Fragrance Reviews by jimmyfresno

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.