Fragrance Reviews by Clayton

Not exactly what I was hoping for, but not exactly terrible either. This strikes me as unlit stick incense, after the South Asian style, combining florals, light spices, sandalwood, and something like dried fruit or honey. For me, it's too sweet and perhaps borders on those cheap, quasi-exotic, oil-dipped incenses with names like "Egyptian Midnight" and "Lovers Ritual."

Yes, this is kinfolk of Gucci Pour Homme, but that is no big crime. (How many citrus colognes has the world seen in the last two hundred years? The devil is in the details.) To my nostrils, 2MAN is both distinct and distinctly Comme des Garçons. In fact, I agree that it has a "Best of CdG" feel to it -- the medicinal spices of the original CdG Parfum, the smokey inkiness of CdG2, and the monstrously good incenses of Series 3 (particularly Avignon and Ouarzazate, in my mind). Unfortunately for me, it also retains one element from CdG2 that I've never been fond of -- namely, the "perfumey" direction of the drydown. (Is it aldehydes? Tonka bean? I'm not entirely sure.)

An indistinct haze of pointless fruity-ambery nonsense.

Dull, fruity, cheap, characterless. Smells as if it was made by the same cynical committee of accountants and brand managers that pumps out scents for Mary Kate and Ashley Olson.

Exactly what you get when you tear a handful of needles from a Fraser Fir tree.
A big, beautiful, authentic blast of coniferous outdoorsiness. In true Demeter fashion, its longevity is inversely proportional to how much you are fond of it. For me, that means about 10-30 seconds.

This is "tea" only in quotes, in the sense that it refers to other cheap-smelling green tea accords in air care products. I get not a whiff of coriander. To me it reads as a needlessly sweet, needlessly synthetic fruity-floral. Flashbacks to those deoderising toilet roll spindles with the rubbery scented beads tumbling around inside. Unexpectedly repugnant.

Greatly confused by this one. I was anticipating a deeply pious festival of cedar. Got cedar chip in pickle brine instead.

Neither unflinchingly smokey nor unflinchingly woody, Fireplace forgoes bottling a fire in favour of telling a little story about one. An ephemeral moment of savoury smoke and booze (the fire that cooks your food), giving way to a longer bout of something like the remains of cooling incense (the fire at which you worship), joined in the end by clean, soft musks (the ashes with which you make your soap). All in all, a nice, unassuming little tale.

A hologram of vinyl fashioned out of bitter almond and licorice – the queer chemical freshness of the former combined with the inedible, sideways sweetness of the latter. A bit like washing down marzipan with shots of ouzo. Not quite the festival of plastics I'd been holding out for, sadly.

Detergent-like musks in a haze of floral vagueness. From that whole laundered white linens vein that leaves me wondering why I shouldn't just skip the cologne and put on some clean clothes.

Every bit as noxiously ozonic-aquatic as Demeter's Rain, but since it forgoes Rain's melony sweetness in favour of a less familiar metallic tang, it does manage to be marginally more interesting. It's still profoundly not to my taste, however.

Dead on, in my estimation. A daring burst of much-maligned cumin, a whisp of mint, and a watery green undercurrent. But in the fashion of the most frustrating Demeters, it's great while it lasts but it doesn't last long.

This explodes from the bottle like something straight from a medieval apothecary -- familiar, but wickedly anachronistic. After the initial medicinal exuberance fades, though, a more conventional spice and sweet woods feeling takes its place.

I'm generally crazy for conifers (pine, cypress, juniper, I like 'em all), and I have no fear of the household cleaner / car deoderiser association that many seem to dread. But this is really more about citrus, with aromatic herbs and cedar bubbling up from underneath. Overall, a nice, undemanding cologne that's suffers from its innacurate handle.

A truly curious entry that opens up with an unabashed tribute to fresh rubber cement. I wish I could say that it stays this brave to the bitter end, but the adhesive is too rapidly swept aside in favour of noncommittal vanillic leather with a pale wash of generic fruitiness over the top.

Perhaps if I had approached this scent with fewer expectations, I would not have been quite so let down by the thing in the flesh. Piper Nigrum has very little of the livelier and more savoury aspects of freshly ground black pepper for which I had been hoping; instead, it zeroes in on the warm, sweet, and menthol-like notes. Still, it remains worthwhile, particularly if you are searching for a masculine oriental with an uncommon yet natural feel to it.

Chergui is by no means a terrible fragrance, but it's so painfully not my thing that I have difficulty formulating anything worthwhile to say about it. A nice resinous quality paired with an overwhelming, and ultimately distracting, syrupy sweetness. Strictly for those who like to smell sticky.

I'd love to be able to affirm that Odeur 53 is even near as strange as it presents itself, but the reality is that this is the olfactory equivalent of a Rorschach test – a vaguely defined shape, crucially accompanied by the expectation of all manner of bric-a-brac. It's fresh, lightly soapy, floral in an abstract sort of way, with a bit of mineral saltiness; a gentle, comfortable, and frustratingly familiar smell that recalls fabric softeners and the nice, unassuming handsoaps that your grandmother likes. All in all, fascinating as an experiment in suggestion and perception.

Comme des Garcons' surprisingly straightforward Peppermint manages to dodge the toiletries associations that make mint a tricky note in fragrances. Watery and green, with only a very slight confectionary quality, this brisk, short-lived tonic would make an ideal splash cologne -- unfortunately, it's only available in tiny spray bottles, which puts a major damper on my enthusiasm for it.

A nice, unpretentious carnation with a sort of untutored, peasant feel to it. The smooth clove confidently makes its presence known, and there's a bit of dusky spiciness that lends the whole thing more depth. It's just a touch too sweet for me to wear, although by no means gaggingly so.

I'm a big sucker for the kitschier side of classic men's colognes, so it is with a heavy heart that I have to second the previous reviewer's observation that Pino Silvestre does an excellent spaghetti sauce immitation. Somewhere between the astringency of the citrus and the savoury herbs emerges a phantom can of tomato sauce garnished with a whack of oregano. Awfully cute bottle, though.

A nauseatingly effusive melony-aquatic that only succeeds in evoking other cheap-smelling efforts to recreate after-the-rain. Note to functional perfumers and candlemakers: stop trying. Actual rain smells great because it is too ephemeral and subtle to capture in a aerosol can.

Effervescent ginger & citrus for the first several minutes, then it deepens and picks up a pepperiness that is more Jamaican ginger beer than ginger ale. Unfortunately, the tale end flattens out considerably, leaving you with a synthetic sweetness that is a let down after the glittering first act. Pleasant enough, and far more successful than many of Demeter's beverage-inspired attempts.

Starts off as an auspiciously convincing fresh-torn spearmint, not chewing-gum-like at all. Regrettably, it swiftly veers off into a soapiness that feels out of place on a garden walk. In the end, it becomes a nice, slightly sweet, green floral -- but by then it's too late for me.

Unexpectedly appalling. The marketing for this fragrance sets up an expectation for something fun, refreshing, summery, and ultimately edible. Instead, I get no mint, no rum, and only the most inaccurate and cheaply synthetic of limes backed up by the kind of musky, powdery sweetness that doesn't belong anywhere near a beverage. To top off the insult, the powder proceeds to overstay its welcome by several hours after everything else fades.

Freshly crushed leaves dominate the opening, eventually giving way to humid earthiness and light florals. Very evocative -- though more of a flower shop than of a garden -- with respectable tenacity for a Demeter.

A moist, loamy potting soil. Quite accurate and quite pleasant, though it fades alarmingly fast down to a transparent and undemanding patchouli-like note.

A wood smoke fragrance marred throughout most of its short lifespan by boiled hot dogs. Once the wieners have faded, however, you are left with an attentuated simulation of having just come from standing around the campfire.

Pretty much as advertised: a cigar, unlit, sweet, and humid. It opens with a baked apple angle that recalls a hookah more than a humidor, then gets somewhat chocolatey as it fades. On me, the longevity is considerably better than most of the flash-in-the-pan Demeters -- perhaps 4 hours, tops.

A scarily convincing imitation of one of those latex condoms that comes packaged in artificially sweetened lube. After a while, the condom makes its exit and is replaced by an even sweeter vanillic talcum powder. Completely perverted, which I admire, but the sweetness is just too nauseatingly tenacious for me to stomach for long.

The shy little bottle seduced me into spraying this on my skin more than once, only to be left smelling rather strongly of the same greasy-powdery accord that's left in a cosmetics bag after it's been emptied out. Perhaps some people have the fondest associations with that odour. Sadly, I'm not one of them.

Like an alley kat sleeping in a discarded box of detergent. A counterintuitive mix of soapy and animalic, the latter bolstered by a rather pissy rendition of honey.

4711 + soap + green dye + musky, feminine drydown. I'd rather just stick with the 4711.

Regardless of whether or not a person actually enjoys inhaling Kouros, it's a difficult proposition not to hold a certain degree of respect for this deadly potion.

Far from ruining the scent, the pissy-fecal undertow is what makes Kouros so transfixing. It's problem rests in its overall resemblance to a particular type of institutional urinal cake. I can't say for sure whether this is due to actual olfactory overlap with the cakes themselves or merely the confluence of pungent deodorants and "bathroom smells."

Whatever the case, the whole sacred-profane flip-flop routine is tough to ignore. Do your cubicle mates a favour and leave this one for after midnight.