Phantom Parfum (Rabanne)

Having never smelled Phantom EDT, I can’t fully assess the parfum’s place in the lineup, though, to be fair, Rabanne isn’t a brand I have much experience with anyway. (It was once called Paco Rabanne, after its founder, but in today’s world, gendering a company is practically a mortal sin—so begone, first name!) I’ll admit, I underestimated this scent. It’s actually quite pleasant.

The original Phantom, Rabanne’s first openly AI-generated formula, is a slightly bizarre hodgepodge of counterintuitive notes. The parfum, however, is a human-handed flanker, which raises the question: why not go all in? If you’re going to let the algorithm bless us, commit. Instead, Rabanne handed this one over to Dominique Ropion, Anne Flipo, and Juliette Karagueuzoglou, and it shows—Phantom Parfum smells “safe,” meticulously curated to fit every current trend: sweet, warm, soft, and loud. The opening is the same post-Invictus bubblegum top note I’ve smelled a dozen times this year. The transition? Predictably swift—an aromatic jolt of robust lavender, then the inevitable base of patchouli, vanilla, and woods. Familiar to a fault, though it does nod to Thierry Mugler’s A*Men (1996) and a handful of late-’90s and early-2000s gourmands.

Its best feature is the lavender heart, sharpened by what Rabanne claims is rhubarb—though I don’t detect it outright, more as a textural effect. As a starter fougère for men under thirty, it’s solid: well-balanced, versatile, and safely within the bounds of its target audience. Loud and sweet enough for a club night, but not so cloying as to repel anyone past that phase. I enjoyed it, but unsurprisingly, not enough to reach for my wallet.

Born in Roma (Valentino Uomo)

A prominent fragrance reviewer describes Born in Roma (2019) as opening with “fruity musky tones,” claiming these “nostril-tingling notes will recall the early 2000s Y2K dynamism and pop.” Yet, I find myself utterly perplexed about which fragrance he’s referring to. To my nose, this scent feels like a tired echo of the past five years—little more than a derivative riff on Invictus, akin to Hawas, but lacking its charm.

The perfume unfurls with that all-too-familiar sweet, pseudo-bubblegum accord—a synthetic medley of "froot" flavors that swiftly collapses into the predictable Ambroxan-driven heart. It’s a synthetic slog, a chemical haze that lacks any spark of originality. What elevates Hawas, in contrast, is its ambergris reconstruction, crafted with above-average, designer-grade materials. That salty, flattering ambiance lends Hawas a whisper of natural depth, a lifeline for someone craving even a hint of authenticity in their fragrance. Born in Roma EDT, however, doesn’t even attempt such finesse. While Ambroxan does appear in its expected dry-down slot, it sits there nakedly, exuding a stark, metallic saltiness with no effort to mimic the nuanced warmth of true ambergris. The result is a cheap, chemical midsection that feels oddly flabby and uninspired. It’s difficult to fathom why anyone would shell out the extra money for this when Rasasi’s Hawas delivers a superior experience at a third of the cost.

Perhaps Invictus, one of those early 2010s fragrances, was more influential than it first appeared, joining the ranks of Bleu de Chanel and Sauvage in shaping an era overrun with imitators. My issue lies in their sameness—they all seem to be chasing Invictus’s shadow. Born in Roma isn’t a bad fragrance, per se, but its “been there, done that” aura saps any joy from the wearing experience. I can’t recommend it. You want this? Reach for the original Invictus, or better yet, grab Hawas and revel in something with a bit more soul.

Gold+ (Commodity)

I'm pleasantly surprised by this fragrance. It consists of three main notes—nutmeg, saffron, and patchouli—and that’s exactly what I get. My issue with Gold+ is that it forgoes the vanilla freshness of its namesake in favor of a spice mélange that resembles Prada Luna Rossa Ocean EDP and Parfum, without adding anything new to the conversation.

Gold+ opens with an incredibly realistic nutmeg note, as if I had taken a McCormick shaker and dusted the spice directly onto my skin. The only other detectable note is a slight shimmer of ISO E Super to smooth the edges. Within ninety minutes, the nutmeg shifts to safranal, intensifying the fragrance with a quality reminiscent of Luna Rossa Ocean Le Parfum—but without the same depth or complexity. Still, it’s impressive.

The patchouli finally emerges, six hours later, though it’s weak. The nutmeg-saffron duo is so dominant that little else breaks through, leaving the scent locked into a simplified Italian designer profile. It remains static and unchanging until you do laundry or take three or four showers. Whatever these materials are, they’re nothing short of nuclear. With Ocean, even after four wash cycles, I can still smell it. Gold+ is just as clingy. If you want to drench yourself in liquid gold and never smell anything else again, this is for you.

Gucci Guilty Pour Homme Eau de Toilette (Gucci)

Frida Giannini

Gucci eventually surrendered its catalog of fragrances when Tom Ford parted ways with the brand in 2004, turning creative control over to Frida Giannini of Fendi fame. I sense her Italian influence in the original Gucci Guilty EDT from 2011 and sometimes wonder if Giannini's art direction, both during and after Ford's tenure, was shaped more by her years at Fendi than by Ford himself. At least she started out with promise; the myriad of offerings from Gucci in the years that followed are hit and miss. 

Guilty Pour Homme opens with a blast of crisp lemon, lavandin, and laundry musk, all undergirded with ethyl maltol as homage to the fruity-sweetness that every designer scent seems to need at weapons grade volume these days (it's rather quiet in Guilty).  The citrus and lavender manage to overcome the sugar in what becomes a suprisingly austere herbal/woody heart accord, something that plays well to both the unimaginative teen this is aimed at and the thirty-something who appreciates the zest of a cologne structure wedded to a base of modern musks, patchouli isolate, and the requisite 2010s wallop of Ambroxan. Also flitting in and out of perceptibility are notes of orange blossom and vanilla. 

There's a slight nod to Creed's Aventus in Guilty, although that's debatable. I smell a kindred stylization of pert fruitiness over dusky woods, and to be perfectly frank, the overall composition smells like it was an old mod of something from the early 2000s that was tweaked in a hurry to jog closer to Creed's new flagship fragrance. With that said, one is no substitute for the other, and if you think Guilty will get you to Aventusville, you're sorely mistaken. Where it does take you is to the ultimate middle-of-the-road designer hotspot of the mid-to-late 2010s, smelling fresh, clean, and, of all things, masculine. 

Eau de Protection (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back at my least favorite decade, the 2000s, I now see it was a time of freshness and metallic sourness, which is vastly preferable to the dessert-cart sugared ambers that dominate today’s fragrance landscape. Eau de Protection (2007), created by the Two Antoines, Lie and Maisondieu, house perfumers for Free Orange State, smells both fresh and sour, with a gorgeous rosy sweetness. Green and pert, it undergirds the ozonics. How does this read in 2025? Is it wearable?

Wearing a bittersweet green floral like Eau de Protection in today's world presents three issues. First, those too young to remember that era will think you smell weird. Second, the public may misinterpret the scent. Third, those who do remember might find it dated. Gen Z simply won’t understand, so if you’re a guy hoping to attract young women, good luck. Wearing a fresh green floral as a man also invites scrutiny from the gender discourse brigade, always eager to apply labels. Then there’s the occasional comment: “You smell like a girl I knew in college.”

Setting aside the social pitfalls, I really like Eau de Protection. It is unisex, leaning feminine, and reminds me of Banana Republic’s Peony & Peppercorn. This version, though, is far more refined, with better materials and a more subtle approach. This should be the defining masculine fragrance of 2025, if only because women have moved away from floral scents. Meanwhile, the Ambroxan-and-patchouli-isolate trend of Sauvage and Bleu de Chanel is played out. Eau de Protection is an ode to freshness, greenness, and floralcy, a gilded beauty in an olfactory Garden of Eden. I’m here for it. Full bottle worthy, though I tend to procrastinate with niche.

Burberry Hero (Burberry)

If you ever look back at the early 1970s, you’ll see a world that embraced excess with a certain kind of reckless pride. Films were bawdy, vulgar, and all sorts of other things that begin with the letter “v,” but they were competently made and carried an undeniable vibrance. Even the most outrageous productions had craftsmanship behind them, and people took pride in their work—no matter what that work was. You didn’t watch movies in the comfort of your home; even the most risqué entertainment had to be viewed in public theaters, often in major metro hubs like Times Square. After the show, you could step out for a hot dog and then spend the rest of the afternoon shopping at Bloomingdale’s.

Perfume was that way, too. Brut. Jovan Musk. Pierre Cardin Pour Monsieur. Bawdy, bare-chested, ready for anything at any moment—brutal and assaulting the senses as olfactory assailants in their private romances. Yet they were produced on generous budgets using skilled perfumers, and despite their downmarket appeal, they were respectable and widely loved, not unlike the raunchy, provocative films of Jean Rollin. America and Europe had their many differences, but they could agree on their love for indulgence, and perfume was no exception. This was good for culture, good for art, good for society. People were freer, their sense of intellect was deeper, and their senses were attuned to finer things. I dare say that although it was a time before the digital age, it was a time when people were more advanced in their understanding of life.

Today, none of this is true. We have jettisoned art, jettisoned the vulgar, abandoned the wanton excesses of yore, all for the restrictive safety of risk-free sure-things. Movies are pallid ghosts of their former selves, devoid of humor, seduction, and sin. Perfumes have also shriveled up into little shivering weaklings, created not by people of knowledge and power but by scared little runts in off-the-rack suits who think that, because they’re European, sophistication is innate to them and need not be cultivated. They churn out the most focus-grouped garbage, boring sweet ambers, a dime a dozen, simply because an A.I. app tells them it will sell, and they sprinkle in whatever organic note the A.I. is kind enough to recommend. In Burberry Hero Eau de Parfum’s case, it was pine.

Sloth (Zoologist)

I often wonder if rich people actually wear these perfumes. If I were a millionaire, would Sloth by Zoologist be my signature scent? Then I hop into my downmarket Toyota Corolla and drive to Woodbury, where I drop $100 on seven grocery items at New Morning Market, inhaling that unmistakable “health food store” aroma—spices, grains, and wood. And that’s when it hits me: Sloth is right at home in a millionaire’s lair. This is the premier fragrance of choice for the Connecticut blue blood who drops $500 on groceries that barely last the weekend. Why not?

There’s no use romanticizing this fragrance. Sloth smells like spicy body odor, and wearing it feels like a social experiment gone wrong. It reminds me of a grad school professor—another lefty blue blood—who spent half a class reminiscing about visiting India, where crowds of poor people reached out and touched her clothes, which she somehow recalled fondly. I imagine that scene smelled exactly like Sloth. Prin Lomros (the nose behind Bat and Rhinoceros) created this one, but I just don’t get it. Perfume is supposed to make you smell good. Sloth does the opposite.

What anyone sees in this is beyond me. The stench of unwashed skin is precisely what I’m trying to avoid, and if I’ve just showered and shaved, the last thing I want is a fragrance that instantly reverses my progress. This won’t get you a date. It won’t impress your significant other—because there isn’t a woman in America who wants her man to smell like this. It doesn’t even work as some highbrow intellectual exercise, because no amount of Ego can override the lizard brain screaming that this smells spoiled and vaguely hazardous. Sloth isn’t just a bad perfume—it’s a joke. Dollar store body spray is more useful, more desirable, more respectable.

Quorum Silver (Antonio Puig)

Cedar? I smell ginger. Nearly all ginger, in fact. Quorum Silver hits with a massive wallop of it in the top notes -- brisk, spicy, a little sweet -- and rapidly segues into an aromatic mixture of lavender and herbal notes to buttress the longevity of that gingery freshness. Eventually, as in after six or seven hours, a light cedar woodiness is apparent, but it's not like I'd call Quorum Silver a "cedar scent." It is certainly a ginger fragrance.

Has this been reformulated? For twenty years, I've been reading people's chatter about how Quorum Silver is a one-note cedar bomb from top to bottom, yet my experience is sharply divergent from theirs. When I think of cedar, I think of Krizia Uomo. That's a cedar fragrance. Intensely woody, all the way through. Puig's scent is what I had hoped Creed's Tabarome Millesime would be (but wasn't), an intense blast of ginger that softens into greener notes in the drydown. There's a light tea-like effect in the base of QS, and the quality of materials is high enough that I can envision this as a niche offering.

I'm not sure I understand what everyone has been experiencing with this fragrance, but I have a thought. There's a known phenomenon that when one person of repute says something, everyone follows. It's The Emperor's New Clothes, only here it's a note, and not magical clothing in question. At some point someone influential shouted "cedar!" and the whole world scrambled to echo it, fearing that an opposing take would rattle things. Well, I'm the little boy pointing at the naked man: "GINGER!" 

Elephant (Zoologist)

Released in 2017, Elephant is one of Chris Bartlett's compositions, he of Pell Wall Perfumes, and I have to say, it's not bad. It also happened to be an Art & Olfaction Awards Finalist of 2018. The notes listed are tree leaves, darjeeling tea, magnolia, cocoa, coconut milk, incense, jasmine, woods, amber, musk, patchouli, and sandalwood. I can detect every single one of these notes with clarity. Well done, Chris. 

The good: Elephant wears nicely. It opens with an aggressive accord of bitter greens, pungent cedar, magnolia, and jasmine, with a slightly sweet/skanky balance calibrated just right. The dominant note to my sniffer is jasmine blossom, a beautifully indolic and very floral-ambrosial nuance that penetrates every level of the fragrance's pyramid. Eventually the grounding notes of cocoa and coconut milk appear and smooth out the rough edges, leaving some of the smokiness of the tea and jasmine, which then morph into an incense and patchouli accord for depth. Rich, green, woody, relaxed. Very nice.

The bad: This stuff is linear as hell. After the first half hour, everything hits a stasis point, and the dynamism fizzles. I'm left with a woody-floral coconut musk that holds for hours and never dries out. Sounds okay, but you may find yourself wishing you could get your nose on the rather good sandalwood undergirding everything. Bartlett is a prominent member of Basenotes and a competent perfumer, but Elephant suffers from being a bit of a one-trick pony. Wrong animal there. 

She Was an Anomaly (Etat Libre d'Orange)

This smells like something Prada would put have put out fifteen years ago, a bready/carrot iris followed by a semisweet powdery musk. The irones and ionones are restrained and tempered by a massive dose of white musk and Amberfix™ in the base, a salty nuance that perpetually wavers between ambergris and sandalwood. The first ten minutes have me wondering if this is going to be a full-throated iris fragrance, but once the synthetics start to buzz around, it gets pretty vague in intention and a little nondescript in overall smell. To my nose, the notes that stand out are a slightly floral iris and orris accord, which ends up reminding me of a much stronger and more resolute scent at less than a quarter of the price: Deauville Pour Homme.  

Daniela Andrier claims that she asked AI to generate a formula for her, and it gave her the bones of this scent, with an expectation that she would (paraphrasing) "overdose on two materials." She obliged the algorithm, so to speak, but made a few human adjustments along the way to produce She Was an Anomaly. I find it interesting that she admits to relying on AI for a formula, because we all know that if she did it with this perfume, she's done it with a bunch of others as well. Once you rub that lamp, there ain't no putting the genie back in. Andrier used Givaudan's Carto, a program perfumers can use to develop a perfume within a month, neck-snapping in perfumery terms, even for the designer flanker mills out there. Time is money, and Carto likely saves a ton of cabbage. 

To my nose, this scent smells like an AI formula that was corrected. I'm not sure how long it took to compose, and suspect Andrier spent a more traditional length of time on it after that initial Carto suggestion. I like She Was an Anomaly, but I certainly don't love it, and I fall into the camp of people who feel that it's a bit too discreet and one-dimensional for something at ELDO's price-point. I mean, if I can spritz on a little of my Deauville and have a more satisfying experience with the same set of notes (plus a few that Andrier didn't use), why would I deviate from the ten dollar scent? Big brand cache only works when the story behind the perfume implies hard-won gains. I think ELDO would've been better off keeping the backstory to She Was an Anomaly to itself. 

Jaguar for Men (Givaudan)

Jaguar for Men is one of those frags that falls prey to reformulation anxiety, the fear that grips dyed-in-the-wool fragrance fanatics whenever they get their hands on something they've never smelled before. Crafted in 1988 by Thierry Wasser, now of Guerlain, the first version was apparently a musky-woody powerhouse in true '80s fashion. Then the '90s came a-knockin, and at some point in the ensuing decade a perfumer from Mane named Dominique Preyssas reformulated it and stripped out the musky bits, which resulted in something a few ticks closer to the original Polo from '78. I've never smelled either of those formulas; my first experience with Jaguar is from a 2021 bottle manufactured by Lalique Beauty, via a post-Preyssas formula that smells nothing at all like Polo (you can keep Polo) and a heck of a lot like the original Krizia Uomo (thank God). 

Well, three parts Krizia Uomo, that is, and one part Sir Irisch Moos, that neon-green stuff from Germany in the little geometric bottle that is all but impossible to find in America nowadays. At this point it's safe to say that the only entity one can truly attribute this fragrance to is the manufacturer, Givaudan, which has supplied the majority of Lalique's perfumes for many years now. Preyssas's formula likely survived the years with minor focus-grouped tweaks here and there. I find it interesting that it smells so dimensional and well made for something so out of fashion (not cheapened), and even more intriguing that it so closely resembles a revered discontinued gem like Krizia Uomo. Why is nobody talking about this? Ever since Krizia went bye-bye, its many fans have been gnashing their teeth, needless given that Jaguar exists. The rich cedar and mossy-resinous textures of the Italian scent are here as well, only Lalique's fragrance is brighter, spicier, with a woody orange citrus note that dominates the profile, something Uomo never had. 

There's a bit more vintage Irish Spring Soap to Jaguar, something fresher and more forward-leaning in its style that has me feeling glad I took the plunge on it. The problem with owning this is that I wonder when I'll ever wear it -- my girlfriend dislikes these old earthy masculines, and I don't really blame her. I can imagine what it must be like to spend a few hours around the guy who sprays this one time too many. But then again, there's no denying Jaguar smells fantastic. I don't care that the '80s are over. You know what's never over? Smelling crisp and clean. This isn't a Millennial aquatic or ozonic "blue" thing. This isn't your brother's bottle of Fierce. This won't get you laid on Saturday night. This is the sort of thing you spray on to fight the invading Turks. Masculine, virile, rich, clean, a little heroic, the box and bottle even come in Sherwood Green. Simply perfect.