Fragrance Reviews by RuffDawg

I've loved this scent since its debut in 1991. Its a warm, sweet, fruity scent with a nice woody vanilla infused drydown. This is a comfort scent for me, it makes me feel warm, happy and comfortable anytime I wear it. Vanilla isnt listed in the note pyramid above, but there has to be some in there, well my nose sure thinks there is anyway, maybe its a combo of some of the other notes that give me an impression of vanilla, I dont know. This scent smells very good on my male skin, its not "perfumey" at all on me. There isnt another fragrance in the entire world that smells like Mackie, well not that I have come across yet. This one is very unique. I wish the body products were easier to find. Years ago there were many different Mackie products available, sadly now all thats in production is the EDT and the body lotion :o\ Also, it is no longer owned/manufactured by Riviera Concepts of Canada. Elizabeth Arden Inc. bought out R.C. and acquired their entire scent portfolio. I hope they dont change Mackie's formula, or discontinue it all together.

Britto does smell similar to Angel, but it's not an exact copy. To me Britto smells warm and slightly "dirty", I mean "dirty" in a sexual kind of way. On the other hand Angel smells cold and clean to me. I think Britto has a lot of benzoin or something going on it that gives it that warm dirty bit that Angel doesnt have. Angel also lasts MUCH longer than Britto. I like Britto, but I like Angel MUCH better.

I like this scent a lot and decided to splurge on the 1/2oz parfum splash ring bottle, which was quite a bit of money, anyhow, I was VERY shocked and disapointed to find that the blue stone on the stopper is made of plastic. I dont understand why such a high end, expensive item like this would be made so cheaply. You'd think they could at least make the stopper out of blue glass or crystal, not cheap plastic :o\

I liked this scent at first, nothing great but nice. The more I wore it the more it reminded me of something, but I couldnt put my finger on it until a friend of mine said I smelled like deep woods off, and BINGO! thats what it was reminding me of :o\ blah!

All I smell in this scent is anise. It smells almost exactly like Ouzo and makes me very nauseous. It makes my head spin, and not in a good way. I gave it three fair tries and it made me feel punch drunk and ill everytime. Make sure you test this one before you buy it.

Does anyone remember the concentrated version of Passion for men that was available in the early 90s? It was called concentrated cologne and it had a golden crest symbol on the bottle. As a matter of fact its the bottle pictured above on this page. I dont know how long that version was available, but I cant find it or anything about it nowdays, but I remember buying a 4oz bottle of it in 1991 and liking it MUCH better than the original, although the original is good, but not as intoxicating, or intense and long lasting as the concentrated version was. I think theyre using a lot of synthetics in the version nowdays because it has a weird chemical smell in the drydown that was never there before. If that be the case Its really a shame they have to skimp on quality ingredients and ruin a good thing. To my nose, they did the same thing to the womens version...so sad.

A friend recently gave me a full 50ml cologne spray, and upon first sniff I was very happily surprised to find it smells a lot like the original and unfortunatly discontinued Victoria, which I loved very much. The dry down isnt as much like Victoria as the top notes, but its still a very similar scent. Over all Encounter is a very nice fragrance. I looked online and found that just like Victoria, Encounter has also been discontinued. Arrrgh!! :o(

V/S is one of my favorite casual warm weather scents. What an incredible smell, its refreshing, sparkling, sweet scent reminds me of childhood, I swear I smell lemon-lime soda, sweetarts, smarties, redhots and other sweets... Very unique, theres nothing else quite like it. They should have marketed this one unisex, the mens version of V/S is just awful. The womens formula would have been perfect for both. IMO this was one of Versaces best, what a shame its been discontinued.

I've been in love with this perfume since my first whiff of it around 20 years ago, it was one of the first scents I owned, and its still one of my top favorites and always will be. Its a flawless, hauntingly beautiful, unique scent, totally unlike any other perfume in the world. An absolute classic. I'm VERY lucky to own one of the limited edition 1983 ten ounce crystal bottles full of pure parfum, it, and the scent inside it, are amazingly beautiful.

I'm not impressed at all. To me it smells kind of cheap, reminds me of those lower end fruity scented body splashes. Theres nothing unique or memorable to this scent at all, its like one of those ,I've smelled it before, type scents that Liz Claiborne and Elizabeth Arden keep putting out. Blah :-P

I used to love this scent back in the 80s and early 90s but recently I purchased a new bottle and first thing i noticed is that the bottle has changed, remember the original spray bottles with the gold diamond on the bottle and the purple gem on the cap? they were beautiful and perfect, now theyre awful and very cheap looking. Second, I think the scent has been tweaked or more likely they've replaced the costly pure natural oils with cheaper synthetic ones because it smells funny to me now, especially on the dry down. I notice its not as "deep" smelling as before and it lasts about half as long as it used to. Does anyone agree with me on this, or is my nose out of tune?

Hmmmm, Im not too impressed with this one, but maybe I was expecting too much :o\ First of all its lacking too much vitality to be a "bomb". It doesnt smell bad, but it doesnt have much kick and from all of the reviews Ive read I was expecting it to be way more gourmand than it is. It just smells like a clone of Allure. Contrary to some opinions, Flowerbomb does NOT smell anything like Angel, I wear Angel on a regular basis and FB is nothing like it, Flowerbomb smells like flowers Angel does not.
Flowerbomb and Allure share the same type of light floral scent, with that same light hint of spice. They're not bad scents, but arent distinctive enough for me.

This one has a very strong alcohol scent to it. Imagine rubbing alcohol with dashes of lime, ginger & black pepper. On me a little bit of a funky rubbing alcohol scent throughout. Maybe this is just on my skin though, I dont know. Its not terribly bad, but its not very good IMO. I wore it a few times and gave it away. I have tried some of the Zirh body products also, and found that ironically the Zirh after shave "skin soother" burned like fire :-O and the deodorant was horrible, slimy, sticky, nasty feeling, ewww. The bar of body soap wasn't bad at all, I'd have to say its the best item in this entire line.

I wore this back when it was released and I really liked it, it is a very uplifting, happy scent. I havent worn or owned this scent for about 12 years now, but I was in T.J. Maxx yesterday & found a 3.3oz bottle of for $12 and decided to try it again. As soon as I sprayed it I was flooded with memories. It smells exactly as it did when it was first released but at a fraction of the price. Its not something that i would wear regularly, but it is a VERY nice casual summer scent, and with its very low prices you cannot go wrong. Also, if applied lightly, I feel without a doubt it can be a unisex scent. Theres really nothing feminine about it, it just smells fresh, clean, warm and summery, like sunshine in a bottle. I highly recommend it.

Benetton launched the set of unisex fragrances Hot and Cold in 1997. They were designed as UNISEX and to either be worn alone or mixed together, to create yet another fragrance, which I guess you would call Warm, LOL. I love Hot, but don't care much for Cold on its own, but mixed together with Hot I like it.

Classique was inspired by Gaultier's childhood memories of his Grandmother's powder puffs and his mother's nail varnish. Back in the early 90s the first time I smelled this perfume, a warm, comforting, nostalgic, almost deja vu like feeling rushed over me. It was the strangest thing, never before and never since has a perfume effected me this way. This scent is like a "comfort zone" to me. To my nose the EDP smells VERY different, its so tweaked that to me it's a whole different fragrance. Does any one else agree? I LOVE the EDT and the pure Parfum, they smell identical to me, except of course for the Parfum being much stronger, but they have the same beautiful notes and amazing dry down. I cannot wear the EDP, it just doesnt work on me, it screams out with sharp, slightly sour, nose stabbing, headache inducing notes and pretty much stays that way, without any of the beautiful silage of the parfum and edt. I thought perhaps I had gotten a bad bottle, but when i returned to the store the sales person told me that it isnt the same scent as the parfum and EDT, that it is a re-formulation of the notes. I took a look at the JPG website and it also states the EDP is a different formulation of the notes. Grrrr! I wish designers/manufactures would just leave the original fragrances alone, and stop trying to improve on an already perfect thing. Also, FYI, the sales person informed me that the pure parfum has been discontinued. I checked this out on the GPG website as well, and found it was no longer listed on the Classic product range page. WHY would they discontinue the best of the entire product range??!! Maybe it's only discontinued in the U.S.A.? Also, I see the word "New" in front of every single product, (including the EDT, which if they have tinkered with the scent of, I'm going to freak!) and not all, but most of the body care line descriptions state they're brand new formulations. I love(d) the body cream, I havent tried the new stuff yet, I hope it's as good or better, but I'm not expecting much. Also, all the bottles in the entire collection have been slightly re-designed. If anyone has any info on these (crazy) re-formulations, please let me know :o)

I used to really like this scent, I remember it as (or it used to be) a fresh, sweet scent of red raspberries and strawberries...but now, maybe my nose has changed or maybe the (new?) bottle I recently purchased is old (?) but now it smells to me of cough syrup and then drys down to a strong (very unpleasant) "I just dyed my hair" scent. I thought that maybe it was just that maybe my nose was having a bad day, lol, but when I wore it I received quite a few comments (none of which were positive) "what are you wearing?" (with a wrinkled up nose, offended look on their face) "you smell really weird" "you smell like some kind of cleanser" and of course "you smell like hair dye" :o( YUCK!! I won't ever wear this one again.

This is one of the worst mens colognes on the market. I agree with IPaidForThisName on this one. This is some really scary stuff! This cologne is primarily worn by unsophisticated guys who simply dont know any better, they want to wear a nice cologne but not spend a lot of money. And now, of course, seeing their Nascar idol Jeff Gordon advertising for Halston has these poor rubes think even more so that wearing this cheesy cologne makes them cool or classy. I bet this scent frequently permeated the set of The Jerry Springer show.

At first it smells exactly like potting soil mixed with high proof vodka. Not that I have ever drank a dirt highball, but I'm positive one would smell just like this cologne, lol. After the strong alcohol scent fades, the dirt scent is very nice, surprisingly fresh, clean & uplifting. unfortunately (as with all Demeter scents I've tried) it only lasts about 5 mins.