Lapidus Pour Homme (latest formulation)

[calitrav]

Hi there, I just got a new bottle of Lapidus Pour Homme today that I blind-bought because the cold weather seemed like a good time to finally try it.
It's the ribbed light-grey bottle with a dark-grey top that says 82% Vol on the back, Ted Lapidus Made In France embossed on the bottom, etc.

I'm having a somewhat unusual experience with this:

I can't tell if I like it or not! I think I both like and don't like it, which is strange, but not unprecedented.

I was cautious with the spray because it's known to be powerful, so I sprayed a tiny bit into the air, took a cautious sniff, and walked into the mist for the first time ever. I wasn't too fond of the scent of the initial blast, but a sense memory popped up and told me that a long time ago, I knew this fragrance. From people who were wearing it in the late 80s and early 90s, I'm guessing.

I quickly started smelling the Honey note, and got to liking that more and more.
Tried to pick out other notes, identifying a few different ones, but didn't know what to call them.

I sprayed some more on a paper towel and sniffed it out of curiosity for a while, liking something about it, but unsure how I felt about it overall. Finally I sprayed a shot into the shirt in the middle of my chest before running an errand, and noticed it was pretty strong in the car.

But I can't smell any fruit at all, and I was expecting to smell pineapple in the top notes.
This is nothing like the pineapple in, say, a pineapple, or in Aventus. (Who knows, maybe its opening blast seared my nostrils and it'll take time to identify the notes and appreciate it).

Maybe it's the sweet sugary smell, but I thought that was the honey?
I can't be smelling pineapple. It's so distinctive, there shouldn't be any doubt, should there?

A few fragrances, I love immediately, and that didn't happen here.
Sometimes an initial mixed feeling about a fragrance, changes, it quickly grows on me, and I end up loving it (Guerlain Vetiver). So maybe it'll grow on me more. Maybe not. It doesn't happen often. Although I do like those resinous honey notes!

I read a review here that said you should only get the 85% Vol bottle and that the reformation (which I think is the one I just got) is just not as good. Is the pineapple much more noticeable in that other version? Any big differences between the two versions, or are they minor?

Thanks....

[onethinline]

You may end up liking it! Many of my favorites I was uncertain of at first, but grew to adore.

I also have a bottle of Lapidus Pour Homme on its way, as part of a FragranceNet order. I've never smelled it before but heard about it while investigating classic 80s powerhouses. Given I already like Balenciaga Pour Homme and am finally growing to like Kouros, both fragrances this is compared to, I figured this may be a winner for me too. We'll see!

[Zealot Crusader]

Hi there, I just got a new bottle of Lapidus Pour Homme today that I blind-bought because the cold weather seemed like a good time to finally try it.
It's the ribbed light-grey bottle with a dark-grey top that says 82% Vol on the back, Ted Lapidus Made In France embossed on the bottom, etc.

I'm having a somewhat unusual experience with this:

I can't tell if I like it or not! I think I both like and don't like it, which is strange, but not unprecedented.

I was cautious with the spray because it's known to be powerful, so I sprayed a tiny bit into the air, took a cautious sniff, and walked into the mist for the first time ever. I wasn't too fond of the scent of the initial blast, but a sense memory popped up and told me that a long time ago, I knew this fragrance. From people who were wearing it in the late 80s and early 90s, I'm guessing.

I quickly started smelling the Honey note, and got to liking that more and more.
Tried to pick out other notes, identifying a few different ones, but didn't know what to call them.

I sprayed some more on a paper towel and sniffed it out of curiosity for a while, liking something about it, but unsure how I felt about it overall. Finally I sprayed a shot into the shirt in the middle of my chest before running an errand, and noticed it was pretty strong in the car.

But I can't smell any fruit at all, and I was expecting to smell pineapple in the top notes.
This is nothing like the pineapple in, say, a pineapple, or in Aventus. (Who knows, maybe its opening blast seared my nostrils and it'll take time to identify the notes and appreciate it).

Maybe it's the sweet sugary smell, but I thought that was the honey?
I can't be smelling pineapple. It's so distinctive, there shouldn't be any doubt, should there?

A few fragrances, I love immediately, and that didn't happen here.
Sometimes an initial mixed feeling about a fragrance, changes, it quickly grows on me, and I end up loving it (Guerlain Vetiver). So maybe it'll grow on me more. Maybe not. It doesn't happen often. Although I do like those resinous honey notes!

I read a review here that said you should only get the 85% Vol bottle and that the reformation (which I think is the one I just got) is just not as good. Is the pineapple much more noticeable in that other version? Any big differences between the two versions, or are they minor?

Thanks....

You may end up liking it! Many of my favorites I was uncertain of at first, but grew to adore.

I also have a bottle of Lapidus Pour Homme on its way, as part of a FragranceNet order. I've never smelled it before but heard about it while investigating classic 80s powerhouses. Given I already like Balenciaga Pour Homme and am finally growing to like Kouros, both fragrances this is compared to, I figured this may be a winner for me too. We'll see!

Good news is I have 82% and 85% in my midst. The only noticeable difference to me is just strength per spray. Lapidus was a musky animalic fougère like Kouros but even heavier on musk than Kouros (which itself is heavier on oakmoss), so IFRA hasn't affected Lapidus as bad since it was always more musk than moss from what my specimens tell me. The drydown is mostly the same, just weaker, so you'll need a pinch more (but not much) than vintage, although as Calitrav has noticed, it's still a beast in current form.

Yeah Yeah vintage is merciless like Darth Vader's grip and a pinch heavier on moss but the current is totally a monster too, but more like Kylo Ren.
As for the pineapple, it's blended down into the florals and honey, but you'll start picking it out in subsequent wears. I don't think it was ever meant to smack you in the face like Aventus does, but EVERYTHING ELSE about Lapidus sure does!!!

If for some reason you hate it, I'll take both your bottles from ya as backup! (I'm serious)

[warthog]

As for the pineapple, it's blended down into the florals and honey, but you'll start picking it out in subsequent wears. I don't think it was ever meant to smack you in the face like Aventus does, but EVERYTHING ELSE about Lapidus sure does!!!

Exactly. The pineapple gets noticed but probably only after giving Lapidus pour Homme several full wearings. I don't think that the vintage version was different as far as the pineapple note is concerned, only generally stronger. It still is a great fragrance IMO, totally different from today's mass market offerings.

[hednic]

It still is a great fragrance IMO

Agree.

[calitrav]

You may end up liking it! Many of my favorites I was uncertain of at first, but grew to adore.

I also have a bottle of Lapidus Pour Homme on its way, as part of a FragranceNet order. I've never smelled it before but heard about it while investigating classic 80s powerhouses. Given I already like Balenciaga Pour Homme and am finally growing to like Kouros, both fragrances this is compared to, I figured this may be a winner for me too. We'll see!

Hope so! I've heard a lot about Balenciaga and Kouros and am curious to find out if I'd like them or not. No clue!

[calitrav]

Good news is I have 82% and 85% in my midst. The only noticeable difference to me is just strength per spray. Lapidus was a musky animalic fougère like Kouros but even heavier on musk than Kouros (which itself is heavier on oakmoss), so IFRA hasn't affected Lapidus as bad since it was always more musk than moss from what my specimens tell me. The drydown is mostly the same, just weaker, so you'll need a pinch more (but not much) than vintage, although as Calitrav has noticed, it's still a beast in current form.

Yeah Yeah vintage is merciless like Darth Vader's grip and a pinch heavier on moss but the current is totally a monster too, but more like Kylo Ren.
As for the pineapple, it's blended down into the florals and honey, but you'll start picking it out in subsequent wears. I don't think it was ever meant to smack you in the face like Aventus does, but EVERYTHING ELSE about Lapidus sure does!!!

If for some reason you hate it, I'll take both your bottles from ya as backup! (I'm serious)

Good to hear your thoughts, thanks for chiming in.

Your in-depth and interesting review of Lapidus Pour Homme was actually one of the reasons I wanted to try this, EVEN THOUGH it made me think I might wake up in a strange hotel wearing white leather pants with no memory of how I'd gotten there if I used just one spray too many.


I do like a certain aspects of Lapidus Pour Homme, just not sure what I think about the whole thing...it's certainly an interesting and unusual fragrance.
Other than that sense memory it triggered from some forgotten part of my past, I can't say it smells like anything else I've ever tried.

Maybe what I feel like is "resinous" is an aspect of the honey, or the dusky musky(?) vibe is actually combination of the sandalwood and the patchouli...I love sandalwood, but usually like patchouli in small doses...it's like cilantro for me in that respect: a little goes a very long way.

Kinda makes me think, if you really wanted to get your nose educated about fragrances, you'd want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with scent of all the notes in their solo form, that way you could better pick them out when you tried them in an unusual blend.

Gonna keep trying it out in the evenings and see how it goes...

[calitrav]

Exactly. The pineapple gets noticed but probably only after giving Lapidus pour Homme several full wearings. I don't think that the vintage version was different as far as the pineapple note is concerned, only generally stronger. It still is a great fragrance IMO, totally different from today's mass market offerings.

Thanks, from the few dozen (70?) I've tried over the past year, I totally agree about how different it is.

Thanks for your opinion too, hednic.

Whatever else it is, it's certainly not boring!

[Zealot Crusader]

Good to hear your thoughts, thanks for chiming in.

Your in-depth and interesting review of Lapidus Pour Homme was actually one of the reasons I wanted to try this, EVEN THOUGH it made me think I might wake up in a strange hotel wearing white leather pants with no memory of how I'd gotten there if I used just one spray too many.


I do like a certain aspects of Lapidus Pour Homme, just not sure what I think about the whole thing...it's certainly an interesting and unusual fragrance.
Other than that sense memory it triggered from some forgotten part of my past, I can't say it smells like anything else I've ever tried.

Maybe what I feel like is "resinous" is an aspect of the honey, or the dusky musky(?) vibe is actually combination of the sandalwood and the patchouli...I love sandalwood, but usually like patchouli in small doses...it's like cilantro for me in that respect: a little goes a very long way.

Kinda makes me think, if you really wanted to get your nose educated about fragrances, you'd want to spend some time familiarizing yourself with scent of all the notes in their solo form, that way you could better pick them out when you tried them in an unusual blend.

Gonna keep trying it out in the evenings and see how it goes...

Glad you enjoyed my review, and Lapidus is indeed one hair toss away from being a Tom of Finland picture.

[onethinline]

Glad you enjoyed my review, and Lapidus is indeed one hair toss away from being a Tom of Finland picture.

Love it. When I described Kouros to a comp-lit PhD friend of mine, his response was, "Ah, sounds like Jean Genet transposed into olfactory terms."

[Zealot Crusader]

Love it. When I described Kouros to a comp-lit PhD friend of mine, his response was, "Ah, sounds like Jean Genet transposed into olfactory terms."

Pretty accurate. Funny how "manly" men nowadays are stuck on laundry smells while guys considered "light in the loafers" are attracted to stuff like this now. Life is a hilarious ceremony of opposites.

[KBF1972]

My bottle is about 5 years old which I think is still considered “current” and I really enjoy it.

[VanillaCloud]

White leather pants and Tom of Finland !!! Yikes ! LOL ;D

And I'm one of the 'light in the loafer'ers. Haven't heard that since All in the Family reruns !!!!

[Zealot Crusader]

White leather pants and Tom of Finland !!! Yikes ! LOL ����

And I'm one of the 'light in the loafer'ers. �� Haven't heard that since All in the Family reruns !!!!

I am a fine connoisseur of vintage slang. I told somebody yesterday I wanted my steak "rare enough to sell at Tiffany's" and they just blinked at me.
(Also, I'm so light they have to stick lead bars in mine <3)

[calitrav]

Glad you enjoyed my review, and Lapidus is indeed one hair toss away from being a Tom of Finland picture.

Finally, my receding hairline pays off !
I've been bitching about it for years, but now...

[DanHD]

My bottle is about 5 years old which I think is still considered “current” and I really enjoy it.

Mine too (5-6 years old). I'm wearing Lapidus today. No holds barred powerhouse - I'm strapped in for the ride.

I love the ugly-good industrial gray porcelain bottle too.

[calitrav]

Mine too (5-6 years old). I'm wearing Lapidus today. No holds barred powerhouse - I'm strapped in for the ride.

I love the ugly-good industrial gray porcelain bottle too.

I kind of like it's style, as well, reminds me of some old Art Deco officer tower from the 30s or something.

[Slayerized]

Got 2x 100ml of which one is a pre-2010 bottle and my newer backup (82%) I got for €4 also smells about the same to me and lasts a long time as well.

[Pauer_Haus]

I have both current formula and an older short ingredients bottle made by French Fragrances. Older bottle definitely has some oakmoss in the base, but it clashes with some other notes in the base, so for once I'm relieved to not smell it in a newer formula.

I would not put this on the same footing as Kouros, sorry. The composition is really a bit of a mess and the note separation is poor. The late drydown can be nice but is similar to many men's orientals of the time. The earlier stages have a bizarre locker room accord which reminds me of the spray they use to disinfect shoes at bowling alleys. I don't think its sillage or longevity were unusually strong for its time either; it certainly doesn't outperform its contemporaries like Obsession, Zino and Joop!

[Zealot Crusader]

I kind of like it's style, as well, reminds me of some old Art Deco officer tower from the 30s or something.

I think the bottles of Lapidus are very Bauhaus-meets-Art Deco like a lot of things being thrown up in the 80's (particularly wedgy and gilded gray marble shopping malls of the decade). It's almost too perfect to be from the era it's actually from, like a parody of the decade accidentally made during the decade.

[calitrav]

I think the bottles of Lapidus are very Bauhaus-meets-Art Deco like a lot of things being thrown up in the 80's (particularly wedgy and gilded gray marble shopping malls of the decade). It's almost too perfect to be from the era it's actually from, like a parody of the decade accidentally made during the decade.

(This ran on too long, is essentially an unedited 1st draft, so feel free to skim it, or even skip it)

You know, I had the impression from your excellent reviews that you were a little too young to actually remember the 80s the way I do (I was born in '69) but that's a pretty good analogy/comparison/description.

But in case you are too young to remember, since you seem to be very aware of and interested in the various trends of specific decades, allow me to point out what I believe to be the 80s decade's cultural tipping point.

1984.
The year the economy bounced back in a big way.
The year America stomped the world at the Olympics in Los Angeles.
The year that led up to Reagan getting reelected in an enormous landslide.
1984, because politics, economics, and culture are all constantly influencing each other.

A lot of people forget this, but even though the economic growth and working-class wages were actually good under Carter, inflation went through the roof. So sure, you got your 5% raise, but that was more than eaten up by 10% inflation, and Boomers who'd known nothing but an ever-improving standard of living began losing ground instead of gaining it.

Reagan's Fed chairman raised interest rates, which most people believe caused a severe short-term recession, but got inflation under control. Regan also got some major legislation passed (with a Democratic Congress!) that cut taxes, particularly on the highest earners.

Anyway, when the economy bounced back, it bounced back in a very big way, which helped Reagan get re-elected, since he was able to ask us:

"Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" in the Debates.

Now personally, I think Presidents get WAY too much credit and blame for the state of the economy. Reagan included.

But that all happened on his watch, so he got the credit and the enormous election win (Mondale only won his home State, Reagan swept the other 49).

And IMO there were a lot of cultural changes for better and for worse that were a direct result of that win. It gave him some extra clout with Congress: they were temporarily scared of defying him too much, because that essentially meant defying the will of the people.

Two of the many legal consequences of that election were these, which might seem trivial, but IMO, the effects reverberated throughout society, because it affected our social culture:

The legal Drinking Age law got changed.
It was raised from 18 to 19 to 20 to 21 over the next 3 years.

Marijuana laws began to be strictly enforced -- even in places like the liberal college town of Chapel Hill, North Carolina (where my Grand-Uncle was a Professor), where it had previously been celebrated, or at least tolerated, and not even the local Southern Police seemed to mind.
After 1984, they started cracking down on smoking, arresting and even jailing people for it.

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, 1984 is the year I turned 13, and about the same year that a lot of other Gen-Xers were turning 13, because their parents were Baby Boomer, who just a few years prior, still the option of going out to a singles bar and with one little "what's your sign?" and could be making out or getting laid (married or not) in short order.

Which reminds me, that famously gossipy Playboy article about Carter by a reporter named Scheer (who later wrote for the LA Times) celebrated Carter's notoriously sexually-unfaithful staff. Not that I'm blaming Carter for the antics of his staffers. I'm just saying, it seems strange viewed from the prism of the mid-80s to the late-90s when the public were fed up with unfaithful pols.
But in the 70s, there was a candor to sexual expression, for better and for worse, than was sort of forced underground later on. Not to mention, I'm forgetting about the demise of the gay bathhouses, which were still a thing in the late 70s early 80s.

Anyway, in 1984, the kids of the Boomers were starting to become adolescents, and their parents remember that was the age where so many of them started drinking and later smoking pot.

And I think a lot of them who had seen the excesses of the end of the 70s and the early 80s wanted to try to steer their kids at least somewhat clear of that. You know, the usual "I don't want my kids do be as wild as I was, I want them to be as responsible as I am now, or as responsible as I should have been, or as responsible as I like to imagine I was back then".

Back To The Future (a great movie) came out in 1984 and was an enormous hit.

One of its many great scenes was the one where Marty is shocked to discover his Mother drank, smoked, and made out with boys in high school despite the fact that she seemed to have been born 40 in the first part of the movie :-D

College Professors could more or less express some Communist (or at least Socialist) sympathies in the late 70s and early 80s, but I doubt they got away with it much after 84.

Right around 1984, you started seeing less shaggy hair styles, less tolerance for a "relaxed" style of dress (not enough weed being smoked, from one point of view) more admiration for the "preppie" (East Coast WASP) culture of tradition and yuppie success, etc.

Plenty of us preppie kids wore Izod/Lacoste shirts, Oxford button-down long-sleeved shirts, penny loafers, boat shoes...I was more relaxed about it than most of the preps in that I would dress that way sometimes, but not always. One day I came to school and a pretty preppy girl who I was talking to a lot and wanting me to girlfriend her exclaimed to a friend "oh no, he's wearing a T-shirt!" because I was under-dressed by prep standards. That was too much for me, but it really wasn't that unusual for middle-class kids to be that obsessed with looking good. At 13!

I make a point of this because so many people seem to assume the 80s are not only best personified by their economic and cultural peak ('87-89 in my opinion) but that the peak WAS the decade. f course, that is not so.

The clothing and hairstyles of the early 80s (AFTER Reagan was elected) were *very* similar to those of the late 70s. And the same goes for the music and movies and culture in general, from what I can recall, and from what I observe watch old movies and listen to old music, etc.

And just to be clear, even though it might sound like I was a Reagan fan, because I was (and mostly am, though I am well aware of his flaws and failures), and I have a strong emotional connection to the music and movies of the 80s (because I was becoming a teenager then) I actually still think that America's culture was artistically superior in the 70s.

At the very least, when it comes to movies and music, I believe the 70s were better.

And although I was too young to really participate in the adult party scene, I have the impression that was more free-spirited and fun. I wish I knew more about fashion and cologne, so I had better opinions as to how it was influenced and changed, but I don't (I have a lot of memories of hideous furniture and sloppy-looking clothes and hairstyles from the 70s, though).

There is, of course, a whole discussion to be had about how Cocaine became respectable amongst the smart set for a while, and influenced our culture, before people started getting addicted to it, and before Crack Cocaine began burning a swath through our cities.

But generally speaking, I feel like the more-permissive culture of the 70s was better for the Arts than the less-permissive culture of the 80s. Which isn't to say I wish more teenagers were smoking pot in the 80s, or that I wish Carter had gotten re-elected.
But that's how I feel about it.

And btw, you may also note the late 80s and early 90s clothing and hairstyles were very similar -- more similar than the early 80s and late 80s, in my opinion, anyway. In that case, the cultural tipping point was probably the end of 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell.

Although the changes in artistic culture might have been delayed after that, I feel like the end of the Cold War (and the Recession that soon followed that allowed Clinton to win the Presidency, and put his mark on our culture) was actually related to the end of a certain kind of music (hard rock, glam rock, hair-metal) that allowed the "Seattle Sound" to take preeminence.

I forget exactly when it was, but there was a point around 1991 or so when Kurt Cobain and Axl Rose got into a tiff, and it quickly became clear that the formerly-monstrously popular Guns n Roses had run their course and boom! were as dead as disco suddenly became in 1979.

Because, like it or not most people were just ready for something new, and that was that.

Of course these are just a few examples of how economics, politics, art and culture can combine, and an endless amount of discussion could be had. Whole PHD papers could be written about this. But I thought you might be interested to know what an important inflection point 1984 was, and I think that if you were to look back at hair and clothes and movies and music and maybe even fragrances, that you would probably find that 1985 was MUCH different from 1983 as direct consequence of that election -- much more different than the difference between any other 2 years from say, 1980-1984, or 1976-1980.

Of course, these are just my opinions, fragments of memories, but that's how I remember it....

[calitrav]

I have both current formula and an older short ingredients bottle made by French Fragrances. Older bottle definitely has some oakmoss in the base, but it clashes with some other notes in the base, so for once I'm relieved to not smell it in a newer formula.

I would not put this on the same footing as Kouros, sorry. The composition is really a bit of a mess and the note separation is poor. The late drydown can be nice but is similar to many men's orientals of the time. The earlier stages have a bizarre locker room accord which reminds me of the spray they use to disinfect shoes at bowling alleys. I don't think its sillage or longevity were unusually strong for its time either; it certainly doesn't outperform its contemporaries like Obsession, Zino and Joop!

I hate to say it, but now that you mention "bizarre locker room accord", I could swear I smell a tiny bit of "urinal cake" in there, which is definitely not one of my favorite fragrances. It's not THAT bad, but I don't normally care for it...I think I subconsciously associate it with the least sanitary sorts of old public restrooms. It's like the scent that says "we can't be bothered to keep the place clean, but here, have a urinal cake"...echh

[Beck]

You can't notice the pineapple in it cause it's not the same kind of Aventus, that uses natural royal pineapple from Mount Fuji.
If you liked the honey in it and the old-school smell you should try Chanel Antaeus.

[Zealot Crusader]

You can't notice the pineapple in it cause it's not the same kind of Aventus, that uses natural royal pineapple from Mount Fuji.
If you liked the honey in it and the old-school smell you should try Chanel Antaeus.

That's natural royal pineapple rinsed with Virgin Mountain Water from Tibet, hand-picked by Olivier Creed himself on one of his many grand safaris in search of the greatest perfume ingredients on Earth, then hand-infused using methods handed down for centuries to be hand-delivered by his son to very person who orders a bottle of Aventus.

Erwin Creed stopped by the other day with my bottle, and said my Lapidus smells better, but not to tell his dad.

[calitrav]

That's natural royal pineapple rinsed with Virgin Mountain Water from Tibet, hand-picked by Olivier Creed himself on one of his many grand safaris in search of the greatest perfume ingredients on Earth, then hand-infused using methods handed down for centuries to be hand-delivered by his son to very person who orders a bottle of Aventus. Erwin Creed stopped by the other day with my bottle, and said my Lapidus smells better, but not to tell his dad.

For those prices, it ought to be!

You can't notice the pineapple in it cause it's not the same kind of Aventus, that uses natural royal pineapple from Mount Fuji. If you liked the honey in it and the old-school smell you should try Chanel Antaeus.

Hm, are you sure about that? I actually lived in Tokyo in my Air Force days and have even been to Mount Fuji...it's a damn big mountain, and while it's not like I circled it specifically looking for royal pineapple trees, I sure don't recall seeing any tropical trees there, or anywhere in or near Tokyo for that matter...wonder if that's just marketing. I do really like the pineapple smell in it though, wherever it's actually from).

But thanks for the recommendation, I've heard people rave about Antaeus, but have never tried it. Word is you want the vintage (of course) and it's expensive (of course) so I hadn't prioritized it.

I'm currently waiting for the bottle of Bogart One Man Show that ZC recommended to come stink up the place, but I'll put Antaeus on the list!

[Ol Factory]

Here’s the ingredients on my Lapidus 82% tester. I can’t image this monster any bigger! I also get the “I can’t decide “ thing. I’m thinking of using it as a bathroom air freshener.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[calitrav]

Here’s the ingredients on my Lapidus 82% tester. I can’t image this monster any bigger! I also get the “I can’t decide “ thing. I’m thinking of using it as a bathroom air freshener.

Thanks, mine is also 82%, came in a box and appeared to be brand-new, but didn't show the ingredients (I suppose that usually means it's a tester?), but good to know.

I guess the "I can't decide what I think" reaction here is because I immediately liked some aspects of it, but either didn't like others or just found them strange and confusing.
Of course, I didn't wear it even when it was popular, don't think I've ever worn anything like it actually, so maybe that's why it seems strange.

Right now I'd have to say I like it more than I don't, gonna give it some time...