Latest Perfume Reviews

MAAI by Bogue Profumo

Modern Chypre Extrordinaire

Its really good. Initially kind of camphorous. Civet aldehydes jasmine. Its awesome. 5 stars, top 10 for me.

Extreme Speed by Michael Kors

Herbal Updated Fragrance

As designers go, and on the lowish end of the designer spectrum moving toward cheapy, the Michael Kors line just isn't something that gets love. This one is pretty nice though. Its really got some herbal smooth suave thing in the opening. Sage, in all its sageness, not one of those clary sage notes that just is for filler, this one is very present. Cypress is the main player. Its got some of that violet ambiance. I like this one a lot. Dumb name, but the bottle is actually pretty nice. Pictures don't look as nice as it does in person. Feels good. I found it lasted well into the evening, though in the drydown it became pretty aromachem, but hey, its a Michael Kors. This would be a step up from most of the stuff you see in this realm. Pretty well blended, but the materials in the backend show some of their cheapness.

Eternity Flame for Men by Calvin Klein

sweet blah

Its not good. It smells like something from the early 2000s not well done. Kenneth Cole Reaction melon, its sweet. They say pineapple, but its not pineapple. Its melon. Pineapple is sharper. Lasts well, sweet. Really cheap. Nothing flame or fire like.

Bee by Zoologist Perfumes

Can I just quote thrilledchilled's review and use it as my own??

Yes, this is honey and I like honey perfumes, but instead of playing the honey against bitter, woody, or smokey notes, Bee sweetens it further with marshmallowy flowers, so it feels unbalanced, like it just screams "SWEEEEEEEEEETTTT!!!!" instead of trying for artful juxtaposition.

Like thrilledchilled says, I'll stick with Slowdive.

All that being said, this isn't a bad perfume, just not what I'm into, so I'm voting neutral instead of a full-on thumbs down.

Panda (2017) by Zoologist Perfumes

This is awful. Like seriously, just terrible.

5 seconds of cheap apple/raspberry topnotes leads to a couple of hours of dreadful, cheap-smelling aquatic "woody amber" Axe body spray smell.

Even cheap designer scents at least have better performance than this. Aside from the cute panda on the bottle, there's no reason anyone should seek this out.

Eau de Lacoste L.12.12 pour Lui Eau Fraîche by Lacoste

A simple but pleasant summer fragrance. Very fresh, citrusy-sour and peppery opening. Similar to D&G Light Blue pH Eau Intense.

Projection is pretty good during the first few hours and then is pretty much faded out to a skin scent after 5 hours.

Honey & Crocus by Jo Malone London

There is some honey in the opening indeed; not a rich and dark honey, but a lighter version. The honey is combined with a pleasant almond milk form the start, and these two constitute the top Niue’s on me.

Very soon the crocus arises; it is very restrained and hiding behind the notes that developed previously. Not a spring field in England, but more a shy small bunch of the flower.

Virtually concurrently with the crocus a lavender arises. A lovely lavender, with a green undertone and not sweet at all. This lavender moves into the foreground closer to the end.

I get moderate sillage, good projection and seven hours of longevity on my skin.

This spring scent is nicely done and not without an original twist, but the crocus is too pale and the honey a bit too diluted to entince. The notes that are not in the name are the most intense and convincing ones. Still, a - just - positive score. 3/5.

Armani Privé Vétiver Babylone by Giorgio Armani

Armani Privé Vétiver Babylone (2008) now goes by the name of Vétiver d'Hiver, but is for all intents the same scent (besides the change in juice color from gold to blue), and really isn't a vetiver scent at all. It should be noted my review is of the older version. Alberto Morillas composed this one, and in all honesty, I could have confused Vétiver Babylone for something composed by Francis Kurkdjian, because it has that same light white floral citrus and woody white musk vibe many things from MFK have, but is saved by the fact that it predates most the existence of the house by a year. Armani was dipping its toe into "niche" level scents like many designers were in the late 2000's, trying to cash in on the growing wealth gap and rise of the millionaire and billionaire classes, who all thirsted for exclusivity and conspicuous displays of wealth during a time when most people were suffering the "great recession". Niche perfume houses were keep to sell this kind of luxury, and brands such as Creed lead the way, but it was only a matter of time before corporate interests like that of most major designers wanted in too. The Armani Privé was Giorgio Armani's particular answer to that calling, and Vétiver Babylone was one of the earlier examples of what it offered.

Armani Privé Vétiver Babylone opens with a familiar floral citrus volley of bergamot, lemon, orange blossom, and citron. There's a bit of litsea cubeba in here as well, and the overall vibe is very similar to Maison Francis Kurkdjian Petit Matin (2016), making it quite possible that Kurkdjian found inspiration here in this scent for his later masterwork. The heart of green cardamon, coriander, and pink pepper varies a bit from the later Petit Matin, but the base carries a similar tune of ambroxan (a very early usage of it here), karmawood, white musks, and the slightest hint of vetiver. These trace vetiver amounts combined with the pink pepper and a lack of rose denote the biggest difference between Vétiver Babylone and the later Petit Matin, otherwise they are kissing cousins. Clean citrus, white florals, and a breezy transparent base that leaves a sharp trail are what lies in store for you with Armani Privé Vétiver Babylone, but at eau de toilette strength rather than the usual eau de parfum concentration in which these kinds of fragrances tend to be found. Inoffensive, fresh, unisex, light, and airy simplicity is what you'll find, with decent sillage and longevity, but maybe a bit too cheerful for a suit-and-tie office. Spring through summer weekends or day outings? Armani Privé Vétiver Babylone has got you covered.

The elephant in the room is whether or not to get the older Morillas take on this subject, or the newer Kurkdjian take, and I guess that comes down to what you're looking for in the genre. Other folks compare this more directly to Prada Infusion d'Vetiver (2010) or Roja Dove Elysium Parfum Cologne (2017) but I just really don't see it myself, having worn the dickens out of the MFK, my mind more closely draws parallels there. For me, this is a clean citrus scent with florals first just like the MFK, and the vetiver is an afterthought. Cost per milliliter is lower on the Armani Privé, but the quality and blending is much higher on the MFK (sorry Morillas), making Petit Matin feel more luxuriant. I also have to give fair warning that I hate so directly comparing two fragrances side by side as the bulk of a review for one of them, and perhaps things might have happened in reverse had I discovered this before MFK, but seeing as Armani Privé Vétiver Babylone gets less attention overall and is harder to sample (mine comes from a decant given by a friend), it's unlikely this would have happened the other way around. In short, you've probably smelled this, and smelled it done marginally better, if you're familiar with niche freshies of the 2000's and 2010's. Thumbs up.

Polo Sport by Ralph Lauren

Pineapple sushi, sprinkled with chopped ginger, nuzzled in a bed of sweaty gym socks. Bon appetit!

0 stars.

Dior Homme Eau de Toilette (2020 version) by Christian Dior

Dior Dry

Iso E, violet (i think im the only one who gets this), cashmeran, cedar. Its super polite. Lasts all day easy. Great blending. Demachy is all about these semitransparent frags. He does em well. Wears well. This is a movement frag, to be experienced as an aura in the air. Good stuff. Dry and masculine. Thumbs up!

Knize Ten by Knize

Cuir baby powder

Opens with some tan leather, mechanics rag note, flowers, and powder. Gets powderier as it dries. Kind of butch to me, but my wife said it smelled like her grandmother. Lol. It smelled moreand more like talc the further it went. Nice roundness and density. I like the fragrance, but its juat not quite all together a winner for me. Im going neutral.

Missoni Wave by Missoni

Very fresh. This does have similarities with Allure Homme Sport, the eau Extreme version, and even Versace pour Homme. But the quality is not as nice as any of those. It has a cheap smell to me, similar to a shower gel, in the opening. The drydown reminds me of Thallium Sport. Feels best for mild to warm temps.

All that being said, this got a very favorable reaction from my wife, an instant like for her. Very fresh, clean and a little sweetness to her. I think this one is a little harsh up close but much better in the air, which would explain our reactions.

Excellent projection. Will get noticed and probably complimented.

Eleventh Hour by Byredo

I like this. I don't want to, but I do. Byredo is a house of smoke and mirrors for the most part, the price tag on their perfumes egregious, but this is one case where I enjoy what's being served up. Is it worth the price? Never, but that's not the point of a review is it? Eleventh Hour by Byredo (2018) covers the grim and edgy concept of the "last perfume possible on Earth", conceived at the end of time, or at least the end of life as we know it on the planet, when sea levels have engulfed most of the land and temperatures have made all but most extreme northern and southern places inhospitable to life. The ingredients chosen in Eleventh Hour signify the kinds of things that can still grow and produce perfume, like the Nepalese Ban Timmur, a plant related to Sichuan pepper that provides a minty citric spice tone to the perfume. The rest of this is going to be the prerequisite aromachemical wizardry that most niche labels of this tier produce, with frequent niche perfumer Jerome Epinette. I admit I'm not the biggest fan of his sometimes-derivative work, but he seems to be on his A-game here.

Eleventh Hour opens with that Ban Timmur note and a nice dry bergamot with some sort of aldehyde. A plum rum note comes through, with traces of fig and carrot seed. This boozy dry hay-like structure with the fruits and pepper transitions well into the tonka and oakmoss base of Eleventh Hour, boosted by cashmeran for a smooth woody feel and the glow of Iso E Super. Labadanum lends a chypre feel and overall this could be a cousin to Terre d'Hermès (2006), but with more fruit and spice. Oddly, I get something of an apple ghost note in here, but more like a mulled apple cider sort of vibe, enhanced by the tonka in the base. Eleventh Hour sits in a weird nowhereland between the chypre and the fougère in terms of structure, but it's very satisfying. Eleventh Hour lasts about eight hours on skin, with above average performance in terms of being noticeable to oneself or others, and feels best used in cold weather or indoors where humidity and sun won't make the warmer elements swelter. Eleventh Hour also feels pretty cozy/casual to me, but could make do in an office environment if it isn't a very structured sort of workspace with a strict dress code.

Eleventh Hour by Byredo doesn't 100% conjure "end of the world" imagery in its smell, but perhaps that's the point, since at the end of the world, people would look to something comforting to help them forget their imminent demise. Probably so too, does this perfume in our current (possibly ending) world help the wearer forget their own doom for just a bit, as it wraps that wearer in a dry fruity spicy woody "wool blanket" of scent. This is one case of a Byredo perfume where the conceptualization of a time or place is sort of irrelevant to the smell of the perfume being good or bad in my eyes, since if I caught whiffs of this on a collar or a passerby, I would immediately think of something joyous, welcoming, and festive, rather than a perfume simulating the state of the art during the end times. Yeah, this is fairly synthetic and won't please hardline worshipers of vintage oakmoss chypres or artisanal ouds, but do I really have to keep saying that anyway? Elitist cliques are tiresome and I grow tired of inserting caveats into my reviews for them. If the price is right, this may be worth checking out. Thumbs up.

Spicebomb by Viktor & Rolf

Spicy? Yes.
Soulless? Yes.
Soyonara? Yes.

1 star.

Polo Crest by Ralph Lauren

One of my all time favorites. Polo Crest is essentially the daytime or summer version of Polo Green.

In my mind, RL never intended for this flanker to be more than a “limited edition” as they weren’t going to directly compete with themselves. Upon release in 1991, Crest’s big brother Polo Green was the undisputed heavyweight of the RL men’s line.

That wasn’t going to change and RL either didn’t know how to market Crest to its consumers, or more likely, intended it to be a limited run.

Lurking in development, a new heavily marketed flanker, Polo Sport, would go on to dominate the aquatic side of the pond in 1993.

Dollars and scents.

Polo Crest has an excellent composition with a very similar DNA to Polo Green, minus the tobacco, with an emphasis on the herbs / florals in the heart and cedar in the basenotes.

Make no mistake, Polo Crest is an unparalleled treasure of masculinity in the world of fragrance. 5 stars!

Vintage by John Varvatos

An easy one to reach for when you can’t decide what you’re in the mood to wear. This frag will serve you well day or night.

A similar vibe to Drakkar Noir, but toned down overall with less moss and the addition of tobacco in the basenotes. There’s no reason to overthink this one.

A masculine fragrance at an affordable price point that just smells good.
3 stars.

Halfeti Leather by Penhaligon's

Halfeti Leather is a dry wood and leather scent. Quite mature and no fresh-sweetness to be had. Its performance is impressive, reminding me of many rose-oud-saffron scents that can linger for hours and fill a building. The original Halfeti is there but this flanker lets the leather shine through, appropriately.

Solid projection and next day longevity.

Lys 41 by Le Labo

I was having a lily craving this spring so I ordered a couple of lily scents to compare. This one takes the cake, as far as recreating the experience of having a vase full of lilies in the house.

It does a great job emulating the sweet, heady, almost tactile scent of lilies that can completely take over a space. It does not achieve photo realistic likeness; but uses other flowers as well as a spiced, sweetened vanilla to create that luscious, thick, full bodied scent that typifies lilies. Smelled side by side with the real thing, the opening of Malle's Lys Mediterranée comes closer, but in overall feel, Lys 41 is my favourite.

Sweet Lemon by Jo Malone

The name is fitting: it starts with a clear sweet lemon; not that bright but quite intense. A good sweet lemon.

Very swiftly a nine of fruit is added. A pleasant pineapple arises, very balanced and not too sweet. Ripe peaches are also present, and a lovely impression of ripened Williams pears appear transiently too.

Toward the end a woodsy undertone is detectable - cypress and whiffs of pine - the latter very faint though.

I get moderate sillage, good projection, and six hours of longevity on my skin.

A nice scent for cooler summer days, with a Good rendering of the sweet lemons. Fruity, a bit linear and lacking depth, but crafted well. 3/5.

Eau de Rochas Homme by Rochas

Eau de Rochas Homme (1993) is a peculiar perfume in regards to how it came about, but an amazing alternative to the usual "blue" aquatic or citric fruity laundry musk thing that was around at the time. Edmond Roudnitska created Moustache by Rochas (1949) as a then-unconventional citrus aromatic chypre for men, with a cologne-like arrangement of citruses and a sour musky civet note to enhance the sandalwood oakmoss base so it wouldn't feel too soft or feminine. Years after the men's citrus chypre was starting to run its course (mutating into aromatic or animalic chypres with added leather or balsamic bases of patchouli and benzoin), the green chypre was subverted and taken over by the women's perfume market, which was serving a population perhaps starting to tire of sweet aldehyde chypre perfumes living in the shadow of Chanel No. 5 (1921). The original Eau de Rochas (1970) came about as a retooling of Moustache by Nicholas Mammounas to make it universal in appeal. The scent itself was hot on the heels of Ô de Lancôme (1969), and would compete in time against Balenciaga Ho Hang (1972), Sisley Eau de Campagne (1974,) and Yves Saint Laurent Eau Libre (1975), but this early unisex bubble would fail thanks to stubborn male patriarchy and all of these would be shifted to the women's market save Ho Hang, which found popularity among men, and Eau Libre, which would be aborted. Eau de Rochas in time started seeing more use by men, so someone had the bright idea to reconfigure it for a proper masculine release to compete with aquatics, alongside the original 1970 version by then marketed to women.

So what is then Eau de Rochas Homme? A masculine born from a erstwhile unisex feminine market itself born from a masculine? It's hard to really say but what we got here is a chypre composed by Gilles Romey that reads almost like an eau de cologne, minus the usual hit of neroli. The opening is lemon, bergamot, mandarin, lime, and a smooth basil pushed forth by a puff of sharp metallic aldehydes. The heart is a slightly-dusty mixture of white florals, with far more listed than what is actually detectable by the nose. I get hedione and a bit of muguet over some dry rose and coriander myself, with that basil and tart citrus above squishing it into almost a Tom Collins-type effervescence. The base is a light sharp oakmoss and vetiver with traces of cedar, labdanum, an unlisted myrrh note and musk. Missing from the men's version but present in the original unisex/women's version are carnation, patchouli, and amber, all which really hit home the chypre feeling. Without those ingredients here in Eau de Rochas Homme, this is a few missing sea notes away from being an aquatic like Acqua di Giò pour Homme by Giorgio Armani (1996), but barring those aquatic elements, feels like the granddad of Versace Man Eau Fraîche (2006), bringing in the Mediterranean freshness albeit in a more traditional fashion than Versace does. All in all, this is a wonderfully bright, dry, crisp and clean fragrance perfect for after a shower, devoid of the usual soapy shower gel laundry musk smell that most things from both this era and this style tend to have. Wear time is sufficient but overall projection is close to skin after the first hour, with moderate sillage you can detect on yourself in fits and starts. This stuff is the definition of casual to me.

Eau de Rochas Homme is a total summer relaxation scent and I still think this reads unisex even when stripped down into "homme" cladding. The original Eau de Rochas could really be worn side-by-side with this as it's slightly more-floral and artsy cousin, while this "Homme" version serves as built-for-service utility without the fussiness of florals. I like to think of this as the answer to the question of "What if Guerlain Eau de Cologne Impériale (1853) lasted longer?", and although it misses some of the Earl Grey vibes of that classic, it still gets you in the same ballpark, which is all you can really ask for in something with the same basic structure but literally 5 times the performance. To think in the coming years it would be a game niche houses played, in all trying to create fragrances that took a traditional eau de cologne and suspended it in time with artificially-extended performance, then sending it back out into the world as "luxury" saying "oh look we can do this at great cost but it is worth it". Here is Rochas, basically doing the same thing almost by accident a few years before Bond No. 9 or Penhaligon's did it, selling it as competition against freshies like Davidoff Cool Water (1988) or the original Nautica (1992). In short, if you're looking for a fresh citrus fragrance that doesn't smell like soap or shampoo, and punches way above its weight in quality, Rochas has provided you just that by way of evolutionary happenstance. Also, don't worry so much about IFRA restrictions or reformulations, as this one was always light and never an oakmoss bomb. Thumbs up.

Herod by Parfums de Marly

Test wearing from a 5 ml decant -

I wouldn't categorize this as a masculine tobacco frag. For me it is just another overpriced unisex, sweet, honey, tobacco, blah blah blah...add it to the long list of frags riding the coat tails of Tobacco Vanille. I am a huge tobacco fan, so this has been on my list for a test drive. No doubt this will garner many compliments, so if that is your goal, go for it.
2 stars.

Blacks Club Leather by Shay & Blue

First thing's first, Shay & Blue London is what I like to call "Nouveau-Niche", or a niche house founded in response to the interest in higher-priced and more-exclusive perfumes rather than one born from any true desire for artistic expression via perfume and whatnot. Shay & Blue London is the brainchild of former Chanel Senior Vice President Dom de Vetta, who was also Global General Manager of Jo Malone London before he decided to take his ball and go home. So many executives with zero knowledge of how perfume is made end up taking this "I can do it better" path, and it does get tiresome, especially when they end up hiring a nose then asking them to make pretty much slightly less-derivative versions of all the same stuff already on the market, just with a higher price, a heavier bottle, and a puff piece to sell it. Blacks Club Leather (2014) really is not so different than that unfortunately, and it smells like something that could sell for $60 in a mall boutique (or $20 from Avon), but amped a bit in strength and going for $140+ instead. The official market copy reads: "Sophisticated, tasteful, avant-garde, traditional, egalitarian. These are all words that apply equally to Black's Club, the renowned members-only club in London's Soho district." Let me stop you right there. Egalitarian and members-only do not really get along well when describing the same thing, like rich Hollywood fake-progressives that pretend to have everyone's interests at heart but lunge for their lawyers on speeddial the instant someone asks them to be as charitable as they say they are.

The basic gist of Blacks Club Leather is to be a cleaned up and polished leather scent of some strength and character, just without the winching animal growl of classics like Hermès Bel Ami (1986). Since oakmoss is untenable and isobutyl quinoline out-of-fashion as a leather note, that really just leaves the usual soft suede smell of modern ambery leathers or the bootstrap and raspberries shtick of Tom Ford, but Shay & Blue doesn't go that way. Instead, they actually serve up something which to me doesn't feel like a leather scent at all, opting to use the same medicinal compounds as most designer oud-themed fragrances, stirring in some heavy woodyamber aromachemicals, and then gussy it up in the usual way these houses do. Problem is, I've smelled this before too many times, just not in a "leather" scent. The opening reminds me very much of Yves Saint Laurent M7 (2002), or at least the "oud note" element of it, surrounded by some peppery notes. There is a "boozy" cognac note in the heart but to me that just smells like sugar in contrast to the grit on display in the opening, until it is followed by some kind of benzoin and ambrocenide/amber xtreme style molecule. Bogart One Man Show Oud Edition (2014) uses a bit of this, but luckily focuses more on the leather and oud aspects, while Avon Premiere Luxe Oud (2017) goes in more of a peppery traditional amber direction. Any "leather" that is supposed to be here just isn't, but this isn't bad. Wear time is over 10+ hours and sillage is steady, even if projection is thankfully not enormous. You know the drill, winter use or formal use, because this is a woody punch to the face if not used carefully. High heat in particular would make this mighty scratchy and unbearable, and may feel a bit too stiff for casual use.

I like Shay & Blue London Blacks Club Leather, and might even love it if it wasn't called a leather scent, but points must be deducted for delivering a very synthetic smell that comes across like the seventh son of a seventh son to M7 or even Gucci pour Homme (2002) from the Tom Ford era of LVMH. Shay & Blue has a lot of renown product in their catalog, and house perfumer Julie Massé is a talented woman, but this is perhaps unintentionally an insult because of the delivery. In essence, we have a scent named after a frou-frou gentleman's club in London, claiming to be a leather fragrance, smelling like a cut-rate synthetic woodyamber typically identified as "oud" instead, but still somehow coming out pleasant, solid-performing, and elegant if unoriginal. Again, if this was shopped by a mailorder house like Jafra or Oriflame, all would be forgiven, or even perhaps as the latest Zara Intense-Something fragrance, but it's in a Shay & Blue bottle and goes for the price of anything Montale sells at retail, which is a deal-breaker. If you are a collector of the house, this may be worth sampling, but if you're looking for something of this style, you have tons of more-affordable options. Likewise, if you're looking for a leather scent, you won't find one here so don't get burned by diving in blind, but if you like it, you could do far worse. I'll spare this one the axe because objectively it is nicely constructed, it just talks "the talk" of niche then fails to deliver on the promise of its own market copy, especially when the brand overall gets hyped to death by influencers on social media. Neutral

Rue de la Paix by Guerlain

The opening consisted of a well blended mixture of florals, some I was able to identify while for others not at all. Lavender, ylang-ylang, and rose were the ones that I could distinctively identify. I couldn't identify the jasmine or orris root. Aside from the florals there was a citrus/bergamot note to brighten the scent. Very bright and invigorating early on. The rose eventually develops becoming more deep and sensual in the base. The rose is accompanied with some woods and musk. There's a touch of amber and honey to provide a minimal amount of sweetness and oriental feel in the base. Very sensual and comforting. This is something both women and men can enjoy. Performance was pretty good overall: It was fairly potent early on before staying closer to the skin for the remainder duration of the scent. I recommend this to anyone who appreciate Guerlain classics and for any individuals who are passionate for vintage fragrances.

Iquitos by Alain Delon

Iquitos goes on with a honeyed rose and a hint of supporting mandarin orange before quickly moving to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart the rose takes over as the focus with the honeyed aspect receding though still quite present, revealing its slightly powdery facet as a moderately animalic musk and civet duo join fine white floral jasmine and mossy green oakmoss from the base providing significant support. During the late dry-down the animalics and rose all but vacate, leaving remnants of the now dry honey to join with a slightly sweet amber and sandalwood tandem with leather support through the finish. Projection is very good, as is longevity at around 11-12 hours on skin.

As most masculines from the 80s were winners, I guess it shouldn't be a great surprise that Iquitos is another fine example of the period's amazing output. The composition is a animalic honeyed rose at its core, but the oakmoss within adds an element to the composition that just couldn't be replicated easily in today's IFRA regulated world, making one appreciate just how good things were back then. While it has been quite a while since I have worn it, for some reason I feel like there is a similarity to Oscar de la Renta pour Lui here, and if so, that is far from a bad thing. Similar or not, Iquitos smells superb regardless. The bottom line is the discontinued $340 per 100 ml bottle on the aftermarket Iquitos may not prove the best smelling masculine of the great 80s, but that title is not necessary to still claim an "excellent" 4 stars out of 5 rating and a strong recommendation to vintage perfume collectors.

Bois Mystérieux by Guerlain

Myrh Leather Saffron

It has the same smell as Songe, but it is a bit different. It is less challenging, and a bit more massly pleasing in the base. Ultimately the breathy animalic nature is gone, but the medicine still remains. Myrh is kind of overdosed in the opening. The base smells a little cheap. I was wavering on up or neutral. I like the bottle, I like to wear it. It is just not my favorite in the line. And when you've smelled Songe this one kinda smells like an imposter. But it is much better than the average dreck, so I went thumbs up. Pricing, it should be $120 or less for the 4.2 oz bottle. Performance was pretty heavy. Longevity good.

Aoud Cuir d'Arabie by Montale

Fake real oud

I've always thought this one would just be another of the Montale ouds, so harsh and synthetic that it makes me wish to get it off. But this one is one of the only synthetics that seems to go after the actual smell of oud. Its got some cheesy opening, animalic. The leather is the chemically tan stuff. Astringent tobacco of the best kind, not trying to smell like a cigar, but giving that bitter medicinal vibe. The oud is synthetic smelling, but the addition of the leather and tobacco start to give it a more realistic profile. I find this rather enjoyable. A couple hours in it reaches a more polite profile, though it is still leather, tobacco and oud.
This is a really good one. I hate metal bottles, but I may make an exception for this one if the price is right. Thumbs up.

Violet & Amber Absolu by Jo Malone London

The opening is dominated by two components.

Firstly a violet that is nice, not really dark, and quite well done; I also get a bit of violet leaf here.

Secondly, a patchouli that is a bit shadowy, with a bit of crispness, and that takes on characteristics of some of the predictable and egregiously synthetic oud notes that are pullulating the fragrance shelves of many department stores these days. Both notes work together quite well, but one wonders whether less ‘oud’ and more violet would have been preferable. Still, the oud is less shrill or intrusive than many of its contemporary specimens.

The amber is a bit tardy in making an appearance, and when it arrives it does not take over, but blends in with the others. Touches of labdanum and whiffs of nutmeg round it off.

The later parts of the development of this olfactory journey sees the addition of white musks, which add sone discreet sweetness but are a bit nondescript otherwise.

I get moderate sillage good projection and an excellent ten hours of longevity on my skin.

A passable scent for autumn, which is a tad too generic and too predictable; additionally, some notes could do with a bit more vibrancy. The performance is excellent for a Jo Malone. 2.75/5

Essence No. 6 : Vetiver by Elie Saab

Good vetiver

So this is half bright vetiver half rooty. Im no expert on V, but id assume hatian and java are combining to that effect. Its got some citrus up top. Papyrus is dry ad dusty, the clove is bacground noise. Those who hate clove should be ok, though its noticale. The blending is master level. This is a top shelf vetiver. Thumbs up.

John Varvatos by John Varvatos

Voted “Best gym fragrance” by Introverts Unite! Magazine, 2004.
Noticeably unnoticeable. A squeaky clean shower gel wrapped in a dryer sheet. The only thing less offensive would be a tepid glass of water.

Aramis Special Blend by Aramis

The opening is sharply green and spicy with a mature, unisex vibe. The heavy florals and tonka remind me of Black Orchid. This is an interesting, nice scent but it's a little too mature for me. It's not the usual freshie, sweet, modern scent and you cannot make a sport flanker out of this.

Feels best for cooler weather and has the performance to go with it. Good projection and all day longevity.