Fragrance Reviews by castorpollux

Now, to make things clear from the start, the only thing in common this one has with the fantastic Dolce Vita, is the bottle design, and that's where the similarities end.
This scent starts like some wet, mossy, twigs with added bergamot that feels very cool but never really frozen, almost like an abandoned garden project left out in the cold rain, then suddenly the scent changes and very fast, to a warm ,then warmer , then creamy warm liquid that feels like you're close to a fireplace of sorts, but see, it just so happens that someone left the xmas fruitcake inside the fireplace by accident and the fruits start to feel smoked and intensely sweet.
The base is someone realizing the scent has gone too sweet and warm, decided to throw some water onto the fireplace, that left the smoked fruits wet and with dry woods , but with an added dose of a very "familiar" musk.
Ever smelled the base of a fruity floral by Givenchy? Enough said.
I kinda liked it, but i keep the bottle for "research" and because it just looks so damn good.
For fans only i guess. Good thing it was a limited edition!.

Mix equal parts of white musk and rose absolute, wash it down in some watery mix, add a new and very interesting salty skin note, and voilà, you got Floral Prints: Sheer Rose.
It's not bad, and it's very interesting, only because think it shares a lot in common with Light Blue for her: when FloralP: S.Rose has roses, Light Blue has apples.Only difference is, the Avon one is less fresh and more -way more- musky.
The rose note is well done and very pretty but nothing too original, but it does smell good AND it mantains its power next to the white musk note, and we know that sometimes white musk can take over a scent entirely.
I like to smell it on other people's skin, not mine.

Somebody at Avon thought that making a cheaper version of Beyond Paradise for women was a good idea.
I think they were right, because i think that BP is a cheap smelling scent anyway, and Surreal for her skips the terrible banana note entirely and goes for the berry, exotic flowers, airy sun sandy clean scent with a powdery finish that's not too musky.
In short, i liked it better than BP, but it's not truly something to buy a second time.

Dark Blue starts very nicely, and somewhere very rapidly it turns sweeter and sweeter and it does a sharp right turn into the synthetic, strange chemical department that makes it feel like a plastic Christmas tree. It's warm and dark at the same time, it smells cheap and well, like it tries to be something interesting but can't quite get there.
I quite like it, but i keep it only for the top notes.
The mid-base notes feel like i'm a kid going into a wild willy wonka ride, not knowing what i got into and a little bit scared.

For a scent called "midnight" this is a very sunny, clean scent.
At first the top notes come shining through with some aromatic herbs and tries to be provocative with some lemon and oranges, the mid has some spices and few flowery bits that are not bothering the masculine notes at all, but the fragrance stays somewhat mute and quite unoriginal. The base is just soft woods. It doesn't smell bad, but it's been done. And i get the sour feeling that they copied themselves as well.
Sexy? passionate? I don't think so.

This new Bogart is my favorite when compared to the old one.
The old one was ok, but it was intensely dated and it was pretty much a copy of older scents from the 80s, so this one is a nice breath of fresh air.
This one is apparently an oriental fourgère, but to me it's fresher than that as the base of patchouli,cedar, and tonka bean seems to fade rather quickly. J.Bogart says it has oakmoss, but who know s if what they used here is the real thing or something else, to me, it doesn't really matters because this oakmoss is a very nice, wet, green and gritty one that takes over the base and stays like that. The top is more about very fresh bergamot and other aromatic leaves and it has a heavier dose of some orange blossom, way before the current trend of "let's all use a heavy orange blossom note on the men's scent" that's been going on since early 2006 or so. It surprisingly, has also a very green note of lily of the valley, one of my favorite notes and yet they still make it very masculine. It doesn't last as much as i'd like to, but i just spray on and problem solved.
Easily one of the best frags you can get for a cheaper price.

This is a sweet fragrance at first blast and then it settles into a semi-sweet powdery scent, when i say powdery i mean dusty-library powdery and not soapy powdery...not even musky powdery.
This one has musk as well, and the base is all about this musk, which is a kind of dirty musk, not the soft white musk of the regular feminine scent of late. It has an aura of old times, like it has been macerating for years before opening it, but that doesn't mean at all that it's bad or that it turned, it's just a darker type of fragrance. Somehow it also reminds me of a late night at a luxury condo of the 70s, meaning soft lights, scotch and gold furnishings and whatever tacky decor you might think of.The flowery middle is all about the lotus and iris, and to a lesser extent, about a sweet orange blossom, the white rose is rather non-existent.
The scent is not tacky per se, in fact quite the opposite so i don't understand why i thought of that imagery, in any case, if you think it's too sweet or strong, then go for the very wearable body splash of the same name and brand, and you'll still get noticed, and you'll still have decent sillage, and you'll still smell good.
Very nice in the Fall season.
Happens to be one of my favorite B&BW frags, along with Japanese Cherry Blossom, Black raspberry & Vanilla,exotic coconut , moonlight path and and coconut lime vervena

Much less powdery than Yardley's version of lavender, this very fresh take on the Lavender is still very much a staple in my wardrobe and use it from time to time.
The base could have used some improvement specially with the use of real oakmoss,and the top notes would be even brighter with some more bergamot, but it's ok, i won't complain too much about this one.
I like it, i use it a lot.

This fragrance took me back ages when i fist smelled it, it just so happens to smell like something else that was launched decades ago.
This very light musky scent is all good, it's very much unisex and it has a tenacity to it that i admired for a scent that opens rather strongly but fades quickly but stays that way for a long time on the skin. It has a hint of fruits that i found very attractive, and a base of ,well, white musks and rosewood that are very comfortable.
I will mention that Rigaud had a scent called Lovely too, but that one was more about Lily of the valley, jasmin and other flowers than musk.
So, i have smelled this one before, give or take a few other notes, and i think i'll keep smelling it in the future thanks to its success.

I really like this soft, orange-y scent. It's very fresh and quiet, never a screamer and always elegant. It's difficult to find the balance between elegance and a proper sillage, and Hermès i think chose to go for a minimal sillage to avoid any mistakes. Longevity is another major problem here, as is with the rest of the Eaux d'Oranges by the house. I guess i'll have to buy again and again the big bottle versions so i won't run out of it so fast. Marketing genius? Could be, but when i'll find a better verison of soft fresh oranges i'll skip this one in a second.

This is yet another scent that suffered from an unfair change and rather unfortunate reformulation, falling victim of the "modern times".
Having smelled the avenue of elements and sensations that is the original formula, this new version is more of a small Rue with some musty flowers that fell to abandon.
Not entirely bad, this scent is still better than most new-and-cute-and-soft fruity scent, but it's a slap in the face for fans of the old one.
And that takes away some of the beauty of this formula.

This scent has been one of my favorites these past couple of weeks. It's intriguing, but not in a mysterious kind of way but because the notes always exchange places whenever i spray them on, sometimes i get fruits first, sometimes i get the flowers first and other times i get woods first, and then the rest.
Very fresh and delicate at the beginning, this scent follows a quiet path of pebbly roads with petals falling in the chilly weather, bringing comfort and minimalism.
The main note, the japanese cherry blossom comes through very clean and in a constant way, and will never truly fade away in the basenotes, so it will stay with you all the time.
It has a silky quality to it as well. It shines but only when in movement you might see real beauty.
Bad thing? It should be made into an extrait version!

I think American Classic is Avon's rendition of what the green Polo is to Lauren, only less successful and discontinued to boot. It can be found on other markets, outside the U.S. and well, there's always the net.
A very pine wood-like scent, it's true to its name, and the vintage quality of it is very alluring. The soft woodsy base is a very nice one, with touches of moss. I believe this is one of Avon's best fragrances for men. Longevity and sillage are ok, and well, it's just a very nice fourgère.

Well, the name says it all: It's a fresh, very watery fragrance that smells like softly pink colored roses, not something truly unique,and the longevity is pretty much nonexistent, but it's as pretty as they come. I guess we can get Rose water on a cheaper prices and on simpler presentations, but this one is a crystal clear rendition of what a simple rose water must be. If only it lasted more than 5 minutes on my skin..

Intensely fresh, this wonder of a scent has a cooling effect that's not pungent nor camphoric to the nose as other "frozen" scents, this eau fraîche parfumée is incredibly luminous,shiny and like a ray of sun, it can lighten up any day.
On summer temperatures, this scent becomes a joy to wear only because the fresh lemon will never turn musky nor stale on the skin, it has the particularity to stay fresh all the time.
Sadly, this scent also suffers greatly from lack of longevity, so be ready to spray numerous times throughout the day. It has notes of white amber, vetiver and ozonic notes which,again, like a ray of light, if you blink you'll miss.
The sillage is allright, but nothing out of this world. Get either the 200ml spray or the 500ml splash. I know i did.

This is a very fresh, semi-sweet scent, very sunny and very conventionally pretty, the main note, the lotus ,is very much represented here, and the scent at firt might come off as too sweet, but this sweetness subsides and it becomes more of a watery-green pond with lots and lots of flowers in it. Even though this one is an eau parfumante, as is Green Tea by R&G and the new fragrant water scents, this one has the longevity of an EDT on my skin, so that's a plus i think.
The top citrusy notes are sweet to my nose, but that doesn't take any shine from the whole composition, and as i said, this first sweetness will be tamed down by the lotus mixed with a very good rendition of a rose, but it's not a "regular" rose, it's fresher one, one that goes wonderfully well with the lotus note.There are more notes to it, like a few fruits,and other flowers like a soft ylang, but they don't stand out very much, the main attraction and the one that steals the show is the lotus, as it should be.
The base has a very barky sandalwood that smells more like driftwood but it's a very nice soft sandalwood and it also has weak patchouli which is not strong at all, it only adds a hint of 70s to it i think, and on my skin the incense gets lost entirely.
All in all, a very nice, different scent, when you'll smell it you'll notice that there are not too many scents that smell like this one, and it certainly differs from the current crop of fruity florals.

Is this Youth Dew part 2? It certainly seemed so.
A thumbs up for the smell of it and a thumbs down for originality.
So...

I liked this one a lot, and wore it for days at a time, only i kept thinking to myself "i wish the bamboo note -which it says papyrus , but to me it smelled like fresh bamboo- was stronger, more longlasting".
So there you have it, it's a very fresh scent, demure and masculine, but to be called Soir, it's more of a day scent.
I wore this one also with Eau d'Orange Verte on my other hand and, as i expected ,BPHSoir beat the Hermès one in longevity by a looong shot.

Agree with Ubiandibeme, this is an intensely musky scent, very sexy, but for me, i see it as a bad version of Opium the parfum version,that alone does make it a good one, not a bad one, but it's still a bar below Opium parfum.
as opposed to both the edp or the edt. You have to have the right skin to use this one, or it will stink big time.
Still, it gets a thumbs up from me.

This is for the original version of it:
The EDT is a fun, light, playful and semi-sweet powdery scent that makes me smile.
It's more of a fruity than a floral scent but that's ok.
It does feel a bit dated and one has the instant memory of other 70s-early 80s scents like Babe and whatnot.
I like to smell it on women, whenever i get a scent trail on the streets, which almost never happens nowadays.

This is a sweet, powdery fragrance that's soft and very "french", only because it reminds me of women sitting at a café in Paris. It's certainly a gourmand and the heavy use of vanilla makes it so. But it's not too sweet, one can live with this kind of sweetness is what i mean. It's a bit spicy as well.

It's not too bad, but i just can't shake that feeling that i have smelled it before. Also, the bottle cap, which resembles some kind of wood, is a bit deceiving, because it's not nearly as woodsy a fragrance as it may seem, not even at the basenotes. It lasted a decent amount of time on my skin.

Calchic pretty much said it all, and i found it also to be not as dirty nor animal-smelling as it sounds, and that would be the old version of it, as i haven't smelled the new one yet.

I agree with thegoodlife on that it smells like something out of a cleaning product package, but i found it to be quite enjoyable after a while, maybe it's just skin chem. A heavy dose of Orange blossom on the top notes is followed by some spices and something that smells to me like twigs and bark with some tonka beans. The composition is not fantastic in any way, forgettable and simple, but i've smelled way worse.

This very cheerful, cute and soft-spoken fruity floral, is elegant and cool but with a serious longevity problem. Another problem i found is that as nice smelling as this one is, the Carolina Herrera perfumes of late are loosing a great deal of personality, something that didn't happen with the older -and sometimes sadly discontinued- releases. This fruity floral is demure and very controlled, but it offers a good, balanced rendition of semi-sweet midnotes, a blast of freshness at the top and a comfortable, velvety finish. I don't find it too innovative or original, but is more of a "chic" fragrance, even more than Herrera's own CHIC fragrance for women, which i found strange.Cute.

For a scent made in 2000, it's very early-90s to me.
This very masculine, cool, and fresh scent is sensual and enveloping but without the use of too heavy, dull notes, or of a heavy dose of pepper that might render it sharper but less intriguing.
It's strange, but on most skins, it smells basically the same, smells like, well, Cristobal PH, and that means they used some quality stuff here.
It has a green,airy effect that feels very elegant and i have to say that it's in the mid-powerful range in terms of sillage and one or 2 sprays will be sufficient for an entire morning, well, at least for me that is.

Being intrigued by ubandibeme's review i decided to test this one out and she's right, a very yummy, very fresh and playful fruity floral that smells like water lilies and litchi even if the notes don't say so.
The soft watery notes are not short lived, and you might be smelling this one for more than the regular fruity-floral of today, but it still isn't near perfection, the longevity needs improvement, and being as pleasurable as this one is, i would imagine they can come up with something to make it last a bit longer that it does.
The thing is,i got a bottle anyways because it's so much less gimmicky as the original one and much less sweet than the other as well. A pleasure in a hot day.

As Naed mentioned, this one has been reformulated and the new notes lineup goes like this:
top: bergamot, lemon, apple, pineapple, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, white pepper, bright green notes.
middle: lavender, marigold, jasmine, orange blossom,violet, lily.
base: cedar, ebony, vetyver, amber and musk.
This new one is as fresh and energetic as they come, without a hint of the flowers mentioned before, and mantaining a big deal of the masculine aura that the original formula once had.
This new formula is adapted t the times,becoming less of an 80's powerhouse to a more fruity and fresh opening,and it delivers an equilibrated blend of fresh notes from top to bottom. The longevity is so-so and the sillage is all right, all in all, not a truly memorable fragrance, but not a bad one at all.

Is this a masculine scent disguised as a feminine one? If we go with conventionalisms I mean…
It certainly felt like that…this very intense (even in edt) very green chypre has a sharp galbanum top note that won’t let go and a heady dose of a sharper ylang that feels elegant, but not too “womanly”.
In general, the ylangs seem to be creamier and sweeter, this is not the case here. The oakmoss here is similar to the oakmoss found in reformulations: rather austere and very dry, lacking a great deal of freshness. Didn’t strike me as a sunny scent, given by all the gold and white of the bottle and box, but more of a grey-green with blue undertones on a northern city. Very wearable. It’s a classy lady looking out the window on a drizzly afternoon , having a scotch, straight up. She likes barbershop scents as well.
It’s also a man, that bought this one for himself, recommended by a pushy, clueless SA that thought and swore on her mother’s life it was a man’s scent. He wears it occasionally, and nobody knows what it is that makes him smell so good.

This review is for the new reformulated edt:
Very elegant from top to bottom, this scent demand to be worn by optimistic, opinionated and somewhat sarcastic, witty people. The opening shares many similarities with some other perfumes that have gone through a similar life: they became household names, loved by many and then came the dreaded change, they all fell to the reformulation period and some passed, some crashed and burned. This one, at least for me, passes the test (like the new Arpège). This opening doesn’t lack aldehydes and the galbanum and sage seem the notes that stand out, the gardenia being shoved into the dark room for being too young and powerless. Very feminine, the middle is a mix of commonly found flowers in many scents: roses, jasmine and the like with hints of lemon grinds and a sharper edge to it that feels like bergamot. The (lack of) real oakmoss makes it smell completely different to the older version but hey, you have to work with what you have. I’ll try to see this one with new eyes instead of comparing it to death with its former self. The base is mostly labdanum (a very attractive one) and a somewhat less dirty and less “humble” patchouli, this is a patchouli worn by a Lady. The tenacious and insidious drydown will stay with you for a long time, all until the next day. A chypre like the best of them, this one tends to go more into the green side than into the sunny sweet side. Elegant is the word here. The parfum version is much creamier and much more longlasting, aldehydes seem MIA and the gardenia suddenly comes to play and the patchouli surrenders to the other notes, doesn’t feel as sharp as the EDT.

This review is for the new reformulation of it:
A very green, somewhat spicy and very unisex (if you can get past the top notes) fragrance that shines with contemporary coolness yet still adding a little of old world class to the mix. Contrary to what standard knowledge might say, I get more of a fourgère type of fragrance than a straight-up chypre. Maybe it’s the “new oakmoss” thing. I think it was called a chypre so chypre and dioressence fans wouldn’t feel “cheated” from the start.
The very fresh, intensely dry but flowery opening makes you wonder what has happened to those petals: they seem mixed with hay, wild grass and twigs, all moving in all directions, and the dryness of it all makes you feel that the flowers (among them a waxy violet) are drying up on your skin in real time, right there on your wrist.
After the rather rocambolesque opening, the scent settles quickly into the longest green pasture of unisex nature, combined with a pond-like air of freshness that says wet, grassy yet rocky with lots of fall winds, cool yet comfortable, with just a very soft hint of sweet. It’s intensely violet-colored geraniums, hidden in between intensely green shrubs and wet earth (after that very dry opening) and with an added dash of rosemary and even juniper. I would assume that if we layer it with lavender it would fit very comfortably there.
The whole composition of this new EdT, is rather short lasting and you’ll need to reapply during the day. Cool sillage. The drydown turns back to dry again, with what seems to be a very balanced marriage of patchouli and cinnamon with hints of clover. But it doesn’t really feel too spicy as the overall green feel of it all never really ceases to exist. I can see very practical, nature-loving people wearing this scent. It can feel nostalgic at times.
I like this EDT a lot. But this needs to exist in at least EDP in this new incarnation. An extrait would be even more attractive of course, like a stormy afternoon in the country.

I like violets, I like grapes, I like grape juice, I like purple orchids, I like bilberries, I like amber and vanilla too.
So what’s not to like?
Ok, so this Floriental might be too evident (purple:grape juice: duh!) ,or too sweet for some, maybe even too simple (doesn’t change too much from top to bottom) .
But I still like it.
If you still find it too sweet, give Dali’s own PurpleLight a try.

I liked it a lot and got me a bottle of it.
I have to agree with monkeymanmatt about the way it smells and I also agree with atlanta1 as to the longevity of it and the fact that it’s a light summer oriental fragrance for men.
Lancôme didn’t disappoint me, and I will be looking forward to their next scent for men.

Think lacoste’s a touch of sun and then add strawberries, raspberries and cedarwood and you get this scent.
It’s not bad at all if you’re into a heavy dose of sweet oranges.
I liked it, I have to say. There are many smell-a-likes popping out everywhere.

A very nice but intensely boring scent, this aromatic-aquatic scent has tons of watery fresh oceanic notes with an added lily of the valley kick and some other green notes along with soft woods that make it intensely fresh (but not too sharp).
Not bad at all but it’s nothing very worth remembering either. And it is a good summer scent.

This green floral is a very strong, elegant scent for the same people who like YouthDew, not because they smell alike (which they don’t) but because it feels like an old-school type of scent.
It’s very difficult to make something out of it in a clear way because it has many, many flowers and they all come together very smoothly like a well-layered canvas, and it’s very much original in the way it smells so IMHO, it’s one of those must-smell scents.
A little goes a long way but it’s all very womanly and very sophisticated so any overspraying can be forgiven.

This floral tropical-inspired semi-oriental is as good as it gets in coconutty fragrances for women.
It’s very fresh at the top and it definitely has that top-quality tanning oil feel to it but with added elegance and silkyness, it feels a bit waxy and not overtly sugary which I like a lot.
This coconut feels more like coconut water than coconut oil to tell you the truth.
The orange blossom top is very unexpected as I was thinking I was going to get more bergamot or blood oranges as is more common with scents like this, and this orange blossom is not too heady either.
The base is a very warm, very comfortable bed of vanilla, vetiver, sandalwood and something that feels like incense which gives it yet another surprising twist to it.
I also thought I was going to get some sort of oceanic or even ozonic notes but there was nothing of the sort in here.
Tom ford sure knows how to choose a fragrance and he knows his audience as well.

A very orange-y scent, it’s all about the cirtus fruits here. Think cKsummer 2005 version, think Apparition Sun (which is almost a clone of this one if it weren’t for the raspberries and the white cedar) , and the like.
It has a very chilly watery fresh opening that feels very nice to the skin, with bergamot and water notes with added grapefruit.
The floral middle is mostly jasmine and rose but drenched with orange juice.
The base is all about the soft vanilla and a light sandalwood with added vetiver for more freshness.
It’s all very nice and the sillage is not too intense, longevity is so-so. Not memorable, but very nice for everyday use.

A very boring spicy woodsy very light fourgère, this one has a very sharp green mandarin top with some tea and pink pepper and the mid is all about cardamom and nutmeg, and the base has a whiff of vetiver (not a very good one) and musk.
All of that comes in a very short lasting fragrance (literally gone after 20 min.).
So prepare to spray a lot of it if you happen to like it.
I felt it needed personality, for that, it’s better to stay with the original version of AmorA PH.

We have here a very fresh very 8-year-oldish type of scent that somehow allures everyone i’ve met.
The notes of this fruity floral sound familiar: the top notes have a very sharp infusion of bergamot that becomes instantly sweet with apricots and then it goes fast into the mid-notes with water flowers and peony, mostly, and the base is what else? But vanilla and white musk.
At least I get a clear definition of the layers, it all sounds very sweet and it is, but not intensely candy-like.
I get the “sunshine” they mention in the name but it sort of comes and goes, it’s like a fruits basket in the summer heat.
It has decent sillage and a not so bad longevity and it seems that most women I talk to about this scent they seem to like it a hell of a lot more than the original version: Amor Amor for women (which smells completely different) I’m not much of a fan because it feels like “been there done that” to me.
The bottle looks cool and the sprayer is a bit uncomfortable to use (like in all Amor Amor versions).

It's gourmand all right, but fans of Miracle might be disappointed though: it doesn't smell a hell lot like the original. But that's all right. I agree with the comparisons with Allure Sensuelle (sans the elegance Chanel gave AS), but at least for me, MF didn't work on my skin at all.
Too powdery and very sweet, this clinger of a scent lasts for ages and i wasn't sure if i wanted it to last for so long. The fresh opening lasted for me 0.6 seconds and then it was powder and berry milky cream. Didn't like it as much as i thought i would.
I am sure there are big fans of this type of scent, i'm already smelling it everywhere, so it must be doing well.

What a difficult scent to describe.
It’s sweet and intense but with a fresh opening (might just be the alcohol) , it has a dark soul but it’s still playful.
I was thinking like a russian roulette but with less fatal outcomes.
The top feels heavy and unapologetic (but it’s only the initial blast) , but later on becomes more relaxing and softer. It also felt a bit romantic. Doesn’t smell like real pomegranate, wich I don’t think it’s really a shock.
I think a real treat (if not a must try) is to layer this one with Black Currant Vanilla Body lotion or even with its Black Currant Vanilla massage oil also by B&BW, that alone makes it last much longer. Smells smashingly sexy on a woman.
They should make this one stronger.

Sadly this one doesn’t really smell like anything truly tropical.
Tropical–inspired fake fruit juice, maybe.
Yet another fruity-floral (but the sharper one type), most definitely.
It smells nice, but it felt very boring. It’s the sweet passion fruit type we’re smelling here, not the bitter, acid (and fresher) one. A bit tame.
Wouldn’t give it another go.

This one, as opposed to the coconut lime verbena scent by B&BW , is very much like the suntan lotion, “coconut” smelling type of fragrance.
The thing is, this says it has toasted coconut and I’m inclined to believe in it, I would like to add also, that the tropical fruits and the red berries give it a sort of sweet cane-sugar like note that combined with the coconut makes a very "warm ‘n hot" scent with a fuzzy , creamy base that feels like velvet with vanilla cream, almost like a custard of sorts.
I’m not a milk fan, and in general the milk accord works on only so many people as it tends to go bad on the skin rapidly, but here it’s not as milky as I was afraid of. The other notes overpower that one by far.
It has tons of sillage and the longevity seems so-so but it feels very nice and intense.

The first time i saw this little one, i thought to myself: oh no, yet another gimmicky suntan lotion type fragrance.
Yet this one surprised me.
As I sprayed on, I felt a breeze of renewal and tranquility, with a pinch of light and invigorating happiness.
The top is definitely citrusy and sharper than one might think and it has an air of sun-dried lemon grinds, slightly fruity and very fresh and cool. No coconut at all on the top.
Of the notes listed above, the mid notes don’t seem to play a huge deal there but they sure fall in between the light floral-softly fruity yet still very citrusy category.
The coconut comes as an airy one, very soft and creamy at the base mostly, and it comes together with an honest sandalwood and some vanilla for a final sweeter touch. The musk is barely noticeable.
All in all. A very nice, fresh softly scented citrus-coconut (think coconut water) scent, very nice for hot weather or when you’re in the mood for a tropical fix in a not so comfy winter.

I was very scared to get this one since i am not too much of a fan of clove and star anise in fragrances , as they tend to become very "piquante" and intensely sharp after a while on my skin, but this scent blew me away.
Loved it at first sniff and it's one of those "i couldn't take my nose away from my wrist" kind of scent. -even though i don't do that very often-
I found it soft and i thought that since it's not too strong, it would disappear after a short while, but i found out that it remained constant and strangely, unchanged for the rest of the drydown and i like that. A lot.
I'd go as far as saying that it might be a HolyGrail for me.
Ken Russel and many others have posted much more about the smell in a much better way than i'm doing it,so thank you for those reviews! , meanwhile, i will just stand back and enjoy what a great scent this is.
Rive Gauche? Thank God it doesn't smell like the real Rive gauche in Paris!
Favorite note in here? the rosemary. Amazing.
When wearing this, I picture myself sitting in a couch of the Hôtel de Crillon in Paris, with a view of the Place de la Concorde, getting some top-quality tea and being very comfortable in a top-notch black suit. Even though there are more romantic places in Paris, the left bank just doesn't smell too well. Whenever i think of the rive gauche i think of the bohemian part. This scent does not smell bohemian to me, even if the base has patchouli. Let's leave that to the intense version.

The top notes for me show a great deal of citrus and a hint of the fruity middle notes, but they fade away very rapidly on my skin, even the midnotes don't show a lot of presence and sadly, i don't find that it has a strong -not even a faint- white rose note,the note i was most interested in, maybe that white rose was the type that wasn't very fragrant.
What i get the most, and what sticks to me like glue for hours, is the base, and the white musk is the one note that wins over the rest.
Strangely, it has a similar drydown to VC&A's Automne wich has a lot of woodsy notes.
The cedarwood is also very present.
I didn't find it womanly and i felt it could easily be an unisex scent. Well, in the case that your skin (like mine) skips the fruits and flowers and goes straight to the base).

So this one is not out in all markets I believe. This one has Lychee, Dominican Passion fruit, and I can tell you right away: there are basically, 3 types of passion fruits (ok, there are many more but I like to classify them this way): 2 yellow ones, one acid and bitter very slightly sweet with a wrinkled exterior, one sweet with a smooth shiny exterior and one purple, with either wrinkled or shiny exterior and it could be lightly sweet to sweet with hints of acidity. All taste and smell differently. Also, their exterior smells differently from the interior as well. The one used here seems the sweet variety –and the interior part of the fruit. It also has Dragon fruit a.k.a Pitaya, wich is mildly sweet and there are many varieties as well; Marco Polo tea, wich could be green, black or red (all very aromatic) and it’s not specified wich one is it in the directory, but I’m inclined to say it’s the black variety and not really the green one, maybe it’s a bit of both; Green tea, wich I guess it’s the same as used in the original GT, Chinese Magnolia (aromatic as well, it’ a big flower), musk, sea moss (don’t know what sea but it’s not a salty one LOL ) and drumroll please: Tropical blackberries: so when they say tropical I imagine it’s either in the tropic capricorn or the tropic of cancer and not really the “tropics” as we know them (between the equator) as they (the blackberries) are more difficult to harvest there –but not impossible- so they’re found in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and countless of other countries fall into either one of the tropics (Cancer, Capricorn), and I can say that the creator of the scent apparently comes from Mexico, therefore my conclusion is that they are sweet, dark, warmer mexican blackberries!. It all adds to the exotic part of it doesn’t it?
How many times have we heard about tropical scents: exciting, exotic, fun, free, fruity and so on? Here, they all seem to fit, sadly though, it seems that this tropical twist becomes the first fruity-floral that we dread so much without really being a real fruity-floral, and based on tea!
It’s not a bad scent, but to some, it can be boring.
For those scared that this is another “escada limited edition fruit bomb”: it’s not.
Elizabeth Arden can add another good green tea to their line.

I won't go too much into the official notes as they are here on the directory.
I get the cyclamen, some sort of wild rose the one that’s not really red not white (but the smaller kinds, faintly scented) and a bit of bitter passion fruit, some watermelon, the musk here seems to be a very light one like a white musk that has been used in other green teas, soft clear amber, watery-humid moss and that’s it I think.
It’s lighter than the rest and a bit sweeter, it seems like a more colorful version of the original GT, and the longevity seems fractured, the top reminds me of shalimar light because the bergamot is stronger here, and the watermelon seems to me the stronger middle note, along with soft flowery bits. Again, the green tea is very clear and very delicate, -if it’s present at all- almost like a very watered-down Basha, cooled green tea. So, for a scent called green tea, it’s lacking a great deal of it.

Spiced Green tea- Second take (i made a shorter review this might be like a companion to that one)
So this one is very different from the rest of the line, including the ones released later on. This is more related to the black oolong tea or even a red variety of it, than it’s about green tea, this tea is not delicate, it’s strong and that’s ok because it has to compete for attention when it’s in the proximity of ginger, white florals like jasmine, and some oranges (the less sweet variety of blood orange I think). Another tea I find here it seems earl grey tea, with added bergamot. I’m not saying that all of this is actually in here but it’s what I get, this one has lots of spices like coriander, cumin (soft), curry, cardamon, red pepper, ginger, even star anise, cinnamon, nutmeg and some other notes, wich make it very spicy, so the name of the fragrance is very fitting.
I get more spices on the topnotes than on the rest, and the whole feeling of it is that it’s a hot scent without ever being too warm, feels sharp enough and fresh enough that you can also wear it in the summer.
This one, I think, is the one that falls more into the unisex category when compared with the rest of the line. The base is musky and still spicy.
All in all I, sadly didn’t make friends with it because the spices became too much with my skin, but my sister loved it…and I have met many women that have loved it as well.

This Green Tea scent is more about the ice than about the green tea, and it shows at first spritz.
I get from this fragrance lemons, wich are not too bitter, loads of menthol, that I find ,of all things a little waxy, and I could swear I feel my nose becoming clearer as I spray it on; eucalyptus wich gives it a very calming effect after all the menthol. Of this eucalyptus I get the leaves and a bit of bark as well.
The green tea note here feel like it’s into a heavy fight to be noticed from the others. There’s also some dry , earthy moss and a soft, white musk. It all reminds me of tundra climates. (wich I love)
That’s about it, it’s intense at the top but this intensity fades away rapidly, so it has lesss longevity compared to a “similarly composed” (IMHO) scent such as Guerlain’s Vetvier Eau Glacée. (sans the vetiver of course)

Green tea (original) Second Take -i already gave a shorter review and this might serve as a companion to that one...
Ok so this one has notes of Lemon, orange, rhubarb, bergamot,peppermint, green tea, jasmine, celery seed, carnation, oakmoss, musk, white amber, caraway and fennel.
First we have to look at what is green tea: it is a real tea (as opposed to any other herbal infusion) that has been processed differently from the “regular” or black tea, thus giving it the green quality. There are many, many types of green teas and most of them have a different smell, most varieties come from china, japan and other areas. I won’t go any further with this.
Now onto the fragrance itself: There weren’t too many fresh, true green tea scents at the time and most of them were either custom-made or discontinued or just plain difficult to find (niche or other), Bvlgari’s was a little too perfumey and it had many other ingredients and it seemed like a clone of other fresh scents that were heavy on the technological aspects and a rather dull tea note, not a bad scent, but it needed work (wich we got in 2000 with its updated formula).
Now, this Green Tea was launched when there was a need, if I may say so,for new things and close to the turn of a century and it would start yet another wide variety of clones and even its own offspring with the later GT formulas.
On this original GT, the top is marked by a good balance of a non-acid variety of lemon and a lightly sweet orange, with a blast of peppermint that combined, create a soothing and instantly calming sensation, the rhubarb is almost non existent as far as I’m concerned.
The green tea used here seems and reminds me more of the Matcha green tea used in the Tea ceremony in Japan , now the Matcha tea is of very high quality but this one falls a bit flat in comparison so that’s why I’m saying it reminds me of it ,but it never gets there, the thing is, it’s a very nice tea note, it’s at the same time delicate and it will remain with you until the end of the drydown. The jasmine and the carnation give it a more feminine touch (that up until that moment was a bit unisex) and it becomes more interesting, like a mix of seasons, first you get the fall then the summer, so the flowers give the whole composition a flash of light. There seems to be oakmoss there, but I can’t be sure if it’s the real thing or a really good chemical imitation of it, in any case, the white musk and the fennel are the notes that really stand out on the basenotes, and this fennel smells more like a fennel seed and the green part of it than the strongly scented bulb, and I like it that way.

Sienna , is the most leathery of the bunch (of the C&E's men scents), it's got very much the spirit of older times, but whenever i smell it it feels more like a druid's scent (think a celtic druid observance or a rural reunion or practice to an earth god) with lots of herbal and woodsy tones.
I am not a huge fun of spices as they tend to be either too peppery or sharp on my skin but here the combo is smooth. It's sweet also, (but not too sweet) and that gives it a good twist.
The drydown is superb. Smells expensive.

Of these 3 scents for men that are in production, the one i like the least is Sandalwood -there are lots of better sandalwoods for men out there- but that doesn't really mean that it's a bad one at all, this one is a very wearable one, I have to mention though that the older version of it seemed to be a bit better, denser and creamier and the new one it's a bit sharper, even though the sandalwood used seemed to be the same in both. It's certainly masculine (as are all of the men's line of C&E) and it's certainly elegant (ditto) but it's not really breathtaking. It's very faint.

To be honest, i think it's the best one of the bunch, and it certainly makes you wonder about the desert's nomads, but not so much the ones of the colder places, but i don't find it too wild, as this nomad seems to be a clean, richer one, maybe even with servants , like a tribe chief of sorts, but it doesn't seem too exotic in any case.
The blend, to my surprise, seems to have a better quality sandalwood than the one in their own Crabtree & E.'s Sandalwood fragrance or maybe it's the mix with the other ingredients that make it seem so, it's very wearable as well, it's sweet too, and this guy seems a bit dirtier and angrier than the others,like he's on a mission ... he's very much the hunter.
For me, it was one of those "gotta have it now" kind of fragrance.
Even though Nomads seem to like being on plains or on vast lands (well, in general) , this scent doesn't seem to bore me at all because there are many layers in it (well, at least on my skin i get it that way) and it seems to move to very different places at a faster pace and it doesn't really give me the impression of being on an open field . In short, i love it too. Seems simpler but it's really not. It has lack of longevity issues.

This is a very refreshing cologne that has the intensity of an EDT.
It’s very, very lemmony, made in very classical way, and it does have an aura of “old world” and soft comfortable late afternoon summer sunsets in a lemony field.
The top notes cosnsit of lemon, orange and bergamot, the midnotes are of lavender, rosemary and roses and the basenotes are made of very light musk and benzoin.
Of all the top notes, the lemon is the most obvious one, followed by a soft, demure and very shy semi-sweet orange, the bergamot gives it all a sense of coolness to it. The most present not in the midnotes are both the rose, wich is a very “green”, not in full bloom one, and of course the lavender, wich is treated here as a sidekick to the rosemary wich is one of the most happy rosemarys I have smelled in fragrance.
Never bitter, this is a very smooth blend.
The musk and the benzoin give the whole composition a dirtier, grittier feel but it’s not in any way nasty or un-elegant. I think it’s very well made.
For scents with a similar “vibe” you might want to try the more innocent Le Petit Prince, wich is really a verbena-lemon version of this one, and the less classy but brighter Pierre Balmain’s Monsieur Balmain(the new one).
Another scent that has a very elegant take one lemons: Boucheron PH (both the EDT and the EDP).

I’m at a loss here because i have never smelled a black orchid in my life before, but ill give it a go nonetheless:
The first of tom ford’s line of scents is a very attractive, love-it or hate-it kind of scent, that it truly smells very unique and , to my nose, is fantastic.
From the very first impression you get the sense that this ride will not be like something you’ve experienced before, in its complexity and its darkness, from the start you get the gritty ,black, earthy notes and the wonderful very dark and slightly sweet truffle that changes quickly to an intensely flowery (I imagine the black orchid note) that glides onto what it seems a french bonbon of very high quality : 73% dark chocolate cover with an inside of milk chocolate with a filling of vanilla-dark truffle cream that still has some gritty bits and some green bits and that all blends together very fetchingly. The drydown of this one get sweeter and sweeter but it’s a nice animalic smokey sort of sweet with a nice dose of patchouli, that it never loses its elegance, its power and its presence.
I would imagine that the queen of all vampires Akasha (that character from the Anne Rice’s novels) , would wear this one when she’s not in her stone-like form, when she’d smell more like a marble stone with dust and blood. Now she would wear this because it’s unique, she’s a queen and most of all because she just doesn’t care what other people say and she always has the last word, all at the same time when one is admiring her beauty and her intensity, falling under her spell, and we say: yes, do whatever you want with me, my Queen.
And the there’s the shock of the realization that this scent is very treacherous, and it would turn you into the stinkiest stink bomb ever, or it would send you into the fast track to heaven-dome, heaven being some type of Olympus where the gods seem decadent and smitten with all things human. And human is what you get on the basenotes, charred musky skin (human or not, I don’t know) with sweet undetones and dead sugary flowers and smoked chocolate, all resting in a very elegant dark wood cabinet.
I love it!

I can tell you right away: this scent doesn’t change all that much from top to bottom, the most heavy notes here are, basically the blackcurrant, the blackberry and the sugared vanilla. That’s most of it.
The rest is just too faint and too overpowered by the notes I just mentioned.
The juice is not really fresh and is very reminiscent of the end of summer-very early fall.
I liked it a lot because of its simplicity and because I love blackberries in general and this one is straight up blackberry. Almost like a diluted jam, it doesn’t have the prepotence some niches have, it doesn’t have the ambivalence some others have.
The other notes that are on the background are the sandalwood and the orris but they certainly don’t play a key role here, they play more of a balancing act between the whole composition and I like it that way.
It’s simple, it’s sweet and it’s just a bit dark –and not too “pretty”- , the right amount not to be called a pink fruity floral, and that takes it just a little bit ahead of that category.

This one is one of Paris’s most spring-like versions, and it shows from the very start all the way down to the last note: it’s very fresh like all of the other versions but this one is also very green, something the others seem to lack (mostly). The intensely fresh, innocent and light opening of mandarines, begins not unlike many scents we have come to smell recently given the fact that mandarine is “the” note right now for these types of scents. But that’s all forgiven because the true Paris heart of rose is very much present and it’s the red type of rose that’s favored here. The lilac is not very strong and the violets are the third best after the rose and the mandarine top. The soft woods that make up the base seem more like rosewood than sandalwood. It’s all very light and very pretty , as usual with the spring limited editions of Paris. Feminine and “chic”.
The note that links all the notes together is the “freshly mown grass” note, and here it’s like a string holding together a flower ornament. Very nice.

This one is, again with classic Herrera, a very good scent.
It’s easily recognizable from the others: Herrera ginger and Herrera original, yet it still retains a lot from the original, and that means it’s respectful of its name. The same happens with the other brother Herrera refreshing Ginger.
The difference with the others is of course the heavy use of vetiver in here, this vetiver is the type of green, very grassy, not too dirty and very elegant vetiver, that doesn’t have the dark base, of, for example, Guerlain’s Vetiver, it’s also not as fresh nor watery as R&G’s Vetyver, and it rests comfortably between the two, always masculine and always with a determined gaze, but with an ease and confidence that’s very alluring. This vetiver is young, strong, and very attractive.
I wonder if Carolina Herrera will be making some other limited eds. of this scent. Herrera for Men would feel very lucky and grateful that such great company and offspring would come along, if they are in the same league and quality as these 2 limited eds, I’d buy them in a second!.
Both herrera’s ginger and vetiver are possibly, some of the best versions of an original scent for men out there.

Even thought the notes make it seem like it’s a very spicy, dense and even creamy but dark fragrance, this one is still very fresh, light and not even close to what roasted coffee smells like, even though the notes say there’s that note in there…somewhere.
This one has a very peppery top, more so than I would have liked. So I guess that depending on the type of roasted coffee used you will smell certain kind of scent, but here I only get a very soft, airy one, that it’s toasty but not very strong and certainly not very aromatic.
The mango note here is rendered as if it were a green mango, not the very sweet yellow mango types or even the red ones that scream sugar and thickness. This mango is more along the lines of the mango used in Un Jardin sur le Nil, but of course I’m talking only about this one mago note, so don’t believe that these two scents have much more in common.
The cardamom used here is of very good quality and I think it was very well done here because this note can be a bit wild and it can overtake a scent very easily, this cardamom doesn’t have the fresh, intense quality of the real thing, but in this case, all of that is very welcomed since the woods take a better command of the basenotes and it(the cardamom) doesn’t feel like an irritant, like the real thing might feel like, given the gingery and intese aroma of it. The juniper is almost lost here, between the other basenotes.
All in all, I think it’s not a bad scent at all, it’s still a bit too airy and light, but it gave me a feel of stimulation, of clearing my head, and a certain sense of tonification, it worked specially well when I felt fatigued.

Carolina herrera is stil making good scents, but in recent times they hava been watering up their latest offerings, making the brand less interesting than before.
This one changes the trend, and I’m very happy about it. It’s not something a lover of “classic masculine scents” would love, and it’s certainly marketed towards a “younger” audience…nevertheless I still liked it.
It’s a bit too sweet and a bit too sugary, in comparison with other masculine scents, but never like paco rabanne’s utraviolet neverending line of sugary sweets for men, Herrera made the rare attempt to create something that’s just the right amount of sweet, and that is achieved by the soft fruits in it.
The top is fresh and light but it quickly changes , the bergamot is very short lived as are the greens and the mandarine.
The rest is a very well blended, flowing scent of vanilla, woods and some flowers, and the very clear note of cardamom that never becomes too powerful.
The base is mostly amber and soft woods and it’s very much a comfortable scent to be with.
This scent seems right for those with an open mind –scentwise-.

I don’t think this scent will break any barriers of become a sort of a cult fragrance, but it’s a very good one.
It’s never as powerful and as the sillage monster that the original amarige is, but it’s very strong in its own right.
The chypre oriental (the kind of new chypre with no oakmoss that’s so fashionable right now) blend seems very leveled and harmonic and yes, it feels very “french”. The french of a new era, one that’s evolving and that is very comfortable with what it is and what it stands for, regardless of what people think.
This scent begins sweet and strong, even if the top notes are citrusy and sparkly, and it stays that way, but it never punches you in the face, it’s more like a confident person entering a room, the mid of a very nice magnolia (a creamy one) and the ever present in woman’s fragrances jasmine opens it up a bit and makes it very intesely flowery. Apparently it has cinnamon but it’s very faint. The flowers are the force here.
The base is mostly a blend of woods, musk and warmth, and I even felt a bit of a warm potpourri, intense and calming maybe due to the soft patchouli, all very nice.
I wasn’t awed by it but I felt it was a good addition to the line, I mean not everything must be unique, one of a kind, specially if we’re talking here of a version of another one.
The bottle, concept and the packing are all very, very nice.

And I crazy? Or am I smelling what it seems like one of givenchy’s limited editions but a little stronger and less pretty?
Haters of soft fruity florals , stay away from this one. It feels very girly and somewhat immature, but at least it lasts more than what I expected.
When I said less pretty I should say that whenever I think “pretty” in fruity florals I mean delicate and even a bit naïve, qualities that seem a bit lost here. This girl is a bad one.
She may say forever and ever but in reality she means for right now.

I never thought that a watered-down version of a great scent would be as good as this one.
This one shines and the bergamot seems to have a life of its own,as it feels like it moves around you and feels playful, even the vanilla seems much more sparkly and filled with golden bursts of happiness than what I expected. Like an ambery vanilla caramel with golden specks of sorts.
Much, much softer than the original, it’s a joy to wear when the other seems just too much, specially in hot weather or whenever you feel like you’re wearing a lemon-vanilla cake instead of a proper fragrance, as might be with the original shalimar.
It’s even more of a unisex one if one is daring enough I should say.
It’s specially good when people want to leave a statement but don’t want people to say that “she was wearing too much of that stuff”.
So I think it’s very elegant that way with the added bonus of being happy and a bit careless.

This one is a fantastic scent. Much more unisex than what people may think, this one –thankfully- doesn’t feel creamy or dense or flowery at all.
It’s very much like toasted sand, bronzed skin and vacations, it’s not as fresh as other watery fragrances, but here I like it because it makes it last for a long time on my skin.
Even if the pyramid seems upside down you get a lot of the basenotes on the top like the citrus and the pepper.
The pepper here is very soft and I like it because pepper is fragrances makes my nose very uncomfortable, but here it almost feels like the pink pepper used in miracle homme for example. Something softer but still interesting enough.
The ambergris is superb, the quality of it is very obvious and the sheer force of it in the mid notes makes it stand out from the vast majority of scents out there since, in general , this note is not used as a strong stand-alone, more like a soft whiff of it that balances the rest, in here, the note is very present and very unique.
You might even get a bit of chlorine-pool if you think hard enough, wich I like!

As much as i tried to make friends with it , it just couldn’t happen.
On my skin it almost felt like I was wearing some sort of household cleaning liquid, and not one that smells good.
I appreciated the mineral notes in it but the rest seemed almost like been there done that and I truly felt that it didn’t bring too many new things into play.
I guess it’s all down to personal chemistry, right?, I mean on my skin the top notes turned an acrid, very sour, pungent, even too aluminum like grapefruit, and I mean the white part of it not the juicy, less sour body of it.
I was very discouraged about this one since I am a big Hermès fan, but hey, there are plenty of Hermès offerings that go very well with my skin and that I don’t like this one doesn’t make me less of a fan. A lot of times I like to be challenged and this time, fate had it that it was not for me. I still got a bottle of it, who says I can’t use it for air freshener or even for a gift.?

Is this one of the best ginger scents out there? I think so.
It doesn’t feel annoyingly zesty to the nose, and it’s very very fresh but it still has the right balance of the rest of the original Herrera for men notes and you can clearly differenciate it from the other brother, Herrera vetiver and the father of course, the original Herrera for men.
I will compare it with other very nice gingers: I think that R&G’s eau de gingembre and EA’s Spicy Green Tea both have a very nice ginger note that should be smelled (or experienced if you prefer that word) , and in here they all seem to go neck to neck in terms of true ginger quality, as all smell like they have used some real ginger (it never really gets there but it’s very close), all of them seem very stimulating.
Ok, so compared with herrera’s ginger, these two seem to be more in the unisex category than HFM-RG, this herrera one is very masculine and it’s very forceful into convincing you that it is, it’s still very elegant –something that the others seem to lack- and it feels very adaptable to changes, be that heat or cold, so I’d say it’s very balanced that way. The ginger is of quality and it never gets tiresome or irritant.
Very well done Herrera!

This one is a very honest, very respectful version of the original and it certainly delivers what it says: it feels like you just sprayed a bunch of shavings of iced vetiver.
While the minty here is very strong, it’s still very natural, not like some fake mints out there like candy drops or something like that.
The freshness never goes away and this works wonders in a very heady, humid and warm environment, I don’t see what’s the use of this one in winter or fall, unless you want to have your nose decongested or want to feel a bit of a burn in there.
The thing is, I don’t feel it’s a very Guerlain fragrance, all the interesting bits like the tobacco or the more musky darker base of the original are very much lost here.
I don’t hold the original in very high esteem like a lot of other people, so it’s safe to say that I don’t feel biased when I say that : It’s good but not that good.

I was surprised when i first smelled this one because i was expecting it to not like it. The mandarin and lychee are the winners within the top notes, and the jasmin is more intense here than the listed lily of the valley and the madonna lily. If only i could do something about the far too common basenotes.
Nice, but not truly original, earth-quakin' nor breath-takin'.

Extremely similar to the original Green Tea, this one is very nice as well.
It has a more intense citrus feel (specifically oranges) on the top notes and a more watery feel overall than the other one.
It's also far less minty than Iced GT, wich is welcomed here.
Less longevity and sillage than the original.
But it's very nice while it lasts nonetheless.
Great Summer Scent.

This scent is a very uncomplicated, honest, clean, unisex vetiver that’s very green but never biting. This one has top notes that are fresh and just a bit sharp, with a cirtus blast on top, that changes towards the spicier mid to end in the woodsy, soft yet still very green base. Almost like fresh cut grass that has been laying on the sun for a couple of hours (roots included!).
It’s more masculine than Eau de lotus Bleu and Bouquet Impérial, but as unisex as Eau de Gingembre, or even Eau de thé Vert (all from R&G).
For comparison, this one is not as complicated as Guerlain’s Vetiver for men, because that one has a darker base with tobacco notes among others (R&G’s vetyver remains bright till the end) ; R&G’s vetyver is not as boozy (or metallic) as Lanvin’s Vetiver L’Homme either. Another thing that might be of importance is that this one is not an eau parfumante, but an Eau de Cologne.
So, in short, this is a very straightforward Vetiver scent.

I think this scent is a nice balance between the girly fruity-florals and the heavier dark-rose scents for people who do not like more intensity in the mix. This one has a combo of 5 different roses like: “emotion” rose, centifolia rose, peony rose, passion rose and fantasia rose, with a common denominator wich would be here the star anise.
It’s fresh but not too faint as to have a certain leveled middle heart that becomes more like rosewood than anything else. This rosewood is a bit green and a bit musky as well, but it’s never animalic in any way. I wouldn’t call it “very irresistible” like the name says but it sure is interesting enough and pretty enough.
If this EDT is still too much, just try the faintly tweaked fresher summer versions of this one( wich have all different ingredients don’t be fooled: edition pétales de roses 2004, eau d’été 2005, etc etc) and if it’s just too soft then try the more full-bodied and creamier (and with an even more intense rose accord) Very I.Sensual EDP. If you are a collector and /or Givenchy fan then get the Rose Bulgare Harvest edition!.
Goes well with most skin types wich is a plus.
Cheers

So this one seems to be the modern reinterpretation of the original one, the all-new-revived composition to the new generations.
I’m not against creating new scents, but labeling one very beloved older scent on some other very different scent, changing its formula in full, and marketing it as the out-with-the-old- in-with-the-new feels a bit like an insult to both our ages and our noses. If you want to release a new scent, then do so but do not discontinue the older one.
That said, I like this scent, so much so that I got one for myself (even though it’s very feminine ( i like to collect and smell as much as I can), but Givenchy must get a big slap in the back of the head for discontinuing the older version.
I liked very much the old version too, but it wasn’t meant ot be for my skin chemistry, found it just too creamy, too “thick”. So this new reformulation feels just right, but of course, it doesn’t smell the same: on this one I get mostly the bergamot on top, the white peach and rose and vetiver, and not so much the amber nor the rest of the notes, green leaves, or jasmine, or whatnot.
There’s a certain “strawberryness” to it but it’s not too strong. Does this one has Lily of the valley? Maybe it’s the combo of flowers and green leaves.
For people that are not put off by the major re-working, people who love flowery but very fresh scents that have a green basenote (like,say, Balmain’s Iviore but less ambery), this is a must-try.
I will give this one a thumbs up only because i happen to like this scent, BUT i also give this a thumbs down for messing with the older release.

I won’t really go deep into the notes here, because it has been discussed many times before and I generally agree with most reviews here.
Fresh, green, light-dark, perspective, intriguing, shine, wet, etc, it almost feels like people are describing some painting, and wearing No19 would make you feel like you are wearing some sort of work of art, so those comments are correct to me.
I have to add here that DiorHomme and No19(EDP) share some sort of connection, after all , both are heavy in the Iris and Orris and everything in between, and it almsot feels as if they were related, like brother and sister. DH being the more moody of the two and No19 the optimistic yet melancholic one.
In any case, I think that the edt (Not the edp or extrait) version of No19 can be used by men as well, specially in the winter, well, at least that’s when I prefer to use it. Maybe even better if layered with a big dose of either bergamot or vetiver.

So this one is as unisex and strange as its older androgynous bother, the hugely famous ckOne.
Ck says it has notes of bergamot, juniper berry, mandarin, mint, lavender, magnolia, peach, amber, sandalwood, opoponax and tonka bean, wich it all sound like been there done that, but it’s really not so. Why? Well, because its smell is very original and uncomplicated but quite the show stealer because of its sillage, and this sillage seems at least stronger than that of ckOne.
Another of those “must-smells”, whether you might like it or not, and I’d say it’s all about new olfatory experiences right?. On both reviews (ckOne and ckBe) I won’t even mention longevity, as it’s better to find out if it works with your skin or not.
When it came out, I got a bottle of this one, as it seemed to be some sort of goth-rock version of the clean-cut ckOne and I waited for the ckOne craze to die out so I could get one for myself. I am glad I got both now, even though now I think I was a bit childish about not getting ckOne for superficial reasons.

I swear when this one came out everyone and their brother was wearing this scent. There was one specific moment in late 94 when I was travelling and I was at O’Hare airport in Chicago and it truly seemed like every 1 minute or so, I smelled ckOne sillage coming from someone different at this place. It felt almost like a ckOne convention was in town or something.
Now onto the scent: one of the most abstract, clean and prismatic scents if I may say so, that became some sort of fragrance world phenomenon, has very clear white tea/white musk or even green tea notes that are becoming more and more popular both in male and female scents, it also has a certain metallic top that makes it a bit sharp for the sensitive nose that almost feels like an aldehyde cousin.
It’s one of those scents that you just have to try at least once, in case you haven’t already tried some of the ck one “inspired” scents like bvlgari’s white tea, paco rabanne’s paco or mavive’s white musk or any other form of “revival” of this fragrance. It has a very faint fruity mid that glides on the chemicals that make up the form of this almost transparent juice in the frosty bottle.
The added cirtusy top is enough for it to make it fresh all the way towards the end of the composition.
The base, in case anyone’s wondering, is very musky, that’s white musk I mean. I like it a lot, but for sentimental reasons more than for the juice itself. Still, this scent is very attractive anyways.

This one is to me (the EDP i mean) the female version of Givenchy's own PI (the EDT that is).
We know how it goes like: vanilla cake, amber, jasmine and gardenia. You might encounter also some honeysuckle, ylang, sandalwood, cedar, tuberose and orange blossom, see, the thing is, i think this one was reformulated as well over the years and we now get only gardenia, jasmine and vanilla, according to Givenchy. This is a wonderful gourmand, creamy, elegant and not crazy sweet(or spicy) like its sister O.Indécence or lightlike the very bland, lame O.First light.
cheers!

This one is for the EDT: there have been lots of comments on how the scent is, i'd like to add that the most dominant notes are to me the jesmine (that's a dirty jasmine), the patchouli (so much so that patchouli haters will loath this one) and tangerine of all things. I also get roseweood, cononut,tuberose,sandalwood and of course, civet.
Believe it or not, this one went for me totally under the radar for many years until i smelled it a couple of years ago and said to myself: so that's what that lady's apartment smelled like!, see, i always loved that smell and never quite could put a finger on what the scent was, or even if it was her or the apartment itself and all the old things included in it. I am glad to revive memories like that and to clear doubts from my past, in such an unexpected way. I find that the top is very femenine and it has a decidely masculine drydown.I like much better Ysatis Iris though!.
cheers!

Yet another fruity floral girly pink fresh fragrance from