Cerruti Image by Cerruti, 1998

This was my signature scent in my late teens.

Here in Belgium Daniel Hechter XXL is a very popular mass-market scent among teenagers (also by Ursula Wandel if I'm not mistaken), and by the time I was sixteen I felt the need to find myself a signature designer scent, get the hell out of the Axe/Brut/XXL crowd.

Image is a nice scent that got me tons of compliments, it's not offending (well unless you count the wearer), and it seemed to have a personality on it's own compared to the popular brands targeting the younger crowd (Aqua di Gio, Cool Water, anything by Calvin Klein or Hugo Boss et cetera).

I'm about to retire my last bottle, and I've grown so tired of it wearing it has because a bit of a chore.
It is a really complex fragrance, with a fruity fresh opening that evolves into a sweet aromatic base, and maybe it's because I recently read the complete note pyramid that I could put my finger on what is wrong with this fragrance.

Though it has a myriad of sweet notes that can be considered cloying, the only real problem with the composition is the pear-mint accord.

Pear is in my opinion a risqué note in any fragrance, but when that note appears in it's synthetic form paired with an equally synthetic mint, you can turn what could easily be a thumbs up into a neutral.

I agree on the spring association though, because quite frankly, the only way to make this frangrance work as intended would be in the (very specific) case of a medium warm day with fresh wind.