Fragrance Reviews by supermarky

I think this is the model perhaps for Amouage Silver Crystal which tarts it up with fruits. Both are wondefful fragrances, Tiffany defnitely more versatile. I look forward to trying the others Naed mentions. Those jostling elbows are divine!

this is a very exciting perfume that somehow seems to pull off what a lot of the fragrances its compared to don't really: mixing a bunch of kinky funky elements to result in a fragrance that is really seductive.

although when I wore it in class the other day and put too much on the teacher just said she smelled something very chemical and the way she krinkled her nose it appeared she clearly wasn't loving it.

this is a perfume for your modern wearer, musically it's the like the fragrance equivalent of a Bartok piano concerto or something.

My name is Supermarky and...and... I am a gold crystalaholic!

woody start floral heart ends with many mothballs

I think it's true that the dramatic and fantastic opening of Black Orchid trumps the drydown, and while that's a questionable strategy, I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it an insult, and yet. . .

This is such an experience: a fruity floral not in the usual sense, but rather... it's as though the flesh of fruit were cloned somehow from a richly fragrant blossom, resulting in an edible fruit which is allowed to overripen, then is sliced open. A succulent, seductive perfume of decay, although there's none of the mustiness of the patchouli evident. Perhaps, I couldn't help imagining, there might be a resemblance here to the scents of the emanative wounds of the blessed St Lydwinne, whose body was at one point separated into three discreet sections representing the holy trinity, and from whose stigmata was said to waft uncannily alluring floral frangrances.

When I sampled it, the drydown seemed like the heavy syrup of a "fruit cocktail" made from this weird relgio-sci-fi fruit-flower. But when I actually wore it in a full application, the fragrance settled into something spicier, not unlike l'artisan's safran troublant.

I have to admit it's not one I will "reach for" often, but I love it anyhow.

Florals? Patchouli? I don't really get them in any identifiable form. Modern, sharp, masculine, oh yes, I get all that! With a fantastic, harshness to it, it's a somewhat searing fragrance: exotic, heady, powerful, attractive, fascinating, addictive. I hope they never discontinue it but if the unthinkable should happen, the Silver Crystal will do in a pinch.

candied violet and leather. very seductive indeed.

really great, after this it's hard to want to wear avignon (unless you layer it with something) or norma kamali incense... the comme des garcons is a more hardcore representation of frankincense (and fresh water), as is the kamali (but an oily rather than a watery interpretation, fascinating in its own right) but this one is a...seductive accord of other materials of substance along with the frankincense...a bit woodsy... very succulent.

To me, this is remarkable. It could be that my experience is so limited that this is the reason, but La Myrrhe smells like nothing elseI have samples. It does remind me somehow of a cake with a layer of unleavened bread over the frosting, which I think is some kind of eastern european thing, something I once or twice encountered in a Polish neighborhood in my supercatholic home town. Anyway it is soapy, sweet, ethereal, soft, downy, angelic, spiritual (?), not earthy, heavy or sexy, unless you are drawn to cherubs. And yet, I feel very much a big ol cherub sometimes, one made of granite maybe, and I do love to wear this also with other things such as Vetyver Oriental to which it gives a strange edge or Amouage Gold, to which it imparts character. There is a sort of lemony/citrusy zing that floats througout the entire course or wearing this, feint and refreshing and one of the elements that "makes" it.

A beautiful tour de force of a fragrance. First of all Cumming is cunning because in the opening there is a kind of tension analogous to something in the odor of semen! The same contrasts of sweet, salty, antisceptic and dirty found in our precious "essence" as Sterling Hayden called it in Dr. Strangelove.

Discovering this and marvelling at it, I nevertheless thought at first, could I possibly wear this stuff? And the answer is, "yes you can!" Ironically, it evolves from something so avant garde into something quite nostalgic, very very masculine. A locker room smell of powders to combat athlete's foot. In fact I verified this by happening upon almost the exact same scent on the foot of a man who told me he used an "old school foot powder called Dr. somethingorother's". In this way, it reminds me a bit of Obsession, which always had a locker room accord in it, but a different one than what we find here.

Alarming, uncanny, then beautiful, sweet, clean, sexy and jocular. And though it's water based, the longevity is quite good.

Bravo Alan Cumming and CB!!

of course it's natural that armani should produce a high end niche perfume product for less than mass consumption and not strange at all! Giorgio is a man of many moods, I'm sure!

what I get from this one with my rough descriptive powers to date is: ivory soap, incense, a tiny bit of spice. I love it and am glad I was able to buy a dinged bottle of it cheap on ebay!

wish the reference to Arnold Schönberg's seminal "Pierrot Lunaire" had been made even more explicit in the naming of this fragrance, but any reference to the great 1912 opus is gratifying!

this smells like a new car with spilt beer dried on the seats and carpet. awful!

this is ok but nowhere near the showstopper no 88 is and for what it's up to I think there are more enticing versions, like some amouages... as far as "frankincense and myrrh" goes, you really can do far better elsewhere. . .

smells like an ice cream cone

I hvaen't tried it but, puhleez. Anything marketed at gayz called "10 percent"...

Yes clove overwhelms carnation in Malmaison and it's frustrating.

Today I tested it alongside Villoresi garafao and Santa Maria Novella carnations and noticed that it (Malmaison) definitely also has unmistakeable notes of black tea. It's very very sweet.

SMN is wonderfully pure going on but is gone within an hour of application. If it could have kept the opening up I would have, well, swapped for it by now actually!

Of these three the Villoresi is surely the victor for me. Supposedly clove is not one of the notes but definitely it seems to be a take on the classic clove 'n' carnation combo. And it's the longest lasting of the 3 as well.

I wonder if the baron de charlus was speaking of the spezie room spray as well as the fragrance. the spezie room frag is so different from the cologne. It does smell very much of a medieval apocothary (sic). Very sweet. The cologne, going on, is almost sour by comparison. The dry down is similar to the sweet aura of the room spray with a big extra infusion of incense absent in the room spray. This is a beautiful room spray and quite a wonderful cologne as well, although I'm not really enamored of the opening and first hour of it, what's left behind is truly a source of subtle intoxication to wear as it wafts up from time to time, the sillage is quite strong and quite irresistable and the incense notes remind me of the incense notes of mark birley but here they are more forcefull and that's all to the good!

can't believe I am the first to review this amazing stuff

first off, it's definitely unisex. and I was first drawn to opoponax in general cause djuna barnes wrote that james joyce preferred opoponax based perfumes, whether on nora joyce or on himself, it really doens't say, but I think she meant on him. this is not at all feminine a scent! am surprised it's not considered unisex coming from the opposite direction.

I prefer this opoponax to other fragrances I've tried "starring" this note: eau lente and les neriades. the SMW version seems to be much purer and not at all sweet. (the sweetness of les neriades is not an appealing sweetness to me either.) it is however, quite rich, much more so than these others.

Richness and sillage are a hallmark of SMW. When I compared Tabac Original to SMW Gold Musk it was like one of those portable hand held electronic fans vs a jet engine.

I describe this scent as an abstract spice. No identifiable herbal/spicy note comes out, just this "noise"/ sensation of "spiciness" something like the static on a television set to where there's no signal: something set to tingle. And so I think of this for starters as making it the supreme choice to obtain the effect of scents such as lutens arabie, amber sultan without the necessity of smelling "tandoori ready". And it's amazing for layering, as are many of the SMW. Naturally, as one finds opopnax as a supporting player in many classic fragrances.

SMW really has its own vision and its no surprise it's not a huge brand. You can google to get to an old NY times article about the house from 86 that is most fascinating. In some respects SMW is the high end fragrance cousin of a santaria shop, well, the spiritual element is not... really part of the product, aside from the fact that all of this started out as a nunnery. Anyway, a part of the company is still devoted to ancient remedies for baldness, hysteria, etc. Note to self: hysteria juice probably worth a try.

I think of many of the scents as being a form of "drag". Some of them actually call to mind a concrete history: nostalgia "I've just been working on my bike", gold musk "I've just come from the gym shower after basketball practice".

Anyway this is a house with a touch of madness and I luuuuuv it.

As for this scent: a must!

it stinks

and for all the people saying how tragic it is that it's no longer available, it languishes in the for sale board for months on end. . . at dirt cheap prices!

this reminds me of the creed feiulle vert

memories that will just about completely fade within 2 hours

it smells mostly like the name: a green leaf

I don't see anything to get all rapturous about

at least it doesn't stink of ambergris!

flowery with ambergris. creed like.

not really an ambergris fan so not for me

comme des garcons has nothing on santa maria novella for weirdness...

the dry down of this is nice, and incenselike, I think.

but the whole thing is "out there" for sure...!

gosh awful. the drydown is sort of harmless, sort of cedary, but what you have to get through to get to it. ..

much better course to go direct with sequoia or the amazing palisander

if you don't the 5 minutes to clean your fine washables with woolite, just spritz this stuff on, nobody will know the difference.

the woman at the store told me this is not a big seller but the people who love it are really crazy about it.

it's sweet I don't even really get tobacco or leather, its more like nectar than honey. I think it is quite nice.

it opens like D&G pour homme then becomes le male

in brentwood there is an 'upscale' Indian restaurant that has saffron infused rice pudding and robyogi is onto something, the flavor is completely congruent to wearing safran troublant.

is this parfum too delicous to wear? I wonder about that in a way, but still am definitely into wearing safran troublant even if I wonder if I should be!!

I had a friend who smelled like this. He must have been wearing egoiste platinum! I thought he just had bad body odor. Seriously. I'm glad for him this isn't a permanent condition.

neigh whinney snort

mmmm such an anemic centaur, to me it's as though this fragrance lacks a basenote or something it's all ethereal essences without any meat.

I will maybe try it again sometime but . . . later. . .

this is like a vanilla version of Angel

pas pour moi (translation: yuck)

oops I got this instead of meme by mistakie

it's a 20 year old bottle 4/5 full. it has sediment in it.

it's still fantastic

wish it lasted longer though although I enjoy spraying it liberally and often when wearing so...there is that...

but even better would be if that were not necessary

yuck! too much of a bad thing...

I blind bought for the baron de charlus

well after this and smalto pour homme, which I also blind bought for the baron, & which smells pretty similar to me... I told myself:

By all means savor the baron's prose
But baby don't you trust his nose!

Which is only to say that naed and I seem to be on different paths much of the time (although I'm just starting to step out).

But all I have to say to him is . . . like that orchid theif guy in "adaptation" said:

Never let anything get between you and your flower, Deano!

I got this with a romantic notion that if witty naed nitram liked its quiet disinction and another reviewer called it "manhood in a bottle" and cause it only cost $8 or something that maybe I would become more refined or turned on even and like it

Well, I guess it's great for what it is but to me it smells like... manhood chained behind a desk at the bank. The smell of "Will I get a good rate on the auto loan?" or "Will he reverse the penalty charges on that overdraft?"

And it's really hard to wash off!

I'm sorry but after wearing it a few times to me this stuff is just vile. So harsh. Not the smell of a leather jacket, but that tanning acid extract or something. I can detect "leather" but only inside an acrid shell that singes my sinuses and smelling it I immediately feel uncomfortable like I'm wearing a rubber suit in the middle of august. Also, as with Demeter leather I distincly get the smell of gasoline. A wonderful smell in the doses you get in brief visits to the gas station or in refueling the lawnmower, but it is not cologne material.

Cuiron makes comme's tar, skai and garage seem cosy by comparison.

Maybe MAYBE it'd make more sense in the winter? but I think it would only really make sense after the texas chainsaw crew is done with you.

why do some scents get coverage here while their sisters languish?

I got a sample of this. . . it starts off very boldly with a pungent citrus/lime. Appealing, but I thought, this isn't the intended effect; I've put on too much.

In less than half hour it had faded to a very polite discreet leafy scent.

doesn't do a heck of a lot for me but the name and packaging are boss!

yuck

am trying to recall exactly what this reminds me of, some flowering bush, only the flowers smell more like choraophyll than nectar. mountain laurel?

me no like it smells kind of .... spinsterish (?)

nasty

chocolate + too much... chaotic. I found it repulsive the frist time, had an open mind the 2nd time I wore it...until I got grossed out. won't put it on again.

I don't like the plain chocolate amour de cocoa type scents, I am a fan of cdg spicy cocoa

but this stuff is awful. especially if you put it on then get stressed out it engenders suicical thoughts

nobody mentions fennel or licorice. that's mainly what I'm getting and. . . not liking a whole heck of a lot. it sounds much better in these reviews than my experience has proven to me... alas

Well, I'm with monkey man matt for most choco fragrancey things. . .and even this one has a touch of ex lax about it, perhaps. .. (I've never actually ingested ex lax but I remember smelling it as a child). . .

but I think this stuff is really beautiful, like a necco wafer base with ovetones of the other notes and I think it's quite appetizing and sort of innocently sexy. Like some kind of lovely suntan lotion that doesn't exist yet.

I love spicy cocoa in fact.

a kindler, gentler cousin of czech and speake nr 88 ??

I was really excited to smell this at first. It's such a different interpretation and the vivid first impressions stuck: leaves and needles frozen in ice, or freeze dried, or laminated. I also smell water which is quite fantastic. I don't know many vetivers yet but I'm surprise there hasn't been drawn the comparison to cdg vetiveru, both are kind of like pale washes.

this one is so elusive though, you could spray the live long day and nobody would be any the wiser. discreet. private, kind of repressed!

It's a beautiful scent but before that it is a fragrance that says, "oh no you don't". Which is alluring, but. . .. I don't want to be denied satisfaction.

At least its titties and balls are not all hanging out like Musc Ravageur!

this stuff is almost toxically musky I felt I should be carrying a gun to protect myself from lonely mooses on the looses.

trying it a few times I felt maybe I was putting on too much, but even one spray is like. . . being instantly transported to and trapped in a late 70s pre obsession sex club / disco "last chance for romance tonight..."

will try a spritz the air and walk past next time, and probably layer something else on top!

this is one, if you're crazy about it, be sure to check with someone honest will let you know whether or not you simply stink to high heaven

still you can't help liking this stuff for being so extreme and for the sense memory.

eau de mildred pierce/maria callendar (sic)

"are you packin' a blackberry pie or are you just happy to see me?"

could be really nice with my purple velvet pants which I never wear, so now I have a compelling reason to wear them this winter.

I didn't use much and it lasted and lasts even the next day. A full dose should keep you berry happy for quite some time!!

putting this on a scent strip or on yourself is immediate intoxication and kind of minty with sort of eucalyptussy edge to it even

quickly it becomes an echo of itself and quite nice for awhile to smell, lifting your forearm up to do so.

when it's been on a long time, I don't like the scent, and that trace of it stays on a long long long time even after showering.

usually with most anything once it's almost gone on me I really don't mind it and kind of like it, but in this case, sadly, it's like a bad aftertaste for me that lasts a long time.

What might work is to carry a little atomizer and refresh it a lot! I"ll try that cause I already have decant en route.

ok I have a realllly weird comment, but I'm serious.

the smell of a woman... that is actually left behind sometimes in bathrooms, that I sometimes smell on public transportation, I've always wondered, being a gay guy, if this mystery lady scent has something to do with menstruation, or products used for feminine hygiene?

I smell grass too but I definitely get that mysterious girl smell...

even so I dislike it less than most fragrances!

it is very much like play doh

sorry, I'm grown up!

I heart mark birley. Yes, friends, spray on a lot of it, you need to or it will fade.

But be careful and order long before you run out cause it's often not available. I get it online from one of a couple of places you can find without much difficulty.

I never found a cologne I was really into wearing at all until I smelled this on someone and asked and received.

And those who say this is one of a thousand similar scents, I'd more specific info.

leafy at first

I think I have figured out why I don't like leafy scents: the taste of a typical leaf is so bitter!

to me the drydown is like a laundry detergent: tide, cheer...

it dries down reminding me of obsession and that's a no no I don' twant to smell like john travolta 1984 or whatever