Fragrance Reviews by Vibert

Notes (from LuckyScent.com): vanilla absolute, saffron, orris, banana wood, hay absolute, amber.

That Felanilla's smoky vanilla and astringent saffron top notes don’t smell at all foody is an ongoing (and welcome) source of wonderment for me. There’s a woody edge to these notes that renders them inedible, and the intensely rooty iris (orris) that joins them after a few minutes only drives Felanilla further from the dining room. Never mind the name or the note pyramid – this isn’t vanilla custard and it isn’t rice pudding. It isn’t even Bananas Foster. In fact, to my nose it’s more of a rich, sweetened iris scent with lots of wood and bitter saffron over a vanillic amber foundation. A trace of gamy labdanum adds a welcome animalic tang to the drydown.

The weird, dark complexity of hay absolute is played very subtly in Felanilla, so anyone expecting it to dominate the scent to the degree it does in Serge Lutens’s Chergui may wind up disappointed. While it offers plenty of depth, Felanilla is not the kind of cloying, syrupy fragrance the note pyramid might suggest. It’s greatest liability to my mind is its endurance – or should I say its lack thereof. It my be that I’m partly anosmic to the drydown, or that I habituate to Felanilla rapidly, but whatever the case I find it hard to detect after just a couple of hours’ wear. Even so, I enjoy it enough to want to wear it and to reapply it as necessary.

I know I’m swimming against the tide here, but I’m losing patience with Jean-Claude Elléna’s minimalist dogma. Minimalism in art is refreshing when it first appears, but it wears thin very quickly. I think back to minimalist music: the first few pieces by Riley, Reich and Glass that I heard were seductive, novel, and hypnotic. But there’s only so much you can do with two chords and a chug-chug pulse, and before the 1980s were out it all sounded the same to me.

I’m reaching the same point with Elléna’s "Jardin" and Hermèssence scents for Hermès. While his colleague Bertrand Duchaufour has shown he can do depth, richness, and complexity with fragrances like Méchant Loup and Jubilation XXV, Emperor Elléna’s compositions become ever more slender, and I fear that he’s now getting very close to naked. Un Jardin Après la Mousson is a case in point.

This latest “Jardin” series entry starts out as a shockingly trite aquatic melon thing. In fact, the dominant top note smells exactly like nasty pink watermelon hard candy – you know, the kind that comes wrapped in watermelon pattern cellophane. An attempt at redemptive sophistication comes quickly in the form of a bitter-crisp pink peppercorn note. I thought pink peppercorn was interesting when it showed up a couple of years ago in the top notes of Amouage’s Reflection Man, but everybody’s doing it now, and it’s frankly beginning to get old. A few more minutes into its evolution Un Jardin Après la Mousson reveals a potent and aggressively synthetic sharp woody note. And in true recent Elléna fashion, that’s it.

I waited a few hours for something else to happen, but it didn’t. The accord that Un Jardin Après la Mousson scent arrives at would make a nice shower gel, but the thought of spending $60 on a bottle to smell like this makes me giggle. Un Jardin Après la Mousson is both simple and very loud; a combination of attributes which in humans I equate with idiocy. As a final insult, the synthetics at its core are extremely persistent, and I found the stuff very hard to wash off once I’d grown (very, very) tired of it.

Sometimes less really is just, well, less.

Read the name, look at the packaging, and you’d expect a standard issue calone-drenched aquatic along the lines of Acqua di Gio. You’d also be wrong.

It takes a mere fraction of a second for Ocean Rain to reveal itself as the work of Edmond Roudnitska, and incidentally as a much less conventional fragrance. The citrus, cantaloupe, and fleshy, indolic jasmine introduction echoes the unmistakably weird opening accords of Le Parfum de Thérèse and Diorella, but what follows is quite different. Where Diorella and Thérèse set their fruity floral accord over a mossy, woody chypre-based foundation, Ocean Rain grows more brisk, green, and cool, yet paradoxically more dense and spicy, as it goes.

While there’s little actual resemblance between the two, the concept behind Ocean Rain is akin to that of Jean-Claude Elléna’s later Globe for Rochas: an unapologetically floral accord juxtaposed with a fruity, green fougère structure that’s loosely related to Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed. The Diorella top notes distinguish Ocean Rain immediately, and an abundance of herbs and conifer lead it in a colder, greener, and to some extent more aquatic direction than Globe, which smells warmer, sweeter, and more obviously fruity by comparison. I suspect that the subtle aquatic effect in Ocean Rain depends upon both hedione and calone, though used here alongside the signature Roudnitska melon, calone does not register as a distinct note. In fact, Ocean Rain could stand as a case study in how to use calone without winding up with something that smells like shampoo.

Ocean Rain offers moderate sillage and projection, and lingers for several hours on the skin, with a pleasantly sweet ambery fougère drydown that’s rendered distinctive by some subtle but noticeable incense. I see Ocean Rain as Diorella and Thérèse’s forgotten brother. I suspeczt it would garner praise from fragrance lovers were it introduced today – in fact, with a less misleading name and sufficient advertising, it might even sell in the contemporary market. In the meantime, those men who find the idea of Ocean Rain attractive can turn to Diorella, or the perhaps even more similar Parfum de Thérèse.

Notes (from Lucky Scent): Bulgarian rose, Egyptian jasmine, Indian tuberose, galbanum, mint, white musk.

I get green jasmine and buttery tuberose from 3 Fleurs right off the bat, the rose being far less obvious at first. Conspicuous galbanum and minty top notes initially align 3 Fleurs with Dominique Ropion’s Carnal Flower for Frédéric Malle, though 3 Fleurs is a cooler, quieter, and far less voluptuous scent. 3 Fleurs grows more intensely green as it develops, eschewing much of the indolic, animalic character of jasmine and tuberose in favor of a crisp, snappy, morning-in-the-garden mood. It’s the same kind of pretty, but thoroughly chaste, floral style that Estée Lauder does so well in scents like Alliage, White Linen, and Private Collection. In fact if you’d handed me 3 Fleurs to sniff blind, I’d of guessed it was a Lauder scent from the 1970s – especially once the soapy white “laundry” musk and peppery rose drydown sets in.

With such a green, herbaceous profile, 3 Fleurs also strikes me as a potentially agreeable floral for men. It’s really not all that far removed in style from Givenchy’s bitter-green Insensé or Power by Kenzo, themselves both owing much to the clean, green Lauder/Balmain florals of the 1970s. By now off course you probably know where this is going: 3 Fleurs smells good, but it’s been done before, and just as well, for quite a bit less money. I wouldn’t buy it without trying Alliage, White Linen, Private Collection, or Ivoire first.

I’d ask how anyone could not like Tommy Girl, but I know better. Still, what an adorably cheerful, unpretentious little fragrance it is! A simple, buoyant, and transparent blend of fruit, floral notes (mostly jasmine,) and green tea that deftly avoids an overdose of melony calone in its opening, flits effortlessly past excessive sweetness at midcourse, and lands, light as a feather, on a drydown of clean musk and soft woods. Nothing profound here: this stuff just smells happy. Wear it and smile. I did!

Note: Tommy Girl would be a great idea for guys who want something that smells clean, but wish to avoid the banal aquatics and fruity fougère clones.

Notes (from Lucky Scent): Somalian incense, Kenyan myrrh, Ethiopian opoponax, Indian sandalwood, Moroccan cypress, labdanum, apple, fir balsam.

Wazamba is a spicy, fruity incense fragrance that smells like something Bertrand Duchaufour might have composed for the Comme des Garçons Incense Series. It opens with a rich, boozy accord of sweet dried fruit and dark, smoky spices that’s very soon overlaid by cool, camphoraceous conifer resin and astringent myrrh. The juxtaposition of warm, edible and cool, medicinal notes generates a compelling internal tension – a simultaneously disturbing and seductive olfactory dissonance that works on the nose the way the lush, exotic harmonies of late romantic composers like Mahler and Strauss work on the ear.

Having brought up Bertrand Duchaufour, I might mention that Wazamba's combination of fruit, spices, and incense bears some passing structural resemblance to Duchaufour’s Jubilation XXV for Amouage. Wazamba is more assertively sweet and fruity, and emphasizes myrrh where Jubilation XXV leans on frankincense. Wazamba’s chill fir resin note has no parallel in the Amouage. The combination of conifer resin and incense also allies Wazamba to some degree with Comme des Garçons’ Zagorsk, but Wazamba’s opoponax and conspicuous fruit notes render it much softer, warmer and sweeter than its gaunt and icy Russian-inspired counterpart.

Wazamba is reasonably potent, with moderate sillage. It lasts well on my skin, and I find the sweet, resinous oriental drydown of opoponax and labdanum is extremely comforting. Wazamba is a vibrant scent that exhibits plenty depth and personality, and I’d encourage anyone who enjoys incense-based fragrances to give it a try.

Lola explodes from its bottle in a blaze of neon-colored fruit that streaks directly toward shampoo or public restroom hand soap. It settles into a tropical fruit (guava?) and rose accord that’s a linear descendant of Calyx, but decades of inbreeding leave Lola coarser and several degrees more shrill. Calyx used pleasantly bitter green notes to offset the sweetness of its fruit and rose. Lola is all canned fruit syrup. I waited patiently while Lola played itself out, hoping that it would develop into something more interesting, or at least less cloying. It didn’t. Instead it just congealed into a block of sweet and intensely unnatural vanilla.

In a very crowded field of crude, sweet, fruity florals, Lola’s most distinctive features are its cute bottle is its volume. This scent is LOUD. Loud as in, spill a few drops of this on my carpet, and I’ll have to relocate. Loud as in, keep it in a locked box if there are small children in your home. I’m not kidding: I’ll be wearing disposable rubber gloves the next time I open my sample vial. I wish I could say otherwise, but Lola is a very, very bad fragrance. On the other hand, a purse spray might be handy for deterring muggers.

I couldn’t at first make out why so many reviewers refer to Noa as “light” and “sheer.” If you ask me, Noa’s fruity floral top notes are bright and potent, and maybe even a little bit crass, though also pretty in a buxom, ponytail-twirling, bottle blond kind of way. Honeyed ylang-ylang, green jasmine, some discreet spices, and a soapy white musk soon establish a new accord that’s much more refined than the brash opening, though still nothing I’d refer to as quiet or subtle.

It’s only after a half an hour to an hour’s wear that Noa transforms, rather abruptly, into the scent that everybody else describes. The content doesn’t alter so much as rearrange itself. The ylang-ylang takes a step back and the spices blur, while the soapy aspect of the musk intensifies, resulting in a smoother texture and a marked reduction in volume. It’s as if, presto-change-o, the saucy gal of the opening puts her hair up, takes off her costume jewelry, dabs away some of her makeup, and transforms in plain sight into a staid and respectable corporate manager. The metamorphosis is impressive, but neither phase completely satisfies me: the first is coarser than I'd prefer, and the second is just a bit too smooth, bordering on faceless. I understand the appeal, but remain unmoved.

Once in a great while I’ll put a fragrance on for the first time, and “Bam!” I just know it’s a winner. Then I’ll sit down to review it and find myself at a loss to convey its qualities. Balmain de Balmain is one of those instances. I’ll tell you that it’s marvelous, and I’ll attempt to describe its evolution as I wear it, but I won’t do it any justice.

Balmain de Balmain’s effervescent top notes have all kick of champagne corks popping. Crystal clear bergamot, bittersweet herbaceous notes, hints of leather, and smoky spices combine in an accord that’s at once rich and stimulating, complex and immediately legible. It’s simply one of the most gratifying opening gambits I’ve smelled. Ever. And it makes me smile every time.

The bergamot inevitably recedes with time, and its place in the composition is taken by floral notes, most noticeably a clear, green jasmine. The spices persist, while a brisk, yet earthy green chypre accord assembles itself in the foundation. As the floral notes and spices fade away, the moss and woods of the chypre core stand exposed in all of their gaunt beauty.

Balmain de Balmain’s structure and progression go beyond classical; as the scent unwraps itself, each layer comes as a delightful surprise, yet each appears in hindsight to be utterly inevitable. Balmain de Balmain transcends gender: it is as completely unsex a fragrance as anything I’ve smelled. As if that were not enough, it’s also dirt cheap and readily available.

Sometimes miracles do happen. I urge you to experience this one!

Beyond Paradise is a moderately sweet, soft, green-tinted floral scent that manages to be extremely amiable without ever descending into banality. According to Estée Lauder, what lies beyond paradise is a grassy alpine meadow brimming with wildflowers and warmed by a June morning’s sunshine.

After a brief, astringent galbanum and dry herb opening, Beyond Paradise’s green notes are all newly mown grass and fresh hay. This greenery is seamlessly wed to a gentle white flower accord that’s so well-blended that this seasoned gardener is hard pressed to distinguish any individual floral notes. The indole is under strict enough control that the only chink in Beyond Paradise’s clean innocence is a slightly animalic honey note that some passing bee might have brewed from all of the scent’s fresh nectar. Beyond Paradise is also largely free of conspicuous aldehydes. This lack may have a lot to do with the peculiar abstract clarity of the scent’s floral heart. Anything more than a hint of the trademark Lauder/White Linen soap-and-powder would have made Beyond Paradise insufferably maudlin, so the restraint exercised in their application deserves special complement.

Beyond Paradise is not a thick, plush, heady floral scent in the vein of Fracas or Joy. Nor is it entirely aligned with the weightless, dew drenched spring florals of Diorissimo or En Passant. Instead, Beyond Paradise appears to occupy an elevated and appealing middle ground among today’s floral fragrances.

Beyond Paradise for Men is essentially a green-tinted, fruity/woody composition in the manner of Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed, though more obviously floral in its heart than the former, and drier and more herbaceous than the latter. It’s also distinguished by a peculiar luminous quality that pervades its structure, the result, I assume, of some potent synthetic base notes that I cannot identify. It’s a nice, upbeat, casual scent, but having worn Beyond Paradise for Men for a while, I’ve come to find it disappointingly bland. In this crowded field Yves Saint Laurent’s Jazz, the grand old Grey Flannel, and especially the lamentably discontinued, (though still available) Rochas Globe all offer far more by way of depth and character.

Odalisque’s top notes are all sunny, bright green florals, which soon meld with a very attractive sweet-spicy accord. This central arrangement engages the nose with exceptional depth and a complex interplay between its floral and spicy components.

Odalisque’s basic architecture benefits from some discreet animalic musks in its foundation, along with a subtly earthy chypre accord that hovers just at the edge of olfactory perception. As it develops, Odalisque also reveals an intriguing salty, savory aspect. It’s not the iodine and ozone marine accord familiar from so many modern male fragrances, but a meaty, almost foody smell. Smoky and leathery notes surface from time to time, but their appearances are fleeting, as if they mean to tease the nose. They reveal themselves more fully during the drydown, which features a very plush, yet quiet vanilla over a bed of moss and woods.

Odalisque is a reserved and understated composition. It wears close to the skin on me, and though it persists for some few hours, it never speaks above a gentle murmur. This reserve makes Odalisque not only suitable for daily wear in any number of social situations, but effectively unisex as well. Not bold perhaps, but very attractive.

Stand back! It’s a big green monster!

Like every other Mazzolari scent I’ve tried this one is a powerhouse. This time the theme is green. Green so sharp it stings your nose. Green that’s acidic, abrasive, and astringent all at once. Green that’s seasoned with black peppercorns. (Figuratively speaking.) Green that says “I dare you to wear me.” But you know what? It’s good! Mazzolari does for green what Yatagan does for aromatics and Knize Ten does for leather: presents it without compromise, without apologies, and without any concern for the conventionally pretty. It’s a fantastic scent, but only for the brave.

As Mazzolari ages it reveals a dry, smoky note below its surface, leaving the impression of a parched meadow that’s just caught fire. I hand it to the folks at Mazzolari, this stuff is unique. Mazzolari is pretty linear on me once its middle notes settle in, but it runs a long course, with some astringent cedar wafting up from the depths.

For about fifteen minutes, Sander for Man flirts with greatness. The cool minted citrus and aromatic opening is a little shy on me, but the scent soon opens up to expose a brisk combination of green herbaceous notes, conifer wood, and spices. Pepper and cypress keep things crisp and clean, while a hint of smoky incense throws an intriguing shadow over the olfactory landscape. At this stage Sander for Man resembles several of the early Comme des Garçons scents, not only in content, but in its overall style: an unabashedly synthetic composition that strives for novelty without trying to smell even remotely like anything in nature.

Then, rather suddenly, the whole structure is swamped by a wave of standard issue fruity-green fougère accord. From that point on, it’s just another banal Cool Water wannabe, made more disappointing perhaps by the occasional hints of cypress, pepper, or incense that remind me what Sander for Man could have been. Never mind “For god, for country, and for Yale,” Sander for Man should be in the dictionary under “anticlimax.”

L’Homme engages the nose with a sweet spiced bergamot accord that’s refreshingly smooth, balanced and natural. The spices move forward and differentiate as L’Homme develops, with bright ginger and a soft nutmeg at the head of the line. The fruity aspect of the opening bergamot remains in place for some time, but the gently rounded vetiver and tonka accord that spreads out beneath it enriches the scent’s midsection beyond mere eau de Cologne.

The basil in the pyramid takes longer to emerge than I expected, and once it does it remains a well modulated accent on the bergamot rather than a bold, independent statement. This may be for the best, since basil expressed in isolation on my skin can leave me feeling like a well-dressed salad. (As in Maître Parfumeur et Gantier’s intriguing but unwearable Baîme.) The combination emanates a clean “fresh” vibe without employing any of the stereotypical aquatic notes that are the current staple in men’s perfumery. L’Homme projects well from the skin without being distractingly potent. It also leaves a nicely judged cloud of light sillage in the air, so its presence remains felt in the wearer’s absence.

Where L’Homme begins to lose me is in the early drydown, which settles into a fuzzy, overly sweetened, powdery cedar structure that is at once a bit cloying and thoughtlessly overexploited in mass market scents for men. I give Yves Saint Laurent credit for executing this formula with more taste and subtlety than usual, but it’s still a disappointingly commonplace gambit. All the more so given that no less than three highly talented noses worked on L’Homme’s composition. (Or is it that fragrances are like film scripts: multiple author credits mean a desperate patch-up job?) While the Flipo/Ropion/Wargnye team deserves points for their masterful use of basil and ginger – both tough to handle convincingly - I keep wanting more out of the scent’s final hours.

IO Capri’s juicy green fig, lemon, and mint top notes took me by surprise. They’re unusually bright and vivid, and the breezy, tart accord they build practically shouts “Mediterranean!” For some reason, the prominent fig note dispels all toothpaste associations for me, and what I perceive is more broadly herbal in nature. In any case, the mint blends and then subsides within the first few minutes of wear.

As the scent matures on my skin it becomes more emphatically leafy in character, but the lemon briskness persists for some time alongside the greens. Once it fades, IO Capri reads as a more conventional fig scent. While its fig accord seems very natural, it’s less milky than the sap-drenched Philosykos, and lacks the fruity-floral buoyancy of Parfumerie Generale’s delightful Jardins de Kerylos. This leaves it smelling a touch less characterful in its later stages. By the time it’s faded I find myself wishing IO Capri had maintained some of the quirky individuality of its first fifteen or twenty minutes. In short, a nice fig with a fun opening, but far from my favorite.

I’m not sure what’s so revelatory about Christopher Brosius’s fig scent. It’s a nicely balanced, crisp, fruity fig with bright green top notes, closer in mood and structure to Pierre Guillaume’s Jardins de Kerylos than to Olivia Giacobetti’s milky Philosykos. It’s unfortunately also thin, weak, and short-lived, and so offers no real advantage over any of the other available niche brand fig scents. Superfluous.

Apparently there are only so many things a perfumer can do with the fig accord. You get either a milky, leafy, sap-filled approach, as in Diptyque's Philosykos, or a more fuity, tart version, as in Parfumerie Generale's Jardins de Kerylos. Heeley's Eau de Figuier falls into the latter bucket. Prominent citrus and floral accents make Jardins de Kerylos more interesting to my nose, but if you're looking for a straightforward, crisp, fruity fig scent, Eau de Figuier might be just the thing for you.

Pierre Guillaume’s scents for his own Parfumerie Generale line have been hit-or-miss for me. Some, like Querelle, Yuzu Ab Irato, Coze, and L’Oiseau de Nuit, have been “just OK” as far as I’m concerned. Others, including Intrigant Patchouli and Jardins de Kerylos, have been out-of-the-ball-park hits. Though as a gourmand oriental Aomassai is not the type of scent I normally enjoy, I must now group it with those last two among my favorites from this house.

Smoky vanilla, toasted nuts, and burnt sugar support a smoldering heart accord of incense, licorice, and spices. This dark, dark composition is ideally balanced: the intense smoky quality keeps the structure from teetering into oppressive sweetness. What could have been a trite, cloying scent is instead a paragon of warm, brooding mystery. Aomassai demonstrates what so many inferior gourmand scents could be but aren’t. A marvelous achievement in a difficult genre.

Because it emphasizes the bright and fruity, rather than the milky aspect of fig, Jardins de Kerylos could be my favorite fig scent to date. As beautiful as Philosykos and Primier Figuier are, their milky olfactory texture wears very flat on me. Not so the more juicy and tart fig of Jardins de Kerylos. Whereas Olivia Giacobetti’s well-regarded fig scents lean towards coconut and powdery woods, Pierre Guillaume’s uses floral accents to balance the potentially cloying character of its star accord.

Jardins de Kerylos wears close to the skin, and holds closely to its crisp, refreshing course until its quietly musky drydown sets in. My chief complaint is that the scent is very short-lived, and lasts only three hours on my skin at best. Even so, Jardins de Kerylos merits praise for its distinctive approach, and while it lasts I still enjoy it more than the other fig fragrances I know.

Cuba Gold goes on with a lavender, citrus, and vanilla accord that’s at once powdery and very sweet. The lavender doesn’t last very long, leaving the sweet, powdery vanilla resting on a foundation of creamy woods. There’s a bit of oriental spice on top, perhaps nutmeg and cinnamon, but my overall impression is of a relatively bland vanilla gourmand oriental. I get little tobacco and nothing overtly animalic. The intensely sweet, powdery drydown quickly becomes cloying to my nose, limiting my enjoyment of what would otherwise have been a pleasant, if nondescript, little fragrance.

The top notes include a detestable air freshener synthetic hyacinth, but once that settles down the rest of the scent reveals itself as a very pleasant, upbeat, sweet floral and wood composition: a kind of Ivoire-meets-Flower by Kenzo. A mere trace of the opening hyacinth lingers in the background, but in the company of the primary accord its sharp, green flavor provides a measure of welcome balance and contrast to the prevailing sweetness. The whole thing is clean and snappy, but also playful in a way that traditional green floral chypres never are.

In its bright, translucent texture Lovely reminds me of such crisp green florals as Drôle de Rose, Une Zeste de Rose, and Eau du Ciel, and I’m encouraged to find this happy aesthetic trickling down from niche perfumery into a mass market celebrity fragrance. Lovely is reasonably potent and projects well off of the skin, leaving plenty of sillage in the air. Once the notes arrange themselves into their central pattern the development is linear for a few hours, after which the floral notes peel away to reveal a drydown of clean musk and brisk woods, primarily cedar. This is altogether a much nicer scent than I’d expected, and I wouldn’t be embarrassed to find my daughter running around in it.

The Dreamer doesn’t make a very strong impression upon me at first. In fact, I can hardly smell the top notes at all. If I snort vigorously I can detect some soft and pretty spiced bergamot and floral notes, but I really have to exert myself to do so. To judge from some of the comments below, perhaps I’m lucky.

At any rate, The Dreamer does eventually open up for me, and when it does what I smell is a very sweet, bland, and aggressively synthetic gourmand woody oriental. To my nose it’s an opaque, heavy, and intensely cloying scent that seems to suck the air right out of the room. I don’t get any lily, juniper or tobacco, just grating woody amber and flat, saccharine sweetness. I’ll freely admit that this is not one of my favorite fragrance genres, but even so, I don’t think The Dreamer is a particularly good example of its kind. Next to something like Body Kouros, or even the less polished Lolita Lempicka au Masculin, The Dreamer smells clumsy, crude, and cheap. My apologies to all of its fans, but one really can do better than this.

I’ve put off writing a review of Mugler Cologne because I fear I’m at least partially anosmic to it. It takes A LOT of this stuff to make any impression on my nose. What I can smell, I like: a simple spiced citrus and dry wood composition (with what smells to me like a lovely cardamom note,) and an unapologetically synthetic soapy white musk foundation. It’s crisp, it’s clean, and it’s distinctive. It’s novel, but it’s also understated. If you’re looking for a “clean” scent, but have had your fill of the ubiquitous “fresh” aquatic scents and fruity violet leaf fougères, try Mugler Cologne.

Continuing my rounds of the Montale Aoud line, I've finally gotten to Oud Cuir d'Arabie, and this, along with Black Aoud, is among my favorites to date.

Oud Cuir d'Arabie launches itself in a spectacular blaze of oud and dark, smoky leather. Utterly intoxicating, if you've got the nerve to wear it. A rich tobacco note (think Cuban cigar) soon joins the fray, and the oud begins to settle down and integrate. As the heart opens up, the rose note so common among the Montale Aoud line members comes into focus, adding yet another dimension, though its sweetness also leads the whole composition in a slightly more conventional direction.

In its early phases, Oud Cuir d'Arabie shares a compellingly rugged, untamed quality with Black Aoud, though it becomes a less jagged scent after the first couple of hours. Oud Cuir d'Arabie also develops along a more conventional timescale than Black Aoud, which is to say you don't have to wait 12 hours before it starts to evolve. On the downside, it doesn't have its cousin's 24 hour-plus lasting power, though it is by no means ephemeral.

Comme des Garçons’ Jaisalmer opens on a balsamic-astringent accord that smells a lot like liniment. A dark, smoky frankincense note emerges quickly underneath, but its stony demeanor is tempered by sweet spices. The warm spice and camphoraceous liniment volley back and forth over Jaisalmer’s heart and so manage to keep the nose engaged through their constant, balanced activity.

With all this talk of liniment, I can’t help but mention Heeley’s recent Spirit of the Tiger, which plays the liniment-and-incense game in a more literal manner. So much so that it winds up smelling all too much like Tiger Balm. Now while there’s nothing wrong with the smell of Tiger Balm, why spend $150 US on a bottle of niche perfume when you can get the real thing for three dollars at your local drugstore? Jaisalmer doesn’t fall into this literalist trap, and its more subtle take on camphor, balsam, and frankincense winds up making it at once a more wearable and a more interesting fragrance.

While Jaisalmer is easily the most medicinal scent in the Comme des Garçons incense series, it is also (along with Ouarzazate,) one of the sweetest, and hence most approachable. It’s stimulating, yet also comfortable, with very little of the forbidding austerity that turns some people away from Avignon or Kyoto. A nice introduction to this line, or to incense fragrances in general.

Imagine the kind of dry, austere, smoky incense-and-cardamom accord that Bertrand Duchaufour presents in Dzongkha laid over a rich, bittersweet vanilla gourmand base, and you might come up with something like Baume du Doge. The juxtaposition of sweet and dry, stony and edible is novel to the point of shocking, though in an gratifying manner.

Within a few minutes of application, a minty/camphoraceous note wells up from the gourmand base, and somehow manages to stitch the two opposing olfactory blocks together. (Since there is nothing even remotely minty listed in Baume du Doge’s pyramid, I attribute my impression to an odd synergy between the herbal fennel and the crisp quality of clove.) At this point in the development I’m reminded of Lorenzo Villoresi’s Piper Nigrum, which also uses mint in a sweet oriental context, but Baume du Doge displays a smoother and more fully integrated structure. Where the opening of Piper Nigrum can come off as jangling or cacophonous, this new scent is suave and articulate. Baume du Doge also dries down crisp, woody, and slightly sweet, which is a far cry from Piper Nigrum’s powdery vanillic-amber exit. It is tenacious, with moderate sillage and projection, and it strikes me as relatively gender neutral – leaning perhaps slightly toward the masculine.

To the best of my knowledge, a gourmand woody oriental represents new territory for Duchaufour, and I believe he navigates it quite adroitly. I may be in a minority of one in finding Duchaufour’s recent excursion into peppery aquatic florals in the guise of Magnolia Romana more interesting than Baume du Doge, but I can heartily recommend this new scent to anyone who enjoys a spicy oriental.

When Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez praise a men’s fragrance to the skies, I get curious, and then I prepare myself for disappointment. More often than not, their idea of a “great masculine” coincides closely with my idea of boring as hell. Imagine my shock when their glowingly reviewed Scent 79 turned out to be one of the best smelling things I’ve tried in months!

Mark Buxton’s Scent 79 is a dry, green floral – woody composition that’s not too far removed in spirit from Givenchy’s Insensé or Paco Rabanne’s Ténéré. It’s drier and more angular than either of those great masculine florals, yet also more transparent. As it evolves Scent 79 takes on a smoky character that echoes both Buxton’s earlier work for Comme des Garçons and Bertrand Duchaufour’s austere incense fragrances like Dzongkha and Avignon. I find Scent 79 especially remarkable for combining light weight and clarity with tremendous projection. How any fragrance can be at once so potent and so transparent is a fascinating puzzle to me.

Scent 79 is linear in its progress, which is fine with me, since I enjoy the principle accord it establishes. The stuff persists for hours then slowly fades into a drydown of cedar and smoky vetiver. Very nice work, this one

The anise and violet opening of Après l'Ondée is a thing of simple beauty: faintly melancholy, wistful, yet paradoxically bright and transparent. The composition soon turns very powdery, and with that more conventional and "perfumey." This is the stage at which my wife says Aprés l'Ondée smells like her mother, though not in a bad way. The scent never gets too heavy, and a light, clean musk and vanilla show themselves in the delicate drydown.

The whole olfactory experience vividly evokes another time and place: sophisticated, civilized, and ever so slightly ironic. Perhaps a certain age in Paris, or old Vienna just before its empire fell. I can see how it might not appeal to many modern women, but Après l'Ondée is a monument to classical perfumery.

I wore this scent as a kid, and it still brings back fond memories. When it was new Tuscany's cheerful spiced citrus and leather made a pleasant alternative to the curl-your-nose-hairs power scents that were its contemporaries. It was substantial, but never overpowering, with a happy expression and a jaunty gait. It's still a quality scent, and smelling it now points up just how dreadul are the aquatic eunuchs that the kids wear these days. Why they still make something this good in today's market is beyond me - maybe they've just forgotten to discontinue it.

Eau de Campagne is perhaps the most uncompromising green scent I’ve worn. It’s also one of the finest. It displays all of the elements that characterize Jean-Claude Elléna’s best work – clean lines, concision, focus, and clarity – without the stinginess, the anorexic pallor, or the penchant for self-repetition he demonstrates when working below his potential. Unlike say, Cologne Bigarade or Terre dHermès, it does not smell like something cobbled together from the leftovers of Déclaration. Nor does it follow the overused pseudo-cedar + tomato leaf + froot du jour formula of the Hermès “Jardin” series. For me Eau de Campagne stands with Déclaration, Globe, and Bois d’Iris as one of the most original and appealing of Elléna’s compositions.

In Eau de Campagne Elléna gathers some of the most bitter, sharp, and refreshing green notes, including galbanum, tomato leaf, and basil, spikes them with a very tart lemon, and highlights their herbaceous character with a deeply aromatic geranium leaf. All of this rests upon a bone-dry, chypre-like vetiver and moss foundation, with a resolutely green jasmine as the only remotely sweet element in the entire composition. With so much that is green, herbaceous, and citric in its composition, it will come as no surprise that Eau de Campagne’s middle notes are neither very potent nor enduring. On the other hand, the nutty, spicy, and ever-so-slightly smoky vetiver-based drydown that arrives after about two hours is as hauntingly beautiful an effect as you’re likely to find in modern perfumery.

Like the equally bitter Campari, Eau de Campagne will strike some as pleasantly astringent, and many as unpalatable. Too bad for the many. For lovers of foliar fragrances, Eau de Campagne belongs next to Chanel’s Bel Respiro, Villoresi’s Yerbamaté, Aramis Devin, and Diptyque’s late, lamented Virgilio in the pantheon of green scents.

The reissued Donna Karan opens on a rich, plummy spiced fruit accord that’s as dark and sweet as molasses. Equally sweet florals, including jasmine, rose, and orange blossom, soon join the fruit and spices, and all are underpinned by tangy patchouli and a subtle leather note. In its use of fruit and leather Donna Karan presages scents like Parfum d’Empire’s equally plummy Cuir Ottoman and Christopher Sheldrake’s apricots-and-suede Daim Blond for Serge Lutens, but Donna Karan is darker, spicier, and hence more oriental in feel than either of these much later introductions. I also smell a very strong family resemblance to Donna Karan’s own Chaos here, though Chaos is a more transparent scent, perhaps because it emphasizes a brisk cedar note instead of leather and patchouli in its foundation.

Once the spicy-fruity patchouli oriental and leather structure is assembled Donna Karan drives a linear course for several hours of wear, with moderate potency and projection and modest-but-detectable of sillage. The drydown fully exposes the patchouli and smooth leather, which are balanced in a manner that's at once sensuous and civilized. I come down with the unisex crown on this scent, and it seems no less “masculine” to me than any number of unisex fruity leather niche fragrances, or even such fruit-heavy designer masculines as Magnetism and John Varvatos. This is not only a pleasant, versatile, and wearable scent, but historically significant as an innovative early entry in a genre that has since spawned several significant fragrances.

What’s most remarkable to me about Nobile is how utterly at odds it is with what the Gucci brand has come to represent: logo-encrusted goods that are loud, graceless, and embarrassingly crass. No wonder they don’t make it any more.

Nicely executed, if conventional lavender and bergamot top notes lead one to expect a well-made traditional fougère. By and large, that’s exactly what you get. For a 1980s fougère, Nobile is actually quite subdued and civilized. It demonstrates little of the testosterone-fueled brawn that oozes from scents like Jules, Kouros, Or Black, or Lauder for Men. With its herbaceous aromatic notes, clean tobacco, and crisp citrus, it gives off a comfortable, sophisticated, yet decidedly conservative gentleman’s club air. It’s neither racy nor dull, but rather poised and polished. While it smells nothing like them, I imagine it will appeal to the same sensibilities that appreciate Chanel pour Monsieur, Eau Sauvage, or a clean vetiver like Guerlain’s or Givenchy’s. Like these, Nobile could have been a timeless classic. Instead it’s gone.

A puny little synthetic woods and citrus thing so slender you can see right through it and so bland it’s not worth the effort of pressing the sprayer to apply. Tokyo lasts for approximately 42 seconds on my skin. By 43 seconds I’ve forgotten what it smelled like.

Cynical and pointless – especially from Kenzo, which has done much better.

Mazzolari’s Ambra opens on notes of bright bergamot and sweet spices, including a potent and peculiarly soapy ginger, which together make a much less moody or exotic impression than most amber-labeled compositions I know. Indeed, the ginger’s soapy flavor causes it to work almost like lavender, so that Ambra starts out smelling much more like a “barbershop” fougère than an oriental. The incongruous fougère impression diminishes as vanilla, jasmine, and labdanum take their places at the center of the composition. Yet if Ambra’s heart is more recognizably oriental in flavor than its opening, it’s an oriental of the floral persuasion, and still not the kind of spiced resin structure I’d expect out of something that calls itself “Amber.”

The expected sweet amber blanket does settle heavily over Ambra's powdery vanilla drydown, while the gradual dissipation of the floral notes re-exposes the soapy ginger from the opening. All that soap and sweet powder smell intensely “perfumey” in a manner that could be interpreted as “classical” but reads to me as dowdy. Ambra offers ample sillage and projection, with impressive staying power. Good news if you enjoy this scent, less of a perk if, like me, you find it uncomfortably square and stuffy.

Alessandro is the spicy oriental entry in the Mazzolari line, and because it leans heavily on opopanax in its heart and drydown, it bears a general resemblance to such scents as Diptyque’s Eau Lente, Etro’s Shaal Nur, Ormonde Jayne’s Tolu, and Nicolaï’s Maharadjah/Maharanih pair. Looming behind all of these is Guerlain’s Shalimar, whose continued presence means that any newcomer in the genre needs to offer something special in terms of quality and/or composition to legitimize its arrival.

So what has Alessandro got that the others don’t? Well, it’s softer and less aggressively spicy than Eau Lente or Maharadjah, yet less obviously floral in its heart than Shaal Nur or Maharanih. It is also bolder in its presentation of resins and spices than the comparatively bland, and frankly rather dull Tolu. On the other hand Alessandro is noticeably less smoky, less sweet, less animalic, and less inclined toward citrus than Shalimar, especially in the old Guerlain’s EdP and parfum concentrations. Alessandro thus stands as a “centrist” composition. It will appeal to you if you find Eau Lente and Maharadjah too incisive, Shaal Nur and Maharanih too flowery or indolic, or Shalimar too sweet, smoky, or suggestive. At the same time, (and unusually for a Mazzolari fragrance,) Alessandro ends up a little bit lacking in character: not quite drab, but not particularly stimulating, either. It does avoid the soap and powder avalanche that leaves its frumpy oriental sibling Ambra smelling like grandma’s dressing table, but it lacks the punch I’ve come to expect from the house that gave us Mazzolari Lui, Mazzolari Vetyver, and Mazzolari Patchouli.

Explorer’s dry, bitter, aromatic top notes are harsh and musty to my nose, and time does little to soften the composition. Medicinal oudh steps up quickly, accompanied by a smoky birch tar and a stark conifer resin note. The effect is one of “biker” leather that bears a passing resemblance to the bitter galbanum and birch tar top notes of Bandit eau de parfum. (This is the second Boadicea the Victorious scent to remind me of Bandit in its opening, the first having been Complex.) The leather and oudh might also sound like Montale’s Oud Cuir d’Arabie, but Explorer smells very different: it is a cold, stark, flinty scent that has none of the Montale’s animalic sensuality. Oud Cuir d’Arabie oozes sex, but I’d never dream of getting into bed with Explorer’s hard edges and sharp angles.

A scent that’s this uncomfortable by design intrigues me as a concept. After all, a confrontational stance is part of the strange beauty and originality that’s manifest in masterpieces like Yatagan, Kouros, the old Route du Vétiver, Vero Profumo’s Onda, and Muscs Koublaï Khan. Yet Explorer is so unrelievedly abrasive in its execution that it becomes tiresome. Lacking both contrast and internal balance, it slips across the boundary from challenging to irritating. This I can live without.

Aziyadé’s spiced citrus opening is so very lovely that a lasting composition based solely upon it would be worth the price of a bottle. Alas, the initial gesture is short-lived, and a boozy, syrupy dried fruit accord is quick to join the citrus and spices. Its weight sends Aziyadé plummeting down to earth and aligns it closely with Feminité du Bois, Donna Karan’s Chaos, and several entries in the Serge Lutens line, though Aziyadé does remain a brighter and more transparent composition than any of these predecessors. The abundance of fruit and spices leaves Aziyadé smelling quite “foody” to me, despite a subtle frankincense note that flits in and out of the background.

Prominent vanilla base notes add to the comestible impression, and Aziyadé spends several hours in familiar oriental spiced Christmas pudding territory. The drydown is a vanillic sweet amber with a generous dose of animalic labdanum, which while pleasant and natural smelling, is also fairly flat and ordinary. I want to like Aziyadé better than I do, but ironically enough the beauty of its top notes works against it, making the remainder of the scent seem impoverished in its mere adequacy.

June, 2009

Because it’s cheap, plentiful, and been around forever, a scent like Aramis is easy to take for granted. I hadn’t given it a serious wearing for decades before writing this review, and I’d entirely forgotten just how good it is. My mistake.

Aramis has a distinctive set of tart citrus and herbaceous top notes. They will be a bit sour for some tastes, but they do a fine job of snapping the nose to attention before they meld into an earthy leather, moss, and patchouli accord that serves as Aramis’s foundation. The structure would seem utterly conventional in the “men’s club” leather chypre mode were it not for a conspicuous and beautiful sweet jasmine note that’s as startlingly incongruous in this context as a potted orchid in the Dallas Cowboys locker room. In a word: brilliant!

The juxtaposition of the delicate white flower and the castoreum-seasoned leather generates sparks that propel Aramis through a long developmental trajectory, during which the leather becomes progressively more animalic, the patchouli “dirtier,” and the moss more prominent. When, after a few hours’ wear, the jasmine finally retires, what remains through the drydown is mostly moss, patchouli, and a labdanum-heavy off-dry amber. Aramis projects well off of the skin and provides plenty of sillage, so that it can be detected a few feet away and remains hanging in the air for some time after the wearer leaves the room. While both traits are desirable in the abstract, they can be problematic in situations (the office, business meetings,) where understatement and discretion are in order. My advice is to apply sparingly and enjoy an enduring classic of masculine perfumery. Any ladies out there who enjoy Bandit or Tabac Blond would do well to give Aramis a shot too!

October, 2009

Since "rediscovering" Aramis last year, I've only grown more and more impressed with its beauty and quality. Upgraded to five-star status in my wardrobe.

Andy Tauer’s Vetiver Dance evolves in a very interesting manner. It begins with a luscious, sweet, yet refreshing floral/citrus accord that’s light years away from the flinty, tart citrus notes that open many a modern vetiver scent. The floral notes intensify as the vetiver emerges, establishing the dance of the title as a pas de duex of smoky, slightly licorice-flavored vetiver and soapy rose.

The dancers perform against a dry, herbaceous-aromatic background, their motion accented from time to time by a delightfully brisk and realistic note of black peppercorn. The vetiver outlasts the rose and peppercorn, and ends the dance nearly solo, supported by quiet wisps of sweet resin. Sillage and projection are well judged, and the vetiver drydown is admirably tenacious. In overall style I’d describe this as a warm, mellow, even nutty vetiver, not far removed in mood from Givenchy’s Vetyver, though decidedly more floral at its heart. Sophisticated, comfortable, and reassuring all at once, it would make a wonderful everyday scent.

When my daughter was 8 or 9, she and a friend took over my kitchen to make me a special treat. The girls mixed a chocolate cake batter, and then enhanced it with orange juice, Parmesan cheese, garlic, balsamic vinegar, dog kibble, and a generous sprinkling of crushed black peppercorns. They offered me the resulting cupcakes, (frosted in lurid turquoise,) amidst a torrent of barely suppressed giggles. They referred to their project as “gourmet cooking,” but they could just as well have called it 100% Love.

100% Love is a real freak show of a scent, the olfactory equivalent of Heath Ledger’s Joker in the 2008 Batman movie. The opening juxtaposes a blaring chocolate note and an equally strident and unashamedly chemical floral accord. It’s the kind of intentional olfactory affront that dares you to keep sniffing and see what comes next. 100% serves up pretty much more of the same for the next few hours, before petering out into a very sweet, powdery, clean musk and vanilla drydown.

This scent leaves me in a quandary as a critic: it gets full credit for daring and originality, and in terms of keeping chocolate from smelling like food it’s a complete success. Yet I have to assert that 100% Love is a dreadful fragrance. Not because it's shocking, for it is clearly meant to shock. Not even because I don’t like the way it smells; there are plenty of scents whose quality I acknowledge, even if I don’t enjoy them. The matter of this scent’s merit hinges on one question: are originality and provocation by themselves sufficient?

Scents like Yatagan and Muscs Koublaï Khän are no less challenging than 100% Love, and neither is particularly “pretty” in the generally accepted sense. Yet I believe both to be beautiful – beautiful enough to rank as masterpieces of perfumery. Yatagan, for example, may assail the nose with uncomfortable notes of celery, Artemisia, pine tar, and castoreum, but it evokes a compelling olfactory landscape of hot, parched conifer forests. 100% Love is like my daughter’s “gourmet cooking": it shocks, but it does not cohere. It offers nothing of interest after the initial “Ta-dah!” and hence seems to me more of a stunt than a perfume. If novelty and shock value suffice for you, you may well enjoy 100% Love, but I want more, and I deem it unwearable.

À la Nuit is a sweet indolic jasmine scent with a certain intense clarity about its structure. It shares this clear, focused character with two other Sheldrake-Lutens floral compositions: Un Lys and Sa Majesté la Rose, but the more potent indoles in its jasmine make it a more heady, decadent, and indulgent perfume. À la Nuit rests on a sweet vanillic base that's common among Lutens fragrances, but this version is less opressively viscous than some of the house's heavier orientals. À la Nuit is one of the more enjoyable jasmine soliflores I've tried, especially because it displays plenty of depth without becoming cloying.

Missoni Uomo makes its entrance as a fruity aromatic scent with a strong vanillic undertone, then adds wood notes and a bit of powder. The fruity top notes integrate within ten minutes or so, leaving a familiar-smelling woody fougere accord that speaks relatively quietly for the next hour. Michael Edwards calls Missoni Uomo a “dry woody” (leather) scent in his Fragrances of the World taxonomy, but I don’t get much leather here. I keep waiting for it to arrive, but all I smell through Missoni Uomo’s quick fizzle is a somewhat cloying powdery, woody amber. This anticlimactic, and frankly generic development makes this fragrance a disappointing experience for me.

They should have called it "Screechee." This smells like lychee for all of three seconds before it mutates into a saccharine/alchoholic miasma. G_dawful. Thank heaven it doesn't last too long.

The One starts out life with a conventional but nicely rendered sweet citrus top note, rounded off by some discreet aromatics and a touch of cardamom. It quickly thickens and sweetens as a clean, but oddly “artificial” smelling white flower accord comes into play. The entire composition then assumes an olfactory texture akin to marshmallow candy, as a cloud of dusty cedar and powdery vanillic notes wells up in the foundation. The result is something like tropical fruit over coconut – not far removed, in fact, from a piña colada. I smell neither tobacco nor ambergris.

The poolside cocktail accord chugs right along, little paper parasol and all, until it arrives at its pleasant-but-insipid sweet woody/vanillic drydown. Sillage and projection are both adequate: neither is skimpy, but neither will offend your neighbors. In fact, there’s nothing here at all to hate. Nor, sadly, is there much to celebrate. Were you to take an edgier masculine gourmand – A*Men, say, or Lolita Lempicka au Masculin – and pare away anything that might cause even the slightest wrinkle of the nose, The One is very likely what you’d get. To whit, another in the vast herd of sweet, bland, woody masculine gourmands that encompasses scents like Burberry’s Brit, Rochas Man, and Givenchy’s Pi. Unnecessary.

Nicolaï’s Number One opens on a friendly and attractive, if not terribly distinguished, citrus and fresh white flower accord before blooming into a brisk and buoyant green jasmine. The accord strengthens and sweetens over time, as a plush, powdery vanilla moves in underneath the floral notes and an unusually understated tuberose nuzzles up against the jasmine. The drydown is a lovely, chaste, and very slightly business-like vanilla and clean musk accord that reads somewhere between “innocent young girl” and “accomplished professional woman,” and would wear just as well on either.

While typically Nicolaï in its reserved style, Number One is not a shy scent, and offers very conspicuous sillage for hours after application. A solid, well-made, scent that’s at once comfortable and highly versatile, even if it’s not exciting.

Mazzolari Vetyver’s opening salvo caught me so completely off guard that I first had to check the vial to confirm I’d applied the right scent, then reapply a couple of times to make sure I could follow it. My first thought: “Wow, that’s really sweet!” My second: “Where’s the vetiver?”

In my experience most modern vetiver scents reveal their hand pretty quickly, without much more than some crisp citrus as prelude to the title ingredient. Not Mazzolari Vetyver. This launches instead on a sweet bergamot and animalic patchouli accord that bears passing family resemblance to Mazzolari’s own Lui and Patchouli, though admittedly cleaner, lighter, and less aromatic than either.

Only after a half an hour does vetiver fully assert itself as the lynchpin of the composition, and even then it supports a much sweeter and well-padded structure than I’ve come to expect from something calling itself “Vetyver.” In addition to the mild patchouli and sweet citrus, Mazzolari surrounds its mellow, nutty, and slightly anise-flavored vetiver with soft amber, leather, and tobacco. When a vanillic note emerges in the drydown I even sense faint echoes of Molinard’s great Habanita, though with none of that scent’s floral components.

Stylistically this scent is as far removed from the sharp, rooty vetivers like Vétiver Extraordinaire and Etro Vetiver as it is from the dry smoky interpretations such as Encre Noire and Sycomore. It is also far more sweet and lush than Givenchy’s Vetyver and Guerlain Vetiver, and hence stands alone among contemporary vetiver fragrances. Well, almost alone: there is a conceptual parallel with Serge Lutens’s Vétiver Oriental, but the Mazzolari is a much more coherent and convincing structure, with its various components better balanced and more fully integrated. Sillage and projection are well-judged to create a presence without offending, and the scent lasts for several hours on the skin. A superb vetiver, and one that would wear just as well on a woman as on a man!

Complex emerges from its bottle as a fully-blown green leather chypre with animalic overtones and an intensely bitter edge. Birch tar runs rampant here, and your reaction to this fragrance will depend largely upon how you respond to that ingredient’s smoky olfactory profile. Me, I love the stuff, so Complex is right up my alley. The opening is vaguely reminiscent of Bandit EdP, but whereas Bandit reveals floral elements after its spiky herbaceous launch, Complex is resolutely linear in course, and never veers far from its initial subject matter. After several hours of solid projection and conspicuous sillage, Complex settles into a warm, animalic labdanum drydown. As a composition Complex is bold and uncompromising, and I admire how it keeps true to its materials.

Indeed, I have only one major problem with Complex. Its name? Aramis 900.

Stop laughing.

Right now.

I won’t claim that the two scents are identical – they aren’t. But there are parallels, especially in their opening and closing movements. The Aramis too starts out as a brashly bitter, herbaceous, green leather chypre, though admittedly a bit softer in texture and less smoky than the Boadicea The Victorious scent. Ironically enough, Aramis 900 is more, well, complex than Complex in its development. While Complex is staunchly linear, Aramis 900 builds a floral/balsamic accord alongside is leather chypre block, thereby establishing a compelling structural tension. Both scents ultimately arrive at the same labdanum-rich destination, even if the Aramis does take a more circuitous route.

So while they do differ, I believe that Aramis 900 and Complex could easily play the same role in a moderate-sized fragrance wardrobe. The question for any potential purchaser is whether Complex’s relative toughness and monolithic structure appeal enough to merit spending five times(!) Aramis 900’s price. I will tell you in no uncertain terms that the discrepancy in pricing does not reflect any difference in quality. Aramis 900 may be inexpensive and in good supply, but it is a superb Bernard Chant formula and parent company Estée Lauder has treated it with great care – oak moss and all. The bottom line: Complex is a good scent, but I’d try both Aramis 900 and Bandit before spending upwards of $250 US on it!

The intensely green floral-herbaceous top notes are great: fresh and bracing without any of the stereotypical “sport fragrance” or aquatic cues. I smell freshly mown grass, narcissus, and perhaps muguet, with overtones of culinary herbs like chervil, tarragon, or basil. Contrary to expectations, Majestic only grows more green and astringent over time, its heart an almost piercingly sharp herbal bouquet guaranteed to cut even the most oppressive heat and humidity.

The narcissus in Majestic takes on hints of mint and anise as it evolves, while the scent’s oddly tenacious citrus component hardens to an almost metallic brilliance until, at about the two hour mark, it begins to meld into the background. Finally, after some hours, the first hints of balsamic sweetness emerge from behind the veil of greens to lead Majestic toward its tobacco and hay-infused drydown. All told, this is a compelling scent for either gender, though best I suspect in warm weather, and awfully expensive to boot.

One of the most appealing scents I’ve tried from the Etat Libre d’Orange line, Fat Electricial is essentially an elegantly balanced two-part structure of incense and vetiver – superbly ironic, given the name. Though dry and even somewhat astringent in its opening, Fat Electrician slowly reveals a velvet-soft, sweet vanillic grace note that plays up the nutty and earthy facets of its vetiver.

Ironically again, Fat Electrician’s sillage and projection are both relatively understated. After an hour or two’s wear the scent settles into an extended drydown of relatively straightforward warm vetiver. While it’s hardly revolutionary, it is very well-executed, wearable, and attractive. A good vetiver to add to the growing stable that includes Sycomore, Givenchy Vetyver, Encre Noire, Vétiver Extraordinaire, and Etro’s Vetiver.

Le Labo’s Oud 27 starts off as equal parts smoky saffron, aggressively medicinal oudh, and animalic leather; somewhere between Alan Cumming’s signature fragrance and Montale’s Oud Cuir d’Arabie. The oudh soon softens to reveal a more conventional conifer wood accord that smells to me both of juniper and cedar. The animalic component also drops out almost completely with about a half an hour of wear, so that for most of its life on my skin Oud 27 is a surprisingly crisp, cool, and translucent fragrance centering on frankincense, saffron, and woods. Unfortunately that life is abruptly truncated at close to the two hour mark, after which a very faint, dry, woody base note (the guaiac, I presume,) is all I can detect. Anticlimactic and disappointing after such a distinguished start. My advice: don't buy this without trying Oud Cuir d'Arabie first.

This is a grand and glamorous rose-centered floral chypre scent that could easily have been crass and overbearing, but isn’t, thanks largely to well-calculated structural balance and ingredients that smell of quality. Smelling K de Krizia, I’m reminded both of such floral chypre classics as 1000 and Acqua di Parma Profumo, and of the recent ambitious rose scents from Amouage (Lyric Woman) and Andy Tauer (Une Rose Chyprée). K de Krizia is less fruity-lactonic to my nose than the Patou and Acqua di Parma classics, and lacks the incense that distinguishes Lyric Woman and Une Rose Chyprée. This leaves it both drier and in some ways more transparent than any of these others.

I find this scent especially appealing in its drydown, which showcases bracingly bitter moss, smoky leather, and the merest dab of animalic warmth. Longevity is more than adequate for me at perhaps six hours, and the scent projects well but does not overwhelm the wearer. Once past the more aggressively floral top notes, I find a light application of K de Krizia fairly comfortable to wear as a man, and wonder that it doesn’t receive more attention. For crying out loud, it’s even a bargain!

I Am King.

You sure about that?

The opening salvo is a repellant isopropyl alcohol and bathroom cleaner accord that’s trying to be lime and failing miserably. Truly some of the most detestable top notes I’ve encountered in a while. The aquatic cucumber and calone that follow are merely dull and banal, so I guess they represent a step up. The scent pyramid talks dessert, but there’s nothing remotely appetizing about the chlorinated pool at I Am King’s heart.

The only distinguishing characteristic I can detect is a pungent (and unlisted) herbal note suggestive of cilantro, and I have to work hard to find even that. It dries down to the predictable common denominator of all “fresh” aquatic scents since about 1992, and doesn’t disappear quickly enough for my liking. Sean John’s first fragrance was “Unforgivable,” but this one is irredeemable. Pimping this kind of detritus on cosmetics shelves may mark a new low in contempt for the consumer.

Simply put, this stuff is marvelous.

Grapefruit is a challenging note in perfumery, since along with its irresistibly bracing tartness comes a vaguely sulfurous, unclean undertone that can recall stale sweat or urine. Successful grapefruit scents like Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune typically get around the fruit’s fetid aspect by pairing grapefruit with bright, crisp floral notes. Citrus Paradisi takes just the opposite approach and embraces the sulfurous, dirty side of grapefruit, reinforcing the animalic tang with conspicuous doses of cumin and civet. The result is a paradoxically fresh/animalic accord that has parallels in scents like Eau d’Hermès, Déclaration, and Cologne Bigarade, but with grapefruit in place of orange.

The animalic citrus accord is both balanced and bolstered by an astringent clary sage note and a touch of black pepper, all of which rest upon a very dry foundation of moss and woods. The animalic edge and an utter lack of sweetness may render Citrus Paradisi too challenging or prickly for some noses, but for those who are open to a crisp citrus that is neither “clean” nor especially comforting, this will be an enticing fragrance.

Ciel opens with what have become masculine perfumery’s conventional fresh fruit and aromatic notes, quickly joined by sweet white flowers. The flowers, particularly orange blossom, soon come to dominate, while the fruit persists to keep the midnotes very bright and crisp. It takes some time for a very soft incense to reveal itself, carrying the scent in a much more individual direction.

Next to emerge is a very creamy sandalwood, followed by the merest dab of vetiver. The incense, wood and vetiver meld into a very pleasant foundation, atop which the floral and fruit notes play. Though very little of ozonic character appears, the scent retains a certain “moist” feel to it. There are also some very brief flashes of sweet spices, most noticeably nutmeg, but not enough to take the floral/fruit accord into mom’s pie territory. The floral notes recede ever so slowly during the extended drydown, eventually leaving a sweet, lightly spiced base of incense, woods, and vetiver.

Ciel is a lighter, brighter scent than either Dia or Reflection. It flirts more closely with the commonplace fresh fougère fragrances that have emerged in the wake of Creed’s Green Irish Tweed and Davidoff’s Cool Water, but distinguishes itself through fine ingredients, complexity, and a more obviously floral character. Ciel can be worn very much like Green Irish Tweed, and would make a nice alternative, especially for those who crave a little more spice and can accept a rather bluntly floral men’s fragrance. Ciel also has far better longevity for me. I think it would be easy for a woman to wear, too. In sum, it’s not as distinctive as some others from this house, but it is a worthy scent that extends the line toward a younger and more casual wearer.

The first thing I notice in Terre d'Hermes is vetiver, tempered with a very light touch of citrus. Dry woody notes soon follow, and I think that these, in combination with the vetiver, create the "earthy" or "soil" accord so often noted in this scent.

The woods and vetiver stay very much front and center, rounded out by some very discreet floral notes. I get an occasional whiff of spice and incense, especially in the remarkably pronounced sillage. There is also an unusual note that suggests ash. Not tobacco ash, and not smoke, but old, cold ash, as from a long abandoned fireplace. The drydown reveals quite a bit of conifer, which melds with the vetiver in a lingering "forest" accord that I find quite pleasant.

I place Terre d'Hermes as a cumin-free, vetiver-seasoned derivative of Elléna’s earlier Déclaration. Terre d’Hermès is every bit as dry as Déclaration, but it’s also a cleaner, less angular, and less aggressive scent, which may account for its great popularity. It’s still a somewhat austere fragrance, though very easy to wear and very unlikely to offend. For this reason I could see it as a really fine business or office scent. A perfectly good, if not a terribly exciting fragrance, and certainly nothing that I have to own.

An absolutely gorgeous fragrance. This is sumptuous, seductive, and yet somehow chaste, with the slightly bitter tuberose perfectly balanced by the sweet ylang-ylang, orange blossom and white musk. All of this floral richness is cut with a subtle, but still sharp eucalyptus and some fresh green notes. Coconut is a very difficult note for me, but this is the most elegantly handled coconut I've come across. It's beautifully integrated with the softest, smoothest sandalwood you can imagine. Altogether, this is a soothing and contemplative scent that could easily send me into a state of reverie.

Carnal Flower is focused and somewhat linear until its creamy, musky, sandalwood drydown. I find it quite potent, with considerable sillage and projection. I originally purchased this scent for my wife, but she liked it much better on me than on herself! It took time to screw up the courage, but I now wear Carnal Flower comfortably in public. The austere aspects of the scent and its green accents make it more unisex than you'd imagine a tuberose scent could be.

Red Aoud opens with the same bracing blast of oudh and rose as Black Aoud, Royal Aoud, and Attar, though sharper and higher than the others. The soprano voice in the opening eventually resolves into a sweet-tart fruit note while the sharp edge reveals itself as a pimento-red chili note that’s not unlike shot of Tabasco. The saffron in Red Aoud’s advertised pyramid isn’t all that evident. Perhaps it blends too closely with the red pepper note to register on its own. Ditto the cumin. What I perceive is a linear oudh and fruity rose accord with a bitter edge to it, and not a whole lot else.

I have to admit to losing some patience with the Montale oudh scents. The first few I tried struck me as novel and exciting, but having sampled many more, I’ve begun to see most as very subtle variations on a simple oudh and rose theme. Black Aoud holds my interest as perhaps the purest (certainly the most stark and powerful) variant, and Oud Cuir d’Arabie is unique in its smoky, animalic leather, but Red Aoud doesn’t seem to add all that much that’s new to the collection.

Missoni opens with a buxom honeyed fruit note that’s rescued from triviality by a judicious helping of …bittersweet chocolate. I can just imagine perfumer Maurice Roucel deciding to show off his brilliance by taking up the fruity floral cliché that now dominates the realm of mass market women’s fragrances, and through virtuosic sleight-of-hand transforming it into something original and beautiful. This grand initial flourish left me curious as to what might follow, and if Roucel could possibly sustain the act. As it happens, the next episode is a cool, bright, yet paradoxically indolic/animalic floral accord that’s at the same time both heady and refreshing. Meanwhile, the fruit takes on an exotic, tropical character as it recedes a few steps to further expose the floral blend. The honey and dark chocolate march on steadily beneath it all.

With its tropical fruit and blossoms, Missoni brings to mind Estee Lauder’s Beyond Paradise, but Missoni is a richer, weightier scent. Where Beyond Paradise has hints of green aquatics in its background, Missoni rests on what smells like a trimmed down oriental amber base, and where Beyond Paradise is cool, abstracted, and ethereal, Missoni seems comparatively warm, grounded, and organic. Fruity floral oriental is how I’d sum up Missoni, and I enjoy it for the fact that it avoids on one hand the ponderous, opaque gourmand style, and on the other the crude, excessively cheerful banality that typifies the modern fruity floral. Nice.

To my very humble nose, Montale's Black Aoud, Royal Aoud, and Attar are all fairly straightforward oudh-rose compositions, each of which goes in its own particular direction. Attar is a far tamer scent than the barbaric Black Aoud, but more individual than the civilized Royal Aoud. If Black Aoud is the bully of the lot and Royal Aoud the dignified uncle, then Attar is the dandy.

Attar goes on immediately sweeter than the other Montale Aouds I've tried, save the cloying Aoud Ambre. The notes read sandalwood and rose, but it's the rose that grabs me first. This is a sweet, mellow rose, far removed from Black Aoud's spicy, aggressive blossom. Tea rose if you will, as opposed to damask rose. Maybe it's the double distillation. At any rate, this rose note intensifies over the first hour or two, until it fully dominates the fragrance.

As for the Mysore sandalwood? I don't get it. Nil. Nada. At least not until well into the drydown, where the rose begins to recede. Midway through, Attar reveals a mysterious note which I can only describe as "fleshy." Juxtaposed with the oudh, this builds an accord that is somewhat reminiscent of a bandaged wound. Not a nasty wound - more like a surgical wound, with stitches and some disinfectant. Further on, things sweeten up a bit, until we reach the soft and rounded woody drydown. On me, this scent lingers less than the other Montale Aoud's - a "meager" 6 to 8 hours. Also a distinctly unisex fragrance, I believe.

Czech & Speake Neroli does what it says on the label, and it’s all the better for it. It’s a bright, straightforward orange blossom fragrance that grows increasingly spicy with wear, and it’s absolutely beautiful. The indole, spice, and ethereal sweetness are perfectly blended and balanced, and the result is a remarkable olfactory illusion of living blossoms. Neroli is potent, with ample sillage and projection over a couple of solid hours’ linear progression. It does not alter character in its drydown so much as fade away, expressing orange blossom in all its purity until the very end. A simple pleasure.

By way of a prologue: The cashier at the local pharmacy refused to wait on me while I was testing this. She winced, made gagging faces, wailed “I can’t take that perfume!” and waved me over to another counter. I was wearing one(!) spray of Dirty English on my left wrist.

Me, I don’t think it’s all that bad. (Though it’s perhaps deceptively loud.) Once past its rather jumbled array of citrus and spice top notes, Dirty English resolves into a boozy, animalic leather set alongside a dry, scratchy, spiced conifer wood accord. To my nose, these two fragrance blocks do not blend, but rather run their separate courses in tandem. There are moments in the music of Charles Ives where the orchestra plays two different tunes in two unrelated keys at once, at the same volume, and that’s what the heart of Dirty English smells like to me. In music or in fragrance it’s a clever trick, one played successfully with different materials in scents as diverse as Angel (fruity floral and patchouli oriental), Baldessarini (spiced fruit and dry cedar), and Aramis 900 (amber oriental and aromatic green chypre).

The first key to success in this maneuver is balance. The two opposing fragrance blocks must be of nearly identical weight in order to maintain tension. This kind of balance is relatively easy to achieve for brief intervals, but to make it endure for any length of time is an act of great art. The second key is distance: the two blocks must be distinct enough to contrast with one another, yet share just enough in character to relate in some manner. Otherwise, the result is more of an olfactory stunt than a fragrance. (Smell Annick Goutal’s Eau du Fier or S-Perfume's 100% Love to see what I mean.) Dirty English succeeds admirably in terms of balance, but I’m not sure that the distance between its boozy leather and its dry cedar blocks is as well judged.

I must admit to some bias here. You see, I find the scent’s animalic leather aspect far more interesting than the dry woods. Set by itself, I imagine the cedar/cypress/cardamom complex in Dirty English would smell like any one of a thousand cheap, generic masculine scents that clumsily ape Jean-Claude Elléna’s superb Déclaration. Meanwhile, the boozy leather on its own might smell something like Czech & Speake’s Cuba, or maybe a tamer version of Idole de Lubin. To my disappointment, it’s the scratchy woody amber behind the cedar that endures to dominate the drydown, while the leather, booze, and spices peter out after about three or four hours.

Even so, in a fragrance market where the men’s fragrance aisles are crowded by bland, cynical scents distinguishable only by their packaging, the nose, creative director, and marketing team behind Dirty English deserve high praise for producing and promoting something with a real personality and a clever structure. I consider it a step, albeit a slightly faltering one, in the right direction. I hope it works.

A subtle skin scent was the last thing I expected from S-Perfumes after the olfactory assault of their 100% Love, but that’s exactly what S-ex is. S-ex opens on a blend of proudly synthetic floral and aquatic notes, with the instantly recognizable plastic-melon tang of calone at the head. The calone and clean chemical florals persist, but are joined – or perhaps I’d better say opposed - by a smoky, dark leather accord. “Opposed” because the two accords confront one another without blending, or even overlapping. The effect is very much of smelling two entirely different fragrances at once. This standoff generates a tremendous sense of tension that sustains interest in what is essentially a quiet, close-wearing scent. That the development is linear is an advantage in this case, since having either of the two opposed olfactory blocks become clearly dominant would extinguish the driving force behind the scent.

About the name: if like me, your idea of a seductive fragrance is something like Muscs Koublaï Khân or Oud Cuir d’Arabie, S-ex is not a sexy scent. The powerful calone note wraps S-ex in a capsule of cool, clinical detachment, and even the smoky leather accord is devoid of animalic warmth. In this respect S-ex closely approaches some of Marc Buxton’s work for Comme des Garçons, and if scents like CdG 2 Man or Scent 71 appeal to you, this will too. I can't help but find it too clean, too artificial, and hence a little bit alienating. Also, I'd rather my leather scents not be eunuchs.

Etat Libre d’Orange is a frustrating outfit. The silly names and labels are no doubt meant to be bold and provocative, but in fact evince the sensibilities of twelve year-old boys huddled over a porn magazine in the back of a school bus. The scents themselves are most often dull (Nombril Immense, Eloge du Traitre), ugly (Encens et Bubblegum), or both (Sécrétions Magnifiques). Vraie Blond is a happy exception. The scent opens on fizzy aldehydes and a bright, juicy citrus note with an unusually appetizing and refreshing quality. (The pyramid says peach, but this is not the lactonic peach of Mitsouko or Chinatown.) The fruit is soon joined by a paradoxically bitter, astringent myrrh, indolic white flowers, and then a sweaty, animalic patchouli. The resulting olfactory structure is rife with internal contradictions: it is at once brisk and dirty, vivid and putrefying, austere and libidinous, giddy and dangerous. In short, it is, alongside Charogne and Vierges & Toreros, one of the few Etat Libre d’Orange products that fills the reckless, iconoclastic promise of the company’s marketing and press materials.

The inspired lunacy of Vraie Blond’s structure can’t sustain itself forever, and it’s the patchouli that takes over for the drydown. The scent projects well for four or more hours of wear, but it’s never overbearing. In fact, for a fragrance so rich in patchouli, Vraie Blond is surprisingly buoyant and transparent. Perhaps that’s the crispy fruit or the sparkling aldehydes at work. The impression I’m left with is of a lighthearted, witty fragrance with a well developed sense of fun – kind of what Paris Hilton or Britney Spears might smell like if either of them had a brain.

Cabotine exits the bottle in a flourish of very sharp, chemical, fruity floral notes and aldehydes, establishing an unfortunate air freshener vibe that the fragrance never fully manages to shed. The composition first sorts itself out into a harsh, soapy rose and ersatz carnation accord badly in need of rounding and warming. It improves over time, the rose losing some of its chemical rough edges, while woods and vanillic base notes add some much-needed textural relief.

With an hour’s wear Cabotine grows softer and prettier, reading as and aldehydic, fresh, green rose scent. Competition in this particular genre is keen, however, and Cabotine does not hold up well in comparison to scents like Alliage, Private Collection, L’Ombre dans l’Eau, and Chanel No. 19, never mind the infinitely more delicate Une Zeste de Rose and Drôle de Rose.

Havana has one of the most cacophonous openings of any scent I’ve worn. Spray it on and you’re greeted by a raucous blast of alcohol, citrus, tobacco, leather, camphoraceous notes, lavender, and lord knows what else. For sheer volume and shock value, these top notes are hard to beat, and if Havana’s early withdrawal was tied to poor sales, it could well be because few customers managed to wait out its clumsy first five minutes. It’s a terrible pity, since for those intrepid enough to stick with it, Havana offers a real treat.

Make no mistake – Havana remains a busy, complex composition, but once it comes into focus the heart of tobacco, spiced rum, smoke, leather, patchouli, and lavender is as stimulating as it is rich, and perfectly balanced, to boot. The intricate olfactory structure at Havana’s center vibrates over a classic fougère base of coumarin and bergamot with oak moss (real – god bless Aramis’s parent firm Estée Lauder), that provides a cooling counterpoint to all the intense warmth. The juxtaposition of smoky, spicy heat and cool, forest-y fougère accord may be why Havana, for all its depth, never feels ponderous. On the contrary, Havana is surprisingly light-footed and nimble for its bulk. Wearing it is a bit like discovering that your gruff, hairy, 250 pound uncle Lou dances an exquisite waltz.

In overall demeanor, Havana is what I’ve come to think of as a BFFF (Big, Fat, F#!@king Fougère), to which class also belong Jules, Kouros, and Pascal Morabito’s gargantuan but elusive Or Black. Havana has a more staid and stolid older brother, too, in Estée Lauder’s own Lauder for Men, which shares Havana’s tobacco, aromatics, and bold fougère base, though not its booze or its jazzy anisic bounce. I think Havana is the most buoyant of this lot, inasmuch as “buoyant” can apply to a fragrance of such density. Despite the challenge posed by its top notes, Havana is also one of the most often complemented scents I wear.

As you might expect from my description so far, Havana is a potent, long-lasting fragrance that projects well off the skin and leaves behind plenty of sillage. It’s surely one of those scents that will elicit disapproval if over-applied. Used wisely, I believe Havana deserves its reputation as one of the great scents of its decade, and its absence is to be deeply mourned if not outright protested. One has to question Aramis’s brand strategy: they introduce distinctive, brilliantly composed scents - like Havana or Tuscany Forte per Uomo - that are built on fine ingredients, provide them with no marketing to speak of, and then wind up canning them when they (predictably) fail to sell. Or sometimes even when they succeed. All I can say is: Go out and buy yourself some of the excellent leathery green Devin, before they drop that one, too.

Newsflash!

Side-by-side blind testing leads me to conclude that (allowing for the effects of sample age,) the repackaged version of Havana released in 2009 as part of the Aramis Gentleman's Collection is substantially the same as the vintage EdT reviewed above.

Rive Gauche launches with intense, sweet, spicy top notes that distinguish it immediately from the run of contemporary men’s designer fragrances. (The listed star anise note is particularly prominent.) It then moves quickly to a woods and floral accord that’s dominated by a yeasty or winey patchouli note. The spices continue to hover around the patchouli, and the scent gradually sweetens as it develops. The floral accord eventually takes on the garb of carnation, while a deep vetiver note contributes much-needed balance by taking some of the sweet edge off of the spices and patchouli. So far, so good.

Sadly, by its third or fourth hour Rive Gauche pour Homme has collapsed into a base of thin, scratchy woods that are no fun at all to wear. It’s an unfortunate end for what began as a pleasant scent, and I’m left wondering whether YSL cut corners on the base note ingredients.

I seem to be missing the point here. Délices de Cartier's sweet “froot” flavored top notes are so intensely chemical that they call to mind cough syrup or some kind of floor cleaning liquid, rather than perfume. I’m not sure that the transition to a maudlin violet and dense, fuzzy amber much improves matters. In fact, the combination of cloying sweetness and harsh woody ambers in Délices de Cartier’s base notes comes remarkably close to the oppressive gluiness of my least favorite masculine gourmand scents - things like Lolita Lempicka au Masculin, A*Men, and Le Mâle.

Highly indelicate, if you ask me.

Nahéma is often spoken of as a rose soliflore, but I think of it more as a spicy, fruity floral-oriental that’s just stronger on the rose than most. While Nahéma’s heart contains plenty of rose, there’s just as much peach and cinnamon in the blend, plus plenty of Guerlain’s trademark vanilla securing the foundation.

The powdery peach note aligns Nahéma with both Mitsouko and Chant d’Aromes within the Guerlain constellation. In depth and weight it lies somewhere between the two – lighter than Mitsouko, but more dense than Chant d’Aromes. With its vanillic basenotes, it also happens to be sweeter than either. The smoky vanilla and cinnamon meanwhile bear relation to Shalimar, though abundant aldehydes carry Nahéma far from its elder sister’s dark viscosity. Among contemporary scents, Nahéma also stands comparison with Amouage’s recent Lyric and Lyric for Men, which are likewise centered on spiced fruit and rose. Lacking the dark woods and incense of either Amouage, however, Nahéma is a far softer, fresher, and more buoyant fragrance.

With its aldehydes, powder, and sweet fruit, Nahéma strikes me as less comfortably unisex than Shalimar or L’Heure Bleue, and far less so than the very gender neutral Vol de Nuit and Mitsouko. Lacking the crisp, refreshing green notes of Chamade and Chant d’Aromes, Nahéma also reads to me as the most unabashedly romantic of the modern Guerlain florals. Nahéma is potent stuff, radiating its larger-than-life rose and fruit for miles from the skin in its parfum concentration, and leaving great clouds of sillage behind it. If you’re going to wear Nahéma, you’d better really like it, because everyone in the vicinity is going to know it’s there.

Viewed in historical perspective, Nahéma’s central rose and fruit accord could be taken as a precursor of the fruity floral tidal wave that’s swamped women’s perfumes for the last couple of decades. To blame Guerlain would be unfair, however. Nahéma has never been popular or well recognized enough to spur a mass market trend, and where Nahéma is characteristically elegant, poised and beautifully balanced, the degenerate mob that has followed is invariably crude, awkward, and marred by grossly inferior ingredients. It’s a credit to Nahéma’s composition that the ongoing run of gawky fruity florals has not debased it in the slightest.

Capucci’s Punjab starts out on the skin as if it’s going to be a muscular 1980s fougere in the manner of Jules or Lauder for Men, and that’s precisely what it is…for exactly ten minutes. Then, quite suddenly, the bergamot and moss that prevailed at Punjab’s opening are overtaken by a cinnamon, carnation, and jasmine accord that reminds me more than a little of the parallel cinnamon, carnation, and rose in the likewise extinct Patou pour Homme. Punjab also shares some of the Patou’s incense and amber, but it distinguishes itself with more obvious moss and leather in its base notes, compositional traits that again align it more closely with the 1980s fougere “power scents.” In fact, the thing that interests me most about Punjab is the balanced tension it maintains between woody oriental and fougere character. While not overwhelming in its projection or sillage, Punjab is no lightweight, and it persists on the skin for hours before its warm ambery, labdanum-infused drydown. An excellent scent and a sad loss.

Dior Addict’s coconut cream and floral top notes may be blatantly synthetic and crassly “foody,” but I can’t help liking them. The white flower-infused vanilla pudding that follows is no less crude, but I’m ashamed to admit that I like that, too. I guess I’ve always been outrageously gauche in my tastes, but my responses to Dior Addict drive the point home. (Burps, grunts, scratches his groin…)

In composing Addict Thierry Wasser has executed the same brilliant gambit that Olivier Cresp did a decade earlier in Angel; pushing an intensely sweet floral/gourmand composition through the looking glass of vulgarity and into a realm of alternate dimension beauty. While the two fragrances smell nothing alike, the trick works just as well for Dior as it did for Mugler. Addict may smell dumb but beautiful, and it’s easily as loud as an Airbus on the runway, but examine it with care and you’ll find a very clever and subtly executed construct.

It's hard to resist Eau des Merveilles' top notes: a juicy, yet peculiarly briny tangerine that's spiked with pink peppercorn and warmed by a subtle animalic accent. As the salt and citrus subside they cede the olfactory stage to a more conventional blend of woody notes and dry vetiver, with some light incense (elemi) contributing a slightly astringent, medicinal dimension. It's all very bright and sheer, but the central accord makes an increasingly chemical impression as it develops.

I sense kinship with The Different Company's Sel de Vétiver and Miller Harris's Fleurs de Sel here, but I find both of those scents more coherent, sharper in profile, and more enduringly compelling than Eau des Merveilles. Like both of the others, Eau des Merveilles strikes me as entirely gender-neutral.   

At no point is Eau des Merveilles a potent fragrance, and it does not endure more than two or three hours on my skin. If the opening movement were extended to cover a couple of hours I'd be more excited by this scent, but I don't feel that Eau des Merveilles lives up to its initial promise as it is

Fifteen years before composing the transcendently beautiful tuberose soliflore Carnal Flower for Frédéric Malle, Dominique Ropion gave us Amarige. Could two essays on the same flower, by the same perfumer, be any more opposed in style, mood, and attitude than Amarige and Carnal Flower? You tell me.

Eucalyptus, coconut, and sandalwood render Carnal Flower green, crisp, and ethereal, in spite of its considerable potency. Fruits (currants among them,) powerfully sweet lactones, and heavy synthetic musks lend Amarige the olfactory tone and volume of a bugle call and side drum tattoo. If Carnal Flower is candlelight, Amarige is a Klieg light. Carnal Flower is voluptuous, while Amarige is raucous.

Amarige aims to out-Fracas Fracas, and for the most part it succeeds. Your response to it will depend on how you feel about that aim. Its manner holds no appeal for me, but I can’t fault it for that. On the other hand, I can’t exactly recommend it either, since you’re as likely to hate it as to love it. I’m left in the awkward position of giving Amarige a neutral rating, though “neutral” seems an odd term when applied to so bold, distinctive, and divisive a fragrance!

Cabaret is a very well executed, finely balanced woody rose scent that's as comfortable on a man as on a woman. Cabaret Homme is a "fresh" fougère so banal that without its label I couldn't possibly distinguish it from any of its myriad and ubiquitous brethren. Grès would have done better to bottle the original Cabaret under this name and let the men enjoy the good stuff, too.

I love nutmeg. Cacharel pour l’Homme is chock full o’ “nutmeg.” I can’t stand Cacharel pour l’Homme. Through some dark miracle of science Cacharel pour l'Homme makes nutmeg reek like chemical fumes. I urge anybody who confuses this miasma with the real spice to grate themselves some nutmeg, then (gingerly) sniff Cacharel pour l'Homme.

I love many big, bold scents: Or Black, Kouros, Black Aoud, Knize Ten, Bandit, Musc Ravageur, Havana, Amouage Gold, Yatagan…the list goes on. Cacharel pour l’Homme is big and bold. It’s also loud, harsh, and crude, and its mere presence in the room distracts me from my work and curbs my appetite. Whenever I smell Cacharel pour l’Homme I wish its sillage, strength, and longevity were all much less.

I have found a new nemesis. Its name is Cacharel pour l’Homme.

I really like Kiton Men’s aromatic, bergamot, and floral top notes: they’re rounded, naturalistic, and smoothly blended. From there Kiton moves very slowly into a soapy floral and wood heart with just a touch of fruit to sweeten it. With citrus and lavender over a tonka-seasoned foundation the basic outline is that of a “fresh” fougère, but this example is both drier and more overtly floral than most other entries in the field, making it more “grown-up” and sophisticated by comparison. As so often in contemporary men’s scents, the drydown is the least successful aspect, with the woods eventually turning harsh and chemical, and the tonka (coumarin) cloyingly sweet.

Moderation seems to be the principle behind Kiton Men, both in style and strength. The potential cost of this approach is blandness, from which I’m afraid this scent ultimately suffers. Until it reaches its drydown Kiton Men is pleasant and well-made, but also ordinary, and I’d want something more distinguished in the middle to make up for the awkward base notes.

I know it’s bad of me, but whenever I see blue liquid in a fragrance bottle or a sample vial, I cringe reflexively in anticipation of yet another drab, “sporty,” fresh fougère or unpleasantly chemical aquatic.

Imagine my surprise and delight then, when as I sniff timidly through the olfactory equivalent of a slit between the fingers covering my eyes, Romeo Gigli sheds its conventional bergamot and soapy aromatic top notes and morphs into a full-blown patchouli, tobacco, and spice-seasoned woody oriental structure. Things get even better as I take my hands away and judiciously applied animalic notes slide into place to warm the scent’s woody/balsamic foundation. In overall mood and structure, Romeo Gigli lies somewhere between the civilized woody orientals like New York and Héritage, and the big tobacco fougères like Lauder for Men, Jules, and Or Black.

Romeo Gigli is the kind of scent that could easily be loud, crude, or overly assertive, but the sillage and projection in this case are cleverly balanced to yield for controlled strength without brute aggression. Yes, Romeo Gigli is staid, perhaps even “old-school” in stryle, but it’s also complex and sophisticated, and should appeal to those who seek self-possessed dignity in a fragrance.

When my daughter was younger, we used to entertain her with a memory game that started out like this: "I'm going on a trip, and in my bag I'm packing..." Well, when Honoré left home she must have packed a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a package of tangerine Lifesavers, because that’s what her traveling perfume’s top notes consist of. It saddens me to say so, but these are some of the worst top notes I’ve encountered in quite some time.

Things improve quickly, though if only because the stuff fades down to almost nothing after thirty seconds, and nothing is better than tangerine Lifesavers dissolved in isopropyl alcohol. Don’t waste your money.

Chaos is a warm, fruity, spicy oriental with prominent notes of cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom at its center. There’s something medicinal in there, too: myrrh, perhaps? Or maybe the agarwood (oudh) that’s listed in the scent pyramid? For all of its apparent depth, Chaos is a very sheer and luminous scent. Could this be because there’s very little that I’d call floral in the structure? Instead Chaos is bound together by prune-like dried fruit accord and a syrupy, though light, amber.

Perfume critic Luca Turin is right in comparing Chaos to Sheldrake/Lutens compositions (Arabie comes to mind), but this is a more buoyant and transparent scent than its cousins in the Serge Lutens line. It becomes intensely sweet in the drydown, with a strong suggestion of fruitcake alongside a dusty sandalwood and some very soft and mildly animalic musk. There’s plenty of sillage to be had from Chaos, and it projects well away from the body. The scent lingers for hours as well. If the idea of a sweet, fruity oriental appeals to you, but you find today’s ubiquitous fruity feminines too crude and the Serge Lutens orientals series too ponderous, Chaos may be your fragrance. (This review applies to the 2008 reissue.)

A very nice summer daytime scent: light and breezy, yet also possessed of some earthy mystery and a distinctive edge.

Silver Mountain Water opens up with a well balanced currant and tea accord, spiked with a touch of the aquatic and a twist of citrus. As the heart exposes itself, the tea and violet contribute an herbal, soil-like undercurrent that enriches a scent that might otherwise be too much of a lightweight.

Another distinctive feature is a hard-edged "industrial," or perhaps "stony" note (robyogi's "inkjet toner?") which for me lifts the whole composition onto a new plane. The element of subtle dissonance this note injects keeps me coming back for another sniff.

The drydown is very rapid on me, and reveals an accord familiar to anyone who's worn Millesime Imperial or Green Irish Tweed. In the case of Silver Moutain Water there is also a persitent echo of the current/tea accord that adds a little zest to the end stage. This is one of those scents that seem to disappear after a couple of hours, only to re-emerge unexpectedly from time to time.

Intriguing, and very well worth trying, regardless of gender.

What some have identified as "metallic" in this scent's top notes seems to me a piercingly tart, even acidic note with a distinct "chemical" edge. There is also a sweet, fruity leather accord in the opening, and this sticks around after the sharp note’s quick fade. The heart is fruit, musk, quiet leather, and spices – ever so slightly reminiscent of Serge Lutens’s Daim Blond, but with more sweet spice and a somewhat animalic background. I have no idea what the actual notes are, but I get plenty of amber nutmeg and at least a trace of cinnamon.

The Creed millésime house accord emerges and moves toward the foreground as the scent evolves, but its character is greatly altered in the absence of the fresh green or marine notes that so often accompany it in other Creed scents like Green Irish Tweed, Silver Mountain Water, or Millésime Imperial. Acier Aluminium is much darker and “dirtier” than any of these other Creeds and hence, to my nose, more interesting.

Acier Aluminium's sweet amber eventually replaces the soft leather in the drydown, which this scent enters very quickly. That’s “quickly” as in 30 minutes. The drydown is the most conventional part of the development, and it is very pleasant. Happily, the base is enlivened by some of the spice notes that re-emerge in an olfactory game of hide-and-seek.

Acier Aluminium is ultimately distinguished enough to merit attention, but still safe enough to wear in almost any situation. It's originality is a tremendous advantage over most of the other Creeds I’ve tried. in. While some have commented that it's a winter scent, I find that it takes on a more challenging and gratifying animal aspect with a little heat and exertion. In the final analysis, it stands for me with Erolfa as one of the better modern Creed scents.

Anaïs Anaïs is a breezy, bright, powdery-green floral scent, like a de-fanged Chanel No. 19. It’s very much a “little girl” scent, but it’s miles away from the dimwitted "froot" punch concoctions marketed to teenage girls in celebrity-labeled pink bottles. No, this one is what pretty, clever, and well-behaved twelve year-olds should be wearing out to Sunday brunch with grandma. I think it’s charming. I’ll have to see what my daughter has to say about it…

Jazz is a surprisingly hard scent for me to nail down. The opening is nicely distinguished, with a bright, airy, and transparent blend of dry citrus and crisp, astringent herbaceous notes that’s only slightly marred by a short-lived burst of raw alcohol. Jazz remains decidedly dry and transparent, with an appealingly open texture and the persistent, pleasantly bracing bitter edge that comes from a well-blended artemisia note. The central movement emphasizes geranium, with very lightly applied spices lending some depth and contrast to the composition. Jazz’s mossy/woody drydown is very similar in weight and tone to Dior’s Eau Sauvage, but Jazz includes an ever-so-slightly sweet coumarin or tonka base note that tilts it away from chypre axis and firmly towards the fougère.

The entire scent is highly reserved, with an elusive quality that leaves it sometimes smelling faint, then suddenly present again, though rarely closer than the margins of perception. Paradoxically, Jazz offers substantial sillage, and seems to hang about the room well after its wearer has departed. I can’t describe Jazz as an exciting scent, but it is neither bland nor faceless. Instead it is cool, collected, and somehow detached. It smells clean, but not generically “sporty,” relaxed, yet never bumptious. In other words, the ideal “office scent.” Why the people at Yves St. Laurent thought they needed YSL Homme with this already in their stable is beyond me.

Catalyst’s spiced apple pie top notes are at once foody and a mite chemical in a car air freshener/cheap scented candle sort of way. The fruit component bows out quickly, leaving the stage to a straightforward nutmeg and clove accord. Clove, being clove, (which is to say loathe to share the spotlight,) soon dominates, so how you feel about Catalyst will depend mostly upon how much you like clove. Woe betide you if you don’t, because Catalyst is extremely potent, and even a dab is enough to fill the room.

Catalyst ultimately winds up smelling like part of a fragrance. More precisely, it smells like part of Michel Roudnitska’s Noir Epices for Frédéric Malle. I realize it must seem both unfair and elitist to compare a bargain-priced scent like Catalyst with an expensive, limited distribution niche fragrance, but Noir Epices is so apt a demonstration of what Catalyst could have been that I can’t help myself. The Malle smells like US $135 retail, and Catalyst smells like every one of its fifteen dollars. Do I sound churlish? Just remember, a bottle of McCormick’s clove extract costs even less.

Add another voice to the chorus in praise of Bal à Versailles! As a traditional oriental fragrance, Bal à Versailles’s kinship with Shalimar is obvious: there is a similarly smoky, dark vanilla and there is plenty of opoponax. However, there is also more indolic orange blossom more obvious civet, more animalic musks, and perhaps even a suggestion of leather. (Labdanum, perhaps? Yes – labdanum and opoponax in a leathery accord, I think.) Bal à Versailles is perfectly judged in terms of balance: floral vs. spicy-vanillic vs. animalic; and in terms of strength. Unlike some orientals of the ‘80s, say Opium, Samsara, or KL, Bal à Versailles never shouts. It does last, however. And last. A full day and a couple of showers are not enough to banish Bal àVersailles’s voluptuous labdanum, musk, and vanilla drydown.

Bal à Versailles is a dark, glamorous, and evocative scent. It is not so much “old-fashioned” or “old-school” as timeless: though released in the early 1960s, it could have been composed decades earlier. A beautifully crafted scent that’s completely deserving of is classic status. As a man, I find it easy to wear, provided I apply it lightly. It strikes me as little more inherently “feminine” than orientals in the mold of Héritage, Habit Rouge, or Jaïpur Homme.

Top notes? Let’s see: raw alcohol, ylang-ylang, citrus, green florals, and aldehydes. Pretty appealing actually, except for the alcohol, but that goes away quickly. What remains is a pleasant, if also very familiar, cheerfully tropical green floral scent. A little bit of Beyond Paradise, a touch of Le De, maybe even a faint echo of Fleurissimo…you get the picture. Ananda may not be terribly original, but it is charmingly transparent, and scores points for smelling relatively natural, for speaking in a politely modulated tone, and for the clarity of its structure. I’m just not certain why anyone would go out of their way to obtain it, given so many fine and easily acquired alternatives in the same general style.

Antidote’s top notes are a standard issue citrus/aromatic blend, cooler and sweeter than most, and happily free of the overused “fresh” ozonic or calone components, if still a bit chemical in their demeanor. Powdery lavender, discreet white flower notes, vanillic amber, and an array of sweet spices, including nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom, fill out Antidote’s central accord and establish a plush, spicy-sweet structure that hovers somewhere between a fougère and an oriental for a while. The amber and spices outlast the aromatics, so that after an hour’s wear, Antidote has settled firmly into the oriental style.

Antidote’s drydown is much less weighty, nuanced, or complex than the pyramid given above would lead me to expect. A middle-weight woody oriental is how I would describe it, with a somewhat sanitized, bland, generic character, especially for something that’s supposed to contain labdanum, moss, and leather. There is an appealing peppery quality to Antidote’s woody base notes, an effect I attribute to guaiac wood, but its accent is not sufficient to offset the overall flatness I perceive in the drydown. Antidote projects well enough to make itself known, but does not wear heavily. It also endures for several hours, a trait I would appreciate more if its drydown were less “utilitarian.” An adequate scent, but nothing to get my pulse up over.

Bowling Green’s sunny, green herbaceous opening accord is the perfect olfactory expression of its name. The grassy notes recede only slightly with time, making way as they do for a succulent lemon that’s a dead ringer for the one that anchors the wonderful Monsieur Balmain. A warm, well-defined cardamom, soft lavender, and some bracing coniferous notes fill out the structure, and once these manifest themselves Bowling Green goes along on a steady, linear course for a couple of hours before shifting into a sandalwood-and-spice dominated drydown. Oddly transparent and “modern” smelling for something done in the mid ‘80s, and I’m sad to see it discontinued. On the plus side, It can still be found very cheaply, and is very much worth owning for fans of green and citrus fragrances.

By way of a disclaimer, perfume critic Tanya Sanchez’s description of Dune pour Homme as “a very good eau de cologne (sic) with a transparent, natural feeling in its leafy, lemon top note and a sweet, soapy floral drydown” bears no resemblance to the scent I’m reviewing. Is my sample mislabeled? I’m not sure, since Michael Edwards does list Dune pour Homme as a woody oriental in his taxonomy of fragrances. At any rate, here are my impressions:

Dune pour Homme’s first few minutes on my skin are an olfactory train wreck of raw alcohol, soap, powdery-sweet gourmand notes, citrus, calone, and brash, banal synthetic woods. It’s as if Dior decided to play every commonplace theme from the past twenty years of masculine perfumery at once in an effort to include everybody’s favorite. Thank heavens the raw alcohol subsides quickly, while the woody notes, soap and powder integrate. The resulting structure is an opaque, gourmand woody oriental lolling in a pool of artificial fruit punch and calone. (The "new hedione?")

The idea here was apparently to juxtapose a sweet woody oriental in the manner of A*Men or Lolita Lempicka au Masculin with a fresh, sporty citrus aquatic. It turns out to have been a very bad idea. These two ubiquitous stereotypes of 1990s male fragrance are dreary enough on their own, but their combination amounts to even less than the paltry sum of its parts.

But wait; it gets worse! Though supposedly developed in rebellion against the bombastic “powerhouse” scents of the 1980s, the masculine aquatic and the woody oriental gourmands are both in fact extremely loud and tenacious olfactory constructs. Piling the two on top of one another is akin to booking Metallica and Mötley Crüe for the same stage: a battle of the bands that I don’t want to hear. It's enough to make me wish I were anosmic.

An addendum:
On paper, where the top notes hang around much longer, this bears more resemblance to the fruity-green, woody scent others describe. On my skin, all of the above still applies in full.

Apparition Homme's lavender and citrus opening is both sweet and soapy, though also a bit chemical and crude in its execution. The instantly recognizable cucumber-melon flavor of calone comes forward after a few minutes, but it is not conspicuous enough to impart an aquatic character to the composition. Instead what evolves is a pleasant, if ordinary, tangy-sweet fruity fougère accord in the Green Irish Tweed/Cool Water mold. It's neither better nor worse than any of its countless peers, so whether you buy it over another is just a matter of how much you prefer its bottle.

From Ungaro II to this...

My experience of the L'Artisan Parfumeur line is sharply divided. There are some I adore (Fou d'Absinthe, Tea for Two, Méchant Loup, Dzongkha); some I detest (Timbuktu, Bois Farine, Piment Brûlant, Fleur de Narcissus); some that disappear so quickly that I can't tell what I think (Dzing!, Passage d'Enfer); and several that just bore me (L'Eau d'Ambre, Ambre Extreme, Safran Troublant, Anans Fizz). To the last group I now add Navegar. On my skin Navegar starts out as a standard issue aquatic, with quiet cucumber-melon overtones and just a hint of floral sweetness in the background. Cedar, and then vanilla enter the mix within a few minutes, and there the fragrance stays for an hour or so, before exiting on a flimsy cedar raft. It's pleasant, it's inoffensive, but it's nothing I can get myself worked up about.

I didn't think it possible, but this stuff makes even Maître Parfumeur et Gantier's Route du Vétiver look tame! The opening explodes violently with a harsh, green vetiver that's hot enough to singe your eyebrows. And while the scent quiets down quite a bit, it never goes so far as to mellow.

Where the vetiver in Route du Vétiver is moist, earthy, and somehow fecund, this vetiver is dry, pungent, and acidic. There's nothing sweet in this blend to dull the vetiver's knife-like edge, and the few accompanying notes I can detect only enhance its potency. There are some very dry herbs, an odd, tart, acidic note, plus some crisp cedar in the base, and that's about it. Simple really, and almost brutal, but in a streamlined, even graceful way. Kind of like a shark.

Etro's Vetiver stays close to the body, which could be a good thing, since not everyone you meet is liable to enjoy anything this radical. It will be too much for many, but for those who like their vetiver, sharp, raw, and pungent this will be a must-try scent.

Update (September, 2009):
With Maître Parfumeur et Gantier's Route du Vétiver tamed in reformulation and that house's demise appearing inevitable to boot, Etro's Vetiver is left standing alongside Vétiver Extraordinaire as one of the finest essays in vetiver-based olfactory brutalism. Revised to a thumbs-up by attrition.

July 2009:

The reissued Vetyver from Givenchy features a very spare, nutty vetiver accord that sweetens gently through something vaguely suggestive of licorice to a very suave woody-mossy base. This is not the sort of raw, aggressively earthy vetiver you get from Route du Vétiver, Vétiver Extraordinaire, or Etro's Vetiver, but rather a comfortable men's club vetiver your well-dressed uncle might have worn while lounging in a leather chair. Among the best of its classical, sophisticated, "Old World" breed, even if it's not terribly exiting.

September 2009:

A couple of months, many wearings, and one full bottle purchase later, and I realize I’ve given short shrift to this outstanding, if highly understated, fragrance. With growing familiarity I have become more and more impressed and enamored of Vetyver’s fine qualities. My affection for this scent has come to focus on the “nutty,” almost buttery, quality that distinguishes its vetiver and which comes to dominate its drydown. No, it does not break any olfactory boundaries, explore new territory, or offer any structural novelty. But Givenchy’s Vetyver deserves better than to be defined by what it isn’t. It is the smoothest, the most suave, and the most comforting vetiver scent I have encountered. (And that includes Chanel’s resurrected Sycomore.) It is also the warmest, richest, and most rounded treatment of the vetiver note that I can recall right now. In fact, it is everything that Guerlain’s much-vaunted Vetiver should be (perhaps was?) and isn’t. A personal benchmark.

Azzaro Now Men is a green woody scent in the general mold of Grey Flannel, though noticeably softer and sweeter. The conventional citrus top notes are rather crudely alcoholic, but they resolve quickly and the main body of the scent is much more appealing. The sweet herbaceous green notes gain interest from an unexpected and judicious dose of spices, which briefly suggest Azzaro Now might veer off into woody oriental territory. That doesn’t happen, and instead the scent rolls on for a few hours in a quietly pleasant green woody direction and smelling like a low-budget Ormonde Man. There’s not much sillage or projection, so Azzaro Now wears close to the skin throughout its lifespan.

As with so many contemporary fragrances for men, Azzaro Now goes to pot in the drydown. It avoids the standard issue, überstrong, chalk-on-a-blackboard woody amber you can smell in scents like Lolita Lempicka au Masculin or Guerlain Homme, but opts instead for the (other) standard issue, “fresh,” clean chemical spill accord familiar from Acqua di Gio, Light Blue, and their accursed ilk. Too bad, because this fragrance had the potential to be a pleasant workhorse of an everyday masculine. As it is, the ugly bookends that surround its friendly middle volume ruin the experience.

When I first heard about Aoud Leather, I was intrigued. Oud Cuir d’Arabie is both one of my favorite Montale scents and one of my favorite leathers, so I was curious to see what else Montale might do with the oudh-leather combination. Having already discovered much redundancy among Montale’s oudh-and-rose compositions, my concern was whether the new scent would be distinct enough from Oud Cuir d’Arabie to justify having both in the line. The short answer: not really.

Don’t get me wrong, Aoud Leather is a nice smoky leather scent, but it’s not all that much different than its predecessor, and what differences there are make it (for me, at least,) a less compelling fragrance. Both Oud Cuir d’Arabie and Aoud Leather are smoky, but there’s smoke, and then there’s smoke. Oud Cuir d’Arabie has the smoke of a wildfire, whereas Aoud Leather has the smoke of a men’s club. Oud Cuir d’Arabie is boldly, unapologetically animalic, and all the better for it. By comparison, Aoud Leather is reserved and civilized. I would describe it as a domesticated Oud Cuir d’Arabie. No, not merely domesticated, come to think of it, but castrated. All the daring and danger that make Oud Cuir d’Arabie a great fragrance are missing in Aoud Leather. I can understand Aoud Leather appealing to someone who likes the oudh-leather concept but finds Oud Cuir d’Arabie too disturbingly animalic, but to me it smells like backpedaling.

Just as advertised! Nostalgia in a bottle!

This is the smell of burning leaves in autumn, and it's delightful. A quiet scent that stays close to the skin, as if I'd just been burning leaves and a bit of the smoke is still clinging to my clothing. I'm especially pleased that this smells nothing at all like cigarette smoke.

The very definition of a comfort scent, Burning Leaves brings back a flood of childhood memories. It makes me smile. (This review is based on the water perfume version of Burning Leaves. I have not smelled the absolute.)

Anné Pliska is a big, spicy amber that wastes no time on top notes but instead goes straight to the smoky, syrupy-sweet heart of the matter. In weight and character Anné Pliska is not all that far from Ambre Sultan, though it does not share the Lutens scent’s peculiar oregano and bay leaf accents. Indeed, with its abundant dark spices and dried fruit overtones it could easily be mistaken for something in the Serge Lutens line. As I think about it, Anné Pliska smells almost like a distillation of the syrupy oriental base that Christopher Sheldrake used in many of his scents for Serge Lutens, shorn of the eccentric elements that distinguish each: it’s sweeter, fruitier, and a touch brighter than Ambre Sultan, less spicy than Arabie, less smoky than Fumerie Turque, and less woody than Chergui. To put it another way, it’s something like the part of all those Serge Lutens scents that makes them smell alike to some people, without the bits that make them smell interesting to other people. Or, putting it even more simply, it’s a little bit dull.

As is so often the case with dense amber scents, Anné Pliska lands on the skin with a resounding thud, and then stays more-or-less in place for several hours without altering too much in content or character. (The effect of olfactory stasis should come as no surprise, as amber components are by nature tenacious, high molecular weight base note materials.) It’s neither shy nor overwhelming in sillage or projection, and I’d consider it completely unisex. If you’re in the market for a straightforward amber scent, rich and sweet, but none too challenging, this is one to consider alongside L’Artisan Parfumeur’s Ambre Extrême or Montale’s Blue Amber. If you want more edge on your amber, go for Ambre Sultan or Ambre Russe, and if you want more depth and complexity seek out Maïtre Parfumeur et Gantier’s Ambre Précieux, while you still can.

Perhaps the most hilarious misnomer in perfumery. Is it possible to compose a more banal, generic, and undistinguished men’s fragrance than this? (“Fresh,” fruity fougère with a conspicuous melon/calone top note and a pseudo-cedar Iso E Super base note.) Whoever named it has either a delightful sense of humor or hubris worthy of Agamemnon. At least it provides entertainment value: I nearly peed in my pants laughing.

August 2007:

Vierges & Toreros starts out as a very sharp, smoky leather, sparked with just a touch of bitter citrus. Sweet white flower notes emerge very slowly - even tentatively - from the background. The tuberose does not really present itself as a distinct note. It is blended with what might be jasmine or orange blossoms in a single, seamless accord that drifts mysteriously behind the leather.

The white floral notes never actually dominate the fragrance, because as soon as they grow conspicuous a very strong blend of dry woods takes firm hold of the base. The floral notes move in and out of focus while the woods, smoke, and leather take on a rustic, campfire sort of character. Very late in the drydown the woods sort themselves out into something very much like cedar, which in combination with the remaining leather reminds me of a cedar chest filled with boots and shoes.

It's an outstanding leather scent, but not as dramatic or original as I'd hoped for from the maker's description. Vierges & Toreros should appeal to those who enjoy Oud Cuir d'Arabie, Tabac Blond, and Lonestar Memories, but it doesn't displace any of them. Anybody looking for a "masculine" take on tuberose should try Mona di Orio's complex, raunchy, and intoxicating Nuit Noire, or just suck it in and risk the blatant green tuberose of Ropion's Carnal Flower from Frederic Malle.

August 2009:

As much as I love the concept of tuberose and leather, I've grown weary of Vierges & Toreros. Why? It's the drydown. The development ends on a scratchy synthetic cedar base note that's at once unpleasantly harsh and oppressively potent. So while I enjoy wearing Vierges & Toreros for the first hour or two, what follows is tedium, and then exasperation.

Eau du Ciel is primarily a linden (tillieul) and violet scent to my nose. Like this house’s limited edition Le Chèvrefeuille, it is a weightless, crisp green floral that smells as if it were composed with few if any traditional base notes. The rosewood and musk foundation is oddly transparent, and a delicate hay or narcissus note contributes an engaging “dewy meadow” effect. I especially admire how Eau du Ciel avoids the oppressive, powdery sweetness of so many other violet scents, managing instead to maintain a liquid ebullience through most of its development.

Given this description, you probably know what’s coming: with such effervescent texture and buoyancy, Eau du Ciel has very little staying power. It’s certainly potent enough while it lasts – while it won’t fill the room, it’s easily detected at a couple of feet. A worthy choice when you’re looking for a few drops of floral good cheer.

Bel Ami is a big, spicy leather scent with a heaping dose of dark woods in its base. It’s neither so lithe nor so risqué as its lascivious oldest brother Eau d’Hermès, and it doesn’t share middle brother Equipage’s taste for tobacco. This leaves it the most staid – stolid, even – of the Hermès leather brethren. Bel Ami is a guy you can depend on, even he’s not the most charismatic one in the room. When I'm looking for a leather scent in this general style, I'm more apt to reach for the more challenging Knize Ten or Parfum d'Habit, but Bel Ami works just fine if you're after something more congenial.

Whoah! Quite the opening here: amber, very smooth, rounded cinnamon, and lots of soap. It's an entry that grabs me right away and then leaves me impatient to see where it will go next.

The soapy sensation might recall Cypres-Musc, but here the soap is balanced by a highly suggestive accord of indolic jasmine, rose, and amber. The whole thing smells like a self-contradiction, but in the most fascinating way. The constant tension between clean and "dirty," civilized and feral, builds tremendous suspense as to just which way the balance will eventually fall.

For a time the rose takes control and molds Ambre Canelle into a very bold, yet slightly austere floral scent. Yet the yeasty, "doughy" quality in some rose essences is brought forward by the amber, eventually erasing the last traces of soap. At this point, three or more hours into its development, Ambre Canelle falls onto a luxurious amber and indole soaked cushion, upon which it stretches languidly for the remainder of its stay.

A Creed that does not smell like any other, and which stands beside Angelique Encens, Royal English Leather, and Orange Spice as an exemplar in this old line.

Moods opens like many a number of 1980s oriental masculines, with standard issue lavender and bergamot, plus a touch of spice. The spice endures as the top notes settle, and the heart coalesces into a smooth woody rose and sweet, anise-tinted oriental accord. The touchstone fragrance of this type is the regrettably deceased Patou pour Homme, which centered on a hugely complex and brilliantly blended heart of amber, rose, carnation, and spices. Moods pales by comparison, (as almost anything else might,) but it’s robust and pleasant without indulging in the bombast that makes so many of its contemporaries hard to wear in public.

Moods dries down to an amiable sweet vanillic/resinous accord that’s refreshingly natural in a genre marred by aggressively synthetic woody drydowns. I appreciate the way Moods avoids the gourmand clichés that have overtaken more recent woody oriental fragrances for men, and if the likes of A*Men and Le Mâle are just too much for you, this scent ought to appeal. That said, Moods is not an exciting scent, and it certainly breaks no new ground. I’d be more tempted to mourn its demise were its place not so easily taken by scents like Armani’s Code, Givenchy Pi, or the immensely superior Jaipur Homme EdP.

Brisk green notes, bittersweet citrus and smooth lavender open Cologne Sologne in the classic eau de Cologne manner. Some woods, orange blossom, and additional aromatics appear in the background, but again in traditional eau de Cologne manner, there isn't much more to the development. Cologne Sologne is very smooth and nicely balanced, but I don't find much that's unique or individual about its composition. Nice, but no more than that.

Compellingly weird top notes that suggest licorice, a barnyard, and a wood fire resolve into an indolic, warmly animalic floral accord on a classically structured chypre foundation. I’m not surprised to find narcissus listed twice (“daffodil” = “narcissus”) in the pyramid, as it’s the peculiarly decadent, bittersweet, hay-like aspect of narcissus that dominates the scent’s heart. Whereas many of Patricia de Nicolaï’s fragrances strike me as stodgy in their understated, classicizing style, Le Temps d’une Fête holds my attention from the moment I put it on to the very tail end of its mossy drydown. I set it next to Odalisque as one of this perfumer’s best. In fact, I'll go even further and rank Le Temps d'une Fête with Guerlain's Chamade as one of the most gratifying narcissus-centered fragrances I've tried.

The rich, gorgeous tropical fruit top notes that introduce Jailia put every other fruity fragrance that I’ve tried to shame. They are joined almost immediately by creamy vanilla and a smooth, very faintly animalic honey, which together establish a palm-lined beach accord of hallucinatory accuracy and substance. Close your eyes and you can feel the sun on your face and the sand on your back. Jailia’s voluptuous fruit is neither mango, guava, nor papaya. It’s not jackfruit and it’s not passion fruit. If anything concrete at all, it suggests a blend of cherimoya, coconut, and over-ripe pineapple, but in truth it is a complete abstraction, the distilled essence of some idealized, archetypical exotic fruit.

Much has been made of Jailia’s resemblance to Angel, which is in fact quite striking in the intensely sweet, fruity top notes. Thirty minutes into their respective developments however, Angel and Jailia part ways decisively. Where Angel casts off much of its fruit to juxtapose a very loud, angular, vaguely sweaty patchouli with chocolate and vanilla in a famously shocking discord, Jailia keeps its fruit forward and its patchouli in the background, envelops both in the translucent glow of honey, and thereby retains a smooth, sumptuous tropical fruit custard character. Where Angel’s heart is brash, Jailia’s is comfortably soft and sunny. Where Angel belts out a tune, Jailia hums seductively.

Jailia sashays down the beach, hips swaying, hair stirring in the breeze, and gentle sillage trailing behind it for three or four hours before relaxing into its plush drydown of bright patchouli and vanilla, with the animal warmth of the honey still resonating in the background. Having worn Jailia often, I see it less as an Angel alternative than as the apotheosis of the “tropical” scent: the Ipanema fragrance that Nicolai’s Cococabana, Ormonde Jayne’s Frangipani Absolute, Creed’s Virgin Island Water, and all their lesser kin want to be, but aren’t. It’s a masterpiece in a genre that I don’t even particularly like. Delightful!

May 2007:

I have a huge problem with Caron’s men’s fragrances. My problem? I tried Yatagan first. How any fragrance house could adequately follow Yatagan’s magnificent savagery is hard to imagine. The outrageous animalism of Lutens and Sheldrake’s Muscs Kublai Khan? The ethereal beauty of Dominique Ropion’s Carnal Flower? The briny austerity of Creed’s Erolfa? The barbaric opulence of Montale’s Black Aoud? Caron’s answer was The Third Man.

The Third Man opens with a potent, but fairly standard lavender and bergamot accord, underscored by just a hint of woods and smoky leather. The middle notes include a very sharp cedar, some lush vanilla or tonka, and a hefty dose of carnation or clove on top of the persistent lavender. I sense some rose at the heart, too, accented by a deep fennel seed or anise note. The drydown is mostly moss and woods, with lingering anise and a distinct vanilla/musk counterpoint. The result is an outstanding fragrance, but very heavy and opaque, in the manner of Creed’s Santal Imperial and Bois du Portugal.

Temperamentally, The Third Man is the exact opposite of the wild Yatagan: rich, and cultured, but also utterly conventional. Me? I’ll take Yatagan.

September 2009:

Wearing The Third Man today, I am reminded how very good it is. I have been unduly hard on The Third Man for not being Yatagan, or even L'Anarchiste, but to tell the truth, this scent is just as successful in filling its admittedly more conventional brief as either of those other two. What ultimately makes The Third Man special for me is the drydown, with its perfectly judged balance of vanilla, moss, and warmly animalic musk. In fact there's almost something of a classic Guerlain structure in those base notes. Promoted from a neutral rating for its beauty and utility.

June 2009:

Guerlain’s classic Vetiver introduces itself with a very wet, round citrus accord. It takes some time before the citrus is underpinned by a relatively mellow vetiver note. Later in the course of its development it also reveals a touch of smoke and some crisp green notes that extend the life of the opening citrus accord.

The fragrance cruises along in vetiver-citrus mode for a long time, and I find its uncomplicated structure brisk and refreshing. Guierlain Vetiver is a classical fragrance in the true sense of the word. Like an ionic temple or a Mozart concerto, it exhibits perfect balance, with no extraneous elements to distract from its essential form. If you’re looking for the aggressively earthy, stark, potent vetiver of Route du Vétiver, Vétiver Extraordinaire, or Etro’s Vetiver, you won’t find it here. But if you want a comfortable, civilized approach to the vetiver root, this is it.

August 2009:

I have an odd relationship with Guerlain's Vetiver. I keep thinking that I ought to like it much, much more than I do. With tobacco, nutmeg, coriander and neroli gracing its star note, this stuff should be catnip for me. An yet - it never strikes as much more than "OK."

Why is that? Could it be that I've become accustomed to bolder, more aggressive vetivers, like Encre Noire or Route du Vétiver? No, that can't be it, since I find the more polite and civilized Sycomore and Givenchy Vetyver far more compelling than the Guerlain. Whatever keeps me from loving Guerlain Vetiver dearly lies with the scent itself. As I wear it and study it, I notice a few things:

First, it's very linear on me once the vetiver and cedar emerge.

Second, it's very, very shy on my skin. After fifteen minutes of wear I always have to search for it with my nose to make sure it's still there.

Third, and most disappointing, is that the vetiver and cedar heart smells oddly hollow and emaciated to me, as if the flesh on the accord has been whittled away by some erosive force, and only the skeleton remains.

I still want to like it, but I can't actually find all that much in it to like.

Eau du Sud is a beautifully, truthfully rendered lemon-centered fragrance with a bracing herbal component that lifts it beyond the horde of limp, "fresh" scents that crowd the nasal passages these days. The heart accord is very well blended and not overly sweet. The only note that really sticks out to my nose is basil, which does send me some culinary signals. Not enough to make me want to chew on myself, however. Very pretty, clearly unisex, and extremely well executed. Not the kind of fragrance that I get excited about, but I do have to ackowledge its quality.

As an aside, I find Eau du Sud far more interesting than Goutal's more popular (and overrated?) Eau d'Hadrien.

February 2007:

Confused, though not terribly interesting, for the 30 seconds it lasted on my skin. My curiosity is sated. I don't have to try this one again.

August 2009:

How many times have I since re-tried Dzing! ? I've lost count. How many ounces of the stuff have I emptied onto my hide in my efforts to get Dzing! to last long enough to evaluate? Enough that if I develop some sort of strange, purple fungal growth on my left arm, I will attribute it to Dzing!

What have I concluded? I actually like Dzing! The animalic leather, so evocative of well-used equestrian tack, the sweet, labdanum-seasoned base notes, the oft-mentioned and captivating "paper bag" or "cardboard" note - it's all great. But never, ever, has an appealing scent so disappointed me in its rapid disappearance. Habituation? Anosmia? Is everyone else still smelling this on me long after I can not? Do I want to wear a scent that I can't smell on myself? The only firm answer I have is to this last query, and it is "No." So while Dzing! smells great, I will never own a bottle. (Instead I turn to the remotely similar Cumming, which is drier and smokier, but endures far longer on my skin.)

Boucheron launches on a lovely honeyed neroli accord and fills out, via tuberose, tonka bean, and sandalwood, into a rich, mellow floral bouquet that rivals even Joy, Van Cleef & Arpels First, and Givenchy’s Le De in depth and balance. The decadence of indole and the lightest touch of civet lend animalic warmth without distracting from the larger-than-life floral heart, while the silky sandalwood provides a dry counterpoint to what might otherwise have been an overly sweet and heady composition.

Sillage and projection are both ample, though Boucheron is not of the same megaphone-wielding volume of its near contemporaries, Giorgio and Amarige. Boucheron endures well on the skin, with a smooth, sweet tonka (coumarin), resin, and musk drydown that generates an appealing warmth while avoiding any trace of the stuffiness that large scale white flower-centered floral-orientals sometimes lapse into. A worthy foray in a field made competitive by so many other classic entries.

Sashka Black is a hulking, beetle browed fougère built on the same massive scale as Lauder for Men, Jules, and Havana. As the name implies, it’s dark, but it’s also scrupulously clean in a decidedly old-fashioned – maybe even stodgy – manner. If ever there were a fragrance for which the descriptor “barbershop” was apt, this is it.

Sashka Black opens on a very clear, sweet bergamot that’s soon complimented by the classical fougère components of lavender and tonka (coumarin). The artemisia (wormwood) listed in the pyramid is detectable, but not dominant, or even conspicuous as it is in some other fougères. The central aromatic accord rests on a foundation of clean musk, moss, and sweet amber.

While Sashka Black is weighty, it is not a complicated scent. Whatever its actual content, the composition reads as if it were assembled from a mere half-a-dozen ingredients. That's just fine and dandy, but in its simplicity Sashka Black misses the idiosyncrasies that enliven other big-boned fougères. It has none of the animalic undertones that make Jules and Lauder for Men so seductive, nor any of the lush tobacco, leather or floral notes that make Havana and Or Black so profoundly nuanced. In the company of these other giants, Sashka Black seems incomplete. Where scents like Or Black or Lauder for Men perform on the skin, Sashka Black just falls out of the bottle and lies there.

I have no idea whether it’s still in production (M. Micallef is capricious about maintaining its catalog), but it is without doubt costly and hard to find. I’m also quite certain it’s not worth the expense or the effort.

KL opens on a huge candied mandarin accord before filling out into a voluptuous, spicy-sweet oriental in an unapologetically bold, colorful style that has few proponents these days outside of Serge Lutens. Though soundly 1980s in flavor, KL is not oppressively loud. In fact, for a public used to wearing and smelling Angel, it’s actually quite polite in sillage and projection.

All the usual suspects are present: powdery amber, vanilla, indolic orange blossom, a touch of animalic musk, cinnamon and cloves. The notes are extremely well blended, so that KL comes off as a seamless, monolithic structure. Given KL’s sheer heft and intense sweetness, the liability involved is a certain tedium. The volume might not be offensive, but the looming, featureless presence becomes unsettling after an hour, then outright irritating after two. KL lacks the kind of complexity, eccentric edginess, or provocative accents that sustain interest in equally bold, sweet orientals like Eau Lente, Shaal Nur, Shalimar, or Maharanih. It’s a nice enough scent, but not something I’d be compelled to revisit.

Here’s why you should never, ever evaluate a fragrance solely on paper:

On paper, Lalique White is a generic fresh fruity fougère (Cool Water clone) over an overtly synthetic cedar (Iso E Super) foundation. Slender, bleak, and forgettable.

On my skin, Lalique White opens with a snappy white pepper, tart citrus, and nutmeg accord that bears no (I mean zero, zilch, nada,) resemblance to the bland little blot of fruit on the test strip. While I still don’t think it’s earth-shattering, Lalique White wears like one of Jean-Claude Ellena’s citrus, spice, and woods compositions – say Déclaration without the animalic cumin, or Un Jardin en Méditerranée without the green fig. Unfortunately, it still dries down to a thin, dusty pseudo-cedar, but then I suppose if it didn’t, nobody would know that it was meant to be worn by men.

If you’ve ever tasted Applejack or Calvados, you’ll know Nicole Miller’s topnotes: booze and spiced apples. The apples and alcohol are unfortunately a tad chemical in character, so the impression they leave is more “scented candle” than “personal fragrance.” Of course apple on a spicy-woody fougère base is hardly original, having been essayed by roughly 49% of all masculine fragrances since Green Irish Tweed and Cool Water. (Another 49% are aquatics, leaving the remaining 2% for everything else.)

Some say this is a leather scent, and Michael Edwards classifies it as a woody-oriental, but I think Nicole Miller treads the by now conventional fruity fougère path quite closely, though distinguishing itself to a small degree by way of an odd, gamy, animalic note deep in its foundation. This bit of mammalian funk is a reminder of bolder animalic fougères like Lauder for Men, Kouros, and Jules, but Nicole Miller doesn’t quite have the guts to go all the way, and winds up seeming almost apologetic. Neither the godsend some claim, nor Satan’s spawn, but a pleasant fruity thing for men that’s outclassed by scents like New York, L’Anarchiste, or the now ironically no-more-expensive(!) Amouage Ciel.

March 2009:

The bottle says “Hinoki” but I smell a lemming.

Hinoki goes on smelling like very dry cedar shavings, and not all that much else. Tremendous sillage and projection make this a hard scent to ignore, and this astounding volume, in concert with the dominant cedar-like accord, suggests to me that Hinoki’s formula contains boatloads of Iso E Super. After an hour a relatively hard-edged frankincense note separates itself from the monolithic dry woody accord, but the structure remains exceptionally stark and simple. The course is linear from there on, and Hinoki doesn’t seem to develop so much as very slowly fade away.

If you’re a fan of spare, ascetic incense fragrances, you’ll probably like Hinoki. Note however that Comme des Garçons’ very own Avignon and (especially) Kyoto offer a similar olfactory experience at a fraction of the price. It’s not that Hinoki is a bad scent, but there just isn’t that much to it, and I can’t for the life of me understand why people are getting so excited by it.

Frankly, having witnessed the phenomenon in music and visual arts, I feel scents like Hinoki illustrate the dead end nature of minimalism as an artistic style. Strip enough “extraneous” matter from any artwork, and the penultimate result is boring. The ultimate result is – well - nothing, and when some clever niche company markets a bottle of distilled water for $250 we’ll know that’s where we’ve arrived.

August, 2009:

Inspired by Sommerville Metro Man’s experience, I decided to re-evaluate the much-lauded Monocle Scent One: Hinoki. For this wearing, I applied the scent quite generously, hoping that a good basting job would reveal depths I’d missed in my earlier trial.

Guess what? It’s still a thin, hollow pseudo-cedar (Iso E Super) with a touch of camphoraceous juniper, some frankincense, and not much else, and it still smells like high-end hamster bedding. What’s worse, for an expensive, super-premium niche release, it smells cheap. Very, very cheap. I remain firmly unconvinced. Demoted to a thumbs-down for Comme des Garçons' audacity in charging so much for so little.

The opening blast of rubbing alcohol does not bode well for my enjoyment of Black Jeans, but it is mercifully very brief and soon supplanted by an appropriately dark, spicy medley of nutmeg, ginger, orange rind, and clove/carnation on a leather and patchouli backdrop. Tempered by dry aromatics and a very generous dose of labdanum, Black Jeans’ patchouli takes on a pipe tobacco character that aligns it closely with massive, dark fougères like Pascal Morabito’s Or Black and Aramis Havana.

The tobacco-like patchouli accord grows to dominate Black Jeans for much of its development. While not as dense or loud as either of the two aforementioned heavyweights, Black Jeans is still a weighty and powerful fragrance, with ample projection and generous sillage. In fact, for a late 1990s scent, it’s surprisingly bold and demonstrative. Paradoxically, Black Jeans doesn’t endure all that long on my skin. It enters its leathery, labdanum-rich fougère drydown inside of two hours, and is difficult to detect at all by the four or five hour mark. It’s not tragically short-lived, just surprisingly so for something so assertive in character. I very much like the stuff, but in the era of sterile aquatics and lightweight fruity fougère “sport” colognes, it’s no wonder that Black Jeans didn’t survive.

The rich, sweet citrus opening is lovely, but also rather "perfumey" in a familiar way that I can't quite place. Although there's no lavender note listed, I'm reminded of Jicky, minus the civet.

As the scent develops a distinct powdery note emerges to underpin the heart, which remains sweet and fruity, with an overlay of gentle wood notes. A very light and delicately balanced vanillic accord comes to the surface as time passes, integrating with the powdery note in a velvety, yet somehow very bright base.

Eventually the sweet fruit and vanilla drive Lux into a candy-like domain, without enough dry notes for my nose. The powdery vanilla and wood drydown seems a bit conventional after the rest of the trip, but it's certainly pretty and still very well-balanced. Not as daring or original as Nuit Noire, but a nice scent nonetheless. I think I'd like it better on a woman than on myself, by the way.

Angel: The Great Divider. Lionized and demonized, lauded and despised, but rarely ever failing to make some kind of impression. And how could it? Even if its gourmand woody-oriental structure is by now (overly?) familiar, it is still too unapologetically brash to ignore. It’s also wound up being oddly inimitable. Its offspring nearly always strike me as smelling exactly like Angel, or smelling like Angel gone horribly wrong. It remains a singular phenomenon, a Hanging Rock in the landscape of fragrance. Myself, I rather like it, especially compared to the abominable A*Men, which I number among the “gone horribly wrong” contingent. I’d much sooner wear Angel itself, which I find no less “masculine” than something like Pi, Rochas Man, or Le Mâle.

Indolic tropical white flowers, galbanum, a touch of spice, and powdery aldehydes. It could have been unbearably sweet, heavy, and suffocating, but it’s delicate as Venetian glass. It could have been trite, but it’s elegant and spirited.

What makes Fidji so special? “B and B” – balance and blending. Fidji’s central white flower accord is extremely smooth and seamlessly blended. Its strength is perfectly modulated for tantalizing sillage without overbearing weight. It contains just enough galbanum give it spine, just enough aldehydes to give it some olfactory “lift” and just enough sweetness to round off its edges. Finally, it avoids going all to pieces in the drydown. Instead it very slowly reveals a waxen, warm, nutty accord of what smells like clean musk and sandalwood. It’s a wonder to me that Fidji remains so relatively obscure a fragrance.

The purist’s leather: a rich, smoky, birch tar-laden leather accord unencumbered by much of anything else. Critics might complain that this is more of a perfumer’s “base” than a true fragrance, but if you want unadulterated leather, this is it. Linear for a few of hours before it fades into a soft, labdanum-seasoned amber.

Forget the jasmine, frankincense, herbs, and saffron in the pyramid. It’s about the leather, so if you think the iris and civet in Chanel Cuir de Russie, the fruit, moss, and spices in Knize Ten, and the oudh in Oud Cuir d’Arabie are all distractions, this may be your leather scent. If any of these others are your leather ideal, you might find Tuscan Leather incomplete. But I can’t deny that it smells good!

Well, my sample of Polo has gone missing, and I’m disappointed at not being able to make a side-by-side comparison between Modern Reserve and the original release. Like bbBD, I don’t find much resemblance to the original Polo in Modern Reserve’s bergamot and aromatic fresh fougère-style top notes. It’s only after about twenty or thirty minutes’ wear that Polo’s leather, woods, and tobacco make their entrance. From that point onward it’s pretty close to what I remember as Polo, perhaps a touch drier and with less conifer resin at its heart, but still very much the big 1970s gentleman’s club leather and cigar scent. Which is to say good, if a bit out of synch with today’s olfactory aesthetic. I wouldn't pay the extraordinary premium that a bottle of Modern Reserve demanded upon first release, and I'm not certain how much (if any) improvement over the original Polo Modern Reserve represents, but this scent does succeed on its own merits.

So what does B*Men have in common with A*Men? The sweet intensity? Mostly. The patchouli? Certainly. The tremendous sillage and projection? Still there. The chocolate? Hey! Where’s the chocolate!!?? For that matter, where’s the mint?

Yup, B*Men smells a bit like A*Men without the more outlandish gourmand elements. What’s left is a very sweet, spicy, patchouli-dominated woody oriental scent. Which is to say, nothing special. The drydown, which sets in after an hour or two and persists forever, is a dense, sweet accord of powdery vanilla, patchouli, cedar, and a raspy woody amber. It is at once very loud, heavy, and shapeless, and leaves me with the impression of being smothered under heaps of fallen velvet drapery.

As a scent B*Men is neither here nor there. It lacks its predecessor’s outrageous elements, its eccentricities, and hence much of its originality, yet retains the crude bulk that makes A*Men feel so oppressive to some noses. (Mine included.) I’m not surprised it’s gone.

One of the original calone bomb aquatics, and still one of the best. Why? First because it’s actually more complex in olfactory structure and development than most of what followed it. Besides ozone, brine, melon, and cedar, Kenzo pour Homme cycles through spices, floral notes, moss(!), and iris(!!) in its oceanic peregrinations. Second because it’s at once more subtle and better blended than most of its peers. Too many aquatics smell like industrial chemical spills or products for cleaning shower stalls on my skin, but not this one. Kenzo pour Homme smells like an abstract rendering of sea and sky: expansive, outdoorsy, and uplifting. Of all the mainstream aquatic scents I’ve tried, I recommend either this or the equally good, though very different, Bvlgari Aqva.

Ah, the fearsome, cumin-drenched, armpit-reeking Kingdom!

So? Where is it?

Years of wearing scents like Muscs Koublaï Khan, Eau d’Hermès, Ungaro II, and Kouros must have left my nostrils very jaded, because Kingdom smells like a pleasantly spicy, sweet oriental scent on a vanilla-sandalwood foundation with a moderate animalic accent. I’m neither shocked nor scandalized, nor would I really expect anyone else who’s enjoyed wearing Jicky, Chanel’s Cuir de Russie, Bal à Versailles, or Bandit to be either. It’s just not that far out of the box.

What killed Kingdom, I suspect, was that McQueen (bravely) introduced it at a time when the mainstream feminine fragrance axiom was the candy-sweet fruity floral and the commercial men’s fragrance archetype was the ultra-sanitary, “fresh” aquatic scent or fruity fougère. (And make no mistake about it, Kingdom could just as well have been a “masculine” scent as a “feminine,” and is equally wearable for non-squeamish members of either gender.) This would have been popular on the niche market as a slightly heavier and more subdued alternative to Muscs Koublaï Khan. Too bad the general public didn’t have the stomach for it.

A much more enjoyable scent than Le Mâle, in my opinion. In fact, I don’t at first smell much of Le Mâle’s brazenly synthetic, sweet, vanilla oriental structure in Fleur de Mâle. What I get instead is a potent, soapy white flower accord with plenty of indolic orange blossom and a very conspicuous dose of bitter-green petitgrain. The vanilla does well up later in Fleur du Mâle’s development, but tempered as it is by the woody green florals, it is much more palatable here than in Le Mâle. Besides the vanilla, Fleur du Mâle shares with its predecessor an unabashedly chemical mien. Call it crass or artful, but I believe that this effect is calculatedly confrontational – just like the ridiculously campy homoerotic Ken doll bottle. In true Gaultier fragrance style, Fleur du Mâle is also loud, with conspicuous sillage and ample projection. No understatement here!

Two hours into Fleur du Mâle’s development the orange blossom has faded, and while some floral character remains, the drydown is mostly a potent, spicy, coumarin and vanilla based oriental accord that’s quite a bit more ordinary than what went before. I like it well enough, but without the added fillip of the white flowers its bluntness and its sustained high intensity can become tiresome. I see Fleur du Mâle as an olfactory diamond in the rough: a little less loud, a little less crude, and it might be an unequivocally outstanding fragrance. Even as it is I like the idea behind Fleur du Mâle, and I credit its nerve, despite its moments of (intentional?) gaucherie. A borderline thumbs up.

For the record, this scent has nothing whatsoever to do with the original Kouros. Instead, Body Kouros is Annick Menardo’s second masculine take on the licorice flavored woody-oriental theme she introduced with the original Lolita Lempicka. It is also much the better of the two. It is sweeter, darker, and spicier than Lolita Lempicka, but more smooth, suave, and balanced than the comparatively clumsy Lolita Lempicka au Masculin. In sillage and potency it lies between the two. I actually find it louder than Lolita Lempicka, with ample projection, but better mannered than the sometimes intrusive au Masculin.

Most importantly, Body Kouros avoids au Masculin’s crude, sinus-bludgeoning woody amber base note, resulting in a far more gratifying drydown. So, if you’re a man who likes the whole licorice oriental idea, but don’t feel comfortable owning a “feminine” fragrance, Body Kouros will do the job for you, and admirably. (Conversely, if you like Body Kouros and want something a wee bit drier and more transparent, you might sample the original Lolita Lempicka. Wiser critics than I have judged it a fine scent for men.)

I guess it’s easy to please when expectations are low. The fuchsia fishnet-clad ballerina/slut on the foiled box and the pastel pink liquid in the sample vial had me prepared to gag upon inhalation. It’s actually not that bad. Yes, it’s sweet, and yes, the candied melon and synthetic clean white flower top notes are also the middle and base notes, but where I expected something loud and crass came something pleasantly crisp and surprisingly transparent. If you must have a sweet, sweet fruity floral fragrance in the ubiquitous contemporary manner, you could do far worse than this.

Baldessarini’s top notes are a conventional, but very well executed blend of citrus and aromatics, but the heart is something more unusual. It is essentially a two part structure: a sweet, yet brisk spiced fruit accord set against a very dry, dusty cedar. As for the tobacco listed in the pyramid, I detect it to some degree on paper, but on my skin it seems to merge into the spiced fruit accord and leaves no distinct impression.

The spiced fruit and cedar may derive from Féminité du Bois and Donna Karan’s Chaos, but in those scents the two elements are blended into a seamless accord, whereas in Baldessarini they do not so much blend as stand side by side, drawing the nose back and forth between them. Though it employs different ingredients, this is the same trick played by Bernard Chant in his Aramis (animalic leather vs. white flowers) and Aramis 900 (green floral vs. amber/patchouli), and it succeeds here as well, generating an olfactory tension that maintains interest until the drydown.

The drydown is where I enjoy Baldessarini the least. While the spiced fruit portion of the scent endures quite well, it does fade long before the cedar, which on its own smells rather colorless and thin. Anticlimactic in its development, but a very good scent nonetheless.

Serge, Chris, enough with the desserts! Several Sheldrake-Lutens scents, including Rousse, Arabie, and Chergui, are smelling like slightly varied takes on baklava to me. Now I’ll have to add Cèdre to the list as well. Yes, Chergui adds hay, Rousse adds cinnamon, and Cèdre adds woods, but once they begin to dry down on me they grow too similar to warrant owning more than one.

Meanwhile, if there’s any tuberose in Cèdre, it’s gone before I get a chance to catch it, crushed under the freight train full of syrupy amber and dried fruit. Yes, I can smell the resinous cedar in the mix, but it’s very much a backseat passenger. All in all, a disappointment.

Very dry white floral notes dominate Secrète Datura's start, resting upon a crisp, powdery foundation. The heart accord is very soapy, with a hint of orange blossom flickering in the background. Green notes emerge in the heart, adding some grit to the olfactory experience.

After about an hour, the composition begins to darken, though it somehow never manages to catch the menacing nocturnal intrigue of the sweetly scented, yet deadly toxic datura flower. Ultimately, I expected more mystery out of this scent, as lovely as it is, and so I’m left a little disappointed.

Don't let the name fool you - this is not a scent for little girls! Miss Dior goes on green, green, and green, with an intriguing bitter edge and just a hint of dry, aldehydic florals in the sillage. Floral and aromatic notes come quickly to the fore, but the crisp green edge on the scent endures. The accords brighten bit by bit, but without growing measurably sweeter.

Miss Dior's heart remains brisk, yet deep. Soft woods and powerful moss provide a firm foundation as the opening green notes begin to fade, but never becomes heavy. By the time I've worn it for a couple of hours Miss Dior has evolved into a very pleasing, dry, classically constructed chypre. Though it enters its drydown quickly, MIss Dior persists as a subtle skin scent for a few hours.

Harissa falls squarely into my "pleasant surprise" category. Coming from a house like Comme des Garcons, and with a name alluding to a mouth-searing North African condiment, I was expecting a harsh and unwearable capsicum concoction along the lines of L'Arisan Parfumeur's Piment Brulant. Sometimes it's wonderful to be proven wrong!

The bitter, abrasive scent of green pepper is indeed present at the start, but it's folded into a cool and semi-sweet mélange of clove and citrus. Harissa warms up very quickly as the crisp top notes are joined by a mellow spice and incense accord, made edgy by the presence of black (not chili) pepper. All of this rests atop a cushion of sweet, rounded vanillic notes and nutmeg that makes Harissa's heart distinctly oriental in style.

Harissa's spicy-sweet, peppered heart vaguely recalls Lorenzo Villoresi's controversial Piper Nigrum - enough that I feel safe recommending Harissa to anyone who enjoys the Villoresi but wants a lighter, more refreshing fragrance. Given its composition Harissa is a surprisingly bright and transparent scent, perhaps because of a lingering crisp tomato leaf note that punctuates the main spicy accord.

As Harissa ages on the skin it grows progressively more mellow and diaphanous, while exposing a firm woody base that's warmed by just a hint of very clean musk. While it's not a weak scent, Harissa hangs close to the skin and does not trail clouds of sillage in its wake. Longevity is more than acceptable though, as the drydown progresses over the course of six hours or more. My lasting impression of Harissa is of a crisp, clear, yet exotic fragrance that would be great summer alternative to the traditional citrus and aquatic scents. My thanks to the kind Basenoter who sent me the sample - I would not have made this lovely find on my own!

November 2008:

Juniper berries, bay leaf, and booze: that’s bay rhum, and that’s Czech and Speake’s Cuba. Some tobacco, leather, and a touch of smoke round out the structure until a somewhat abrasive woody drydown sets in. I like Cuba’s starting point better than its destination, so when I’m in the mood for booze and tobacco I’ll still turn to the richer, more complex, though sadly discontinued Havana.

August 2009:

The more time I spend with Cuba, the more I like it. The drydown is indeed angular, but warm weather also brings out a stupendous fecal-animalic component (civet and castoreum I think,) that makes it paradoxically frightening and irresistible. Ideal for people who, like me, occasionally enjoy rolling in their own filth!

I’ve had a hard time figuring this one out. Set beside the re-released Insensé, Vetyver, Le De, and Givenchy III, L’Interdit seems shy, tame, and conventional. The top notes are extremely soft, sweet, “perfumey” aldehydic florals that make L’Interdit smell more like a period piece than any of the other Givenchy Les Parfums Mythiques reissues I’ve tried.

The powdery aldehydes, the prim white flowers, and a musky, mossy foundation make for a frankly dowdy heart accord. A previous review describes the scent as “dusty,” and I concur. There’s something flat and stale at the core of L’Interdit that my nose just can’t get past. Mind you, it’s possible that I’m anosmic to a large portion of this composition: it becomes extremely hard for me to detect L’Interdit after only ten or fifteen minutes’ wear.

L’Interdit – at least what I can smell of it – becomes more palatable to me with age, as the aldehydes and powder retreat and some woods, spices and vanilla emerge from underneath them. After an hour or two with L’Interdit what I experience is a very pale floral-oriental with an old-fashioned face powder accord of talcum and moss. In short, nothing special. I have not had the opportunity to try either the original 1957 scent or the 2002 reformulation, so I have no idea how the current version stands up to its predecessors. Perhaps they were more impressive.

June, 2009:

Let’s get one thing out of the way. Geranium is not, I repeat, IS NOT, in the strictest sense a floral note. To the best of my considerable horticultural/botanical knowledge, geranium flowers are utterly without scent. (By the way, the scented “geraniums” from which geranium oil is extracted and the “geraniums” that grandma grew in her window boxes are not even geraniums at all, but members of the allied genus Pelargonium.) Natural geranium oil is derived from the leaves of the rose-scented Pelargonium. While geranium shares aromachemical content – particularly geraniol – with rose, and is used in many rose reconstructions, it does not smell exactly like rose. It has a peculiar bittersweet, astringent, herbaceous-aromatic character to it, one that occupies a territory roughly bounded by mint, sage, and lavender. Those who complain that they can’t smell the geranium in Geranium pour Monsieur are probably sniffing for a rosy floral note, and they’re not going to find one in this decidedly dry, aromatic composition.

Now as for Geranium pour Monsieur, it has been a hard fragrance for me to come to grips with. I own a bottle of it, not because I necessarily like it (though I may decide I do), but because I’ve been wearing it often just to figure it out. As others have noted, it’s not actually geranium, but mint that headlines this scent, and mint is notorious as one of the hardest notes to use effectively in perfumes. Not only is it conspicuous and resistant to blending; it is also instantly recognizable, and hence distracting. On top of that come the seemingly inescapable associations with toothpaste, mouthwash, and chewing gum.

How does a perfumer employ mint without suggesting an oral hygiene product? Dominique Ropion does it in Geranium pour Monsieur by harnessing mint to a team of bitter aromatics, including geranium, that are so patently inedible that the resulting accord could never be mistaken for anything you’d willingly put into your mouth. The astringent, mildly camphoraceous aspect of geranium oil is the structural link that binds the mint to the rest of this scent’s aromatic elements, and its use in this respect it tremendously clever and original. In fact, clever and original apply to Geranium pour Monsieur’s entire structure. I can say in all honesty that I have never smelled anything quite like it.

What does Geranium pour Monsieur smell like? Well, that depends upon when you smell it. One of the most peculiar things about Geranium pour Monsieur is its development. This consists of two extremely distinct and sharply separated phases. Each of the two is resolutely linear while it endures, and the transition between them is so abrupt that it might as well be activated by a toggle switch.

The first phase is all bracing mint and bitter, savory aromatics that deliver a sharp slap in the face. The accord is cool, clean, and medicinal. It’s also unusual in that it makes no pretense of naturalism. It smells not of any recognizable collection of herbs plucked from the ground, but rather of aromachemicals (natural or otherwise), selected and arranged with pride and clear intent. In this respect it resembles certain scents from Comme des Garçons or Etat Libre de Orange’s notorious Sécrétions Magnifiques, and while it’s equally provocative, it does not employ any notes that are inherently harsh or discordant. What it does do is take olfactory abstraction to a whole new level. Sure, there’s a freshly scrubbed and shaved aspect to Geranium pour Monsieur, but this shave took place in a barbershop on Mars. Geranium pour Monsieur’s crisp, cool phase persists for an hour or two at most – not all that long, but too long for me to think of it as top notes. While it persists it is moderately potent and projects a comfortable distance from the skin: detectable at arm’s length, but never distracting.

The phase that follows is such a complete contrast that it could almost be a whole new scent. In the blink of an eye, Geranium pour Monsieur goes from icy aromatics to a soft, dry skin scent that’s built on soapy musks and sandalwood. As different from the first phase as it is in content, the second phase remains resolutely clean, and sustains the rigorously abstract style. The musks are not trying to smell “natural” in any way. They instead suggest an amplified trace of soap on just-washed skin. A true skin scent, the second phase of Geranium pour Monsieur wears very close and is detectable only at relatively intimate distances.

Upon reflection, I could almost describe Geranium pour Monsieur’s development as a much-extended display of top notes and a drydown, without the usual “heart” or middle notes that provide the core olfactory experience in traditional fragrances. Viewed this way or not, it is an extremely novel scheme that will fascinate some and frustrate others. Beyond this unusual olfactory progression, Geranium pour Monsieur represents several achievements for Dominique Ropion: he has succeeded in composing a mint fragrance that does not smell like toothpaste; he has created an aromatic fragrance for men that smells nothing like a traditional fougère; and he has built a “clean,” refreshing, modern fragrance without a trace of the stereotypical calone, ozone, fruit, or aquatic scent components. For all of this I applaud it. What I can’t decide is whether I actually like the way it smells.

August, 2009:

OK, I've decided that I like it. In a summer that has broken every temperature record in this city, Geranium pour Monsieur has proven itself an attractive and original warm weather staple. An outstanding alternative to fruity fougères and trite aquatics.

Ormonde Woman goes on with peppery green citrus top notes that are tangy, moist, and pleasantly bitter all at once. The citrus note bows out even more quickly than most to leave a refreshing peppery, herbaceous accord. The heart is all herbaceous, violet-seasoned woods in the manner of (believe it or not,) Geoffrey Beane’s Grey Flannel, though much lighter, sharper, and more transparent. In fact, so clear and simple is the texture that it can be compared with the most minimalist of Jean-Claude Ellena’s compositions. (Un Jardin en Mediterranée comes to mind.)

With time the herbal elements dissipate, leaving a very dry, clear cedar and moss base. Ormonde Woman is an extremely understated and transparent scent that does not project far from the skin and leaves no sillage to speak of. It’s not terribly long lasting either, so you’re likely to go through that expensive bottle very quickly if you wear it at all often. On the plus side, Ormonde Woman is a very sophisticated fragrance and belongs to a rare genus of dry, green woody scents aimed at women. It’s also perfectly suited for use by men – certainly better than the dull, monochromatic Ormonde Man. Even so, price and poor lasting power work against Ormonde Woman, and I’ll go so far as suggest the ladies try a light spritz of Grey Flannel before splurging on a bottle of this! (Revised to a reluctant "thumbs up" for originality, and because it's actually far more effective on my wife than on me.)

Une Zeste de Rose engages the nose with a very pretty opening maneuver that entails crisp herbaceous notes (the maté in the pyramid?) moist lemon, green tea, and a sweet, gentle rose. The accord balances on a minute fulcrum lying somewhere between the garden and the salad bowl, and so manages to be appetizing without actually smelling like food.

The citrus naturally recedes over the first quarter hour of wear, leaving a very simple, clean, translucent green tea and rose accord at the core of the scent. As a happy, lightweight rose Une Zeste de Rose is a cousin to Olivia Giacobetti’s Drôle de Rose for L’Artisan Parfumeur. Une Zeste de Rose is the less sweet of the pair, with more soap and powder in its base notes. The soapy accent leaves Une Zeste de Rose smelling both more mature and more traditional than Drôle de Rose: where Drôle de Rose suggests childish mischief, Une Zeste de Rose projects a relaxed, yet composed dignity.

For such a crystalline and effervescent scent Une Zeste de Rose is surprisingly potent. It projects well off of the skin and leaves a conspicuous, though never overwhelming, cloud of sillage behind it. Lasting power is respectable, with a few hours of floral optimism before the clean musk drydown sets in. Une Zeste de Rose belongs to a class of fragrances, including Diorissimo, Monsieur Balmain, Givenchy’s Vetyver, En Passant, Cristalle, and Après l’Ondée (among others), which while diverse in style and content, all succeed on the basis of simplicity, clarity, and poise. Commendable and recommendable.

Annick Goutal’s “honeysuckle” is all sweetness and light: crisp citrus, lively greens, and the most delicate, transparent floral notes imaginable. It’s really too green, too tart, and too effervescent to smell much like honeysuckle blossoms, and what I pick out instead are tomato leaf, lemon, cardamom, a moist, crystalline green jasmine, perhaps some anise, and a touch of hay or narcissus. This blend may not mimic honeysuckle, but it succeeds in setting a bright summer morning mood that’s perfectly consistent with honeysuckle. It’s devastatingly pretty, but completely innocent, ebullient, and weightless.

In fact, Le Chèvrefeuille smells so bright and buoyant that it seems to have no base notes. Defying gravity in this manner exacts a price in longevity, and it should come as no surprise that Goutal’s Le Chèvrefeuille endures for no more than two hours on the skin. Thing is, this smiling scent is such pleasant company while it lasts that I really can’t bring myself to knock it. Instead I think I'll just put on some more.

Omnia starts out with a very bright citrus note, black tea, and sweet spices, all of which remind me of Bigelow’s “Constant Comment” tea blend. These are soon joined by an oddly flat, milky-sweet accord which could very well be an attempt (misguided?) at “white chocolate,” but which comes off more like cocoa butter pudding.

As long as the opening gesture prevails, Omnia is a pleasantly transparent, effervescent, and well balanced spicy citrus oriental. The spice blend includes cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and black pepper, and I believe it’s this last, in combination with the citrus, that offsets the flabby pudding accord and lends Omnia its distinctive sparkling texture.

Omnia is a relatively low-key fragrance from start to finish, with only modest sillage and projection. It troubles me only in its drydown, where the fading citrus leaves the black pepper alone to combat the milky blandness of the cocoa butter. That Omnia dissipates entirely before the pudding declares victory is all to its benefit.

When I wear Omnia, I can’t help but think that it narrowly misses being a much more exciting scent than it actually is. It is extremely appealing, and it’s structure shows some originality; yet there’s just something bland about it, too. I suppose the name does say it all – everything, to everybody. Omnia is comfortable, safe, and easy, but it’s not compelling.

Dream? Nightmare is more like it.

The sinus-hammering candied fruit and indolic white flower accord upon which Songes opens smells entirely artificial. Its central element is a Godzilla-sized tuberose that’s been miraculously shorn of every trace of grace or charm. If a flower could chew tobacco and expectorate loudly into a spittoon, this one would. Excruciating.

I am pleased to report that the sweet “froot” recedes within an hour, but I can’t decide whether leaving the nasty plastic flower accord exposed on its own amounts to much of an improvement. In all honesty, this is the kind of perfume that gives tuberose a bad name. (Amarige and Giorgio are its co-conspirators.) The good news is that the entire experience is over rather quickly, as Songes slides into its soapy, woody-vanillic drydown within a couple of hours. Thank heaven for small mercies.

As a reworking of Guerlain’s discontinued Coriolan, L’Ame d’un Héros is a conservatively styled spicy masculine chypre. Though it occupies similar territory to Moustache and Chanel pour Monsieur, L’Ame d’un Héros distinguishes itself with a prominent juniper note that imparts a decidedly “outdoorsy,” coniferous character.

The central accord of oakmoss and bergamot with juniper, nutmeg, and immortelle is instantly recognizable from the old Coriolan, but L’Ame d’un Héros is rounder, gentler, and altogether more suave. Coriolan was loud and aggressively “butch,” and always struck me as an overstated 1980s fragrance that arrived after its time. The more polished L’Ame d’un Héros seems like less of an anachronism. I could argue that it’s also more tame, or even bland by comparison, but I can’t deny that L’Ame d’un Héros is the easier of the two to wear.

Others before me have described Bois des Îles in accurate detail, and I see no need to retread that ground. I will say that to my nose Bois des Îles has much in common with its sibling Cuir de Russie, especially the prominent doughy iris root, the animalic civet, and the labdanum-tinged amber drydown. Perhaps I’m deluded, as I haven’t seen the observation made before, but I can’t escape the feeling that the two share some crucial DNA. I’ll even posit that whatever core features Bois des Îles and Cuir de Russie share account for the unparalleled sense of indulgent luxury they both express.

Bois des Îles is simply and without a doubt one of the most compelling wood-centered fragrances I know. I rank it alongside (the vintage) Santal Noble as the finest treatment of sandalwood that I’ve encountered. What more can I add? Only that this is a true classic, one of the few scents that every serious student of perfume must smell at least once in order to appreciate the full scope of olfactory art.

To describe Eau Première as No. 5 after a facelift might be accurate, but it’s not entirely fair. Eau Première is nicer than that - not so much the product of plastic surgery as the original seen in a magic glass that peels away some of its weight and age to show the young girl inside the woman. The lines are smoothed over, but the bones are if anything more visible, and the familiar contours are still there.

Is the iconic No. 5 formula diminished in this greener, fruitier variation? To a degree, yes; but not without some compensating gains. Everything is lighter and more effervescent, even if there is a little less substance, a little less character remaining. The peach and aldehydes are intact, though obviously brightened, in the top notes, and the unmistakable spicy, lactonic, jasmine-centered floral heart accord appears where it’s expected. Only this time out it’s plainly less plush and powdery than in previous incarnations.

Eau Première is not only brighter, but fresher than the familiar No. 5, mostly because its floral accord is lighter on the indole, and because it lacks the subtle animalic accents among the base notes. It’s in that sanitized drydown that Eau Première may disappoint admirers of the original No. 5: the new scent does lack some warmth, depth, and longevity by comparison. On the other hand, Eau Première's perkier, slenderized profile may also make the scent palatable for a new generation of women, and in that regard I see it as a positive development.

Etro’s fragrance line has been unusually consistent in style and quality: honest, well-balanced, and straightforward compositions using first class ingredients in clear and coherent olfactory structures. At their best – as in Shaal Nur, Patchouli, Vetiver, or Palais Jamais - they have a winning directness about them. At their worst – say Sandalo or Anice – they are stolid, plain and just a bit too predictable.

Pegaso, sad to say, falls in with the second lot. It is essentially a traditional eau de Cologne-type composition with an herbal twist, a gambit that’s been played at least a thousand times since Eau Sauvage appeared in the mid 1960s. A new fragrance has do something bold indeed to make this formula fresh. Déclaration did it with aggressively applied cumin, Lubin’s L’Eau Neuve did it with conspicuous moss and an understated animalic accent, and Parfum d’Empire’s Eau de Gloire did it with a luxurious leather. Pegaso’s herbs and labdanum base note are not enough to distinguish it in this company.

Pegaso's most compelling feature is a realistic basil top note, but that doesn’t persist long enough to sustain a unique identity. Once the basil fades Pegaso is just one among many well-crafted but unremarkable citrus blends set on a slightly mossy, woody foundation. Yes, it smells smooth and natural, but at $145 US for 100 ml, I can’t in good conscience recommend it over Eau Sauvage, Cristalle, or any of the Acqua di Parma Colonia variants.

By now I’ve tried all of the Chanel Les Exclusifs range save Beige, and I have mixed feelings about them as a group. All are beautiful, all are superbly blended, and all smell of quality. Some, including Cuir de Russie, Sycomore, Bois des Iles, and 31 Rue Cambon, grip me as unique and brilliant. Others, including No. 18, 28 La Pausa, and No. 22, while just as lovely, strike me as somewhat interchangeable variations on a single theme – that theme being iris. Iris root is wonderful, but I don’t need that many iris scents.

I count Bel Respiro with Cuir de Russie, 31 Rue Cambon, and Bois des Iles as having a character distinct from the line’s pervading iris theme. It’s a crisp, yet extremely smooth, floral green scent of exquisite poise and delicacy. The balance between sharp, grassy galbanum and velvet soft floral notes achieved in Bel Respiro is nothing short of perfect to my nose. If you enjoy Vent Vert, Calandre, or Chanel’s own No. 19, try Bel Respiro. It’s transparent – even ethereal - compared to these, but also more sophisticated and complex, and I think it would make a great introduction to the green fragrance family.

Someday the Aramis brand will get it’s due. Between 1965 and 1995 the house introduced a series of distinctive and affordable fragrances for men, made with outstanding materials and composed by some of the world’s most talented noses. Granted, the brand management has been, shall we say, inconsistent (OK, idiotic), with greats like Havana and Tuscany Forte discontinued and many of the others hidden in the most obscure corners of the men’s fragrance shelves. But still: Aramis, Devin, Aramis 900, Tuscany, Tuscany Forte, JHL, Havana…who else has that kind of track record for masculine scents? Even when it comes to women’s fragrances, few firms besides Chanel, Guerlain, and Dior have turned out scents of such consistent quality.

Aramis 900 is one of the easier of the Aramis scents to find, and along with Tuscany, one of the easiest to wear. In structure it hovers somewhere between an ambery patchouli and a green floral chypre in the manner of Givenchy III or Azzaro Couture. The contrast between Aramis 900’s sweet amber and its bitter green floral accord enlivens the entire composition, engendering a tension that drives the scent in a grand arc from aromatic bergamot opening to mossy balsamic drydown. Given its vintage and its general style I’d have expected Aramis 900 to be loud, or even overbearing, but it’s surprisingly suave and understated. While hardly weak, it does wear comfortably close to the skin, just bold enough to make its presence known, but never so boisterous as to offend. In sum, Aramis 900 is a rounded, satisfying, and sophisticated scent for grownups, one that’s at once wearable, versatile, and rather sadly underrated.

Jasmine et Cigarette is a pleasant surprise among Etat Libre d’Orange’s jokily named and often banal fragrances. The topnotes are unpromising: unadulterated isopropyl alcohol. Once that blows over there’s a perfectly pleasant, (if rather chemical,) soapy green jasmine that tools along unaltered for at least a solid hour.

The cigarette comes later, in the form of a semi-sweet hay-and-tobacco accord that adds welcome warmth and depth to the otherwise dangerously two-dimensional jasmine. Given some of the brand’s other olfactory whoopee cushion effects, I half expected a fetid indolic sucker punch somewhere along the way, but the perfumer avoids adolescent temptation and it never arrives. The clean musk and cedar drydown is unfortunately barren, and seems so by dint of insufficient funds, not artistic intent.

I really like the idea of Jasmine et Cigarette, and Etat Libre d’Orange’s name is, for once, accurate. I only wish the concept had been executed with more finesse: a higher quality jasmine note, a smokier tobacco, a more substantial drydown. As it is I find the scent interesting, but just short of compelling.

Frankincence is the staple note in most of the "incense" fragrances I've tried. That other biblical luxury, myrrh, is something I come across much less often. It appears perhaps most famously in Serge Lutens's excellent La Myrrhe, where it is set in the context of a bright, crisp, aldehydic floral-oriental. Czech & Speake's Frankincense & Myrrh casts it's two leads in a much simpler bubbly-sweet citrus eau de Cologne formula. As a result, the incense ingredients throw aside their accustomed gothic austerity and take on lively supporting roles in a fundamentally sunny, cheerful composition. The idea woks well in that the myrrh's inherent astringency adds a layer of nuance to the citrus accord, while the frankincense extends the life of the scent far beyond that of the traditional eau de Cologne formula.

If there's a downside to all the resultant good cheer, it's that the scent comes off as a bit simplistic. When the incense sheds its goth trappings it leaves its mystery behind as well, and smelling Frankncense and Myrrh reminds me that it's the air of awe and remoteness that makes other incense fragrances like Dzongkha, Jubilation XXV, and Zagorsk so compelling to me. So while it's unquestionalbly well-made and attractive, Frankincense & Myrrh also winds up being just a little bit dull.

Badgley Mischka serves up the brightest, sweetest fruit custard accord you could imagine on a platter of smooth woods, clean musk, and amber. It’s not complex, it’s not sophisticated, and its not subtle. It doesn’t develop all that much, and it reveals no hidden depths. It’s simply happy, and if you’re looking for a cheerful, fruity scent for summers on the beach, you could do a lot worse.

Czech & Speake’s Dark Rose opens up all oudh and roses, rather like Montale’s Black Aoud diluted down to half the concentration. The oudh-rose accord tends toward the stark and monumental, and like many scents based on this combination Dark Rose remains in olfactory stasis for quite some time. The basic character is - well - dark rose, balanced by the slightly caustic, medicinal character of oudh and a generous helping of saffron. If you like the Montale oudh scents in principle, but find them overwhelming, Dark Rose will no doubt appeal.

The rose in Dark Rose sweetens over the course of hours, taking on a “jammy” or liqueur-like character, while the oudh mellows and eventually makes way for some dry sandalwood and vetiver. The Directory entry lists Dark Rose as “feminine,” but with all that wood and the bitter edge on the rose, I’d consider it comfortably gender neutral. It’s certainly no more “girly” than other recent roses for men, such as Amouage Lyric. I must admit though that I’m slightly puzzled by Dark Rose’s presence in the Czech & Speake lineup. The firm already offers No. 88, which while admittedly even darker and more complex, is awfully similar in style and composition.

I had the misfortune to sample Dark Rose just days after encountering Amouage’s brilliant Homage, where oudh and rose travel on an entirely different, and I must say, higher plane. Seen in light of Homage, the more daring Montale oudh scents, and Czech & Speake’s own No. 88, Dark Rose seems tame – even a bit bland – and possibly superfluous.

Gendarme opens on a delightfully refreshing and unconventional (by modern masculine fragrance standards,) assortment of grassy green and light floral notes. Over the first few minutes of wear the sunlit, blooming meadow accord gains depth and support from some bolder herbaceous greens, very light spices, and soft woods. The resulting structure is so delicate, buoyant, and charming that it’s almost impossible to resist smiling at it. Gendarme starts as a “fresh” masculine among throngs of “fresh” masculines, but it establishes its crisp, clean profile without any calone, stereotypical aquatic notes, or tired fruity fougère gestures. A magnificent entry!

Then, after thirty minutes – nothing. Poof. Gone. Gendarme deflates so fast you can practically hear the whoopee cushion noise as all the gas escapes. In mere moments the scent plunges from its promising introduction to a barely detectable, slender, gray, woody drydown of little distinction and no presence. Did the nose responsible fall ill or die before completing the composition, or did the cash just run out?

Were Gendarme merely another banal masculine aquatic, I’d probably just forget about it, but by starting out so well and then imploding, the scent actually irritates me. I resent being teased in this manner, and I’m frustrated by the thought of what might have been. Unfinished compositions by Bruckner and Mahler are tantalizing, but this torso of a scent is just dispiriting, like interrupted sex.

Another grand revival from Givenchy! Le De shares a superb green herbaceous accord with Givenchy III, but where Givenchy III is moist and loamy, Le De is elegantly floral. Jasmine and ylang-ylang are the star players at Le De’s floral heart. These notes can become garish or bombastic in the wrong hands, but here both are presented in such balance and moderation as to squelch any concern. Le De is one of those scents where everything seems to fall perfectly in place. The floral notes are just indolic enough to tantalize, the incense is just dry enough to ground them, and the woody basenotes are just dense enough to lend the whole thing substance without weighing it down.

As a cool, indolic floral fragrance Le De has points in common with Dominique Ropion’s Une Fleur de Cassie for Frederic Malle, but where the Malle goes gloriously over the top with the fetid indoles, Le De maintains delicately classical proportions. If Une Fleur de Cassie is the breath of a seductively beautiful animal, Le De is the breeze off of a sunlit garden terrace. Like so much else about Le De, the power and sillage seem perfectly judged to please without intruding, and while at four to six hours endurance it’s not the longest-lasting fragrance of its type, its longevity is more than adequate. Lovely, really, just lovely.

(This review is of the 2007 reissue.)

The reissued L’Eau Neuve opens with very brisk citrus top notes suggestive of both bergamot and grapefruit, dry herbs, and just a dab of gentle lavender. These are soon joined by what smells to me distinctly like civet (unlisted), sweet floral notes, and woods in a moderately animalic, citrus-and-woods heart accord that’s somewhere between Eau d’Hermès and Déclaration on one side and Eau Sauvage and Cristalle on the other. L’Eau Neuve is drier than all of these, save perhaps Déclaration, and comparatively quiet as well, which leaves it feeling both sophisticated and civilized, despite its animalic content.

As it dries down L’Eau Neuve’s citrus notes inevitably fade, and the composition grows more and more woody. The foundation consists of a luxuriously creamy sandalwood, moss, and lingering animalic musk (civet). The final impression is of rich understatement and quiet elegance. It is, if you will, a softened, and ever so slightly “naughtier” take on the classic citrus chypre represented by Eau Sauvage and Cristalle – the former of which was a near-contemporary of the original L’Eau Neuve. I’d hold the current L’Eau Neuve as a fine example of gender neutrality in fragrance, equally easy to wear for men and women. With its discreet sillage and projection and its quiet poise, I can’t imagine a setting or situation where it would be objectionable. It would make a fine everyday scent, especially in warm weather, where its refreshing citrus notes would be most welcome.

Coromandel is the patchouli entry in Chanel’s Les Exclusifs line, and was apparently composed by the new house perfumer Christopher Sheldrake. Sheldrake’s fingerprints are all over this scent, and I agree on the oft-observed resemblance to his previous Borneo 1834 for Serge Lutens. The two scents are very similar in their late stages, sharing as they do a fuzzy, if slightly generic, synthetic woody amber drydown. In neither case is this accord as crass or heavy as in say, Lolita Lempicka au Masculin or Guerlain Homme, but I would have liked something more original by way of basenotes, especially the second time around.

Before it dries down Coromandel is a sweeter, spicier, and hence more approachable scent than Borneo 1843, the dusty patchouli-cocoa accord being softened by a creamy iris note. Between the extra sweetness, the texture of the iris, and the gentle spices, Coromandel borders closely on the gourmand, though it never quite ventures as far as “edible.” I attribute the inedible quality to a sharp, tangy edge on the patchouli. This piquancy very noticeable up top, but persists well into the heart of the scent. If it lingered even longer it would make a wonderful counterweight to the somewhat flat woody amber in the drydown. Coromandel’s sillage and projection are contained as patchouli rich fragrances go, but it’s by no means a weak or stingy scent. While I’m not in love with it’s drydown, I imagine many others will be happier with it, and since the rest of the fragrance is rich and beautifully composed I have to rate Coromandel an overall success.

Kabloom! First launches right in to a huge aldehydic white flower accord the second you spray it on, then proceeds to fill the room with an unseen cloud of jasmine, green muguet, hyacinth, and rose. It’s the same kind of gargantuan bouquet you get with Joy or even Amouage Gold, though it is crisper in texture and greener in hue than either. That this grand, old-fashioned, and unapologetically “perfumey” scent was composed by Jean-Claude Elléna confirms that he’s composing all those bony, gutless scents for Hermès not because he can’t do otherwise, but rather because he wants to, or because the Hermès art directors demand it of him. At any rate, First makes it clear that Elléna is no less capable of building bold, lush, and substantial accords than is Bertrand Duchaufour (who does so more often) or even Dominique Ropion, whose style First closely approaches. First could easily have been part of the Estée Lauder line, right next to Beautiful, Pleasures, and Private Collection.

First grows subtly sweeter as it develops, with soft vanilla and a generous sweet amber accord deep in its foundation. Potency and sillage remain impressive for hours before First drifts off into its warm ambery drydown. A grand scent if you like this sort of thing.

So where’s the labdanum? Oh, I’m sure there’s some in there, but anyone expecting a labdanum-centered fragrance will be sorely disappointed here. Labdanum 18 is actually nothing other than an attenuated Musc Ravageur: Musc Ravageur “Lite,” if you like, composed by the same Maurice Roucel who did the superb original for Frederic Malle. Labdanum 18 is thus not only unoriginal, but conceptually misguided as well. As I see it, the whole point of Musc Ravageur is its over-the-top extravagance, its unabashed sensuality, and yes, an certain perverse gaudiness. To defang it as Roucel has done here is to render it pointless. There are plenty of other great spicy-sweet oriental fragrances out there at less than half Le Labo’s price. Without thinking about it I can name at least a half a dozen: Eau Lente, Shalimar, Jaïpur Homme, Maharanih, Shaal Nur, L’Air du Desert Marocain, and let's not forget, Musc Ravageur!

Why bother?

Peculiar. Jardin du Nil opens with aldehydic floral notes and an odd “stinky” accord that’s been described as “dirty socks” or “locker room.” I actually think the combination is a bit seductive, but I doubt many would agree. A very strong soapy note (detergent, even,) emerges as the fragrance develops, and this new component jars dramatically with the sustained dirty accent. I pick up a hard worked, post-coital body resting on freshly laundered sheets, while still bearing traces of last night’s floral perfume.

Though they don’t have too many actual notes in common, I class Jardin du Nil with Frederic Malle’s Une Fleur de Cassie as a dark, dirty, maybe even threatening floral scent. I can’t really decide whether I like it, but it sure is compelling. I don’t think I want to wear it much, but I keep coming back to it to figure it out. A thumbs up for daring and mystery. Maybe just a little too much mystery for me.

-2007

What nonsense: there's no such thing as too much mystery for me! I love my Jardin du Nil - the rest be damned! Mwahahahahah! (And the best part is that the peculiar "dirty socks" effect is still intact in the current formula.)

-2009

Exactly what it says on the label - a simple, dry, transparent accord of lavender and frankincense - Encens et Lavande finds Christopher Sheldrake dabbling in Bertrand Duchaufour’s métier. It’s certainly unlike almost anything else in the Serge Lutens lineup. Absent are the candied fruit, syrupy amber, and deep spices that define so much of the Lutens/Sheldrake oeuvre. And where the other Serge Lutens lavender, Gris Clair, is cold, stark, astringent, and even moderately confrontational, Encens et Lavande is warm, soft, and comforting. The only ornaments on Encens et Lavande’s spare frame are a brisk and short-lived lemon top note and base notes of powdery woods and very dry vanilla underpinning the frankincense during the drydown.

Simple as the composition is, its progress from opening to drydown is very much linear. Encens et Lavande endures for several hours on the skin, though its sillage and projection are relatively moderate – especially by the bold standards of this house. In its lean profile and modest weight Encens et Lavande stakes out new territory for Serge Lutens as a brand. On the other hand, it doesn’t necessarily extend the realm of incense or lavender fragrances in any exciting directions. Next to Gris Clair or Vero Kern’s peculiar Kiki, Encens et Lavande is an unadventurous lavender, and next to compositions like Dzongkha, Black Tourmaline, L’Homme Sage, Jubilation XXV, or Zagorsk, its incense is just, well, plain. It’s nice, but I don’t think it’s worth a trip to Paris.

The dominant top note here is an extremely sweet candied orange, at once bright yet so viscous that I feel as if I’m sucking a jar of marmalade up my nose. The citrus syrup persists into the heart of the scent, where it is seasoned with cinnamon and supported by (you guessed it!) very sweet amber. There are some floral notes floating about as well, predominantly a bright, clean jasmine, but they are very much subsidiary to the sweet stuff.

Christopher Sheldrake made candied orange interesting in his Mandarine-Mandarin for Serge Lutens by marrying it to animalic ambergris, charred spices, and a profoundly strange smoked salt accord, but nothing like tat happens here. This is fruit+syrupy amber: bland, two-dimensional, and seriously lacking in balance. In fact, the more wear it, the more it feels like a cynical über-sweet celebrity fragrance for twelve year old girls. (Mine has better taste than that and wears Tocade.) The development is nothing to speak of, and the drydown, which in this case doesn’t occur soon enough to suit me, is just some more of that sweet amber and a very crude, artificial smelling wood. (For the record, I’ve used the word “sweet” five times in these two brief paragraphs. Oops – now that’s six!)

Soie Rouge centers on a straightforward two-part accord of bright, sweet fruit and aldehydic carnation. Straightforward, but not necessarily commonplace. Fruity floral scents are ubiquitous nowadays, but most are built of berries and rose, not peach and carnation. I've come to suspect there may be a reason for this: in the company of peaches the cloves-and-cinnamon aspect of carnation leaves the impression of a pie that's fallen into a heap of potpourri. Interesting? Yes. Alluring? Not so much.

Soie Rouge trips along on a more-or-less linear path for a good four hours or so before morphing into its extended drydown. While the base notes supposedly include musk, sandalwood, and ambergris, the drydown accord smells like rose and patchouli to me. In fact, it reminds me a bit of Voleur de Roses(!) in its later stages.

After a couple of wearings I remain on the fence in regard to Soie Rouge. Granted, it's not your ordinary carnation scent, and it's not your usual fruity floral scent; but then it's not all that compelling either. As I wear Soie Rouge I keep wanting more depth or complexity out of it - or better yet, just another degree or two of strangeness.

(This review refers to the 2009 reissue.)

Ubar is an animalic floral scent with incense, built on the same titanic scale and in the same ornate style as Amouage’s original Gold and Gold Men. In fact, it explores territory so similar to its older siblings that I at first wondered if it was really necessary. Ubar resembles Gold (either one) most in its opening, with indolic floral notes, frankincense, and civet all present and accounted for. A few minutes on, and Ubar begins along its own path, with cooler, fresher jasmine and bergamot notes, a sandalwood so creamy it evokes coconut (you can find something like this in Frederic Malle’s Carnal Flower, too), and a deliciously smoky vanilla. It has less of Gold’s honey and spices, and the frankincense note remains farther in the background, ceding the stage more completely to the white flowers.

What I think distinguishes Ubar most though, is a powerful green muguet accord. This crisp, cheerful spring flower lends Ubar a certain buoyancy and brightness not found in Gold, Lyric, or indeed any other of the Amouage floral scents. While it may be named for a lost Arabian city, Ubar is, along with Ciel and the two Reflection scents, among the least desert-bound of the house’s offerings.

I have no problem detecting Ubar at a distance, and it seems to linger forever on the skin. I suppose it may be less potent than Gold, but given Gold’s atomic power, I find Ubar’s projection more than adequate. Considering Amouage’s big floral scents, I’d probably go with either Gold or Ubar, not both, especially given the cost. While the two are certainly distinct, they could easily occupy a similar position in the wardrobe. And really, how often do you have occasion to wear something this big and opulent?

Understandably considered a classic. Opens strong, with a peppery lavender/bergamot accord that quickly settles down to reveal a mélange of carnation and spices, all so well-blended that it's difficult to distinguish the individual notes. I pick up some conifer resin (spruce? fir?) and a very smooth rose in the mix as well.

JHL dries down very slowly to reveal a leathery base of labdanum and patchouli, with a hint of sweet tonka or vanilla peeking out here and there.

JHL is dignified, but not at all pompous, distinguished, but never stilted. In fact, it has the kind of assertive and sophisticated presence I'd hoped for from Creed's Bois du Portugal. But where Bois du Portugal's drydown is very stuffy on me, JHL retains a faint animal undercurrent that keeps me from feeling overly "mature." Definitely not for little boys, but great for the man who wants to project confidence without appearing brash. JHL is very potent, with lots of sillage and great lasting power, so it should be applied with a light hand.

London’s smooth, spicy opening develops into something very much like Boucheron’s Jaïpur Homme, but not as good. By that I mean the Boucheron’s deeper, richer, more complex spiced vanilla-almond/heliotrope/tonka bean accord leaves London smelling scrawny, stingy, and artificial by comparison. (Especially so in Jaïpur’s EdP formula.)

On top of that, London pretty much goes to pot in its early-arriving drydown, which is nondescript sweet vanillic woods. It’s adequate, but no more. I don’t smell half the notes in the scent pyramid above - no leather, no tobacco, no “port wine,” and certainly no moss – only mimosa (heliotropin), cinnamon, something vanillic, and weak opopanax

I understand why this is a popular scent: like Armani Code, Geir, or Platinum Egoïste, it smells pleasant and inoffensive. Fine if that’s what you’re after, but for more or less the same money, I’d go for Jaïpur Homme. It pretty much does what London does, but at least twice as well. Wear London and you’ll smell “nice.” Wear Jaïpur Homme and you’ll smell distinguished.

Fuel for Life is a sweet, fruity fougere that’s not too far removed from the Green Irish Tweed/Cool Water clan, made distinct by an unusually smooth and creamy texture. (The heliotrope?) Like many of this ilk, it has a chemical overtone, but it’s less distracting here than in some other examples of the breed. Despite its tough guy packaging, Fuel for Life is a very affable fragrance with moderate projection and reasonable lasting power. Its development is more-or-less linear, so if you enjoy it when it goes on, you’ll probably still enjoy it three hours later. All told I think Fuel for Life is a versatile, pleasant, if somewhat utilitarian, fragrance. If you like this sort of thing you could do much worse.

I’ll hand it to Vero Kern: she keeps you on your toes with complex, novel, and adventurous compositions. She has a knack for taking familiar notes – lavender, neroli, birch tar – and making them the pillars of peculiarly disorienting accords. There’s also much, much more going on in her perfumes than those three-note pyramids at Lucky Scent let on! I have a hard time knowing what to make of Rubj’s opening gestures. Pepper? Fruit syrup? Moroccan preserved lemons? White flowers? It’s all too much, too incongruous, and moving much too rapidly for me to sort out without an olfactory freeze-frame option.

Indolic orange blossom and jasmine eventually emerge as the recognizable focus of Rubj’s structure, supported by a very potent vegetal/animalic (ambrette seed?) musk and rendered profoundly strange and compelling by a persistent illusion of those uniquely salty-sour Moroccan lemons. What started as an intensely sweet scent becomes at once bittersweet and tantalizingly tart with age. (Not unlike some people I know.)

Like both of the other Vero Kern scents, Rubj is potent (parfum strength), with bold projection and ample sillage. It also lasts and lasts…and lasts. When it finally begins to dry down, Rubj settles into an amber and musk skin scent that radiates resinous-animalic warmth for several hours longer. A fascinating scent with a unique profile, and well worth sampling, even if you don't intend to purchase.

Lorenzo Villoresi takes a dry, herbaceous approach toward its featured note, as opposed to the sweet floral route explored in Caron Pour un Homme or Jicky. Whereas those two classics pair lavender with vanilla for a creamy olfactory texture, Villoresi leans on tart citrus, aromatic herbs (including rosemary and sage), and black pepper to emphasize lavender’s crisp, green qualities. The result is closer to Serge Lutens’s craggy, austere Gris Clair or Vero Kern’s idiosyncratic Kiki than to most conventional lavender scents.

Though it offers moderate sillage and projection while it lasts, Wild Lavender exhibits very little staying power on my skin. I’m lucky if I get three hours out of it before it shrinks away into a nondescript clean musky-woody drydown. I’d be more inclined to rate Wild Lavender highly if it lasted longer, but with it’s poor endurance I’d hold out for the admittedly harder-to-find and more costly Gris Clair or Kiki when seeking a hard-edged lavender scent.

Promesse de l’Aube is a sweet, delicate, and exceptionally pretty peach chypre scent that marries classical structure to modern transparency. It’s precisely what I imagine Mitsouko would have smelled like when she was a little girl of ten or eleven, before she developed feminine wiles, gained carnal knowledge, and became jaded. As befits so poised a fragrance, projection, sillage, and longevity are all well modulated, and Promesse de l’Aube remains radiantly sweet right through its feather-light vanilla chypre drydown. Writing this description I realize that Promesse de l’Aube is also very close to Aurélien Guichard’s Chinatown, though without some of the intentionally dissonant earthy elements that make Chinatown so compellingly odd. Compared to either of these other peach-centered fragrances, Promesse de l’Aube is not only clean, but bland. There is a coy, precious quality about this scent’s beauty that evokes a porcelain doll more than a living woman.

Promesse de l’Aube is undeniably beautiful, but its pricing makes the already exorbitant and frankly more distinctive Chinatown look like a bargain at about $200 US for 100 ml. Promesse de l’Aube is nice, but it’s not that nice. Granted, the Parfums MDCI bottle is pretty cool, but then Chinatown has a nice bottle, too. And if you’re serious about peach in a chypre context, there’s always Mitsouko. Even the 1 oz. Mitsouko parfum is far less costly than this Parfums MDCI offering.

Knize Sec is a bright citrus and frankincense composition that's marked by its transparency and by the sheer simplicity of its structure. Besides the central citrus and incense accord, Knize Sec's most notable feature is a conspicuous sage note, which in conjunction with the labdanum-rich amber in the scent's foundation lends a faintly urinous tang, the likes of which can also be found in certain rich fougeres. (Jules and Lauder for Men come to mind.) Some may object to it, but in my opinion it's just this somewhat off-kilter animalic tang that rescues Knize Sec from banality. Without it there would be little to distinguish it from any number of other transparent frankincense fragrances, Avignon and Heeley's Cardinal not least among them. Even so, Knize Sec is far from a groundbreaking scent, and it's playing in a very crowded field, which makes it hard for me to get too excited about it.

Louanges Profanes opens on soft citrus and sugary floral notes that are almost punishingly sweet. The scent then becomes intensely powdery, with only the rapid emergence of some faintly astringent spices and an animalic, indole-laden lily and neroi accord to pull it back from the brink of unbearable mawkishness. All of this occurs within the first five minutes of wear, in a flurry of olfactory activity that flirts with disaster like the best of physical comedians. In the short time it takes Louanges Profanes to settle into its spicy, indolic white flower heart my respiratory rate is elevated and my knuckles go white. The landing is surprisingly soft, but the highly conventional arrival point is as much a disappointment as a relief after so wild a ride. It’s like watching a team of brilliant pastry chefs laboring frantically amidst clattering pans, roaring ovens, and pillars of smoke, with only a tray of brownies to show for the effort.

The spiced lily and neroli accord rests on a soft woody foundation, and the composition becomes cleaner and greener on its way to an extremely soapy, powdery drydown that would not be out of place in an Estée Lauder scent like Alliage or White Linen . Sillage and projection are both more than adequate, and Louanges Profanes has several hours’ worth of staying power, but for a high-price niche perfume I find it awfully generic. You can get more interesting white flower fragrances without the cash or the effort required to track this scent down.

31 Rue Cambon is a nutty-sweet chypre scent, lighter and softer than Mitsouko and more warm and rounded than Givenchy III. It is distinct in being very rich in powdery iris. (A Chanel Les Exclusifs trademark.) So much so that it tempts me to coin a new fragrance subgenre: the iris chypre. A peach note that emerges some time after application keeps this scent closely aligned with both Mitsouko and Givenchy III, but 31 Rue Cambon’s peach is more subdued than Mitsouko’s, and sweeter and more conspicuous than Givenchy III’s. The scent rounds out and slowly sweetens as it develops, so that within a couple of hours it has become extraordinarily plush and peculiarly enveloping.

The iris fades off for the drydown, which arrives after three or four hours. What remains is a fruity lactonic chypre base that reads very much like a padded, fur wrapped version of Mitsouko, altogether less mysterious, but also more comfortable. I’ll invoke Mitsouko and Givenchy III one last time, to affirm that like those other two great chypres, I can wear 31 Rue Cambon with complete confidence as a man.

Private Collection is one of those few fragrances that I can honestly describe as timeless. It could have been done in 1923, 1953, or as it happened, 1973. It’s not merely a classic, but a classical structure: a soapy, green aldehydic floral on a dry chypre platform. It’s stately and reserved, yet just short of stuffy, perhaps because of the keen, bitter edge lent by its prominent galbanum note. The opening burst of powdery greens and aldehydes peels back partway to reveal a clean jasmine and narcissus accord as crisp as a starched, pressed collar. Private Collection runs a linear course once the green floral chypre heart coalesces, the major developmental event being the emergence of a dry, yet rounded rose from among the other floral notes.

Like many of Estée Lauder’s offerings, Private Collection is potent and enduring. It projects well off the skin for several hours before settling down into its moss, white musk, and wood foundations. Cool, clean, and almost entirely bereft of sweetness, Private Collection is utterly genderless, and used in moderation it would make a great alternative to conventional “fresh” men’s scents.

Why Patricia de Nicolaï thought she needed a fruity floral scent for 12 year olds in her line is beyond me. For that matter, how anybody could think the world needs another such cavity-inducing concoction is beyond me.

You want berries? Try Mûre et Musc or Maître Parfumeur et Gantier’s Fraîcheur Muskissime (while it’s still here). Want a sweet, bright, candied rose? Try Drôle de Rose. Like fruity florals? Go for something sophisticated like Le Parfum de Thérèse or Parfumerie Générale's Psychotrope. You want a red Lifesaver? Buy Balkis.

The type “A” guy in me always loves it when the men’s and women’s versions of a scent are actually variations on the same theme. It happens in the two Amouage Gold offerings, and again with Parfums de Nicolaï’s Maharanih and Maharadjah. Both scents are traditional spicy orientals with huge opopanax notes, amber-and-sandalwood foundations, sweet vanilla, cinnamon, and clove. But where Maharanih garnishes its center with a candied fruit and rose accord, Maharadjah sticks to the woods and spices, leaving the opopanax even more exposed and ratcheting up the impact of the cloves and cinnamon. With its warm, woody-spicy heart, Maharadjah is a sterner, darker scent than its mate, very close to Diptyque’s Eau Lente in style, and even vaguely suggestive of Michel Roudnitska’s monumentally austere Noir Epices for Frederic Malle.

The relative absence of fruit and floral notes in its heart leaves Maharadjah feeling more linear in its development than Maharanih, as the amber, opopanax, and sandalwood base notes are exposed earlier in its progression. This isn’t necessarily to Maharadjah’s detriment – those who prefer their woods and spices "straight up" can experience them undiluted for longer here. Maharadjah’s lifespan is at least six or eight hours, and it projects well for most of that duration. Sillage is significant, but not overbearing, and you’ll leave a perceptible but still subtle cloud of fragrance behind you when you wear Maharadjah. Ironically, as a pair of male and female named scents, I think Maharadjah and Maharanih are both perfectly wearable by either gender.

Two salient facts regarding Fracas:

1.) It’s beautiful.

2.) It can knock down a charging bull elephant at 100 yards.

If you can wear it, more power to you. Most women I smell it on apply far, far too much, which is to say more than one spray. Please, for the love of god, keep it light ladies. Upon overexposure, Fracas becomes extremely tiresome.

Also be aware that Fracas is one of the two most instantly recognizable perfumes of all time. (Chanel No. 5 is the other.) People will say to themselves “Oh, she’s wearing Fracas.” If that thought bothers you, consider another tuberose.

As an aside: I am a man. I wear tuberose. I wear Carnal Flower. I wear Tubéreuse Criminelle. I will not wear Fracas.

Maharanih’s sweet orange rind and warm spice opening leaves no doubt as to where this scent is headed. True to its name, Maharanih is a rich, sweet, spicy oriental scent in the tradition established by Guerlain’s Shalimar. The foundation of sweet amber, opopanax, and sandalwood supports a heart redolent of rose, orange blossom, cinnamon, clove, and vanilla. The composition is dense and somewhat syrupy, as befits the genre, but a very bright candied fruit accord keeps Maharanih from becoming suffocating. The blend of citrus, cinnamon, vanilla, and opopanax is very close to Shalimar, but Maharanih is a woodier scent, with more prominent opopanax and less vanilla. It shares little of Shalimar’s smoky quality, and has none of the civet that puts the lascivious animalic edge on Shalimar’s eau de parfum and parfum concentrations.

Maharanih is a grand, old-fashioned perfume in the very best sense: it is complex, dense, and sophisticated, yet also beautifully balanced. It projects well off the skin and leaves ample sillage in the air, but it never feels overblown or oppressive. Maharanih’s longevity is quite good, too. It remains intact for six or eight hours, drying down on the way to that deliciously smooth amber, opopanax and sandalwood accord, seasoned with ample labdanum and just the right dose of vanilla. If you’re looking for a spicy oriental scent in the classical mold, but want something a bit cleaner and fruitier than Shalimar, try Maharanih. It’s a well-crafted example of its kind.

Début starts off with a weird, strident cherry Lifesaver accord that I find highly off-putting. The artificial fruit flavor is soon joined by sharp, dry aromatics and nose-tweaking aldehydes, which at least serve to mask some of the opening’s excessive sweetness.

The aldehydes eventually dissipate and the screechy fruit esters recede a bit to reveal intensely soapy chypre-like foundation that’s softened by a cool white flower accord. The composition grows greener over time, and completely sheds its fruity cloak after the first hour of wear. Later on a mélange of buttery woods spreads itself over the blend to smooth out the angular and somewhat bitter foundation.

Début is tremendously loud throughout its duration, with extraordinary projection and plenty of sillage. Between its potency and its bold structure it works as an olfactory blunt instrument – say a mace. Don’t wear Début when subtlety or understatement are required, and please don’t wear too much of it!

None of this is to say that Début is a bad fragrance. On the contrary, I think it quite fine once I get past the abrasive top notes. In a market dominated by faceless fragrances, Début is bold, distinctive, and full of personality. So much so that I’d have to reserve it for special occasions.

(As an aside, I think Début would work well on either gender – at least theoretically. As a man I’d have to go to great lengths to apply it lightly enough for comfort.)

Kiki starts out as a dry, chilly lavender with a curious camphoraceous – almost mentholated – medicinal quality. In style it is reminiscent of Serge Lutens’s equally herbaceous Gris Clair, and worlds away from the warm, comfortable, vanilla-seasoned lavender of Caron Pour un Homme or Jicky. The fragrance pyramid for Kiki lists caramel, but I do not perceive this as a particularly sweet scent. Brisk, tart fruit and crisp green notes brighten Kiki as it wears, so while it retains its initial astringent character it becomes a sunny and uplifting fragrance, rather than the craggy monument to lavender that Gris Clair represents.

Kiki only begins to sweeten well into its development, and even then the pronounced fruit accord keeps it from both the soporific languor and the barbershop associations that attach to so many lavender perfumes. It’s only when the fruit and green herbaceous notes subside – which they inevitably do after three or four hours – that Kiki drifts into more traditional lavender territory. As with many scents based on lavender, Kiki offers conspicuous sillage and powerful projection, so that more than a moderate application can make the scent oppressive, especially in hot weather. On the whole I’d rate Kiki as one of the better lavenders I’ve tried, though I wish it would retain its distinctive crispy edge for longer.

Onda is one seriously weird smell. On a smelling strip it is a bold, animalic leather that vies with Bandit, Knize Ten, and Oud Cuir d’Arabie in pungency, married to a potent and bizarre peanut butter and hospital disinfectant accord, the likes of which I’ve never before encountered. When I first smelled Onda on paper my reaction was revulsion, but with such initially disturbing scents as Muscs Koublaï Khan, Kouros, and Yatagan in mind, I withheld judgment. Another case against evaluating fragrances on paper: on the skin Onda makes a very different impression.

Onda's leather is no less blunt when worn on the skin, but I’m happy to report that the illusion of peanut butter subsides after several minutes, revealing in its place an intense and sweet tobacco smoke accord that sends my nose scurrying in search of a humidor. What smelled like disinfectant on the test strip emerges as a combination of ginger and extremely dry vetiver, the latter with strong overtones of licorice. A highly contrasting floral note emerges not long after, piling yet another layer of weight and complexity onto the structure. Onda is nothing if not ambitious!

Onda is also loud, and I mean LOUD: the neighborhood will know you’re wearing it. The floral component inevitably bows out over the course of three or four hours, leaving the smoky campfire and riding tack accord to stand alone in all its dark majesty for several more hours, with no dimunition in overall volume. In its late stages, Onda resembles an even smokier, ashier version of Andy Tauer’s Lonestar Memories. Being considerably less sweet is much to Onda’s advantage: unlike the Tauer scent, it never smells like “smoke” flavored barbecue sauce.

Onda never sheds the raw intensity with which it opens, and so like Muscs Koublaï Khan, Yatagan, or Kouros, it’s going to divide critical opinion. I don’t expect too many neutral reviews of this scent! After multiple wearings and much internal debate I rate Onda positively for imagination, daring, and originality, with the caveat that you might well find it nauseating. Masterful or horrible: you be the judge.

Louban opens on a very rich accord of oudh and bittersweet spices, with especial emphasis upon the cutting, saffron-like aspect of the oudh. It’s an arresting and effective opening, and it at first distinguishes Louban nicely from the run of Montale rose-and-oudh compositions. The rose does eventually emerge as the oudh settles, along with a brisk green note (violet leaf?) and an unusually clean, dry patchouli. The spices simultaneously darken and take on a burning quality that overrides any excessive sweetness that the rose might impart. What I miss entirely is the olibanum (frankincense) from which Louban takes its name.

Once the oudh has receded, Louban lightens up considerably, and while I’d hardly call it a bright or light fragrance, it is less dense and weighty than many of the other Montale oudhs. Like any scent based on a rose and oudh accord though, Louban is potent, with plenty of sillage and ample projection. On the other hand, if you find say, Black Aoud too bold and aggressive, you may enjoy this new scent much more.

As a gender-neutral woody rose and spice composition Louban competes with scents like Cabaret, Paestum Rose, and Czech & Speake’s Dark Rose. It is bolder and spicier than Cabaret, more generous in its oudh note than Dark Rose, but to my nose devoid, despite its name, of Paestum Rose’s prominent incense accord. In all fairness must also point out that there are several other Montale oudh scents that get the same job done, most conspicuously Royal Aoud, Aoud Damascus, and Attar.

If intended as an incence fragrance I consider Louban an utter failure. As yet another oudh and rose scent Louban does not add much to the Montale range, but I suppose it does fit Montale’s apparent strategy of multiple near(?) redundant releases. If its siblings didn’t already exist, or if Louban's composition better expressed the ingredient for which it's named, I would rate it higher, but as it is my enthusiasm is bridled.

Juste un Rêve starts out as a green, aldehydic jasmine, soon bolstered by a combination of tuberose and coconut familiar not only from Nicolaï’s own later Cococabana, but from Frederic Malle’s sublime Carnal Flower as well. There is less sugar and tropical fruit than in Cococabana, but Juste un Rêve is still sweeter (if less heady and lighter on the tuberose,) than the Malle. In fact, Juste un Rêve is remarkably subdued for a tuberose and jasmine floral. Not only is its power carefully modulated, but being largely devoid of animalic indole, it is also unusually clean-smelling. Its comparative reserve makes Juste un Rêve easy to wear compared to most of its type, and for this reason alone it might be a fine wardrobe choice. Juste un Rêve is without question a more balanced and sophisticated scent than Cococabana, and being drier and greener spares it the beach party and tiki torch stigma that somewhat cheapens the more recent Nicolaï release.

Juste un Rêve hardens and dries off in an interesting manner as it ages, with a peppery wood and curiously smoky, almost ashy vanilla in its foundation. If there’s anything I can hold against it, it’s that the drydown arrives very quickly, leaving Juste un Rêve to work primarily as a skin scent after the first hour or so of wear. My guess is that this ephemeral nature is the price for Juste un Rêve’s quiet poise. If you enjoy tuberose but find Fracas and Carnal Flower too forward and indulgent, and if you can tolerate limited staying power, I suggest you give Juste un Rêve a try.

Psychotrope opens on a resolutely “modernist” late 20th century gesture, combining indolic green jasmine, melon, and tomato leaf. The indolic jasmine and melon immediately recall Edmond Roudnitsaka’s masterful Le Parfum de Thérèse, released posthumously by Frederic Malle, but composed (decades before its time) during the 1950s. Though both scents feature leather alongside their melon and jasmine, Pierre Guillaume’s tanned hide accord is both drier and more conspicuous than Roudnitska’s. Le Parfum de Thérèse represents the apotheosis of fruity floral compositions, but Psychotrope in its early phase is more difficult to classify. Psychotrope’s tomato leaf renders it somewhat bitter and more overtly herbaceous in character, and for a time it vacillates indecisively between leathery green and fruity floral in gestalt.

Psychotrope’s leather takes on a smoky birch tar character and intensifies progressively as it dries down, so that after a full wearing I’m comfortable calling it a leather scent. I’ve seen Psychotrope described as "dark," and Guillaume lists a “black leather” note in the pyramid, but to my nose this is a buoyant and transparent, if not necessarily bright, scent. Even in its drydown Psychotrope dispenses with the sweet amber, moss, or heavy woods that weigh down many leather scents, and its relatively reticent in both sillage and projection. I concede that there’s plenty of mystery about Psychotrope, but nothing threatening or sinister. The scent is about beguilingly soft-focus understatement rather than nocturnal drama. So much so in fact, that I think it could benefit from being more assertive. As it is now, Psychotrope requires heavy application to register much impact. Thumbs up nonetheless for its originality and an interesting development.

Mimosaïque is a gentle, pretty green mimosa and fruit composition of classical simplicity and crystalline clarity. In style it resembles L’Artisan Parfumeur’s excellent Mimosa pour Moi, but Mimosaïque is a more tart, more fruity, and hence ultimately a brighter scent. There is a candy-like quality to Mimosaïque’s sweetness, but it’s to Patricia de Nicolaï’s credit that the scent never seems cheap or artificial. This is not a deep or complex fragrance, and there’s very little development to speak of. Depth and complex development are clearly not the goals here. Mimosaïque is meant to be a happy smell, and in that it succeeds admirably. One of the nicest mimosa soliflores I’ve tried. Smile!

Sel Marin is essentially the crispy-clean licorice and vetiver accord from Heeley’s outstanding Cuir Pleine Fleur: Cuir Pleine Fleur without the Cuir. Shorn of the warm birch tar and soft leather, this accord is buoyant, breezy, and transparent. Garnished as it is in Sel Marin with just the lightest sprinkling of cucumber aquatic notes, it is brilliantly suggestive of a warm summer day on the dunes, complete with tufts of beach grass and a light ocean breeze. Projection and sillage are both moderate, but adequate. I’m particularly pleased that the aquatic notes remain reserved and quiet, since in most cases they project too much for my liking and leave me smelling like the victim of a chemical spill.

Luca Turin is spot-on when he describes Sel Marin as a close cousin of Diptyque’s great and tragically discontinued Virgilio. Virgilio has none of Sel Marin’s aquatic notes, and the Heeley is less green and less floral than the Diptyque, but the featured salty licorice accord in both is very, very close indeed. When one door closes, another one opens. Now I know what to buy should I ever use up my beloved bottle of Virgilio.

Calone bomb indeed! The pyramid given above is incomplete. It should read: “CALONE, Bergamot, CALONE, Mandarin, CALONE, Sage, CALONE…”

Why isn’t the calone listed? Maybe calone has become so commonplace that we are to assume every masculine fragrance contains at least a gallon of it. In any case, none of the other listed notes are detectable under the tidal wave of melony cucumber/aquatic calone until the drydown, which features a banal cedar-like woody amber. In the light of the recent re-release of Chaos and Fuel, DKNY Men is a pointless gesture. A waste of a perfectly good glass bottle.

As I perceive it, Globe takes the aromatic fruity-green accord (and only this accord,) from a Green Irish Tweed/Cool Water style fresh fougère and marries it to an immense white floral bouquet. These two blocks are seasoned with cardamom and coriander and set atop an arid, powdery cedar, sandalwood, and patchouli foundation, intended perhaps to make the composition more recognizably “masculine.”

Jean-Claude Elléna’s* structure was brilliant and iconoclastic, and why anybody at Rochas thought J. Q. Public would buy it is beyond me. Globe doesn’t press any of the familiar male fragrance buttons until well into its musky vetiver, sandalwood, and labdanum drydown. That it projects robustly and leaves more sillage in the air than most men are probably accustomed to are additional strikes against it. Michael Edwards lists Globe among the fruity fougères in his Fragrances of the World compendium, but I’m more inclined to call Globe a fruity floral scent, or even a fruity floral-oriental; both fragrance families inextricably associated with women in the popular imagination.

As a floral-focused scent for men Globe is sometimes lumped with Givenchy’s Insensé and Paco Rabanne’s Ténéré, but it is far brighter, fruitier, sweeter, and more oriental in character than either. In truth, Globe resembles no other masculine scent I know. In 1990 Globe represented a brave and ill-fated attempt to broaden the horizons of male perfumery. Had it been released as a unisex niche fragrance I suppose it might still be with us. Were it introduced today, in synch with the mini-trend of floral designer scents for men embodied in Kenzo Power and Fleur du Male, would it survive? Idle conjecture, all of it, but I’m glad of the opportunity to wear Globe and to wonder.

* One whiff of Globe gets me wishing that Elléna would compose something this complex, layered, and original for Hermès. Do the Hermès art directors demand pallid, invertebrate scents from him, or is the stylistic dead end of minimalist one-liners something he’s pursuing of his own volition? Globe offers ample evidence that he can do differently. (And better?)

Neither of the two earlier Eau d’Italie scents I’ve tried – Sienne l’Hiver or Bois d’Ombrie – pleased me much, but I just had to know: what would Bertrand Duchaufour, master of dark, smoky incense, do with an aquatic floral? Well to start with, he drops the hideous melon note that's graced every aquatic scent since about 1992. (The clouds part, doves fly, an angelic chorus sings.) Dayenu!

Magnolia Romana goes on with a blend of green floral notes and smoky (yes, smoky,) nutmeg so beautifully calculated that I want to freeze the opening in place for hours. But after a few minutes an aquatic accord wells up to douse the smoke, and Magnolia Romana emerges quickly and dramatically from veiled mystery to limpid clarity. Bright rose, crisp cypress, and ozonic notes blend into an accord that smells more of lotus than magnolia to me, while a very hard-edged cedar interacts with the rose to yield a nose-tingling peppery accent.

It’s that sharp, peppery edge that keeps me engaged as Magnolia Romana develops. Its bitter dissonance rescues the scent from the comfortable blandness that ruins so many watery florals. Another redeeming feature is an utter lack of sugar. Most similarly structured scents I know wallow in gobs of tropical fruit syrup, but this one eschews the melon margarita mix for a bracing shot of Campari.

Once it reveals its cool, bitter heart Magnolia Romana remains linear for a full four or five hours before folding down into its cedar base. Much to my delight, the peppery bite persists right till the end. Though not a weak scent, Magnolia Romana wears close to the skin, even when applied generously. Magnolia Romana is not a scent for those who enjoy filling a room with their fragrance, but I can recommend it as a warm weather option for anyone who hankers after a sugar free variation on the aquatic green floral theme.

D&G offers its new “Fragrance Anthology” line niche style, in plain, (non-sequentially) numbered bottles. (Parfumerie Generale, Le Labo, anyone?) The five scents themselves are all hilariously bad. No. 1, Le Bateleur, is a fresh, aquatic sports fragrance so monumentally dull that I’m nodding off just thinking about it. No. 3, L’Imperatrice, is a crude, derivative, adolescent fruity-floral, for the likes of which neither I nor the world have any use. I took home samples of the other three scents for review: No. 6 and No. 10 because they showed faint signs that they might actually come to smell like something, and No. 18…well, because there was room for a third sample vial on the card, and it was the bottle in the front.

No. 6, L’Amoureaux, is a pale, acid citrus over an austere synthetic cedar that’s trying much too hard to ape something Jean-Claude Elléna might have done for Hermès. Since Elléna’s work for Hermès has been pretty bare, hollow, and repetitive itself lately, this scrawny imitation is even more pointless than it might have been. L’Amoureaux only goes to prove that hackwork by an artist is still preferable to hackwork by no-talent goons.

What an unusual scent! The name had me expecting a conventional aldehydic/indolic white flower, but what comes out of the bottle is something else altogether, and I can see why opinions are so deeply divided.

There are indolic white flowers here, but they ride in on a bold and novel accord of pepper and overripe cheese that reads like an exaggerated take on the pungent (and yes, cheesy,) undertone that distinguishes gardenia from other white flowers. You’re liable to find it either mesmerizing or whiplash-inducing, depending upon your temperament. The pungency is slow to fade, but as it does the tuberose becomes more conspicuous, to the point where it eventually dominates the composition. At the same time, Tuberose Gardenia grows more simple and transparent, eventually revealing the spicy - woody base that has all along provided a firm backbone for the composition.

Three or four hours on and Tuberose Gardenia has evolved into a spicy/woody composition, generously topped with tuberose. The scent remains remarkably potent, even after the indole and aldehydes have retreated, and the generous sillage hangs around for hours. I don’t know that this will ever be a crowd-pleaser, but at its price it probably was not intended to. Distinctive and surprising, and I rather like it!

This is basically a very sweet gourmand woody oriental scent with a generous dollop of anise or licorice on top and a good deal of sweet powder underneath. Wearing Lolita Lempicka, I’m immediately reminded of Yohji Homme, perhaps because of the licorice note, or perhaps because the two scents are built on similar sweet, powdery, woody base notes. Unfortunately, they are base notes that are both overused and extremely cloying to my nose.

At first it seems as if the cool, bittersweet licorice accord might actually manage to balance to crude foundation, but instead it loses ground steadily until, after an hour, it’s completely overcome. The base notes are as loud as they are banal, and project for yards around me when I wear this scent. I can report that Lolita Lempicka au Masculin is also murder to scrub off, and I still smell it after raking my skin raw with a stiff brush and hot water. Too bad – without that nasty foundation it could a’ been a contender…

Somewhere between dark oriental gourmand and leather is where you’ll find Canali Style. There’s a lot of the roasted coffee vibe from Yohji Homme in here, plus some of the powdery licorice of Lolita Lempicka au Masculin, but all these edibles are tempered by a dark, smoky accord which renders the composition far less cloying to me than those other two.

The foundation includes some of the crude, fuzzy, woody base notes that spoil many recent masculines for me, (Guerlain Homme comes to mind,) but in Canali Style’s case the offending accord does not dominate as completely as it does elsewhere. I attribute this to an astringent edge on the lingering leathery accord that effectively cuts the suffocating synthetic blanket. I myself don’t find it original enough to get excited about, but if you enjoy woody gourmand men’s scents and find Lolita Lempicka au Masculin, A*Men, or Le Mâle too sweet or overbearing, Canali Style might be worth a try.

Aw crap! It’s about as good as everyone says it is. Now I’m liable to have to spend a gazillion bucks to get myself some.

The formula as advertized for Homage sounds simple: rose, oudh, frankincense, and citrus. Yet two of those ingredients, rose and oudh, are at their best so intricately nuanced and profound that they defy analytical description. That Pierre Montale has built an entire line of (mostly) distinct scents around these same two notes hints at the vast scope the rose-oudh pairing offers. Homage does indeed present rose and oudh at their complex and inscrutable best, and the addition of Amouage’s justly touted frankincense secrets them off into a realm of olfactory fantasy inhabited exclusively by djinns and ifrits.

Comparison with Montale’s oudh-and-rose scents is inevitable, but nothing that I’ve smelled from Montale comes close to Homage in style. The rose used in Homage is at once spicier and sweeter than Montale’s, with echoes of nutmeg, cardamom, and raspberry liqueur. Amouage’s oudh is more rounded and yielding, softer and less medicinal than Montale’s, yet still in possession of that deliciously bitter, saffron-like edge that makes the resin so irresistible to my nose. Homage is heady and enveloping and persistently claims your attention. You don’t just wear this fragrance – you wallow in it. Such an unapologetically dense, heavy fragrance is not for everyone, nor every occasion, yet there is a certain clarity in Homage’s structure that may actually render it more wearable for some than the more powdery and animalic Gold (both men’s and women’s). At $350 US or so for a 12ml bottle of perfume oil, this isn’t going to be a lemming, but I can understand the critical enthusiasm: Homage is worth smelling just for the experience.

Not a promising start: Shaal Nur lands on the skin clothed in alcohol fumes and a harsh citrus accord. Luckily, this opening lasts only a minute or so before it’s engulfed in a cloud of incense smoke, resins, and sweet spices that firmly aligns Shaal Nur with dark oriental scents like L’Air du Desert Marocain, Fumerie Turque, and Jubilation XXV. Prominent vanilla and opopanax bring to mind Shalimar as well, but Shaal Nur is at once dryer and less animalic than Guerlain’s archetypical classic. Lack of civet and conspicuous doses of cedar and frankincense may account for the differences.

Shaal Nur projects well but never to the point of being distracting or oppressive. It grows more powdery as it develops, and eventually settles into a very soft-textured vanilla, opopanax, and cedar drydown. The composition and development are very conventional examples of the spicy oriental genre, but where Shaal Nur excels is in its delicately tuned balance and well-judged proportions. Nothing is out of place, nothing grates, and nothing is garish. (The latter a great danger in this sort of scent – think Opium.) My only criticism is that in a family of scents known for persistence, Shaal Nur is surprisingly fleet in fading. Perhaps a limited lifespan is the cost of avoiding gaudy excess in so rich an oriental.

Fleurs de Nuit launches on an accord of crisp, green, and slightly fruity jasmine, neroli, and orange blossom. The white flowers are indolic, but not overly so, and the crisp aldehydes employed at the start are enough to generate a mild tingle, but not so much as to smell “perfumey.” Vanilla appears after just a few minutes and steadily intensifies, yet never overwhelms or over-sweetens the composition.

Fleurs de Nuit possesses a peculiar economy and precision of construction, so that what could have been a heavy, heady, and overbearing floral scent is not. I attribute this appealing sense of clarity to the piercing green neroli that persists into the heart of the fragrance. The scent projects well, persists more than adequately, and leaves a well-judged remnant of sillage behind itself. What puzzles me about this stuff is the name. Is it just ineptly christened, or is “Fleurs de Nuit” meant to be ironic? This is certainly nothing if not a bright, sunny meadow of a floral scent. No stars or moonlight here – just wildflowers and soft summer breezes. Still very nice, even if misleadingly labeled.

Heeley’s iris scent is a lovely one, as close in its dark rooty ambience as any I’ve smelled to Maurice Roucel’s iconic Iris Silver Mist for Serge Lutens. Iris de Nuit shares with Iris Silver Mist both a hint of anise and a certain doughy, almost foody character lacking in most other iris scents I know. It is, however, at once milder and more natural smelling than the Lutens, and so I find it easier to wear.

On the downside, sillage and projection are both moderate at best, and I have to apply a lot of Iris de Nuit before I start noticing it. Whether olfactory fatigue contributes here or not I cannot tell. The rooty, yet oddly translucent iris accord persists in a linear fashion, fading, rather than altering, into its soft, musky-woody drydown. Iris de Nuit is neither very powdery nor very floral, and I believe it could be worn with ease by either men or women. Though not among the strongest, I do think it one of the finest iris-centered scents available.

Tauer’s earlier L’Air du Desert Marocain was a masterful exercise on the theme of incense, and it raised high expectations for any new Tauer scent with “Incense” in the title. Incense Rosé smells primarily like dry frankincense and just a touch of myrrh, wed to peculiar and off-putting sour note. It lacks L’Air’s smoky depth and spice-fueled sense of mystery, and speaks instead in the kind of shrill, irritating tone that just makes you want to ignore it. I suspect that this was meant as a “luminous” or “transparent” incense composition, but it winds up brittle and impoverished. Stick with the Moroccan desert.

The name had me expecting a floral chypre with a rose heart, but that’s not exactly what I’m smelling here. Instead, Une Rose Chyprée is a dark, sweet, and spicy floral-oriental with an especially deep, jammy rose note at its core. It reminds me very much of Nahéma, of Amouage’s two rose-based Lyric scents, and by dint of conspicuous cinnamon (and clove?) notes, of Frederic Malle’s Noir Epices as well. I’ll take the perfumer’s word for it that the basenotes include the chypre staples oakmoss and labdanum, but what I smell in there is mostly smoky vanillic amber.

Whether you consider Une Rose Chyprée a chypre or an oriental is of little account. What matters is the scent’s smoldering, crepuscular beauty. The attempt to describe its qualities sends me scurrying after new words for “dark.” Yet for all its profundity, there is a paradoxical clarity to Une Rose Chyprée’s structure. (A quality it again shares with Noir Epices.) In olfactory character it brings to mind the tolling of a deep, deep bell, or the entrancing velvety blue glow of the evening sky just before it goes completely black. I wouldn’t wear it during the day, and certainly not in hot weather, but I think I’d have to pay attention to any woman wearing this scent in my presence. Une Rose Chyprée joins L’Air du Desert Marocain among my favorites from the Tauer line.

LouLou is a sweet, powdery floral-oriental scent with the texture of a velvet cushion and the mass of an industrial drill press. It opens at full throttle, with indolic jasmine, tuberose, vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, heliotrope, and plenty of aldehydes. All of these are soon joined by a very rich sandalwood and animalic musk and the foundation is a sweet, powdery vanillic amber. The composition is dense, viscous and determinedly “old school” in character. It’s also smooth, coherent, and well-blended, so while it represents a style that many would find matronly, LouLou exemplifies that style rather well.

This kind of big oriental scent is rarely ever quiet, and LouLou is true to type, with aggressive projection and thick clouds of sillage. It’s “in for a penny, in for a pound” with LouLou. To enjoy it you’ve got to love the kind of retro, “perfumey” scents that granny wore, and you must feel no shame flouting your love. Sweet. Powdery. If that’s your thing, LouLou just might be your girl!

Don’t look for nuance or complexity in Violetta. It’s violets and violet leaves here, and not much else. When a scent is this straightforward in structure, its quality really needs to shine. Violetta’s opening is a touch chemical to my nose, and the unsupported powdery violet accord winds up smelling more like a candle than a perfume. Pretty, but I'd rather have it scenting my sock drawer than my person.

D&G offers its new “Fragrance Anthology” line niche style, in plain, (non-sequentially) numbered bottles. (Parfumerie Generale, Le Labo, anyone?) The five scents themselves are all hilariously bad. No. 1, Le Bateleur, is a fresh, aquatic sports fragrance so monumentally dull that I’m nodding off just thinking about it. No. 3, L’Imperatrice, is a crude, derivative, adolescent fruity-floral, for the likes of which neither I nor the world have any use. I took home samples of the other three scents for review: No. 6 and No. 10 because they showed faint signs that they might actually come to smell like something, and No. 18…well, because there was room for a third sample vial on the card, and it was the bottle in the front.

No. 10, La Roue de la Fortune, opens on the same artificial watermelon candy note as its sibling La Lune, then quickly morphs into an extra-sweet, flat, and disturbingly chemical vanilla custard gourmand that’s rendered even more obscenely caloric by an additional powdered sugar garnish. The upside, so to speak, is that the whole thing is far less potent than this sort of bland dessert often is. So see, it could have been worse.

D&G offers its new “Fragrance Anthology” line niche style, in plain, (non-sequentially) numbered bottles. (Parfumerie Generale, Le Labo, anyone?) The five scents themselves are all hilariously bad. No. 1, Le Bateleur, is a fresh, aquatic sports fragrance so monumentally dull that I’m nodding off just thinking about it. No. 3, L’Imperatrice, is a crude, derivative, adolescent fruity-floral, for the likes of which neither I nor the world have any use. I took home samples of the other three scents for review: No. 6 and No. 10 because they showed faint signs that they might actually come to smell like something, and No. 18…well, because there was room for a third sample vial on the card, and it was the bottle in the front.

No. 18, called La Lune, starts on a crass, chemical “froot” note that’s common to a few of the D&G Fragrance Anthology entries and decides to make a meal out of it. There’s not much else going on here. What (except a possible point of origin,) this note has to do with the moon eludes me entirely.

I'm working my way slowly through the Montale "Auod" line, having decided in the end that I actually liked their Black Aoud after my tepid review.

Of the Montales I've tried so far (Aoud Ambre, Attar, Royal Aoud, Black Aoud, Aoud Lime, and Steam Aoud) Royal Aoud is the only one that goes on positively understated. In fact, it makes the others seem downright histrionic in their entrances. It also strikes me as both the most complex and the least direct of the lot.

This scent has a powdery-sweet foundation that tempers the medicinal and astringent aspects of the oud. The listed fruit and citrus notes are very coy at first, but surface more completely during the development, where they serve to round out the heady note of rose. Eventually, a vanilla/tonka bean note slides in to add a bit of extra sweetness.

The oudh and the rose retreat during the drydown, leaving a pleasant, but not all that distinguished powdery-woody accord. On my skin, Royal Aoud does not have the stupendous (24 hr) tenacity of Black Aoud, but its development is not so glacially slow, either. (Black Aoud's drydown is so slow and extended that I didn't even realize it was happening the first few times I wore the stuff.)

Among the Montale's I see Royal Aoud, Black Aoud, and Attar as quite closely related, though differing in general character. Black Aoud, which is my current favorite, is bold, brash, maybe even brutal, in its directness and simplicity. (Imagine that! A "brutal" rose. Now there's a good name for a scent.)

Attar seems the sweetest of the three, with some mysterious accords and a drydown that goes in its own direction. I find Royal Aoud the easiest to wear of the three, as well as the "prettiest". Funny though: it's relative sophistication blunts it in comparison with its siblings, leaving it the most conventional of the three, and because of that, the least distinguished. I prefer the olfactory challenge of Black Aoud.

Sycomore is the Chanel Les Exclusifs essay on vetiver, and after several wearings I’m ready to place it among the best of the current vetivers, right next to Vétiver Extraordinaire, Givenchy Vetyver, Route du Vétiver, and Encre Noire. Sycomore is a dry vetiver, and like the Givenchy it has a touch of licorice and nutmeat about it. It is a clean scent, without the earthy quality of Route du Vétiver or the harsh vegetal profile of Vétiver Extraordinaire. Like Encre Noire, it is smoky, but where Encre Noire is gaunt and austere, Sycomore’s structure is softened and rounded by a generous amount of iris root. If a vetiver scent can be said to be plush, this one is.

Sycomore’s iris and vetiver are accompanied by a particularly rich, smooth sandalwood, which adds yet another degree of luxury to the scent’s enveloping texture. Sycomore evolves very slowly once its central smoky-soft structure establishes itself. The iris/vetiver/sandalwood axis tilts slightly from time to time, nudged in one direction by dry spices, and in another by some very discreet incense. Components fall away one by one over a span of about six hours, and Sycomore’s drydown belongs primarily to the persistent vetiver and sandalwood, but there’s also a bit of moss at the foundation; not much, but just enough to allude to the classical chypre style. The overall impression is one of luxurious comfort without a trace of stuffiness or blandness, so if you’re seeking a vetiver scent with depth, sophistication, and ease of wear, Sycomore should probably be on your short list.

All of the Chanel Les Exclusifs I’ve tried feature a conspicuous iris note, but in 28 La Pausa a rich, doughy iris root is the uncontested feature attraction. If a dessert chef were to make a spiced carrot and parsnip custard, infused with jasmine and a touch of smoky vanilla, it might smell a good deal like 28 La Pausa. The velvet soft iris note lounges on its cushion of spiced florals like a Titian nude in the Doge’s palazzo: lush, seductive, and just out of reach. This is a luxurious scent, but not loud or showy. Sillage and projection are both moderate, surrounding the skin in a loose envelope of fragrance. As 28 La Pausa dries down, it reveals a creamy wood base with a marvelously natural character. If the scent has any failing, it is endurance – the drydown arrives after perhaps two hours, leaving me wanting more.

Chanel’s treatment of iris in 28 La Pausa is matched only by Serge Lutens’s Iris Silver Mist and Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier’s Iris Bleu Gris. But where the Lutens is opaque and shadowy, and the Maitre Parfumeur et Gantier lit in bold chiaroscuro, the Chanel is suffused with a gauzy, golden light. Lovers of iris root will want to try this, and those unfamiliar with iris in perfumery could find no better introduction to the note.

Everyone seems to be getting something a bit different out of Cuir Ottoman. Could it be a "chemistry" thing?

For me Cuir Ottoman went on tart, with the leather, a fresh, bitter green note, and something vanillic in the background. During the first hour the opening tart note becomes positively sour - even a touch vinegary - before softening and melding with floral and fruity heart notes and the now-prominent leather in a new accord. The impression is of something sweet and fruity: perhaps a cherry candy wrapped in leather. Odd and intriguing, but also a bit artificial or synthetic to my humble nose.

The tart note continues to fade over the next few hours, allowing the heart to soften, and the fruit and florals blend more completely with the leather. At this stage Cuir Ottoman began to ring familiar, though I couldn't immediately decide why. Then it hit me: Daim Blond. That's right, the Serge Lutens fragrance plays the same kind of fruit and leather game, though prehaps with a bit more finesse.

Leather and vanillic notes hold sway over the drydown, though the sweet floral elements never fully lose their grip. The whole performance takes place close to the skin, with only minimal projection. This is a nice scent, and if you like Daim Blond you probably ought to try it. Me? I'm more compelled by other leathers, including Oud Cuir D'Arabie, Tabac Blond, Knize Ten and Cuir Mauresque. Oh, and mochi227 is right - its unquestionably unisex.

I have an odd relationship with Jicky. I can't deny that it's brilliantly composed, with high quality ingredients (vanilla, lavender, and civet,) that appeal to me, but I've never been compelled by it. Why? I'm not sure. When I wear the closely related Shalimar, Jicky seems incomplete. When I wear the equally civet-drenched Ungaro II, Jicky seems a little bit tame. When I want lavender, I invariably turn to Caron pour un Homme. In the end all I can say is that while I acknowledge Jicky's high status, I rarely enjoy wearing it. Thumbs up because it is a great scent and an important landmark, no matter how I feel about it personally.

Wow! This is one weird ride. The opening is a bruising smoke/wood/booze accord that'll curl your nose hairs for sure. Super.

This is joined almost immediately by a sour, stinging note that I can best describe as boiling vinegar. Ever accidentally inhaled the steam from boiling vinegar? If you have, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. If not, it's nothing I suggest you try at home. Over time the the booze subsides, and the smoke and woods blend into a rich leather accord. To my great disappointment, the vinegar steam note persists as well, effectively ruining the whole experience for me.

Close. Very close. A promising scent that was ruined for me by one discordant note.

Reading its description, I held high hopes for Sienne d'Hiver. Smoke, liquor, leather - what's there not to like? The opening fed my optimism, since the smoke and leather were right up front, along with some mysterious green notes.

Then, about a half an hour into the development, I started catching a conspicuous sour note that I couldn't quite place. (Is this a house trademark? Bois d'Ombrie also exhibits a freakish sour note at its heart.) What could it be? I went back for a look at the note pyramid, and there it was: olives! Green olives, with pimientos in them. The effect was sharp and jarring, and soon began to remind me of Tabasco sauce - the way it smells when you stick your nose right up to the bottle. As for the truffle, if it's in there it gets steamrollered by the green olive/Tabasco accord. Too bad, because black truffle, used correctly, would be one heck of a fragrance note!

Sienne d'Hiver left me baffled and disappointed. I see no reflection of the beautiful old Tuscan city in this brew.

Alright, this one is just plain weird. (Don't get me wrong, I often like weird.) Aoud Lime is not of the relatively forthright oud-rose family that includes Attar, Royal Aoud, and Black Aoud, nor is it much like the sticky-sweet concoction Aoud Ambre.

Lime is not a listed note, but the top notes are true to the name: dark oud crashing over a bright, acidic citrus note. Immediately offputting for me, with the two notes scratching olfactory nails across a blackboard.

To be fair, I wait to see how this discord will resolve itself - troubling as it is, there is potential for something very interesting to emerge.

It doesn't. Rose begins to well up, but does nothing whatsoever to reconcile the clashing accord set up in the opening. By the time the patchouli shows itself, I've come to find the whole thing tiresome, like the schlemiel who follows you around a party spouting irritating drivel, or a yappy dog. At no point do the disparate elements in this scent never manage to come together. In fact, they don't even seem to interact in any meaningful way.

As I said, weird - but not gratifying.

Palazzo is a pleasant vanillic floral oriental whose sweet, powdery foundation is balanced by a fruit-accented ylang-ylang accord. It begins life smelling aggressively synthetic, as many modern fruity floral scents do, but to its credit it smoothes out quickly into a more sophisticated texture. Palazzo exhibits moderate sillage and projection, but it runs its course pretty quickly, ending in a sweet, soft vanillic drydown that while pleasant, is hardly inspiring.

Palazzo has cousins in scents like Byzance, Tocade, and Jaïpur Saphir, each of which I find more complex and ultimately more compelling than the Fendi. I understand this fragrance is soon to be discontinued, and although it’s nice, I will not miss it all that much.

Cuiron’s brisk, sharp citrus top notes give little indication that what’s to come is a leather scent. As much as fifteen minutes must elapse before a slightly smoky, birch tar-laden leather accord assembles itself beneath the citrus. Even after it establishes itself firmly, Cuiron’s leather accord is remarkably airy and translucent. This is not the sensuous leather of Chanel’s Cuir de Russie, the bad boy biker’s leather of Oud Cuir d’Arabie, nor the stentorian animalic leather of Knize Ten. In tone and volume it comes closest perhaps to Heeley’s recent Cuir Pleine Fleur, though the actual olfactory structure is quite different.

Cuiron is what I’d call a dry leather, relatively streamlined, and leaning toward clean woods rather than amber, oakmoss, or animalic basenotes like civet or castoreum. It’s also very linear on me, and except for a gradually increasing dustiness in the woods I detect very little change in Cuiron’s profile during the first hour or two of wear. Later on the leather recedes to leave a very spare drydown that’s dominated by cedar and labdanum. The approach is almost minimalist in its simplicity, and the scent is as subtle on the skin as it is lean in its construction. Sillage is minimal and Cuiron clings closely to its wearer.

Cuiron has developed something of a cult about it, and is often touted as the pinnacle of the leather scent genre. I wonder how much of Cuiron’s appeal dwells in its focused presentation? I can think of no other leather scent offhand that is as pure and unadulterated in its interpretation of the leather accord. If you like your leather clean, subtle, and uncomplicated, Cuiron is for you. On the other hand, if like me you prefer some animal funk or confrontational attitude in your leather, you may find Cuiron just a tad too polite.

"Clean, green, aldehydic floral" sums up Ivoire pretty well. The opening is pleasantly bright and perfectly poised between sweet citrus and bitter galbanum, and Ivoire maintains this gratifying sense of balance through to its crisp white floral heart. Is it soapy? Yes, but if Ivoire smells like soap, it smells like one heck of an expensive soap.

The composition gradually sweetens as it ages on the skin, while the powdery aldehydes fade away to reveal a limpid, lucent woody floral structure that seems surprisingly modern for such an alleged period piece as Ivoire. At this stage Ivoire is a rather naturalistic cool spring bouquet, dominated by recognizable notes of lily-of-the-valley, hyacinth, and lilac. It’s still a determinedly clean scent, matching in mood, if not style, other sanitary floral feminines like Alliage and White Linen. It is less green in olfactory hue and more overtly floral than Alliage, and entirely lacks White Linen’s abrasive, sour edge. That might leave it smelling more ordinary than either, but its also more wearable and versatile.

Ivoire serves as a textbook example of a scent that offers ample sillage, but only moderate projection. It is not a loud scent, and isn’t easily detected at a great distance, but it does tend to hang in the air and leave a presence (“sillage”) even after the wearer has left the room. It endures quite well on the skin, moving toward a creamy sandalwood and soft amber drydown after perhaps six hours. It’s really too bad that Ivoire carries such dowdy and dated associations. It’s actually a fresh, bright scent that avoids the screechy aquatic and harsh artificial fruit notes that make so many recent “clean” scents for women

Calvin’s opening maneuvers are pretty conventional: tart lemon, sweet bergamot, and lavender that presage a classical fougère formula. A strong anise note and additional aromatic elements emerge to establish a spicy central accord that reminds me very much of the classic Azzaro pour Homme, though decidedly softer and sweeter. The foundation is predictably heavy on coumarin, and mercifully free of the crude woody amber basenotes that mar so many newer fougères.

While Calvin is much less loud than some of its contemporaries, it is not a retiring scent. It won’t enter the room before you do, but you’ll always know you’re wearing it. Calvin’s spicy-aromatic heart is relatively quick to deconstruct, so that within two hours of wear what remains is a much more bland, and rather sweet, traditional fougère of medium intensity. I’d prefer it if Calvin retained its spicy edge for longer, since the extended drydown is disappointingly dull. "Businesslike" is how I would describe this scent, and decidedly conservative, in a style that, while perfectly attractive, is not the current fashion.

I can’t remember when I last encountered a scent so manifestly different on fabric or paper than on my skin. Worn on my skin, the top notes are a conventional, though very well-rendered combination of citrus rind, soft lavender, and sweet spices that dissipate almost at once as Lalique pour Homme plunges precipitously into a bone dry middle section that’s dominated by etiolated gray iris and a dusty cedar note. There’s very little else, and the resulting accord evokes the musty atmosphere of a once-fashionable but now somewhat seedy men’s club, complete with stale cigar smoke, worn, overstuffed chairs, and dilapidated card tables. This phase lasts for two hours at most before Lalique pour Homme plummets once more, this time into a wan, bare cedar drydown that’s as dull as it is difficult to detect.

On fabric, it’s an entirely different scent. True, the top notes smell the same, but on fabric the lavender and spices persist to add some fullness and depth to the cedar and iris accord. Sweet floral notes that weren’t apparent on my skin emerge as well, so that Lalique pour Homme’s heart smells far less dry and hollow than when worn on skin. The scent of course endures much longer on fabric as well, and when Lalique pour Homme’s drydown does arrive it is substantially richer, deeper, and more complex than I experience when wearing it. Vanilla, soft amber, and a trace of patchouli round out cedar in a soft textured yet reasonably weighty woody oriental structure.

I can’t tell you why at least half of the notes evident on fabric go AWOL when I wear Lalique pour Homme. Perhaps it was evaluated only on fabric! Giving full benefit of the doubt that what I smell on fabric approximates the scent’s effect when worn by others, I’d class Lalique pour Homme as a variation on the gentlemanly woody oriental style exemplified by Creed’s Bois du Portugal and Nicolai’s New York. The Lalique is quieter than either the Creed or the Nicolai, so if you enjoy this sort of dignified, if rather stuffy fragrance, but want something more subdued, Lalique pour Homme would be a scent worth trying.

Escada pour Homme’s launch is fueled by and exceptionally pleasant and well balanced accord of sweet mandarin, lavender and bergamot. These top notes give way quite slowly to a heart of orange blossom and candied spices over a vanilla, patchouli, and sandalwood foundation. While quite sweet, Escada pour Homme does not impress me as a gourmand scent. It’s basenotes are too resinous, its vanilla too subtle and dry, and its floral notes too conspicuous for that. Instead Escada pour Homme presents as a rich, but not heavy, well balanced oriental that would work well for office or professional wear.

While lighter, less spicy, and hence perhaps a bit more bland than those men’s oriental classics Habit Rouge, Héritage, and Jaïpur Homme, Escada pour Homme does offer more character than say, Armani Code, and better balance than the over-sweetened Pi or Le Male. It’s middle-of-the-road, but sometimes the middle of the road is exactly where you want to be.

Does anybody really need another review of Cool Water? Beats me, but here are my two (s)cents:

Yes, it smells a lot like Green Irish Tweed, especially for the first half hour or so. And yes, it smells a little bit more obviously chemical. It's a relatively linear scent on me, and the drydown does not arrive at the familiar Creed millésime base.

It's pleasant enough, if somewhat cheap smelling, but what works against it most is that it's over-used and too often imitated. In all fairness I should forgive Cool Water for spawning so many inane progeny, but I'm not sure that I'm a big enough person.

The cinnamon-bergamot topnotes don’t scare me off at all, and I particularly like the way the tarragon spikes the opening accord before segueing into the sweet patchouli that follows. After that, I experience Gentleman as a largely conventional woods and patchouli fragrance on a powdery sweet amber foundation. What leather there may be here isn’t terribly assertive, and if there’s any civet in this blend I’m missing it entirely. Carnation surfaces from time to time, but not with the panache it showed in the late and lamented Patou pour Homme.

I’m inclined to believe the rumors that this was once a bolder and more animalic scent. The Gentleman I’ve tried is ever so polite and undistinguished, not the dangerous, if sophisticated, rake I’ve heard described. I might have enjoyed that fellow’s company, but the new guy is just a yawn.

I've worn the odd, sweet/tart, fruity/floral champaca in scents like Ayala Moriel's Rebellius and Mandy Aftel's Tango, where it is backed by strong, smoky leather. Ormonde Jayne serves it simply, without the smoke and the hide, on a bed of sweet amber and woods. The effect is both exotic and refreshing, but also relativelly bright, and I can see wearing this scent if you're looking for something sweet to wear in summer. On the other hand, Champaca doesn't do much to excite me, and if I'm looking for the distinctive tang of its star ingredient, I'm going to turn to more complex and darker scents.

I'm not sure how much this has to do with osmanthus - at least with the osmanthus that grows in profusion in my neighborhood. On me, Ormonde Jayne's Osmanthus is a thick, heady, indolic white flower composition in the same raunchy vein as Mona di Orio's Nuit Noire and Etat Libre d'Orange's Charogne, if not quite as overtly erotic as either. Nonetheless, Osmanthus makes a strong statement, and that statement is suggestive. I attribute the hard-hitting indoles to the jasmine sambac in the pyramid, and I'm sure the leathery labdanum contributes to the scent's animalic nature. The drydown, which comes surprisingly soon on my skin, is mostly about cedar, complimented by a warm animalic musk.

I've begun to wonder if scents like Nuit Noire, Charogne, and Osmanthus represent a manifesto of rebellion against the spare, minimalist compositions that populate so many niche perfume lines. At any rate I see Osmanthus as a nice, lush "bedroom scent," but not something I'd wear to the office.

The intense candied citrus and floral notes that open Tocade are accompanied by some disturbing ethanol fumes, but these subside quickly to reveal a rich vanilla custard accord with sharp rosy accents. Tocade’s vanilla could easily have become cloying, but it is rescued by a vaguely medicinal bitter edge on its floral components. The overall effect winds up more soapy than foody, which is fine by me. If pressed, I’d guess that the bitterness stems from some galbanum in the mix, and that this, in concert with the rose and a clear, dry cedar in the base, creates the soapy accord that offsets all the vanilla.

Tocade remains relatively linear for some time once the vanilla-soap accord settles into place, though a sweet, fruity amber eventually gains some prominence in the base. The drydown is smooth cedar and vanilla, with just a hint of the tangy amber deep in the background. I think Tocade is a very pleasant scent – safe, easy to wear, and perky without ever being silly or trite.

A very nice, very conventional lemony eau de Cologne. It smells exactly like furniture polish.

They needed Pierre Bourdon to do this?

The top notes are perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of Silver Cologne: a very bright crisp citrus, some deeply indolic white flowers, and clear, dry incense. There’s a bit of the ripe animalic accord from Amouage Gold for Men as well, but in this instance it’s far more subdued and tightly integrated.

As the floral and animalic notes settle, Silver evolves into a somewhat herbal eau de Cologne structure with Amouage’s trademark “silver” frankincense layered on top. It’s far more wearable than the gaudily baroque Gold, but nowhere near as novel or complex as Amouage’s Dia or Jubilation XXV.

Like everything else from Amouage, Silver offers expansive sillage, though without the stupendous wallop that characterizes Gold. Silver’s drydown combines sweet balsamic notes, smooth woods, and a touch of creamy iris, and in line with the “cologne” designation, is far less tenacious than most of the other Amouage offerings I’ve tried. My final verdict is that while Silver Cologne is pleasant, wearable, and well made, it lacks the distinctiveness of the other Amouage scents – even the ones that I dislike.

This Guerlain offering starts out as a bracing herbal/floral eau de Cologne variant with a suave and suggestive animalic undertone. The zoological note soon resolves into the indolic facet of a very full orange blossom accord that dominates the heart of the fragrance. I believe that it’s the roundness and potency of this white flower accord that distinguishes Eau de Fleurs de Cédrat from so many other eau de Cologne formulae. Longevity, as you might imagine, is limited, though the indolic florals do extend this scent's life beyond the 45 minute mark. If you're in the market for a floral take on eau de Cologne, you could do a lot worse than Eau de Fleurs de Cédrat.

Eau de Guerlain opens with a burst of photorealistic lemon (rind and juice), joined by a polite jasmine and a bright herbal bouquet. The three soon merge and then hover for nearly an hour over their crisp, woody base, after which time the dry, mossy drydown takes over.

The accords that anchor Eau de Guerlain are exquisitely balanced, and it's a testament to Guerlain's high quality ingredients that the simple citrus/floral/woody structure never evokes the furniture polish that haunts so many other eau de Cologne formulae. Eau de Guerlain is far from exciting, but it is beautifully constructed in the classical manner.

Ten minutes of Lapsang Souchong and rubbing alcohol followed by thirty minutes of nondescript sweet basenotes. The rest is silence.

Myrrh is an unusual odor: dry, medicinal, and more than a touch bitter, it will appeal to some and repel many. The myrrh note is firmly planted at the center of Lutens’s La Myrrhe, and your interest in this fragrance will depend entirely upon your tolerance for the astringent resin. The myrrh note is most forward and aggressive early on, before the fragrance’s sweet-spicy oriental structure assembles itself below. Like FloatingPoint before me, I pick up a distinct anise or licorice (i.e. sambuca,) layered over La Myrrhe’s heart. For me the anise conjures up Guerlain’s classic Après L’Ondée, but La Myrrhe is a more transparent scent, as it lacks the old Guerlain’s powdery vanilla base components. In fact, La Myrrhe is one of those rare Sheldrake-Lutens compositions, along with Tubéreuse Criminelle, Sa Majesté la Rose, and Sarrasins, that largely eschew the viscous and ponderous syrupy foundation that anchors scents like Arabie, Chergui, or Fumerie Turque. All said and done, this is an original, high quality scent that features an unusual central accord and extends the range of the Lutens line in an interesting direction.

Sampaquita: is that jasmine sambac in the diminutive? If so it’s perfect. This is a sweet little fruity-green jasmine scent in desperate need of a push-up bra. It smells tinny and shallow to me, and I can’t imagine wanting it when there are A la Nuit and Sarrasins to be had for similar money.

The arrestingly dry, dusty green opening of Fleurs de Sel smells to me like a variation on the aggressive vetiver theme of fragrances like Vetiver Extraordinaire or Etro Vetiver, but soon turns toward the floral arrangement promised on the label. The sharp, rasping opening accord continues to cut like a bone knife, even if it’s concealed in a bouquet of wildflowers.

There is a beautiful, if somewhat forbidding, austerity about this stage in Fleurs de Sel’s development that keeps me mesmerized even as I cringe at its starkness. Like Yatagan, though by very different means, Fleurs de Sel’s first hour paints the olfactory equivalent of some parched, desolate landscape. In the case of Yatagan it’s an arid pine forest, while Fleurs de Sel conjures up barren, windswept dunes, sparsely sprinkled with seaside grasses and a smattering of stalwart scrub.

Unfortunately, this phase does not endure more than an hour, by which time the floral elements take over. The result is a more conventional sweet green floral scent, albeit one distinguished by a crisp, dry woody-aromatic foundation and a mysterious wisp of smoke. The projection is limited and the sillage quite mild, so that Fleurs de Sel functions mostly as a skin scent. Its lasting power is more than reasonable for so light a scent, and I’ve gotten a solid four or five hours’ wear out of it.

Two details of Fleurs de Sel’s composition stand out to me. One is the way the normally volatile and relatively fleeting aromatic notes are retained well into the development, and the other is the success with which this fragrance manages to evoke the seaside with nary an aquatic note or a drop of suntan lotion. While the drydown lacks the bracing novelty of the opening and heart accords, the scent is always beautiful. Hats off to Lynn Harris for composing "beach" scent that avoids all the hackneyed gestures that mar this overexploited genre!

Truth in advertising: Aromatics Elixir starts out green and floral with a bracing dose of aromatics adding their rasping accent to the principal accord. It grows steadily more floral as it develops, but the green and aromatic notes persist as counterpoint behind the flowers.

The whole composition remains crisp and dry, with a clean yet earthy “outdoors” quality that reminds me of freshly cut hay. A sharp, almost peppery woody accord in the foundation adds depth without threatening the balance with excessive sweetness. Nice stuff, and no wonder that its managed to survive for decades.

Aldehydes and citrus are what you get when you apply Cristalle, joined almost immediately by sharp, bitter green notes and a balancing dose of sweet flowers. Cristalle’s components come rushing in at high speed, and arrange themselves with equal haste into a clean, grassy floral heart accord, wrapped in a shimmering cloud of aldehydes and resting on a nutty chypre foundation. The blending of components is exemplary here, so that it soon becomes extremely difficult for me to isolate individual notes.

Cristalle settles into bright green floral chypre territory for several hours, with only moderate projection, but paradoxically persistent sillage. As Cristalle ages it does not so much develop as very slowly fade away, its soft chypre base accord being the last element to exit. Cristalle is one of those cases - like some of the Diptyque scents - where I enjoy the heart accord so much that I’m happy that it remains relatively linear! After spending some time with it, Cristalle impresses me as a very well-made and alluring fragrance in a style well removed from Chanel’s accustomed aldehydic floral manner.

Diptyque’s first scent has a stupefying opening: it’s a blaring accord of cinnamon Red Hots candies and citrus rind that while blatantly artificial, keeps me sniffing just because it’s so utterly weird. As things progress the citrus settles down, the cinnamon candy mutates into cloves, and a soft rose emerges in the background, all of which results in a much more conventional carnation accord. At a distance L’Eau’s main movement is a pleasant rose/carnation over creamy woods, but smelled up close there’s still something harsh and disturbingly “chemical” about it.

Like so many of the Diptyque scents that have come since, L’Eau remains relatively linear once its core arrangement settles into place. As it wears on I feel that this represents Diptyque’s trial run at personal fragrances – which of course, it was. As such, I can’t say it was a promising first effort. Its oddness soon begins to look like clumsiness, with the clove note in particular being far out of balance. In retrospect it’s both remarkable and gratifying that L’Eau’s successors include such beauties as Virgilio, Eau Lente, and Philosykos. More an item of historical interest, I think, than a viable personal fragrance

Theo Fennell’s Scent is an enormous rose centered oriental scent that barges into the building and takes no prisoners. Swoon-inducing indolic rose is evident from the very beginning, and only a well judged dose of saffron cuts its viscous languor. I’m reminded of Diptyque’s recently deceased Opone, which also opened with rose and saffron, but where Opone was dry and somewhat austere, Scent is heady, sweet, and plush. In its spicy sweetness and its use of saffron Scent also relates tangentially to Dawn Spencer Hurwitz’s Cimabue, though it’s far more floral and less of a gourmand composition. The saffron/rose accord is bolstered by sweet spices and patchouli, with vanillic notes buried deep beneath all of the baroque ornament.

Scent cruises along in this sweet, heavy oriental lane for quite some time, projecting prodigiously and leaving plenty of sillage as it goes. Because the rose rises and falls in slow, gentle waves, Scent also sustains an unusual recursive motion as it develops. In time the swaying accords reveal a soft powder, whose appearance leads the composition in a slightly drier and woodier direction. There’s a healthy dose of warm, slightly animalic musk in the base, but this only becomes perceptible once the spiced floral accord sheds some of its opacity.

While not exactly svelte or subtle, Scent manages to avoid the kind of bombast that hobbles so many similar big sweet orientals. Even so, this strikes me as a perfume for divas, a fragrance just as big and flamboyant in its way as the very different Opium, Angel, and Fracas.

Scarlett is a woody, spicy, off-dry oriental with pronounced smoky overtones. When cooking I will occasionally toast whole spices such as cardamom, coriander, anise, and peppercorns together in a dry, hot skillet, and Scarlett recalls the warm scent that they release. A dark and slightly animalic musky-woody base rounds out the composition. I find this pleasant and wearable, and while it’s certainly not exciting, it does avoid the sort of strident, chemical drydown that mars so many similar scents.

The pomegranate + anise concept appeals to me in the abstract, but not as it’s executed here. The top notes build a sour, synthetic fruity accord that doesn’t have the courtesy to fade away. I don’t get much anise out of this mix, which is too bad, since its sweet, cool scent would have done much to buffer the chemical assault. Not one of the Fresh brand’s most successful outings.

Not a bad scent, but not one of my favorites from Hermès, nor from nose Maurice Roucel, who composed it. 24, Faubourg registers for me as a spicy floral-oriental with an intensely soapy “perfumey” character. The basic structure recalls some of the classic French scents of the early 20th century, (L'Heure Bleue, Narcisse Noir, etc.) but without displacing any of its great predecessors.

My favorite part of this scent is the drydown, which reveals rich spicy woods, vanilla, and the faintest animalic element deep in the background. 24, Faubourg is a potent scent with plenty of sillage and tenacity, so I advise sparing application. For a more interesting Roucel venture in this vein, try Guerlain's Insolence instead.

Dior’s Jules belongs to a fragrance group that I like to think of as BFFFs: Big, Fat, F#cking Fougères. These include scents like Kouros, Havana, Lauder for Men, and Pascal Morabito’s Or Black. They’re all titanic, spicy, animalic scents that somehow manage to be at once savage and sophisticated, and I love them!

To my mind, Jules occupies the middle ground among these giants. It does not flirt as dangerously with the reek of wild animals as Kouros does; it does not strive for Havana’s spicy exoticism; nor does it breathe the same dark, threatening smoke as Lauder for Men and Or Black. Jules is also a bit sweeter and brighter in its drydown than the rest of them.

For all these reasons, Jules doesn’t compel me quite as much as the others. On the other hand, I can see how this same relative “neutrality” could make Jules the most appealing of the lot for many wearers. In any case, its quality is unassailable, and if you share my taste for monster fougères, you ought to give Jules a try!

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Some weeks ago I attended a long religious service, during which my nostrils were assaulted by a thick, cloying, powdery-sweet woody scent of excruciating potency. I was eventually able to trace the source to my wife’s cousin Howie, seated on a bench three rows ahead of us. I spent the remaining two hours of the service alternately wondering what the loathsome fragrance could be, and silently cursing cousin Howie for dumping half a bottle of it over his head.

I take it all back, Howie.

The scent, I now realize, was Guerlain Homme, of which I’ve found mere drops suffice to fill a room with a screaming miasma of crude, banal, overly sweetened drydown materials. It’s the same material that appears in countless cheap mass market fougères and woody scents for men, but the magic of Guerlain manages to amplify it to nose hair curling volume.

I will concede that Guerlain Homme opens with a charming boozy citrus accord that does evoke the advertised mojito cocktail. Unfortunately, that accord lasts all of five minutes before it’s bulldozed by the powder bomb basenotes, which plow on in linear fashion and shocking intensity for hours unless diligently scrubbed off. The scent works orders of magnitude better on paper than on my (or cousin Howie’s) skin, as the “mojito” accord persists much longer to balance out the base.

I do, as have others, detect a remote similarity to the discontinued Yohji Homme, which employed a similar sweet, powdery base, but did so with much greater finesse and subtlety. Guerlain Homme has some of the boozy anise flavor that marked Yohji Homme, but Guerlain sets it in more opaque surroundings and thereby robs it of grace.

Guerlain Homme shares with Sécrétions Magnifiques the remarkable distinction
of being at once boring and offensive, and I predict that men will buy it by the gallon. Please lord, just don’t let them sit near me.

A superb vetiver. Period.

In my experience, vetiver scents tend to fall into two broad categories: the crisp, suave variety, as in Guerlain Vetiver, and the pungent, uncompromising sort, as epitomized by Route de Vétiver. Encre Noire to some extent straddles the two groups. It is a bold, hard-hitting vetiver, but not in the earthy manner of Route du Vétiver or the sharp, dry style of Malle’s Vétiver Extraordinaire. Potent, dark, and yet transparent, Encre Noire is aptly named. It smells “moist” and rooty, but not dirty. Its vetiver is nutty, smoky, and pleasantly bitter, and it is balanced by the merest touch of sweet licorice or anise. In character it is perhaps closest to Givenchy’s reissued Vetyver, but Encre Noire is a bigger fragrance and distinctly less "polite."

Once it establishes its central vetiver accord, Encre Noire holds to a linear course, and with a heart that’s so well crafted I don’t object. While it is by no means a weak scent, Encre Noire does wear fairly close to the skin, and its sillage is not going to fill a room. The vetiver becomes woodier in the drydown, and is eventually joined by some warm musk and maybe a touch of labdanum before it drifts off altogether. On acquaintance I find Encre Noire to be a distinctive and successful take on vetiver that’s easily qualified to stand next to my favorites, which include Route du Vétiver, Givenchy Vetyver, and The Different Company’s Sel de Vétiver. If you’re fond of vetiver based fragrances, I think you owe it to yourself to give Encre Noire a try.

Roadster strikes me as a commonplace “fresh” woody/fougere composition, not all that far removed in structure from the whole Cool Water crowd. It reminds me a bit of Fahrenheit 32, in that it uses a minty note to replace some of the usual calone and violet leaf, but then it also reminds me of at least twenty other fragrances.

For what it’s worth, I prefer Roadster to the Dior because it doesn’t contain much (if any) of the cloying drydown material that fouls Fahrenheit 32. Besides the mint, Roadster distinguishes itself to some degree by using drier woods than many of its ilk. That’s not enough make it revolutionary, or to excite me, but it’s still a plus.

Must de Cartier’s rich, spicy opening is made intriguing by the very smallest hint of animal musk, but what follows doesn’t fulfill this introduction’s promise. Instead, Must de Cartier develops into a polite, fruity oriental scent on a base of soft woods. It’s pleasant, it’s comfortable, and it’s utterly conventional. I give it credit for avoiding the gourmand bombast of Pi or Le Male, but there are just too many finer spicy-woody orientals out there (Jaipur Homme, Heritage, Noir Epices…the list goes on,) to make Must de Cartier competitive.

Well, they got the “noire” right, at any rate. Even within the first few minutes of wear, Serge Noire establishes itself as a dark, dark scent, with a dense blend of spices, incense, and aromatics that even suggests some of the big, burly masculines of the 1970s. The composition resolves into a bold, rasping accord of peppery spices and incense that’s held together by a huge dusty cedar note. The impression is one of simultaneous heat and darkness.

Notably absent is any of the familiar Sheldrake-Lutens stewed fruit and syrup accord, so Serge Noire is dry as well as hot. With all the spices and cedar, Serge Noire gets me thinking about Shiseido’s Basala, which I believe Sheldrake may also have worked on. The two scents are cousins, if not siblings, though I remember Basala as a somewhat richer and more rounded scent.

All of these impressions come within the first hour of wearing Serge Noire. Soon after that, the entire structure collapses like a house of cards, so that only the dry, dusty cedar remains. The development, if you can call it that, is one of the most bizarre I’ve ever encountered. The fragrance shrinks away so fast I can actually smell it imploding. It’s not clear to me whether Serge Noire’s transformation is an inherent property of the fragrance, or due to my own olfactory habituation. All I can say is that over the course of five or ten minutes all of the spices and incense that comprised Serge Noire’s heart are crammed into a cedar box and the lid slammed shut on top of them. Utterly baffling.

Maybe there’s a reason for all the short reviews preceding this one. Heck, I’m rarely at a loss for words about a fragrance (i.e., I often ramble), but I can’t find much to say about Duel. Straightforward tea on a thin leather base, and not much else. Disappears within an hour. Next…

Jubilation 25 lands on the skin in a cloud of fruity rose, myrrh, and frankincense that harkens back to earlier Amouage fragrances like Gold and Dia. The animalic edge that characterizes Amouage Gold is present as well, but the aldehydes that dominate the earlier scent are not so conspicuous. Jubilation 25 is a brighter, clearer fragrance than many of the earlier Amouage feminine offerings, but that’s not implying that its insubstantial. It’s just not the same sort of 1,000 lb. anvil as Gold.

I do wish that Jubilation 25’s incense accord and animalic tang persisted longer, since once they fade I’m left with a less luxurious and more conventional floral oriental base with a dollop of sweet amber. The basenotes are persistent and the sillage and projection are comfortable – neither intrusive nor too weak, but I don't feel that Jubilation 25's development measures up to the promising first half hour. I find this scent a particularly disappointing measured against it's more exotic and distinctive masculine companion scent, Jubilation XXV, to which this women’s scent bears no resemblance beyond its name. Get Dia Woman instead.

This is a tart, smoky amber scent, with much emphasis placed on the leathery, animalic aspects of labdanum resin. It intrigues me in that it manages to be at once dark and transparent, an impression I’ve only received before from Olivia Giacobetti’s Idole and Tea for Two. In fact the longer I wear L’Oiseau de Nuit, the more I’m reminded of Idole. L’Oiseau de Nuit shares the Lubin scent’s “boozy” quality, its smoke, and its leather, though they are presented in a simpler composition, without Idole’s black cumin and saffron. But where Idole dries down toward smoky wood and leather, L’Oiseau de Nuit resolves to a tangy amber base that, while attractive, is also more conventional.

In a limited wardrobe, I’d consider this scent somewhat interchangeable with say, Ambre Russe, Ambre Sultan, or Ambre Precieux, and were I limiting myself to one amber scent L’Oiseau de Nuit is not the first I’d choose. For this specific sort of booze, amber, smoke, and leather structure, I’d take Idole over L’oiseau de Nuit as well, as I prefer Idole’s comparative depth and complexity. However, if like many, you find Idole too confrontational, L’Oiseau de Nuit might be a better bet.

The label should read "Dragon Breath." This starts out as a comically chemical blend of cherry Lifesaver and pink bubblegum, and does not improve one iota with age. Dragon’s best feature is that it doesn’t last, so I don’t have to be subjected to its banal odor for too long.

Is that as in ski bump? When things come as unsolicited free samples, there’s usually a reason. Sometimes it’s because they smell like Mogul.

When I first read the esteemed the_good_life’s reviews of Parfum Raffy’s scents I thought: “They can’t really be THAT bad.” Guess what? They can. This is a cheap knock-off of a cheap knock-off of Cool Water that smells more like a deodorant stick than anything else. Perfumery hits a new low.

I’m with PigeonMurderer on this one: what I get is mostly a powdery green rose with some spices and a touch of cedar wood in the base, and not the rose and animalic leather accord I had expected. The green rose at Twill Rose’s heart is OK, but I don’t think it the equal of Diptyque’s L’Ombre dans l’Eau. Twill Rose doesn’t project much for me, and it’s also highly ephemeral, which is to say, gone within an hour. Something of a disappointment, I’m afraid.

I would have expected something transgressive, or at least animalic, from a scent named after Genet’s dark novel of masochistic lust, homosexual rape, blackmail, and murder, but that’s not what Querelle delivers. Granted, Querelle projects some of the hyper-masculine swagger embodied in Genet’s characters, but it smells to me more of a gentleman’s club than of a gay leather bar or a brothel full of randy sailors. I realize that the scent itself is more important than the label, but with such a loaded name, I just can’t help wishing for a provocative scent – something along the lines of Muscs Koublaï Khan, Oud Cuir d’Arabie, Kouros, or even Pierre Guillaume’s own Intrigant Patchouli.

Instead, Querelle presents a bundle of bitter aromatic notes and sweet bergamot over a mossy base in a highly traditional spicy fougère accord. It’s the same in-your-face, macho, ‘70s and ‘80s vibe you get in Yatagan, Azzaro pour Homme, or Balenciaga’s Portos. (In fact, Querelle’s scent pyramid overlaps very heavily with Azzaro’s!) It’s an appealing formula, since few scents of this sort are composed nowadays, but I don’t feel that Pierre Guillaume has brought anything new to the table with Querelle. If you like this kind of scent, you can get Azzaro, or the even more daring Yatagan for less than a quarter of Querelle’s niche market price.

Cuir Venemum is a dry, tarry leather that strikes me at first as a leaner, sparer version of Santa Maria Novella’s Nostalgia. It has some of that same new leather car interior vibe, but adds a bouquet of medicinal aromatics and shucks most of Nostalgia’s tobacco. The result is leather with a bitter edge and not even a hint of sweetness. This is miles away from the fruity suede of Cuir Ottoman or Daim Blond, but equally far removed from the provocative animalic leather of Oud Cuir d’Arabie or Eau d’Hermes.

As Cuir Venenum develops, a very bold myrrh note takes over the role of bitter accent. The myrrh expands steadily until, after an hour on my skin, it dominates the composition. The ongoing impression is highly medicinal, but in a bracingly pleasant manner. The medicinal leather and resin accord soldiers on in a straight line for hours, fading more than altering when it eventually dries down. All in all I judge this a fine leather scent, straightforward but not stodgy, smelling of quality, and easy to wear. It will appeal especially to those who like their scents dry and their leathers relatively “clean.”

Lyric Man has gotten some very enthusiastic press since its release, but I’m not dancing in the streets about it. Don’t get me wrong – the stuff smells fantastic. It’s a well constructed woody rose scent, with a big, sweet plummy note, oriental spices, and heady florals at its heart, all balanced by dry frankincense and just the lightest dab of piercing oudh. It’s also smooth and well blended, with a seductively deep, soft, mahogany surface that's a close match to its bottle.

Trouble is, high quality rose fragrances for men are now easy to come by in the niche market, and Lyric Man needs to shoulder its way into line with several oudh-and-rose scents from Montale, plus L’Ombre dans l’Eau, Voleur de Roses, Paestum Rose, and Czech & Speake’s magisterial No. 88. In fact, if you switched out Lyric Man’s plum for peach and pulled out the already subtle oudh, you’d have something very much like Nahéma parfum!

As perhaps the most costly of this lot, the new Amouage would need to blow all of the rest out of the water before I’d consider a bottle, and it just doesn’t. I frankly think that No. 88, Nahéma, and Paestum Rose are just as well made as Lyric, and that Voleur des Roses and Montale’s Black Aoud, Royal Aoud, and Aoud Damascus are all more striking in character. So while I have to rate Lyric Man positively, I recommend sampling several other masculine roses before shelling out for it.

I’m not sure I’m smelling what everybody else is here. For me, Rochas Lui starts out with a blast of raw alcohol, followed by harsh, peppery aromatics and a tart – even sour – citrus accord that feels almost like vinegar. Hardly the most promising of introductions. After a few minutes on the skin the tart and peppery notes meld into a pleasantly bittersweet woody-green accord, but the scent doesn’t really come into its own until a very dry and discreet floral note emerges to fill out the heart.

At this point Rochas Lui arrives at a highly distinctive and brilliantly balanced floral/woody/aromatic structure that goes a long way toward redeeming its awkward opening. A very rounded vanilla cushions the base, its sweetness balanced by some very dry cedar and lingering peppery accents. I’m fascinated by the way this foundation binds vanilla and wood in an accord that is neither edible nor indulgent. These sugar-free woody vanilla harmonics remind me of very little else, except perhaps for the late stages of Molinard’s classic Habanita, where vetiver and vanilla meld into a similarly cozy-but-firm construct.

Others have described Rochas Lui as an eau de Cologne variant or an old-fashioned barbershop scent, but I think the conspicuous green notes and vanilla distance it from traditional eaux de Cologne, while the apparent absence of lavender in the heart bars it from barbershop territory. Rochas Lui offers persistent sillage and endures for several hours on the skin, but (unlike earlier reviewers,) I do not find it intrusive or overpowering. To me it is a dignified, but never stuffy scent of distinguished character, and (again like Habanita,) one of the fragrance world’s great bargains.

I experienced an episode of instantaneous recognition when I first smelled Cumming: take Olivia Giacobetti’s Dzing!, pare away the vanilla candy to isolate the pungent barnyard and riding boots accord, and you’ve got Cumming. Or something very like it, at any rate. Where Dzing! uses sugary vanilla, Cumming employs smoke, tobacco, and dry aromatics to set off its intensely animalic leather. The resulting scent is more than a little raunchy, but never crude. References to cigars and whisky in descriptions of this scent are accurate, but the unabashedly animalic accent keeps Cumming far from the stuffy men’s club territory occupied by Vintage Tabarome and Baladin.

While Cumming is by no means weak, it does wear close to the skin, so I doubt those beyond arm’s reach will detect it easily. Lasting power is adequate, if unexceptional, with a mossy wood and leather drydown setting in after four to six hours. Lovers of animalic leather scents like Montale’s Oud Cuir d’Arabie or Eau d’Hermès ought to give Cumming a try. It’s just as bold and distinctive, but less loud, and hence easier to wear. Very good stuff.

Z-14 is a peculiar hybrid of a fragrance. To me it smells like a spicy oriental gourmand grafted onto an aromatic chypre foundation. The juxtaposition (or is it paradox?) of spicy-sweet and bitter-dry imbues Z-14 with a compelling energy: it hums and vibrates as if about to fly apart, yet manages to stay coherent right through its moss and labdanum drydown. Some may find this drydown stodgy, but I prefer to think of it as serious.

Z-14 presages the “power scents” of the 1980s in that it is very, very loud – unfashionably so by current standards. Even a small application can be smelled yards away, and Z-14’s sillage will fill the room long after you have left it. Z-14 also endures for hours and hours, so you better be in the mood for it all day! I happen to like Z-14, but its outrageous volume makes it difficult for me to wear, and I don’t seek it out all that often.

Live Jazz starts out unpromising, with the kind of soporific, standard issue, fresh fougère opening that sets my eyelids drooping on exposure. Happily, I can report that there’s more to Live Jazz than that. Roughly fifteen minutes into the development, Live Jazz reveals an extremely odd herbaceous-aromatic accord that I might describe as basil, coriander leaves (cilantro) and clary sage. (According to the listed notes, it’s coriander, “wild reed,” mint, and rhubarb.) It’s a punch-in-the-nose olfactory maneuver that’s startling in such an otherwise ordinary context, and it rescues Live Jazz from the anonymity it threatens to adopt on first encounter. Nifty.

So long as the tart, astringent herbaceous accord persists, Live Jazz sustains interest beyond most other scents of its class. When it fades, which occurs after about two hours of wear, what remains is a fresh fougère structure in the conventional Cool Water/Green Irish Tweed manner. While the drydown is hardy distinguished, it’s far less crudely chemical than most of its sort, and hence does not ruin the overall experience of wearing Live Jazz. So while its most interesting part is framed by uninspired accords, I have to grant Live Jazz a thumbs up, especially in light of how terribly difficult it must be to achieve any kind of distinction in its tired genre.

Cristobal is one of those woody oriental scents that pretty much dispense with top notes and jump right into their sweet-spicy main movements. In Cristobal's case this is comprised of a very sweet vanilla and powerful (and suspiciously synthetic,) sandalwood, dressed up in an array of kitchen spices from nutmeg and mace to anise and cinnamon. There is also a harsh, musty, and inevitably cheap-smelling woody amber pounding away in the depths, and this presages a disappointingly crude and generic drydown.

Before that happens, but after the sweet vanilla blast settles down, Cristobal passes through an interesting and gratifying phase where its woods and spices take on a vaguely smoky, roasted quality that almost (but not quite,) suggests coffee, in the manner of Yohji Homme or New Haarlem. In Cristobal the effect is not so blatantly "foody," and hence far more pleasant to wear.

Unfortunately, the drydown can't be held off forever, and as it lumbers in it tramples anything that's remotely intelligent or interesting about Cristobal to dust. This occurs after perhaps three hours on the skin, so that to comfortably wear Cristobal I'd have to adopt the following routine:

1. Wait 30 minutes after application to allow the accords to achieve balance before appearing in public.

2. After two to three hours, shower, scrubbing vigorously, to remove the loud, nasty and (of course,) tenacious base notes.

3. Repeat procedure from step 1.

Sorry - too much work for me.

Flower Eau de Parfum opens on a brisk green floral accord that’s at once smooth and refreshing. Violet leaf and violet blossom soon separate themselves from the blend, while suggestions of muguet (lily-of-the-valley) and acacia fill out the dewy spring bouquet. Just a little less roundness, a little less blending of notes, and Flower would smell like air freshener. It’s all squeaky clean – maybe even a little bit clinical – but absent the melon-aquatic notes (over)used in so many of today’s bright florals, the composition manages to keep on the right side of cheap-smelling.

Flower’s foundation consists mostly of soapy white musk and soft woods. Because the basenotes are not sweet, the scent maintains its crystalline clarity right through to the end. I would describe both its sillage and projection from the skin as moderate, and once its central floral bouquet is assembled, it remains stable for at least four hours before beginning its collapse into drydown. Flower is an easy-wearing, happy scent that manages to feel fresh while avoiding modern fresh-floral clichés. I think of it as a space age Diorissimo: equally limpid, luminous, and vernal, but tricked out in a shiny new metallic finish. I like it.

Grey Flannel opens with a barrage of very dry, bitter herbal notes, supplemented by what smells to me like a very heavy dose of violet leaf. Over time a slightly sweeter mown grass accord enters to underpin the brusque top notes, but Grey Flannel remains a stark and craggy scent.

Grey Flannel eventually matures into a blunt vetiver on a mossy cedar foundation, from which point it remains resolutely linear before fading away. Grey Flannel is clearly a product of that same decade that brought us the more trenchant and confrontational Yatagan, and I’m glad it’s survived for all these years. It makes a fine antidote to the host of faceless clean men’s fragrances that dominate today’s designer market.

Is that Spanish for "Queasy, queasy, queasy?"

OK, so maybe it's not that bad. Just another fruity floral. It starts out with synthetic "melon" and dries down powdery. Wake me up when it's over...

If I remember correctly, this was the first fragrance I ever owned -- it was given to me as a gift when I was in high school. (OK, I just dated myself.) Now, decades later, I'm wearing it again with renewed appreciation. In a sea of chemical spill aquatics and bland Cool Water clones, Devin shines like a beacon of distinction and originality. Wedged in somewhere between the green chypres and the leather chypres, Devin opens green with sweet lemon zest, then quickly reveals spices, fruity esters, rich jasmine, and leather. The grand drydown, balanced between leather tang earthy oakmoss, manages to be at once outdoorsy and sophisticated.

Devin's scale and complexity leave most modern masculine scents smelling thin and puny by comparison; its poise and balance make much of what has come since smell hopelessly clumsy. Why anything this good hasn't already been discontinued is beyond me. Now that oakmoss is all but illegal, it probably will be.

This is supposed to be Diptyque's great essay on sandalwood. Forget the sandalwood. Tam Dao starts out dry and reserved, with a touch of spice and a whole dump truck load of cedar.

And that's it. Bone dry cedar and sharp spices on a bed of desiccated powder. Pure, simple...wait that's a soap commercial isn't it? Tam Dao is dry wood stripped down to its essence, with none of the potentially distracting notes that soften the edges of scents like Santal Noble or Santal Imperial. It smells like a carpenter’s shop, filled with sawdust. It's also utterly, unfailingly linear, just as many other Diptyque scents. Tam Dao is the Zen of cedar. The bare essentials. The unclouded vision. It's quite the achievement, yet it somehow fails to inspire me.

I waited a long time to get my hands on a sample of Eau du Fier, and I put it on with much anticipation. The scent opens with an intense burst of orange juice, (like concentrate from a can,) joined quickly by a very literal smoke note. And that's about it. These two notes are so isolated that I hesitate to call them an accord. Instead, they play like two completely independent tunes, juxtaposed in the manner of Charles Ives. The gesture is bold, but I don't think it's altogether convincing, especially since it churns over a very thin base. In fact, the whole scent feels to me like an olfactory stunt - at least until the orange note fades out. After that I'm left with a very smoky leather drydown with a major barbecue vibe.

Novel and arresting? Absolutely. A satisfying fragrance? About that I'm not so sure.

I once wrote of Fumerie Turque:

“I understand the love that some have of this fragrance, and I understand the detractors, too.

On my skin this went on with a blast of brilliantly rendered tobacco smoke, which settled slightly over the first few minutes to reveal powerful notes of spiced amber and honey, not too far removed, in fact, from this house's Ambre Sultan. Honey underpins Fumerie Turque's heart, but this honey is not so heavy and enveloping as that found in Miel de Bois or Arabie. You're not likely to drown in it.

At about wo hours into its development on my skin, Fumerie Turque loses some of its balance and complexity. Some pleasing notes, including the currants and the rose, recede, and I'm left with honey, cigarette smoke, and amber. The tobacco smoke in Fumerie Turque doesn't seem to me to be as fully blended as in scents like Palais Jamais, Vintage Tabarome, and Habanita. In fact, when Fumerie Turque's smoky accord is in the forefront I smell like...well, like a smoker. As the drydown progresses the smoke and the sweet base notes alternate in dominance, until all that remains is smoke.

If I wanted to smell like a smoker, I would smoke. It's cheaper than wearing Fumerie Turque, if perhaps a bit less healthy. So while I appreciate Fumerie Turque's stature and quality I have no desire to wear it.”

I’ve since (to paraphrase Kubrick) learned to stop worrying and love the smoke. Having fallen successively for Black Tourmaline and Or Black, coming to grips with Fumerie Turque was perhaps inevitable. I'm now happy to wear it whenever I need a dose of olfactory warm and cozy.

Here it is: the most extreme turnaround in my opinion of any fragrance, ever. I begin with my original assessment:

“Egads! Honeyed cat pee. It must be arduous to extract and distil the urine of all those diabetic cats, which would explain the astronomical price. This is alleged to contain hundreds of ingredients, but to my nose it's civet, buckets of musty powder and aldehydes...and a little more powder. Civet + powder + aldehydic white flowers = The Cat Peed in Grandma's Closet. Bombastic and unbalanced for a full eight hours. Shocking as the flagship of the line that contains the marvelous Dia and Jubilation XXV. Oddly enough, the women's version is quite good on my wife. Go figure.”

What’s happened since? I’ve been sampling Gold on and off for years - have my tastes evolved so far? I suspect a reformulation is responsible, and for once, a reformulation for the better! Gold is still enormous, unsubtle, and intensely animalic, but it now strikes me as more nuanced and better balanced. The aldehydes and powder seem to have been toned way down, and the frankincense brought further to the fore. Where the “old” Gold was a musty, dusty, floral, the one I wear now is a rich incense fragrance with a bold floral overlay. Is it easy to wear? No. Does is it smell great? Yes. Once again, go figure…

Like Narcisse Noir, No.5, and Fracas, Patou's Joy is a monument from another era in women's perfumery. It's not the kind of scent that would be made today, except perhaps as an exercise in irony. Too bad.

Joy opens up with indolic jasmine, powder, a jolt of aldehydes, and a very well-integrated note of civet. The powder, indoles, and civet remind me (believe it or not) of Amouage's Gold for Men, only without the frankincense. Joy sweetens with age as the aldehydes calm down and tuberose and a very rounded rose note join the jasmine in the foreground. Within thirty minutes of wear Joy unfolds into a powdery, semi-sweet white flower bouquet. I can't honestly describe it as "light," but the dominant accord is certainly less heady and lush than it could have been. I consider this a good thing. The drydown is mostly sandalwood and powdery musk, with the civet still lurking in the shadows.

Is it "perfumey?" Yes. Is it "old school?" Yes again - but only in the manner of a true classic. Joy reflects another time and place, where sensuality was dressed in dignity and elegance. Joy is very adult and very ladylike, but there is also an element of animalic lust deep in its heart. It seems at once formal and romantic to me now, and I concur with earlier reviews that suggest it as a bridal fragrance - at least for a mature and self-assured bride.

Rocabar has juniper, citrus, and maybe even artemisia on top. It's cool, it's piney, and it's a bit astringent. In fact, the conifer notes in Rocabar have a bracing, almost menthol quality about them. There are also some sweet undertones which, combined with the pine, vaguely suggest anise. The whole thing is very clean and bright, like crisp cold air in winter. Or like Vick's Vapo-Rub.

Michael Edwards classifies Rocabar as a dry woods (read: "leather") scent, but I can't find a lick of leather here. If anything the base strikes me as a fairly conventional sweet fougère. Then again, what do I know? All I can tell you is that Rocabar seems simplistic, even puerile, coming from Hermès. It appeals less to me than any other pre-Ellena scent in the line.

The first note I discern in 10 Corso Como is a very smooth, nutty, and somewhat sweetened vetiver. The vetiver is soon joined by incense, sandalwood, and rose, all well-blended in a very dignified accord. There is some oudh in the mix as well, but it's only a grace note, not a lead player, and like everything else in this scent, it's very smoothly integrated.

"Smooth" keeps coming up as I describe 10 Corso Como, and I realize that this is an exceptionally suave and civilized scent. Surprisingly for a fragrance featuring rose, vetiver, incense, and oudh, it's also quite soft and mild, and wears close to the skin. It grows progressively creamier as it develops, with the oudh lending a certain coolness to the composition. Over the course of hours, 10 Corso Como also sweetens and becomes more resinous, as the gentle oudh and smooth (again!) sandalwood lead it into its clean musk, wood, and incense drydown. This is nice stuff, and I find it very easy to wear. I see it as a solid, sophisticated daytime scent for those occasions where you want to project poise and decorum.

Hmm. Comme des Garçons 3 smells a lot simpler than all those notes in the pyramid suggest. It goes on with some odd sour candy-style fake fruit, acerbic green notes and one small sweaty sock. It's an aggressively harsh, synthetic opening, but purposefully so: an olfactory challenge rather than an accidental miscarriage. Come to think of it, #3 has the kind of off-kilter, confrontational opening that's often ascribed to Caron's much less iconoclastic L'Anarchiste. I kind of like it - too bad that what follows is a lot less interesting.

The Jolly Rancher top notes bow out once their shock value is exhausted, and their place is taken by a more conventional citrus note. The dirty sock meanwhile softens and blends into a well-worn shoe leather and cedar background. The tart citrus plays against the leather and woods not so much in harmony as in olfactory polytonality, or maybe an oxymoron in scent.

The effect is terribly clever, if also a bit self-conscious and stagey. Comme des Garçons 3 goes on this way for an hour or two, until the citrus quits and leaves the drydown to some cedar and animalic leather. In the end it strikes me as mildly absurd, like a self-regarding college drama major in a silk scarf, with delivery that never quite lives up to his theatrical entrance. Just like that drama major, Comme des Garçons 3 projects reasonably, but does not last.

There's a reason Héritage is a staple in so many Basenotes wardrobes. The lavender and bergamot opening may not be novel, but it's extremely well done. Sweet spices, floral notes, vanilla and a bit of amber well up very quickly in a classical and refined sweet oriental blend. As it nears its heart, Héritage comes as close to the rich oriental texture of Patou pour Homme as any scent I know. This is most true when a recognizable, though unobtrusive, black pepper note comes into play. I detect cinnamon as well, and also some sandalwood in the foundation.

As I wear it Héritage also reveals a beautifully balanced rose note that rubs up affectionately against the sweet spicy base. The composition is multifaceted, yet not oppressively heavy or dark. A slowly moving three-way volley between vanilla seasoned florals, spices, and smooth, smooth woods characterizes this scent's progression. In the end, the rich wood and vanilla base flirts with lingering spices in a luxurious extended drydown. Cultured, confident, yet never bombastic, Héritage is one of those special scents that every fragrance lover ought to try.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The opening accord of dry, yeasty rose and patchouli is exquisite. Then, after I've worn it for five or ten minutes, the patchouli and rose mutate into…cannabis smoke. That’s right: it doesn't smell like a head shop - it smells like my brother-in-law's bong!

When the drydown arrives, two or three hours later, it's a lovely arrangement of woods, but what Voleur de Roses does in the middle is beyond my tolerance. I won't appear in public smelling like I've just smoked a whole pound of weed.

The listed notes tell me that I should adore Rien, but the sparks never really fly. Rien starts out with a burst of aldehydes and dry powder, soon followed by a gentle incense note and a very light rose. Because it's utterly devoid of sweetness, the rose/incense accord feels weightless and ethereal, even when leather and oakmoss rise up beneath it. The moss and leather are seasoned with black peppercorn in a medicinal combination that brings to mind a very soft oudh.

Rien persists in this vein for quite some time, becoming drier and more woody with age. Though none is listed, I smell something suggestive of cedar in the base, and that note brings the drydown surprisingly close to the late stages of Diptyque's cedar-lined Tam Dao (!?). On the whole, I'd describe Rien as a very dry, gray "scratchy" fragrance, and believe that earlier reviewers have been spot on calling it stony or mineralic. In the end I think it's interesting, but not necessarily compelling.

A classic, and deservedly so! Angélique Encens goes on very soapy, with an immediate and potent blast of sweetened angelica. This is followed by a vanilla note that sweetens the scent even further. Before it can become too syrupy-sweet, the incense of the title wells up to add a sobering dry foundation. A complex blend of spices (I smell mace, black pepper, and perhaps a touch of cumin) enters soon after, along with a gentle white flower accord that nudges what started as a very "masculine" fragrance into the realm of unisex.

As the scent develops, the white flower accord becomes dominant and begins to seem "perfumey" in a very old-fashioned way. I usually prefer my incense a bit less sweet and floral, as in Dzongkha or L'Homme Sage, but Angélique Encens reveals tremendous depth and complexity, with more than one happy surprise turn in its development. It endures quite well on the skin, with impressive sillage and projection right on through its sweet vanilla-ambery drydown. A wonderful scent, though not for me the "religious experience" some have described. I certainly don't need 8 ounces(!) of the stuff.

The wet, fresh burst of fruit that introduces Sugar Lychee is so full and dynamic I could take a bite of it. In fact, it's so bold that it just falls short of smelling cheaply synthetic. The fruit here isn't just the lush/tart lychee note: I get some peaches, banana and light berries in the mix as well. Before this fruit salad has a chance to wear on me too much, it's joined by a very smooth tonka bean and a mysterious, nuanced floral note that may be the listed lotus.

Sugar Lychee is just as intensely sweet as the name promises, with only some remnant citric tartness in the heart accord to prevent cavities upon inhalation. After about an hour, some vey creamy woods begin to stir in the base. In combination with the intense fruit these veer slightly toward coconut, and it's at this point that Sugar Lychee has its closest brush with suntan lotion vulgarity.

As the scent ages the sweetness slowly abates and the woods become more prominent, although they never shed the creamy accent of tonka. The scent stays fairly close to the skin after the initial fruity burst, becoming a smooth, sweet skin scent. The "edible" quality of the opening remains throughout the drydown, always suggesting a tropical dessert.

Most of my encounters with the lychee note have been in meditative incense fragrances like L'Homme Sage and Dzongkha, where it provides a touch of lush harmony in an otherwise austere composition. Fully exposed in its bikini garb, as here, it's bright, celebratory note. Sugar Lychee is an unabashed "beach" fragrance, and it's really best worn on a hot summer's day. The hotter and steamier, the better. It's a happy scent, with the casual appeal of tropical drinks and the olfactory colors of paper umbrellas. This beach party in a bottle is loads of fun. To take it seriously is to miss the point

Bois de Paradis is a very pretty woody-ambery oriental distinguished by a bright and realistic berry note that floats above the rose and wood heart. The amber base is very sweet and powdery, with a large helping of vanilla. Not enough to make the drydown cheap or cloying, but sufficient to make me a bit uncomfortable wearing it. I imagine this appealing to any woman who enjoys Boucheron's Jaïpur Saphir or Byzance by Rochas. Men should definitely test before buying.

If you like Yatagan or Parfum d'Habit, try Palais Jamais. It's of the same testosterone-drenched wood and leather clan, though it does manage to walk its own path.

While Yatagan and Parfum d'Habit lean heavily on conifer notes, Palais Jamais surrounds its leather with a veil of smoke. The other two are very much rugged, outdoor scents, not too far removed from the forest. Palais Jamais is more urbane: a shot of whiskey and a Cuban cigar enjoyed in a leather chair. Except for its brief, citrus sweetened opening salvo, this is a dry, and I mean bone-dry scent. Even the green notes at the heart are crisp and desiccated.

Interestingly for something so aggressively masculine, my wife smelled it on me and pronounced emphatically that it was NOT sexy. Too much of the stuffy men's club, as opposed to the caveman vibe? Beats me.

Unless you're a die-hard fan of this particular class of scents, you may not need this in your wardrobe if you've got Yatagan. If you are looking for a mucho macho leather scent with a strong dose of smoke, I suggest a test of Ayala Moriel's brilliant Rebellius. Now that's sexy!

Comparisons with the earlier À la Nuit are inevitable, but Sarrasins is its own scent. It is a less voluptuous, less indolic jasmine, and altogether more reserved – maybe even severe. I almost immediately get a very green and somehow austere jasmine out of Sarrasins. I also smell some hay and the merest touch of camphor or menthol. The camphor remains in the background, but it does put a cool edge on the central jasmine. Though I don’t find any actual tea in Sarrasins, it does leave an impression of green tea with jasmine.

Sarrasins continues in its green jasmine groove for some time, gradually growing sweeter and smoother as it develops. Then at length the floral accord sharpens, and in so doing begins to lead the scent in a new direction. Having grown sweeter, Sarrasins now becomes somewhat hard-edged as well, and then remains comparatively cool and aloof throughout its lifespan. Part of this increasing sharpness may be due to the spicy carnation middle note.

Sarrasins doesn’t so much alter as fade during its drydown. It clings stubbornly to its jasmine and reveals only a hint of sweet, powdery musk and creamy woods. I get nothing animalic, and certainly no civet or castoreum in the base. It’s also completely free of the sweet, syrupy base accord that’s common to many Sheldrake-Lutens fragrances. When applied very liberally, Sarrasins reveals some darker, leathery overtones, and more vanilla or coumarin in its base, but on the whole it’s a simple scent, and a remarkably straightforward one coming from the house that brought us Muscs Koublaï Khan, Ambre Sultan and Tubéreuse Criminelle.

In fact, with its camphoraceous, medicinal edge, Sarrasins could be taken as an attempt to do for jasmine what Tubéreuse Criminelle does for tuberose. If that’s the case, Sheldrake and Lutens have either miscalculated or lost their nerve, for Sarrasins is a far less challenging scent. If anything, it’s a sibling to Un Lys, or even Gris Clair, which are likewise crisp and clear. At no point does Sarrasins become thick or heady, and it wears quite close to the skin. I think ubuandibme is accurate in describing it as "sheer" and “transparent,” qualities that Sheldrake and Lutens have rarely achieved during their partnership. It conspicuously lacks the near-hallucinatory accuracy of Un Lys or Sa Majesté la Rose. In all of these respects it smells more like something L'Artisan Parfumeur or Hermèssence would do than what's expected out of Serge Lutens. Its limited projection and unusually crisp, green-tinted floral character make Sarrasins a “safer” scent than À la Nuit (or many other jasmines for that matter,) and I think it will work well for either gender.

Sarrasins is labeled as an eau de parfum, but on my skin at least, it’s a surprisingly mild scent. The lasting power is only fair – maybe about five hours. My verdict? An easy-to-wear jasmine, but too timid and bloodless to hold my interest.

As with so many scents by Jean-Claude Ellena, Déclaration has an ostensibly simple structure: it's fundamentally a dry cedar scent of the crispy, crunchy persuasion, enlivened by extremely bright citrus notes and given depth by a deftly measured dose of cumin and leathery base notes. Examined carefully, the composition reads as a modernist gloss on the cumin, citrus, and leather structure of Edmond Roudnitska’s great Eau d’Hermès, made to feel edgy and contemporary through extreme transparency and the removal of anything remotely sweet. It shares with the classic Hermès a paradoxical sense of dirty/clean, animalic/citrus that seduces some noses and repels others.

Déclaration rises above the general run of woods-and-citrus designer imitators that followed it by way of its fearlessly stark angularity, its seamless blending, and its superior ingredients. The bergamot top note is nicely done, and the transition to the dry, woody heart is very smooth. The citrus notes smell natural despite their brightness, and the woods are deeper and more rounded than most.

Like many other Ellena scents I've tried, Déclaration is also relatively linear, running in its cedar-cumin-citrus groove for a couple of hours before anything else happens. Eventually the citrus notes fade and a smoky leather and crisp, but not-too-loud woody amber join the lingering cedar for the drydown, which is also seasoned by a just-perceptible hint of moss.

With its clarity, its balance, and its clever allusions to classical structures, Déclaration marks a climax in Jean-Claude Ellena’s “minimalist” fragrance explorations. His related woody citrus “Jardin” scents for Hermès do nothing to improve upon Déclaration. In fact they seem to me clumsily out of balance and repetitious in its wake. Some of Ellena’s more recent minimalist compositions may be stripped down the point of being bare, but Déclaration strikes the perfect mean between clarity and substance. A landmark in the art of perfumery.

Notes (from Luckyscent): myrtle branch, sap, red tangerine, rosewood, Kenyan cypress resin, coconut milk, sandalwood bark, ambrette seed, vanilla.

Let me confess from the beginning that Cadjmere is not the kind of fragrance that I normally enjoy. It starts out as a kind of woody gourmand scent, with notes of dry toasted coconut and powder over vanilla and a sweet floral note that may be the listed rosewood. The name is just right. This scent is warm, velvety smooth, and somehow almost "stuffy," as if my nose were buried in a sweater.

The coconut, vanilla, and rosewood play out in a linear manner through Cadjmere's heart. They are accented by a dash of something camphoraceous that causes an occasional metallic glint amidst all of the velour. Unfortunately, I don't think that it's quite enough to keep Cadjmere from feeling somewhat ponderous. I also find the toasted coconut note to be significantly out of balance, and it becomes tiresome to me after an hour or so.

I'm surprised to find the camphoraceous note holding on until late in the development, when it lends some much-needed lift to what strikes me otherwise as a relatively flat and conventional sandalwood and vanilla drydown. Cadjmere will no doubt appeal to lovers of sweet gourmand fragrances, but it leaves me smelling too much like a macaroon.

Pleasantly bitter green notes greet the nose as Aubépine-Acacia lights on the skin, and they're fresh enough that they actually smell "chilly." There are some very potent aldehydes in the blend, and I have to say that at the start they aren't all that well integrated. A few minutes down the line and the greens are joined by the oddly musty sweetness of hawthorn blossoms. The green notes and florals soon coalesce into a tightly woven accord that vaguely suggests dry hay.

By this time Aubépine-Acacia has become quite faint and reads mostly as a mild skin scent. That or I habituate to it very rapidly. Either way, the scent remains very cool, crisp, and dry, with the slightest bit of something camphoraceous buried deep beneath the surface. Like Creed’s other crisp green floral, Chèrefeuille Original, Aubépine-Acacia reveals an anise or licorice note as it evolves, though in this case it emerges much later in the game. Otherwise, Aubépine-Acacia doesn’t so much develop as just slowly fade away. It’s understated and it’s more or less linear, but I think it makes a good unisex warm weather fragrance.

Chèvrefeuille Original goes on with very brisk, sharp green notes that trumpet a wake-up call to the nose. Sweeter green grassy notes follow in a few minutes, causing the composition to mellow appreciably. Behind these come the floral notes, all bright and spring-fresh. I smell lily-of-the-valley (muguet) along with the honeysuckle, and jus the slightest hint of anise, licorice, or fennel seed.

The floral accord sweetens considerably over time, but never loses its bright freshness or becomes heady. I attribute some of this effect to a very subtle and well blended minty-camphoraceous note. Chèvrefeuille Original continues in a linear manner for three or four hours before fading quietly into the background. It never morphs onto the standard modern Creed formula that underpins Green Irish Tweed, Silver Mountain Water, Millesime Imperial, or Himalaya, and that's all for the better.

I give Chèvrefeuille Original credit: it really is original and distinctive in the context of the modern Creed offerings. I can recommend it without reservation as a unisex scent for spring and summer.

Oh joy! A lavender scent that doesn't turn into stuffy-old-man soap! I love fresh lavender in the garden, but tend to steer away from lavender scents. Unless they have strong animalic components - like Jicky or Ungaro II - they become oppressively soapy on my skin. Not Gris Clair.

My experience is that almost every time Sheldrake and Lutens break out of their obsessive sweet oriental groove, they strike gold: Sa Majeste la Rose, Chene, Un Lys, Tubereuse Criminelle, and now Gris Clair. The element of success in this scent, I believe, is balance. The lavender is palpably real and three-dimensional, but not overwhelming. Instead, it's perfectly offset by smooth woods and soft spices, enlivened by a mild camphoraceous note, and rounded out by just the merest dab of sweetness in the base. It's not sensuous in the manner of most Serge Lutens scents, but rather quite reserved and formal.

Gris Clair is a scent that I would turn too when I'm dressing well in warm weather and want to project sophistication, poise, and confidence. Better than average lasting power and adequate, yet controlled sillage and projection add to its charms. Bravo!

I’m not all that taken with Fuel for Life pour Femme’s sweet fruity topnotes. They’re a bit artificial, and there is a certain sourness about them that has me wrinkling my nose if I sniff deeply. Happily, the top notes calm down very rapidly, and the scent mellows and rounds out into something much more pleasant. Its torso is an abstract sweet, green, fruity blend, with a very smooth wood and iris skeleton that provides a solid structure to sustain its soft, yielding texture. A little less wood, a little less depth, and Fuel for Life pour Femme would flirt with fruit-flavored bubblegum, but the scent’s substance and complexity more than suffice to make it wearable.

My overall impression is of a brightened, lightened gloss on the now classic Calyx by Prescriptives. Fuel for Life pour Femme echoes the older scent’s neon fruit voice, but tuned up from mezzo to soprano register. In general style I’d class it with the “modern” chypres exemplified by scents like Azzaro Couture and 31 Rue Cambon. Which is to say that while I don’t detect an actual moss note in the composition, the powdery iris, the fruity notes, and a touch of labdanum allude to the classic chypre structure, but without casting the same depth of forest green shadow.

Fuel for Life pour Femme grows more floral and continues to soften with age, eventually revealing a warm, indolic white flower accord that projects a welcome sense of animal mystery. Without it the scent might become too prissy and powdery, but its presence keeps my nose engaged through the second and third hour of wear. By the four hour mark Fuel for Life pour Femme fades into a soft ambery drydown before disappearing altogether.

The greatest critical points I can lodge against this scent are its borderline unpleasant (albeit short-lived,) top notes and a certain blandness in its overall demeanor. On the plus side, it is a cheerful, comfortable fragrance that I can imagine being worn with ease on any number of occasions. It also strikes a fine balance in intensity, projecting just enough to make itself known, but never obtruding. So while not in the end groundbreaking, I’d have to rate Diesel Fuel for Life pour Femme a successful composition, and especially promising as an informal, yet never childish, everyday fragrance.

This starts out harsh, herbal, and camphoraceous. Liniment? Bengay? No, Tiger Balm, dummy! The opening is medicinal enough to make me ask “Why in heaven’s name would anybody want to smell like this?” Once the top notes clear off the scent’s appeal is much more obvious, but the structure is also far more conventional. Within ten minutes Spirit of the Tiger has deepened and sweetened into a warm, spiced incense blend that even borders on the gourmand.

The drydown reveals a pleasantly rich spicy/ambery oriental foundation that is very nicely balanced, though not terribly original or exciting. It’s as if Spirit of the Tiger is trying to make up for its shocking entrance with an apologetically polite development. The result is an olfactory non-sequitur that’s probably too challenging at the outset for traditionalists and too tame in the end for thrill seekers.

I would have expected the listed eucalyptus top note to jump out at me, but its familiar camphoraceous blast is nowhere to be sensed. In fact, this scent is oddly elusive when it’s first applied. Only after an hour or more of wear does 1828’s shy, irresolute citrus/floral nebula coalesce into a tangible accord of spiced wood and rose. Even then, 1828 is a staid and taciturn fragrance, all discretion and propriety. It strikes me as the most “historical” in mood of the Histoires de Parfums scents I’ve tried; so resolutely Edwardian that I can practically hear an Elgar march if I hold the sample vial to my ear.

In keeping with its overall reserve, 1828 offers little by way of sillage or projection. Instead, it’s the kind of scent you have to seek out on the skin. I might consider the search worth making were 1828 possessed of more obvious flair, but I think it lacks the character to make up for its reticence. Insufficiently distinctive or assertive for its high price, 1828 leaves me disappointed.

I’m beginning to wonder if Lutens and Sheldrake are running out of ideas. Their last few releases strike me as retreads of territory that they’ve long since explored: Sarrasins a subdued re-working of Tubéreuse Criminelle’s shocking camphor and white flower accord, this time done with jasmine rather than tuberose; Louve another Rahät Loukoum with the volume dialed down by a half; and El Attarine a more demure Arabie with a rose bow on top. Now comes Nuit de Cellophane, which is a fruity floral. And how original is that?

If the piercingly sweet, chemical fruit note that opens Nuit de Cellophane is meant to be novel or arresting, it’s an hilarious miscalculation, since every vulgar, juvenile fruity floral scent since roughly 1990 has opened with the same thoroughly nasty flourish. I suppose ironic humor has as much a place in the art of perfumery as in any other, but Nuit de Cellophane is a one-liner that goes nowhere special after its pratfall entrance. The remainder of its act is an apricot syrup and polite white flower accord that fades into a bland, powdery-sweet woody oriental drydown. As Lutens fragrances go this one is not all that potent, and I can’t even detect it on my skin two hours after a moderate application. Why, I wonder, did they bother?

Funny’s blaring and blatantly synthetic tropical fruit top notes do not bode well for the rest of the wearing experience, but they are partially relieved after fifteen minutes or so by a crisp and pleasantly bitter edged green tea note. Jasmine is next to appear, but before the heart can settle into a fruit-sweetened green jasmine tea accord a loud peony races in and tosses handfuls of bright sequins atop the structure. Depending upon your tastes, you will find this either A: bold, knowingly ironic, and appealingly campy, or B: insufferably gauche.

You won’t have that much time to make up your mind, because within a half an hour Funny’s focus shifts again – this time toward a sweet, green, and somewhat powdery violet, where it remains for most of its remaining lifespan. Which isn’t all that long. Funny’s time lapse development skips ahead after another hour, this time fading precipitously to a very quiet drydown of mild amber and clean white musk. From a raucous shout to a whisper in under two hours.

I can’t say I’m sure what to think of Funny as a fragrance. There certainly is humor in the way it careens from one disparate accord to another, like some sort of olfactory pinball. On the other hand, I don’t find the bumpers that it bounces off of all that interesting, and when the ball falls back into the slot the bland, timid drydown isn’t much of a payoff. As an olfactory joke, Funny could do with a better punch line.

I happen to enjoy single malt scotch, and from time to time I've looked for a fragrance that captured the rich, complex bouquet of my favorite spirits. Found it!

Espionage announces itself with a fanfare of burning peat and sea air iodine. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing "aquatic" about this. Espionage is pure Laphroaig or Lagavulan, an Islay malt with all its smoke and salt, and without any of the sherry notes you would expect from the more urbane Speyside whiskeys.

This smoky opening persists for quite some time on me, with a well-integrated leather emerging slowly over the course of the first hour. Then, like a fine scotch whisky, it settles down to a slightly sweeter, rounder base, with hints of musk and tobacco.

The olfactory resemblance to an Islay single malt is remarkable if it was intended, and altogether astounding if it wasn't! The only problem for me is now that I've found my scotch whisey scent, what do I do with it? I haven't yet figured out when I would actually wear something like this.

Note that because this is a parfum, it stays close to the skin, and courtesy of lovely natural ingredients, it disappears on me in four hours or less.
This is trivial, though, in the face of such a remarkable achievement!

Talk about love-it-or-hate-it! Of course, every time a scent splits opinions as thoroughly as Un Fleur de Cassie, I'll be next in line to try it. The cassie blossom has a musty, foetid quality about it that's frankly more animal than floral. It's a note of decay, like the abandoned lair of a large mammal. I'll wager that it's this animalic edge that makes Un Fleur de Cassie such a controversial fragrnace.

The top notes are deceptive: jasmine and rose are first out of the gate. The notes are well rendered and blended, but in and of themselves they're nothing special. Then the cassie comes roaring past from behind though, and its earthy, even dirty influence runs the floral accord off the track and into uncharted territory.

A well judged touch of mimosa contributes some sparkle to the dark cassie, while the rose and jasmine meld with an exceptionally creamy sandalwood below. We've come a long way from the seemingly innocent opening, and anyone expecting a "pretty" floral will be sorely disappointed, if not utterly repulsed.

There is a beauty to Un Fleur de Cassie, but it's of the dangerous kind found in scents like Yatagan and Muscs Koublai Khan. The drydown is another surprise, with a very light powder and vanilla hovering above the soft sandalwood, all anchored by the murky shadow of the cassie note.

The sandalwood in Un Fleur de Cassie is much like the one Ropion employs in Carnal Flower. In fact, Un Fleur de Cassie could be the dark doppelganger to Carnal Flower, earthy and slightly threatening where its counterpart is sublime and ethereal. Un Fleur de Cassie will always be the ugly stepsiter of the two, but then I'm not often in a fairy princess kind of mood.

If this description hasn't turned your stomach, give Un Fleur de Cassie a try. Just give it enough time to drop its floral mask and reveal its true nature.

“Sheldrake” and “transparent” probably don’t belong in the same sentence, but this could be the most transparent scent Christopher Sheldrake has done for the Serge Lutens line. The artemisia is crisp and clear, and its bitter edge stands as a perfect counterweight to the sweet florals and anise that share its space. Balance isn’t something I find often in the Lutens collection, so I’m very pleased to discover it here. Douce Amère is one of the few Serge Lutens fragrances that aren’t burdened by an enormous load of fruit syrup or other very sweet basenotes. This makes it an automatic object of interest to me, but I’m not sure it’s distinctive enough to be worth owning.