Latest Perfume Reviews

Tempted Muse by April Aromatics

Nectar of the Gods really fits this well...profile and bodywise the quality of the natural ingredients and the intense richness and thickness of this fragrance gives me the same nose feel and effect of smelling an attar...scentwise , this is a syrupy fruity/flowery cocktail...underneath it all , acting as an anchor/foundation is one of the nicest sandalwood notes I've ever smelled...i love the house and there's a few bottles i will add to my wardrobe, but this isn't one of them...nothing wrong with it per se...it is a terrific smelling fragrance...i have a very open mind and prefer to think of fragrances as being genderless, but this is a little too yin for me...

Laylati by Sospiro

well, I haven't had a chance to sample BA yet, so I ca't speak for any comparisons made here and elsewhere...also, must have a newer re-formulated version , because the scent itself is awesome but the projection and longevity are pathetic...the scent itself is an awesome Oriental type mix of wood/tobacco/musk that is flavored with some patch and herbs...some smokiness and a vague resemblance to a weed/bud flavor...all in all...elegant and sophisticated and smells really, really good...

Vanille Banane by Comptoir Sud Pacifique

Lots of banana suntan lotion in the beginning. The drydown has much more vanilla and it's not all that synthetic, pretty nice. It even becomes a little smokey the deeper you go into the drydown.

Projection is moderate throughout and longevity is decent, maybe 4-6 hours.

Vanille Blackberry by Comptoir Sud Pacifique

Smells nice and quite pleasant but very young and thin, like it would be the fragrance from a scented toy or children's perfume.

It doesn't smell gourmand, like a dessert. That would have been a nice surprise. Rather it's synthetic and feels more like air freshener.

Shadescents : Ruby Woo by M.A.C

Soft cherry over leather. A smooth leather. Saffron and pink pepper mingled in there, too. The top four notes are a different story - an opening I've not encountered before. Leather, is the stand-out note.

The leather becomes even smoother, softer, in the middle. Yes, it actually smells like suede. There are light floral undertones here, as well. Violet and orris are delicate - the usual dryness found with these two notes.

Good, sturdy wood base. It's not too strong that it smothers the long-lasting leather. Wood, actually enhances it. I'd say this fragrance is rather androgynous. A cherry "tobacco" accord remains throughout, always hovering above. Fairly good longevity.

Vanilla Chantilly by Dawn Spencer Hurwitz

Piercing spice; sheer vanilla. Vanilla cream soda without the creaminess, to start. The "creaminess" appears a bit later, as does the musk. It's like a white musk. This is a high quality vanilla fragrance. Smells real. Cinnamon seems to be here, as one of the spices. Maybe some clove, too. The spice remains strong for quite some time. The vanilla "layers" are always present, never sickening, very smooth and soothing. A great one to try, for vanilla lovers.

Alkemi by Laboratorio Olfattivo

Big ylang ylang, amber, incense, patchouli, and myrrh notes right from the start. Head-shop vibe. Far east, middle east, oriental styles simultaneously. Sweet, sharp, slight barnyard, wet straw intensity. Just my thing...

The Atlas cedar is good here. It doesn't overpower. It's gentle. Cashmere wood too, behaves itself, as does the sandalwood. They all compliment, not dominate.

I positively enjoy this, however I have few other perfumes that smell similar. I won't need a bottle of this. Overall, Alkemi is a very competent, delightful spicy-oriental.

Settles down with more woody-ness later.

Baikal Gris by Areej le Doré

Salty. It has a pine note that is prominent. Basalm fir and Cypress are listed, it is almost like a cross between normal pine and cedar. This goes into a bit smoky almost clove like accord. The violet leaf gives it a metallic sheen. There is a subtle soapy oakmoss smell that reminds me of Mousse Illuminee. Projection lasted about 2 hours, then becoming a prominent skin scent. Something in the heart smells a bit of leather.

Performance is not up to the standard of the price for me, and I would not consider it fbw. Nevertheless, I consider this a quality fragrance, and give it a thumbs up.

Ultra Mâle by Jean Paul Gaultier

A millennial version of the former legendary “Le male original”.

It starts very candy sweet and stays strong for the first 2 hours. It then loses its power and whiffs at you every so often. This strong sweetness becomes off putting unless you are on a tropical beach holiday.

Prominent notes I detect are: lavender, cinnamon & vanilla.

I have a full bottle but sadly I do not love it enough to wear it more than a few times a year.

Medium thumbs

Ma Bête by Eris Parfums

Blast of aldehydes...an animalic spicy bouquet of poisonous flowers...smells vintage...smooth and polite...completely genderless...just sort of hums and glides along...dries down to some woodiness but maintains that beautiful animalic touch throughout...this is a keeper...detect some patch and resin also...has a nice Oriental flavor to it...to my nose , a similar fragrance would be Salome or something from Bogue...

Honour Man by Amouage

Soapy clean and spicy with a dry mintyness that reminds me a little of Viking. The drydown starts to veer away from that peppery freshness and has an old book or room smell, like mossy weathered paper or wood.

Feels more mature and dressed up, not a young or playful scent.

I get really good performance with just a few sprays, projects strongly for 8+ hours.

Tease Rebel by Victoria's Secret

The violet leaf - actually more actual violet is somewhat prominent on me, with the drydown adding a somewhat bland rose.

The rest consisted of a nonspecific white floral mix that faded out gradually.

I get moderate sillage, good projection and four hours of longevity on my skin.

Pleasant but nothing special. Nonetheless, this is lacking any of the excesses of many products of this house: it lacks the cloyingly intrusive and sickening sweetness as well as the hardly tolerable synthetic attack that often characterises them. 2.75/5.

Greenbriar by Caswell-Massey

This smells like a typical bar of soap, "Coast," or "Zest," etc.

Journey Man by Amouage

awesome initial powerhouse burst of a mix of bergamot/pepper/juniper...very aromatic and exotic...the tobacco and a touch of incense slowly work their way in...an outdoor smell, remind me of being in a forest with some pine trees around...has a classy retro vibe...projection is awesome...toward the end it is joined by a faint trace of leather and gets nice and smooth...highly recommended for lovers of tobacco or leather scents...of course, sample before you buy...i love this stuff and am on my second bottle...

Givenchy pour Homme Blue Label by Givenchy

A easy going fragrance for summer, peppery and aquatic. The "fresh aqueous olibanum's touch" is the key presence of the olfactory appointment. A nice choice for the lovers of genre.

1 Million Absolutely Gold by Paco Rabanne

Sweet, honey, leather, florals and oud. That's what I'm getting from this 1 Million flanker that I think I like better than the original. I still think I prefer the smell of Prive best but the performance on Absolutely Gold is better, and the smell is great, so might be a tie between those two. Not sure if it’s the bottle or name but it reminds me of 24 Gold with intense sweetness and oud.

Excellent projection and longevity in the 10-12 hour range.

Crude by Zara

Has the modern, fresh, aqua-blue thing down very well. I'm not sure which previous Zara fragrances this smells like if any, but it's in the same ballpark as Invictus Aqua and MB Legend Spirit. Both of those are piercing, sweet, aqua-modern frags that scream for attention and are pleasing to most younger noses. I say that as a person who likes the way this smells regardless of how young or cheap it comes off.

L'Homme by Roger & Gallet

This is pretty well done. It's not very exciting, but it's nice.

Prada Amber pour Homme by Prada

Prada Amber Pour Homme (2006) is the male counterpart to the reboot of the eponymous Prada perfume (2004), and originally went under the name Prada Man in some markets. Later, this formula was universally named Prada Amber Pour Homme, and had hands-on development from the granddaughter of Mario Prada and current head designer Miuccia Prada. In her own words, she said "I just tried to imagine what I would like if I were a man", and some of the perfume community inside jokes that followed include being made by a woman that secretly wants her man to smell like she does, and other such absurdities due to the fact that this scent is unsurprisingly not a macho stink juice. What is present in the rather classy bottle is a lilac-colored liquid which sits fairly square with the trends of the early 2000's: sweet, clean, sharp, soapy, mildly-aromatic and blended to the point of being nondescript. Prada Amber Pour Homme represents one of the earliest incarnations of the "sweet woody amber" genre that would later dominate the 2000's alongside the second wave of aquatics, laying to rest shrill ozonic citrus scents and fresh fougères still carrying over from the 90's. Most woody ambers from this decade had a touch of gourmand sweetness without going full-tilt gourmand like Thierry Mugler A*Men (1996), and Prada Amber Pour Homme is no different. The most prominent characteristic of this scent to my nose is the slight "grape accord" that I feel this lifted from Versace Man (2003), but took away from the sweet tobacco direction of that scent and moved into something drier and soapier. Overall, Prada would seem to have a love affair with soapy masculines in the same sense it does with candy-sweet feminines (literally having a scent named Prada Candy from 2011), and this soapy soiree starts here.

There are a lot more published notes in the official documentation than what I detect, so I'm ignoring them. With that said, the opening of Prada Amber Pour Homme is mandarin, bergamot, cardamom, and a grape leaf accord which imparts the "grape drink" smell, although it's much less-evident than in Versace Man, and soon switches into something far different from that as the heart of pelagorium, vetiver, and neroli steer this into the soapy finish this juice is known for among most enthusiasts of the scent. Clean, fresh, and inoffensive without relying on any metallic aldehydes or aquatic notes is the way of Prada Amber Pour Homme by this middle phase, although I get very little actual amber from this so it is something of a hilarious misnomer to me as well. The base tries to fancy itself as a semi-oriental fougère hybrid with tonka, labdanum, vanilla, olibanum, and an early implementation of norlimbanol, which provides the somewhat scratchy and dry wood finish the perfumers list as "sandalwood". Norlimbanol would come to be fashionably overdosed in the 2010's, but here it slips under the noses of most since it is just blended in with the labdanum and olibanum so well to give that woody incense finish perfumer Daniela Andrier was likely after to help this find some masculine footing late in the wear. The overall accord is soft and almost like cotton candy at first, then it blossoms into that marvelous hotel soap before going into the modern aromachemical "woody amber" base that those familiar with 2010's iterations of the genre know all too well, but applied lightly with a deft hand as to not be annoying. I like and appreciate what Prada Amber Pour Homme does, but I don't understand the hype this scent at one time had, even if I do think it is a perfectly suitable signature for somebody looking to make an understated nearly gender-neutral entrance. Prada Amber Pour Homme feels very much built for the office or casual gatherings, and that is where I'll recommend this be used. Wear time is average for an eau de toilette, and sillage is moderate as per the trend of the decade.

Guys who are staunch about their mossy green aromatics or heavy animalic spices need to look elsewhere, as this is clearly made for the heterosexual man of the "metrosexual" persuasion when it was fashionable in the late 90's through mid-2000's. As a gay man myself, the sky's the limit where gender in perfume is concerned and I find masculine-marketed perfumes from this period with such "faux-effeminate" leanings to be the equivalent of when Taco Bell facetious tries to pass itself off as authentic Latin cuisine in parts of America where the local yokels don't know better, but in that there is some naive charm so I end up liking it anyway. Besides, who doesn't love Taco Bell at 1am? In short, I won't fault the stuff for following the forms of its day. In the years removed from Prada Amber Pour Homme's release, there are a lot of things that do the "soapy clean dry" thing a lot better than this does, and without the grape opening to boot, but I still like this enough to want to smell like it more than once. Whether or not you think Prada Amber Pour Homme is still relevant in an over-crowded field of masculine scents that it helped create is up to you, but the newer Prada Amber Pour Homme Intense (2011) would ironically come across as a powdery and more-traditional take on the same idea for those not too enthused with the original's sexual ambiguity. One thing's for sure, with the hype having subsided, you no longer have to worry about smelling like everyone else if you sport this, which also may be an attractive selling point. Overall, Prada Amber Pour Homme is a badly-named and slightly unorthodox take on the classic dapper gent clean scent, with a bit of unisex appeal thanks to its "metrosexual" intent, in a gorgeous lilac juice-filled rectangular bottle adorned with an etched silver plate that looks attractive even next to much more-expensive niche brand packaging. Thumbs up!

Ginger Pear by Illuminum

Really unremarkable. Mostly ozone and metalic lavender slightly flavored with fake lemon. There's nutmeg and a vodka smell in there for the first half hour or so, but it's mostly just lemony ozone for as long as it lasts. It's like someone inexperienced was trying to make a really average men's designer scent and got it wrong.

Night Flower by Eris Parfums

beautiful...bergamot flavored suede...classy and classic...totally genderless to my nose...i think this can be worn by anyone...just as an aside, my morning scent was Cuir Cuba Intense and this ( my evening scent ) fit on top of the drydown perfectly...besides suede this does exhibit a flowery scent side and I think the name Night Flower comes from the fact that this is a darker flower scent...fits nicely with the suede...nice assist from a non head shop patch...the birch, cinnamon and musk also seem to combine to give this a broody ever so slightly animalistic quality...excellent fragrance that is a pleasure to my nose...

Rush by Gucci

I admittedly did a blind buy purchase of Rush. It's loud and just goes to show you that everyone wears perfume differently. On me, I just love the scent of Rush. It's not an everyday scent for me and one I'm more apt to wear at night when my office-friendly scent has gone out to pasture.

The packaging looks cheap and chintzy, but that lend to the appeal for me. At the price point, what do you have to lose?

Misia Eau de Toilette by Chanel

This is a soft quintessential makeup perfume. It's got notes of Guerlain's meteorites makeup - powdery violet and iris. There is the signature aldehydes which I've come to expect in Chanel perfumes added in. It's not as bright at Lipstick Rose and a bit more subdued than Drole de Rose and a bit more playful than Sixteen92's Bruised Violet. All of these are fantastic 'makeup' perfumes in their own right and Misia would be the middle sister in the bunch.

I've been testing Misia on and off for a good two years and I have yet to hit the button on a full purchase due to it's price point and the longevity is wanting. It's a wonderful and magnificent perfume, I just wish it lasted longer on the skin.

French Leather by Memo

I like a good rose and this one has it in spade. However, my admiration stops there as the more it dries down, the more feminine it leans. The leather and pepper is there in the opening and helps but I like my rose even more dirty than what I'm getting here. This is just a little too clean and sweet for me to wear as a guy but I believe it will smell fantastic on my wife.

I get good projection and solid 9-10 hours of longevity with only a few sprays.

Cuir Cuba Intense by Nicolaï

initial sparkling burst with some lime in there...smooth and sophisticated...i can picture walking into an old wooden barn...smelling the wood and the fresh piles of freshly cut tobacco and hay...the breeze blows in the scent of minty herbs and touches of flowers as i stand there and chew on my black licorice stick...get a little gourmandish touch of something resembling caramel fudge or sauce...a pleasure to wear...in the final phases get just a trace of civet...love tobacco scents and i found this to be a wonderful addition to my wardrobe...

Vetiver Extreme by Guerlain

Masculine fougere fragrance from the house of Guerlain.

Smoky and dry vetiver fragrance with good longevity.

Thumbs up!

parfums*PARFUMS Series 4 Cologne: Vettiveru by Comme des Garçons

Vettiveru is precisely what it claims to be - a conventional vetiver cologne. One might even be surprised that this is from Comme des Garçons whose offerings are usually anything but conventional. The vetiver is pitched right in the middle of brightness and smokiness, with some short-lived citrus notes that add a flair. It is somewhat fresh, somewhat dusty, quite dry throughout, and its strength is well calibrated: it does hang in for four to five hours, but sillage is very close to skin. There are some additional notes of cedar that is seamlessly blended with the vetiver. I detect zero florals in this.

If I have to contextualise it in terms of scent profile, it is closer to Sycomore and Guerlain's Vetiver rather than 'modern' stuff like Tom Ford or Zegna. In terms of brightness, it is closer to Sycomore than something like Vetiver Extraordinaire (a bright, zingy vetiver). Vettiveru is uplifting, versatile, and a good alternative to traditional (or modern) citrus colognes. Definitely not for people who don't like vetiver (or are strongly averse to cedar, or woody notes in general). It's not brisk (there are no aromatics here), but it is conservative, and nearly perfect.

4/5

Parfum Sacré Intense by Caron

Mellow top notes, but they are rich - soft, actually. Velvety. Creamy. Well blended. This, smells modern so far. The myrrh rises from the base to mingle its way into a conversation with other notes. It schmoozes and finesses.

The heart and base notes merge together in this Caron. Id' say this is an evening fragrance. It just smells of the night. Myrrh still stands out. I feel the vanilla and musk add a creaminess here. The spices, rose, and jasmine create the velvet accord.

You won't experience a classic Caron here. This is modern, something newer. Okay. Does it smell more mainstream? Perhaps. It doesn't have the intensity or luxuriousness of the old days of Caron perfumes - they're long gone. Perhaps its creation was an attempt to save some semblance of the glory days of the past.

This is a fine oriental of a relaxed nature. If you are a die-hard Caron aficionado, skip sampling this (if you can find it) - you will not like it.

Black Mouse by Possets

Raisins, caramel, and wine make for an interesting gourmand. This, is mellow-sweet. Smooth. It's an earthy-starchy thing. Not too much fruit accord. Just enough raisin. Smells of desert wine that's diluted.

Picture a cute, little, black mouse munching on a raisin-oatmeal biscuit or cookie. That's this perfume, close to the skin. Sillage reveals a full-on grape note, tinged with cinnamon. Delightful!

Kus Kus by Bourbon French Parfums

Rum. Ginger. Cinnamon. Coriander. Cloves. Rose. Galbanum-vibe. Carnation accord. Geranium, too. There is a woodiness here, a dark herbal thing - patchouli or sandalwood. The whole thing is warm; not particularly dry. Something earthy as well. Musky, mossy, animalic underneath.

This is old-school. Absolutely no modernity here.

Civet, castoreum, what animal scent this is, is strong. Big oakmoss accord, too. Powdery notes? I get none of that here.

This is a perfume's perfume. Bold, retro, unabashed. Gentleman's juice or hooker's lure.

There is a green lavender or peony accord. sharp. There are burnt almonds. The notes are like fireworks - they burst at you one at a time, drift downward, then burst again. It also becomes sweet later, with amber perhaps. Amber blended with vanilla.

The listed "notes" on the website are misleading. They are kept secret. There is more than spice here, or powdery notes. Eventually, a powdery-ness, dryness, does present itself. A heliotrope accord rises. Everything settles and calms down and becomes drier. Still, a hint of green and spice lurk below. Kus Kus is an entertaining fragrance. It's complicated and it is long-lasting. It smells of another time and place.

After a time, it reminds me of Royal Bain de Caron Champagne. Worth a try, for the retro factor.