Bulgari Man (2010)
by Bulgari

Alberto Morillas is a master perfumer that has the uncanny knack for delivering both daring artistic wonderment like Gucci Guilty Absolute Pour Homme (2017), mass-market game changers like Givenchy Pi (1999), and totally uninspired phoned-in casual-interest sauce like Bvlgari Man (2010). My first impression of Bvlgari Man is a weaker, sweeter, "casual dining" version of Terre d'Hermès (2006), with the trademark flinty mineralic note of that scent removed in favor of the norlimbanol "karmawood" note which had just started to surface then but wasn't yet abused to huge degrees like later on in scents such as Dior Sauvage (2015). Bvlgari as a house had started to drift away from their tea-themed offerings stemming from the original Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (1993), and moving into a more-commercial direction as a sustainable business model for a house of their size probably demanded by that point. This meant boring stuff like Aqva Pour Homme (2005) became the standard among men over the mild but far more interesting Bvlgari Pour Homme (1995), while Bvlgari Man (2010) would would tentatively become the aromatic standard over the past Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (1999). Jacques Cavallier had his hand all over those past masculine pillars, so it almost makes sense to bring in Morillas, who not only was the go-to guy for big commercial scents, but also collaborated a lot with Cavallier, being something of a creative brother from another mother to him.

What this means for Bvlgari Man (2010), is the scent feels like exceptional quality, just extremely vanilla quality, since Cavallier does have something of an X factor that Morillas does not in the creative department, but Morillas is just a master manipulator of modern chemistry, capable of making something wearable out of quite literally nothing. In the case of Bvlgari Man, we get an opening of pear, bergamot, and violet leaf, which play tug-of-war between 90's and 2000's styles with fruity modernity and classic citrus, with a touch of 80's dandy floral thanks to that violet. Bvlgari Man has a really pleasant opening, and like so many 2010's perfumes, seeks to win you over with those top notes alone, only to collapse into chemistry later on. This descent is slow at first, as the vetiver and geranium recall the aforementioned Terre d'Hermès just long enough for earthy cypriol and dewy lotus blossom to stand in for the flint of the Hermès, changing the dynamic into a milder one that allows the chemlab base to pull its bait and switch. "White woods", "Vegetal amber", cashmeran, "White Honey", and musk round out the blah blah base of Bvlgari Man with a whimper. The overall effect is something that starts off fruity, then herbaceous, slightly adventurous, then gets defunded faster than a social program under president Trump to die a sad quiet death. Longevity is about 6 hours tops and sillage is mild unless you drown in this, so I'd advise getting the jumbo 200ml bottle if you like it after sampling. Appropriate use is casual office-safe wear under the cold unfeeling light of of 4ft fluorescent fixtures and ivy cubicle walls, which sums up where this scent takes me when I sniff it.

Bvlgari Man has that lowest-common-denominator composition style that Bvlgari needed to push units into the 2010's, offering a blank slate fragrance for a blank slate person who found the competing Bleu de Chanel (2010) too adventurous at the time. Looking back, I'd say Bleu de Chanel is about as safe comparatively, but infinitely more personable because it used the then-novel ambroxan molecule to revive the long-dead ambergris floral genre, putting a clean citrus spin on it to appeal to guys who grew up with Acqua di Giò Pour Homme (1996) or Ralph Lauren Polo Sport (1992), and were ready to move beyond aquatics but not the "blue" smell. On the other hand, Bvlgari Man just feels like a fragrance that pretends to be daring, modern, and sophisticated in the opening phases, only to falter at the end like a summer special effects film that blew all the budget on CGI but couldn't find a decent writer to work out the script, leaving you impressed but ultimately disappointed as there is no closure to the experience. Maybe that's what all the myriad flankers which piggybacked off this are for, finding that conclusion denied us by the original Bvlgari Man, in which case I'd recommend just skipping this main pillar and going over to them as they seem a much more varied and interesting lot than this. Some things like punk rock can be toned down and still be made appealing, as the entirety of Green Day's career has proved, but others things, like the kind of woody aromatic fragrance Bvlgari Man tries to plasticize, cannot. I give this a solid neutral without any ambivalence on the matter.