Portraits : The Tragedy of Lord George (2016)
by Penhaligon's

This fragrance is a low quality, soapy mess, and is unworthy of the high price tag. Synthetic amber, heliotrope and tonka, I can't ever imagine myself wearing this. Very disappointing. The cap makes the bottle look like something terrible from a 1970's Avon catalogue. I cannot recommend this.

A disastrous offering. Right off the bat there is the ubiquitous synthetic-woody-amber note. This is followed quickly by a dull phase that persists, with a hint of soap. Eventually there is the boring amber dry-down found in umpteen designer dreck masculine fragrances.

Any class and gentlemanly aura was well lost before the fall from grace, but this release indicates that Penhaligon's is willing to commit highway robbery. A tragedy indeed.

The cap is tacky, and as tasteless as the fragrance.

1/5

What can I say about The Tragedy of Lord George except that it is indeed a tragedy and a missed opportunity to correct shortcomings of the fougere category for Penhaligon's with possibly another classic? But No, unfortunately Lord George is a very light common hay aroma that eventually settles into a slight heliotropic nutty tonka powder. The fragrance is just ok, but suffers from mediocrity of an immediate and totally forgettable quality. The bottle top is clever and makes a nice presentation, but the price is too high class, while the fragrance is very common indeed. Is it a poor attempt to recreate Tonka Imperiale? Didn't work! Well named a "tragedy" and thumbs down for ridiculous pricing for a below standard fragrance.

Starts out promising. My immediate impression was a high end masculine shaving soap. The brandy is noticeable and is what give the masculine edge to the clean soap. This quickly goes away and I'm left with an utterly disgusting synthetic base that is typical of Penhaligon's. The synthetic creamy vanilla base is there, but is ruined by tonka. Couldn't wash it off fast enough.

"Middle note - shaving soap". Lol. Spend $370 Australian dollars to smell like a $5 can of shaving soap. Virtually any powdery discount bucket fragrance could make a claim of having a shaving soap note.

When you charge in this bracket, when you play on this stage, you better be prepared for scrutiny.

The bottles do look and feel great. But the rich-coloured juice misleads because inside is a bright designer juice that isn't even close to Penhaligon's other great men's fragrances like Sartorial, Endymion and Opus. The main note listed on fragrantica is Amber, but it is in fact ambroxan, the synthetic ambergris that plagues designers at the moment. Secondly, there is no brandy, not in the sense of some of the stunning boozy fragrances on the niche market today. If there is any brandy here, I cannot detect it. This is a standard designer-level woody lavender thing with ambroxan screaming on the side and making it all very light and bright. Everyone involved on this project, save the bottle cap, needs to hang their head in shame for bottling a crass designer fragrance that would ordinarily be a bad buy at $100 but then trying to sell it for $370.

Btw, the rest of the range fares no better really. The only saving grace is that these are limited additions, but even then, there are plans under way to keep releasing new fragrances in this line.