into line with competing scents from Montale, Eau d’Italie’s Paestum Rose, and Czech & Speake’s magisterial No. 88, to mention just a few. In fact, if you switched out Lyric Man’s plum for peach and pulled out the already subtle oudh, you’d have something very much like Nahéma parfum!

As perhaps the most costly of this lot, the new Amouage would need to blow all of the rest out of the water before I’d consider a bottle, and it just doesn’t. I frankly think that No. 88, Nahéma, and Paestum Rose are just as well made as Lyric, and that Montale’s Black Aoud and Aoud Damascus are more striking in character. So while I have to rate Lyric Man positively, I recommend sampling several other masculine roses before shelling out for it.

Top Notes: Bergamot, Lime
Middle Notes: Rose, Angelica, Orange Blossom, Galbanum, Ginger, Nutmeg, Saffron
Base Notes: Pine, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Musk, Incense
A rose is a rose, is a rose... but in this case, so much more than a rose! The spicy and oriental notes abound to escort and support the rich, pure Damask rose in this scent. Her only floral competition is orange blossom, and the rest of the spicy, resinous crew make her smell pretty green and just a little bit earthy. This is going to be a trip to wear!

A muted rose fragrance that feels very clean, in the same kind of clean style as Gendarme. Overall, Lyric Man is like a soapy, very soft rose supported by very light spices and frankincense. Very fresh, clean and ethereal, while still maintaining a bit of musky sweetness.There's no way this could ever offend anyone, and that's a great feat for a rose fragrance. It's surprisingly unisex and even has a very fresh note that you could describe as something akin to cucumber-musk.

Everything here is impeccably balanced and the quality is very high - there's not a hint of anything that smells "obviously" synthetic or unpleasant. My only peeve is that it's slightly boring and lacks a bit of "kick" or "life," if you will. I'm very impressed with Amouage's releases these days and this is another one to add to the list of good ones.

8.75/10

Lyric for Men is a gentle rose and frankincense scent that is very refined and impeccably balanced fragrance. It is so tightly blended that I had to several wearings before I began to identify the notes here - and they are very hard to identify because they blend so seamlessly.

The opening smells like like a light dusting of saffron over a very pure rose scent which might contain a bit of geranium to give it depth. To connect the rose to the frankincense are some familiar incense mid tone notes that smoothe the contrasts or remove the sharp edges - possibly nutmeg and/or cardamom that leads to the almost mystical scent of the Omani silver frankincense. After the rose it is the frankincense that is the real star of this fragrance. The rose and silver frankincense blend wonderfully well and leads to a light wood base that smells like cedar + patchouli to me. If there is oud in this blend, it is very lightly done and is a more ethereal oud like a light Indonesian agarwood that might add the wood dry lift that I smell trailing behind the silver frankincense note.

This is not a deep or dark rose scent and there are no big dramas or contrasts. It is a low tone poem of similar notes. But it is a very rewarding and wonderfully uplifiting rose, frankincense and wood mens perfume. Good stuff!

Amouage Lyric: it is no doubt one of the best (if not "the best") Rose based fragrance. dense like a rosed based sherbet. Beautiful accord of rose petals mingle with other florals accords in the opening...it;s unmistakebly "red" in color/feel...as in red roses. By mids, angelica add to the bite (white smoke like effect) which is so familiar (creed angelique incens)...basenotes holds the rose notes till the end with lovely sillage.
This one is for special occassions, especially evenings where you would like to make your presense felt in a soothing at the same time, mesmerising way. Initially it may feel generic..but couple of wears down the line, it'd be irreplaceble. one of the best rose based scent out there.
13 August 2009

I love Amouage Dia and I really wanted to like this. But I compared it to several other rose-based male scents and this one is a little too "rosey" for me.

The dry down becomes a bit more masculine, but the rose scent is still pretty dominant and forward.

I prefer the dark hidden rose of Caraceni 1913, but I can see why many would love Lyric.

Really amazing fragrance -- I wasn't sure when the rose note kicked in, but it's shot through with some gorgeous non citrus fruit and berries, which takes it to another level. Lyric is very lush, rich and syrupy with an astonishing drydown. I love Paestum Rose and Rossy de Palma, but never purchased -- I had no hesitation here.

An interesting, subtle composition with nice top notes that dries down into something too feminine for me. I've got the Amouage men's sampler and am wearing it right now, and I keep getting hits of some sort of vaginal aroma - not that I mind that smell at all, in other circumstances... this seems to be a more unisex-tending-towards-feminine fragrance. Not bad, but I'll pass on it.

Amouage Lyric Man opens with a startling but beautifully breath-taking blast of rose and frankincense. My first impression was "this is QUALITY from the House of Amouage!" Few minutes after application, when the frankincense-induced nasal shock recedes, a beautiful plum note joins the symphony. This is a moist jammy plum in LM which i love, unlike the candied type my wife uses in her confectionery business. I am aware from the literature that there is oud in LM but it must be a very subtle oud, as i have not really detected it, and this after several wearings in both hot and cold surroundings. When the heart stage arrives the woody notes (not oud to my nose, but other exotic woods i cannot identify or name) make their presence felt, after which LM remains rather linear. To me this is a plus because it means i can continue smelling the harmonic beauty of this scent, and i never tire of it. I appreciate that it is because the scent is so well blended.

LM projects quite impressively, but is not what i would term a sillage monster. Its presence will fill a small room, subliminally though, not in the "open-the-windows!" way. Someone unaware one is wearing LM would ask what exotic room fragrance was being used by the hostess/host. That is not to blaspheme that LM is room fragrance grade! It WILL be noticed, and positively, i am willing to bet.

Applied in the morning, LM still smells appreciably on my skin till late at night. It really lasts.

I have worn LM to the office a few times, but i imagine it to be a scent for special occasions, especially when i am decked out in regal Nigerian traditional attire.

Like Vibert said, there is no shortage of rose-oud scents. I dont believe i have found my rose-oud reference yet (I am still hoping for a great experience with Le Labo's Rose 31). But for my rose-frankincense fix, i hope not to have to look further than my lovely LM.

Great scent. Many thumbs up.

Omg......This is a beautiful scent!!! It is the best rose I ever smelled!!!! It is so pretty, yet so manly....I love it! Rose at its best!

On paper this sounds great, "a masculine rose"....but the reality for me just doesn't quite work.
My problem is that it just isn't "masuline" enough, but perhaps that is more to do with my skin and my taste?
I tried No.88 which was awful on me, really smelt bad (Cuba by C&S was even worse!).

I would like this to be simpler, maybe just focus on rose, incence and perhaps sandalwood, but it has too many other floral overtones which boost the femine side.
It clearly is a high quality scent and maybe for the right skin chemistry it could transcend (A*Men hates me, but works fantastically for friends).

I've only tried it once on skin so far and will give it a second chance.

A modern rose fragrance for the modern man, not at all masculine in my opinion, but nicely done none-the-less. The price is a bit high, it is a little better than Le Labo's Rose 31 in my book, but it's also twice as much.

Now for the scent:

Let's say you had a rose garden, and every morning you went out in this rose garden to gather the morning dew off of the rose petals. After quite some time, you have gathered enough rose dew so that you can freeze it and make it into a rose dew popsicle. Lyric man is what this rose dew popcicle would smell like. An icy cool rose. Icy in texture, but warm as a scent. It's quite an olifactory accomplishment.

The scent is "light" but not at all weak. I find the same effect going on in Reflection Man. The new direction in which this company is going, with scents like Reflection Man, Jubilation XXV, Homage Attar, and Lyric Man, I like very much. Right up my alley, modern, well done, and highly wearable.