Fragrance Reviews by jimmyfresno

I was exposed to Joy first by an old empty 1/4 ounce bottle tucked away in my mother in law's dresser when she moved. I sniffed the glass tapered dauber beneath the red bakelite cap and instantly detected almost the only remaining basenote that had survived time and evaporation: a pure, beautiful ambergris.

I have toyed with vintage feminine fragrances for some time as the old formulations were so rich and dark that in the right circumstances they could light up a well dressed man in a suit who has enough security not needing to be swathed in "aquatics" that are on the market today, or the linallol/geraniol cliche that is supposed to be the naive olfactory touchstone that yells "masculine" from the discount store shelf.

In contrast were the vintages; brooding elixirs with complexity and no fear of having real body surrounded by heady topnotes of substance: tons of pure jasmine, peachy gamma-decalactone, real pissy civet, anise, all in a classy swirl of perfect blending that rises to the nose as a harmonious chord, not individual notes. The dissection of this fragrance takes patience since the materials are so seamlessly intertwined that the anise becomes an aspect of the jasmine, the green ripe fruit also adding to it. The high quality sandalwood binding with what's left and then what I insist is ambergris holding the bouquet together.

I wear this fragrance as a male scent often; perhaps not in the proportion that a woman of the 40s would use, but dotting it on a fresh washed chest, after the womanish topnotes evaporate in 20 minutes, I have come to feel it as a very comfortable melancholy men's sturdy floral with enough of a base to not have indolic bridal flowers leaping out at passers by. Context is everything, and in a world of Sara Jessica Parker and J Lo Glo, on a man, this scent is a statement that draws interest and, "What's that." It also layers well with dry scents, like Parfumeur et Gantier's Parfum d'Habit with its hay, caraway, light patchouli and light vetiver, to butch up Patou Joy. The basenotes are exquisite and linger for most of the day, unnoticed by those whom I am not close enough to allow it to reveal its beautiful self.

I am finding the Tom Ford line rather clumsy. The fragrances seem to find a favorite student in the class and look at no one else. For examle, the Oud Wood in this line is cedar heavy and too camphorous to allow the artificial oud to peek its head through. Similarly, the Tobacco Vanille is very heavy handed on typical sweet amber, which overwhelms the beautiful fruity floral nuances of true cured tobacco can have.

This fragrance does not develop into anything noteworthy other than a sweet amber vanilla confection in the middle notes and drydown, with maybe some tobacco drowned somewhere in the glop. I suppose a half spritz would be a great layer for a very dry wood fragrance, but why not plunk the $200 down on something created by a nose who knows what he or she is dealing with? Shame for the price and presumed snootiness that this line seems to want us to buy into.

I sampled this fragrance at Barney's in Chicago and was blown away. An initial boozy bourbon and tobacco cedar blast won my heart from the first spritz, since I am a pipe tobacco and wood fragrance lover. So I backed my way out of a sale by telling the lovely salesperson that I'd need to live with it on my skin for a while to decide.

Walking for an hour on Michigan drive, I smelled my hand and wrist and couldn't resist running back to Barney's. This fragrance is the quintessential mix of tobacco, wood, booze and a whisper of skank that drives me wild. Each of these elements are in perfect proportion so that they interlock and present themselves almost in whole fashion rather than a dissectable composition: tobacco becomes oud becomes civet (almost a parmesan cheesy, cat box funk) with enough white birch to give a camphorous lift and an ambrox envelope to hold everything in perfect synch.

I was forward enough to justify the extra 10.5% sales tax ($23!) by asking the saleswoman if she would get in trouble by adding some extra base to the custom blended alcohol-juice bottle. She smiled and said, "there is some margin for error."

I can see not wanting to wear this fragrance every day; it is quite a sturdy, austere scent that stays close to the skin. But I give it a huge thumbs up.

This fragrance was formulated to be one of the first to contain a new synthetic molecule identical to natural deer musk, L-muscone, and is proprietary to this brand so far. For this reason alone, I want to try it. I am hoping that the drydown that everyone has described as being "close to the skin," or "not performing well on skin that is not freshly scrubbed," would be indicative of this musk component. Ordered a bottle today to sample.

This scent is constructed mainly of an overdose of an off-the-shelf aromachemical "Oud Base" made by Firmenich company . This chemical was intended to be rounded and complexified by natural ingredients or other accords to soften it, and it was never intended to be used in such a huge dose by itself.
Nasomatto did attempt to round it with a bit of Suederol to give it a leathery feel, but failed to overcome the bludgeon of the overdose of Oud base. This is a clumsy fragrance to those familiar with its components.

It could redeem this to use half a spritz layered with something more complex with sandalwood or incense, I suppose. But for the price, this fragrance should be a masterpiece on its own.

I do agree with the above reviewers that this fragrance is aldehylic and somewhat powdery and there is no pomegranate (melograno) to be found, however I do find it to be leathery because of a big dose of isobutyl quinoline, which is where the "synthetic" reviews and smokiness might come from. I equate it with a clumsier take on vintage bandit, still it has its cozy aspects. The florals are so blurred it is hard to name them, and there's some citrus in the mess. This review makes it sound horrible, which it's not, it's my favorite SMN next to aqua di colonia, but still I don't reach for it often, and never in warm weather.

Wish I hadn't been a johnny come lately on this one, but to me, a LOVER of labnum, this one yelled at me a most refined, almost destilled cream-of-labnanum distillation that warrants its' sky high price. it's almost as if someone had distlled the very best of labdanum, blended it with some complementary citruses and sages, and marketed it as an uber-priced exquisite fragarance.

If you love labdanum and can't get enough, this is your holy grail Otherwise, be disappinted and exptect the hype. I love it. It gives me the very quintessence of labdanum that lasts for hours with minimal intrsion by the other hype notes. Sorry to sway from the pack on this onle. Five thumbs up.

This fragrance is extraordinary, but a true example of how manufacturers can just slap on names of notes for marketing sexiness regardless of what's in the juice itself. To me, under the kuzu top note, this fragrance rings clearly of peppercorn, pimiento, violet and a woodiness based on the aromachemical iso e super (think Shiseido "Feminite du Bois" or Escentric Molecules "Escentric 01")

It is a loveable, masterfully blended, refreshing scent.

After sampling all of the Incense series at a boutique in San Francisco, fell in love with the sage/peppercorn/balsam fir/nutmeg/incense accord of this perfectly blended fragrance.

Although CDG is always very edgy, the only risk they took with this one was in experimenting until they discovered it. If you've ever smelled those pueblo indian souvenier balsam fir incense boxes in a gift shop, think of it combined with them ost luscious spice and richness you can imagine. My only regret is that the individualized peppery nature of the top notes melds in the drydown to an indiscriminate but still delicious single semisweet chord. I wanted the topnotes of this fragrance to go on forever. The nutmeg, so prevalent in my first experiences with Quarzazate, gave way to cardamom and fir in later tries. I love this complicated puzzle of a fragrance.

OK;I am having a hard time with the comments "weaker" and "barely smell." I literally picked up a tiny bottle of this stuff left behind on a bench at my gym at closing time and took it home with me. It is on sale at Sears and I am too snobby to actually buy it.

This miasma of a fragrance has to be one of the most Guido, gold-chain and- wifebeater-in-polyester-sans-a-belt fragrances my crippled old nose has ever smelt. Get ye to a men's boutique! Spend more than $10 on a fragrance! As has bee said before, none of the pyramid of notes is truly reflected in this clash of 10 disco fragrances mixed in a latrine. Green, fake, persistent, insincere, un-sexy, camouflage for the human spirit.

This scent initiated me to the smell of the warm, artistic interpretation of "incense" used in perfume jargon. (Nothing like incense in my opinion). It continues to be one of my favorite dispite its dry, potent, rubbery smell. I might just love it because of its absolute lack of sweetness or powder and its absolute sheerness. It breezes comfortably in the back of the nose and palate like a toasty vapor, not hitting it like most of the overblended opaque men's stuff out there. It is sparse and minimal. It lasts nicely and it is evocative and distinctive. Three huge thumbs up.

Should be called Leming. I own it and was lured by the craze to buy it untested, but never have I seen such hype since "Coty001" (The "digital" fragrance with a note of "electrostatic accord" launched as an experiment by an Advertising man at Coty in 2001). Such a backstory!

I am a fan of rubber, but what others read as rubber comes to me as syrupy sweet amber. Dzing does not contain elephant. I was taken to no circus by this one. No imagery of trapeze-flying women occurred to me. I was taken to another amber vanilla wanna-be that made my co-workers scratch their heads and hesitantly say, "James... what's that...cologne..." I felt like I had come out of Wal Mart and sprayed all of the Vanilla Fields bottles down my shirt. Calliope music, please, $175 later, who's the real clown.

OK, not sure whether to be extatic or completely deflated now. I am somewhat of an amateur perfumer (hobbyist) with a very good nose, and I waited a month and spent $210 for an impossible to find bell jar of Serge Lutens MKK. I love it. Two weeks later, I came back from my local TJ Maxx with two bottles of Kiehls snatched for $20, and was able to duplicate MKK simply by adding a drop of cumin oil in alcohol and two drops of amber paste tincture. A dead ringer, top notes through drydown, one minute to four hours later. I guess it's good in a way since I can now refill my bell jar when it's empty.

This fragrance is one of the best attempts at revisiting the amber/musk theme that can be so cloying in other lines. That being said, the funky "what's this?" crotchy pheremone/funky top note, very compelling, lasted five minutes on me. I was like, "WOW!" amazed that they captured that in a bottle. It actually smelled more precisely like the intimate areas of someone dark skinned. I'll go no further on that comment.

While women may feel embarrassed to smell like this, men (even clean men) smell it all the time on themselves and it was no biggie on me. It also rides very close to the skin, so I don't understand the posts on how strong this is. I was actually prepared for way more funk!

Still a wonderfully composed scent worth the two month wait and $200

I am one to believe that different perceptions of scents are not so much a product of chemistry as a genetic inability of certain noses to detect certain notes. Bulgari Black was purchased to entertain my craving for deep, dry rubbery tar and tea. What I got was the sickeningly cloying artifical vanilla scent of a cheap hand cream or dime store body spray. I believe it's contributed by the ingredient Hydroxyisohexyl 3-Cyclohexene, basically an overused compound put in every hand cream to give that love it or hate it "warm vanilla" note that I find heavy and repulsive. Interestingly, studies have shown it also to be a HUGE irritant, and Europe demands that it be disclosed on labels. It's hard for me to overstate how much I loathe that smell. It literally closes my lungs up in bronchospasms.

My bottle of Bulgari Black went from my wrist to Ebay in 15 minutes flat to finance a purchase of Comme des Garcons Synthetic Series "Skai." I'm hoping it gives the smoky, Barbie Doll PVC scent I'm after.

I must say that even the best of reviews of this fragrance make it sound like exactly the kind of nauseating mess I try to avoid. This artificial, cloying amber/vanilla era actually closes up my throat sometimes. Thank you for helping me avoid this collision.

Man, I crave this fragrance, but only in the vintage form EDT, where the Isobutyl Quinoline was used so generously to "give the finger" to those who would raise their eyebrows. I think this is the perfect amount of sillage, smells like a guy should. I bought a big 8 ounce vintage bottle so I have a vintage bottle 1 oz on Ebay till thursday: just search under item 190035616703 or search "Vintage Bandit."

I loved this one from minute one to hour five on a co-worker of mine and bought it to blend with male components to tough it up a bit because of what came across as "spicy," rich notes in the woman who was wearing it. Funny though, it turned out to be one of those scents in which the musk note becomes imperceptible to the wearer, so you have to be verrrrry careful not to over-apply. You can't tell how much you really have on. Lovely.

Considering the complexity of oud, Oud Cuir d'Arabie seems very unidimensional and surprisingly unrounded to me. The opening is pure Band-Aid. As it unwraps, what it releases is reminiscent to me of the smell of an old housefire--furniture that has been hauled to the curb by firemen to smolder. There is far, far too much cade or birch tar, not enough leather, virtually no tobacco and if there was ever oud, it is overshadowed by being smoldered to death. Smell 10 Corso Como; that's oud.

Close to the skin, there are some detectable nuances, I love fragrances that "unfold" as you persist while we tune out the persistent familiar. But what persisted for me was a flat, burnt rubber smell after the firemen had washed any detectable top notes from the rubble.

The biggest redeeming factor of this scent was that it comes with an unscrewable lid so that I could fix it with three drops of myrrh essence to at least give it some dimension and the richness I was expecting. Some saffron, something interesting for $210, Mssr. Montale!

Beautiful. The hint of rosewood, and rose, with the slightest kiss of lavender (or bergamot?), are the perfect completion to an arc of subtle, rounded scent Villoresi crafted to frame the crystal clear wood base. As a sandalwood purist, however, it seems to me that the sandalwood has been rounded with a touch of atlas cedar. Gorgeous, sweet creamy cedar, but cedar nonetheless. A very simple, elegant scent.