Fragrance Reviews by leopoldo

This is a gloriously rich and boozy creation but with that Giacobetti touch, meaning it also floats, every nuance seemingly etched out of cloud. It shares the precision of something like 'Tea for Two' but is wholly different as a scent. As soon as it's available in the UK, I'm getting a bottle. Hell, I might even get on the Eurostar for one.

This Lutens fragrances annoy me - they somehow my ability to pin them down as they seem built out of binary opposites. Fumerie Turque is both dangerous (you can imagine some animal threat lurking in the scent) and comforting (it envelops you like the best winter clothes). It's heady (the florals really do work with the smoke) and subtle (you want to keep smelling to extract every nuance). It's a dream of a fragrance and with that bottle it arrives in, the best present I've ever given myself.

One of the most ethereal scents I have ever had the pleasure to smell. In spite of its incredible fragility and airiness, it also smells of damp earth, but so delicately and subtly you wonder how this fragrance was ever anchored down. A masterpiece. I thought its name was pretentious - instead it's more apposite then any perfume I know.

I have never worn this, not because of its ubiquity, but because of its cloying, sickly intensity, from head notes to dry down. It's one of my all-time least liked fragrances and for me, indicates something of a perfume wrong turn in the mid-90s. I don't like the metrosexual smell thing I guess.

Leather, rum, coffee. The smoke seems to emerge from the intial combination of these, rather than be an addition in its own right. It rich, subtle, and oh so allusive of memories, dreams and filmic moments.

Lemon, grass, basil and, at least to this nose, cucumber. It's a sparklingly bright and delicious summer scent.

On me, very clean, light and slight - there is the salty quality on dry down that Luca Turin mentions and I just love this. But I have to sniff up close and personal to get it.

This is damn potent stuff - I can get buy with one spray and can therefore see my bottle lasting the rest of my life. It is medicinal for me, at least a little, but then I like medicinal. The drydown is what sells this however - its delicious.

i'll never make my mind up about this one. Sometimes it strikes me as an offensive synthetic concoction, but the dry down is pretty appealing. Not something I wear with much frequency.

This is perfectly balanced on me - honeyed amber with a cidery hint. It's not as long lasting as I'd like (especially given its strength) but while it's there, I'm drawn all too frequently to have wrist to nose.

This is glorious. It's probably the scent that I think about the most and am drawn to sniff the most. This winter, it's on my scarf so that I can have regular hits of it. I can understand how the richness can be off-putting to some, but for me its entirely absorbing. It's Christmas at its most decadent and expensive - a blockbuster of a fragrance.

This is flamboyant, it's true, and I have to be in the right mood to wear it. But it's too damn beautiful not to have. A glorious reminder of when men loved floral, this is a beautifully rich, enveloping fragrance that captivates me at first sniff. In fact, it's one of the smells that lured me back into a love of fragrance. To me, it's less hammam than august English garden, sweating under a sultry heat. I adore it.

Perhaps the most adult scent I own - its complexity teaches my nose lessons in the perfumer's art every time I wear it. It tricks me too - that citrus opening fools me into misremembering the nature of the fragrance as it later develops. A sure fire champion.

This is one of my all time favourites and therefore I'll fail to express its glory in words. Rain, roses, things on the turn: this is like a Renaissance still life where everything is beautiful until you spot the decay on the peach and the fly crawling across the grapes. It's like a crimson strawberry that is close to turning bad and at its most delicious just before it does.

So yes, there is a suggestion of vegetal collapse in this scent, but it's deftly handles and poetic.

A precise, well rounded and sharply focused L'Artisan that lasts and lasts. In fact, I need a maximum of two sprays with this one, otherwise I'm in headache land and off the scent for a few weeks. It works best in subtle doses. to me, it has the light tannic qualities of a darjeeling, hinting at smokiness, rather than the full on bonfire fumes of Lapsang souchong. However, tea dominates all the way through, and I love tea.

The aniseed is the first thing I notice here, grounded in an animalic buzz that lingers through the life of the scent. I can see why this fragrance garners varying opinions - it is pretty individual in the way it uses these 'flavours' alonside the nuttiness. I love it, but some of my friends detest it and can't understand how it got to be bottled. Maybe they'll learn.

It's a fragrance that makes me smile because of its absurdity - it's Bulgari black in proper adult form - a little dirty, shorn of the baby powder and vanilla. It is subtle and delicate however. Insouciant, but not in-your-face.

Chandler Burr's love for this exceeds mine, but it is a beautiful refreshing summer fragrance for men and women.

Probably the most comforting fragrance I own. Unique doughy delightfulness. It's not fragrant-like, but it does lure you in.

I love this - it's got a fruity sourness alongside an incensy quality that's clean rather than suffocating. It reminds me of something familiar from childhood that I can't pin down - it might be to do with a slight sherbertty accord. It also (hurrah!) lasts.

This is simple, clean and pretty damn male to my nose. I like it a lot, but it's best with other scents - try it with Pomegranate Noir to poke through the haziness this scent has.

This is different to her other scents as Will indicates. It is initially hesperidic and then becomes much more woody and masculine. Lovely stuff - not sure about Jo's purple prose concerning horse-riding in the park however...

This is lovely - dry and soft, comforting and familiar, it doesn't vary but that's part of its charm. Best for me under a shirt where the fragrance can occasionally seep out and remind me of its presence.

Spiky, sharp, varied and refreshing. A great spring and summer addition to any fragrance wardrobe, even if you don't like vetiver.

The perfect summer scent. FULL STOP. THE END. PERIOD.

I love dry woody fragrances, so that means this is a beauty in my eyes - I'll go against the grain and say that it is by far and away my favourite Gucci. It makes me want to be a carpenter. The name's a little Euro-tacky though.

I love this, but I know why Luca turin says it's a little cheap smelling - it doesn't have much in the way of subtlety or variety to my nose. however, it's great for when I'm chopping wood (who am I kidding) or just hanging out on the weekend.

I like it, but the more woody and mature Guccis win out for me. Does that make me an old, sexless git?

I can admire this fragrance, but I can't like it. It does exactly capture the mouldering, haunting qualities of an ancient building in all its bleak abandonment, but there's something in it (the combination of cinnamon and myrrh?) that makes me woozy, queasy and headachy. A definite NOT FOR ME.

This is indeed a Christmassy incense, and I can't imagine wearing it outside of winter - the green woody accord is very precise at conjuring up the spirit of a place. Now all I need is the fur hat.

Delicate, harmonious, sharper than Avignon and seemingly discreet, this scent comes back to haunt you when you least expect it.

Truly gorgeous. Takes me to Santiago de Compostela, looking up at that moss covered cathedral, before being swallowed up in its majestic gloom. Pure poetry, and my favourite of the incense scents.

Delightfully medicinal - I feel like one spray of this could sort out any knotted muscle. It does take me back to driving thru redwoods in Northern California and Oregon (though the frequent eucalyptus accord of that trip is missing). It's a wonderful, resinous woody scent that has nuances worth sniffing out.

Slight, chirpy, a little oversugared but refreshing and clean in sticky weather. The best of the mainstream summer scents that are marketed at men but good for women too.

This is an amazing scent, unlike anything else I own. It seems so fully rounded I have difficulty distinguishing individual notes and instead love to deeply inhale the balanced richness that, on me, lasts for hours upon hours. great for forest walks, I would think.

I like this a lot. It's gentle rubbery-vanillary, like the plastic layer on a baby's nappy changer or something, sprinkled with talc. It's mild, soft and therefore perfect for wearing with pjs on a grey Sunday when you can't get your arse in gear to do anything but lounge around and snuggle.

One of the few fragrances I detest with a passion - burnt sugar, headache inducing, putrid sickly sweetness with a hint of decayed animal flesh. But I guess I'm a woody type first and foremost. I can see how well it's put together but it's definitely NFM