Chipmunk (Zoologist)

I often hang a Little Trees air freshener in my car called "True North," and after a long workday, I find its crisp, snowy, slightly piney aroma soothing. It’s one of the longer-lasting Little Trees scents and smells more authentically pine-like than the classic green tree, which always reminds me of a rubber Halloween mask. Whenever I catch a whiff of "True North," I wonder if it’s cold, foresty aromas in general that calm me. It’s hard to say. Push pine notes too far and you end up with something like Stirling Soap’s Evergreen Forest, which can be downright jarring.

Pia Long’s 2021 fragrance for Zoologist, Chipmunk, leans more into hazelnuts but carries a few other notes that give me a "True North" vibe in the best possible way. For starters, the fragrance’s note list is one of the most accurate I’ve ever seen. Not sure about the quince, but I definitely detect a crystal-clear accord of pink pepper, mandarin orange, cardamom, and nutmeg at the top. This quickly settles into a grassy chamomile-hazelnut heart, layered over fir balsam, oak, and what they call "earthy notes"—really just synthetic oakmoss with a drop or two of natural patchouli oil.

The weakest link in matching the pyramid to the notes list is the base, which cites amyris, cedar, benzoin, vetiver, opoponax, guaiacwood, and "animal notes." Honestly, I mostly get the benzoin and opoponax, with maybe a soft touch of animalic musk, nothing like the assertive stuff found in other Zoologist creations. The overall effect is earthy, piney, and nutty-woody, with cold air swirling over warm campfires and hazelnut toast being passed around. It feels painterly, like something out of a Pieter Bruegel the Elder scene. On the strip, the terpenic notes sing out more. Chipmunk is one of Zoologist’s better fragrances, and it’s perfect for a crisp fall day looking ahead to winter. 

Tommy, Reformulated (Hilfiger)

In the late nineties, this was my summer fragrance, a staple I packed for family trips to our holiday home in Ireland. Wearing it felt like a tether to the buzzing New York Metropolitan area I’d left behind, which, to an eighteen-year-old, seemed important. Back then, the formula was crafted by Lauder's Aramis division for Tommy Hilfiger, but by the 2000s, fragrance trends shifted from ambery-sweet masculines to herbal-aquatics and blue-bottled ozonics, and somewhere between my college years and the shifting tides of scent trends, my beloved Tommy was adopted by a secondhand owner. “SA Beaute” in Europe makes it now. So imagine my trepidation when I spotted a bottle at a local rack store for twenty clams—a steal, considering it used to set me back at least forty-five. The new box design felt ominous, and I braced myself for disappointment.

From the first spritz, I was appalled. The opening was a prickly, alcohol-laden assault of synthetic chemicals and paper-thin citrus accords, mostly grapefruit and lemon aldehydes, and for a moment, I thought Tommy was dead, a faint ghost of its former self. But at the fifteen-minute mark, a small miracle occurred. Out of the haze, Old Glory began to emerge, almost as I remembered it. The familiar richness of cardamom, lavender, sage, tonka, sweet apple, and musky-woody undertones appeared, with a plush ambery base under it all. It was warm, modern, comfortable, nearly the Tommy I knew. Still, something had changed. Since its 1994 debut, much has happened in the world of fragrance, and several scents have pilfered the DNA of Alberto Morillas's composition. Montale’s Fougères Marines (2007) took Tommy’s basic structure, added extra fruit syrup, and threw in salty ambergris for that desert heat appeal. As I wear this new version of Tommy, I can’t help but wonder if it’s borrowing from Fougères Marines as a clone of its own clone, so to speak. There’s a noticeable marine quality now, with a salty Ambroxan note that wasn’t present in the original. This aspect supplants the thick and shimmery apple-musk beauty of the Aramis formula, and lends the fragrance a more aquatic edge. 

Another curious shift is in how the reformulation handles its greener aromatics; it leans into a Drakkar Noir-like vibe, with a hit of dihydromyrcenol and none of the nuclear Calone and ethyl-maltol-driven sweetness it used to have. This dialing down of the fruity sugar rush gives the heart of the fragrance a subtle throwback to the eighties, something I never associated with the original’s heady nineties redolence. Hilfiger once hyped the scent’s “apple pie” note, and while I definitely got that from the vintage version, the reformulation feels both thinner and more balanced—cardamom, spearmint, and lavender now frame the apple in a woodier, less cushy, and much less edible way. So, while I'm happy that the cheap top eventually mellows and allows some of the richness of the scent I once loved to shine through, it’s hard not to miss the magic of the original.

Dissecting "Blue" Fragrances That Aren't Bleu: A Meditation on Perfume Synesthesia, Part Two

This is both the second part of my meditation and a review of Tabarome Millésime. Here’s the crux of it: Tabarome Millésime is the most important Creed of the 2000s, and yet no one discusses it. Before you dismiss this claim, hear me out, and then draw your own conclusions. My argument rests on a theory that ties this Creed fragrance to one of the biggest successes of 2010—a wildly popular Chanel, recognizable by its name and its signature "blue" hue.

To be clear, I’m referring to the years 2000 to 2009. Several notable Creeds came out during that decade, including Himalaya, Original Vetiver, Santal, and Virgin Island Water. While these other scents were derivative, Tabarome Millésime was a precursor to greater things. Most intriguingly, it defies its brown label and tan-green liquid. Instead, it smells like a rough draft of Bleu de Chanel—a very rough draft, mind you, but all the essential elements are present. There’s a sweet touch of citrus, followed by ginger, sandalwood, black tea, and green tobacco leaf. Hints of vetiver and mild smokiness are nestled within, while the sandalwood, dry and pale, echoes a birch note. Strangely enough, Tabarome Millésime feels more "blue" than Bleu itself.

Its resemblance to Bleu de Chanel is both fascinating and unsettling. From what I can gather, Olivier Creed is the actual perfumer behind Tabarome Millésime—not a "ghost perfumer" like Pierre Bourdon or Jean-Christophe Hérault. If this is true, it’s a monumental fact, more significant than most realize. Amidst the accusations of Olivier’s perfume “theft” and dubious business tactics, and the widespread belief that he’s more of an "evaluator" than a creator, we find ourselves in complicated territory. If Olivier’s 2000 release indeed paved the way for Chanel’s blockbuster a decade later, then he is far from inconsequential. In fact, he might even be a visionary.

So, what makes Tabarome Millésime smell vaguely "blue"? It opens with a sharp, sour citrus accord, bracing and almost unpleasant in its tartness—bergamot with a lime-like bite, only slightly softened by sweet mandarin. The ginger that follows isn’t as effervescent as I expected, but it’s deeper and rounder than anything I’ve encountered in a designer fragrance. Beneath the ginger, black tea, sandalwood, smoky-salty ambergris, and raw tobacco leaf emerge, all resting on a base of petitgrain and white musk. The composition is simple, lacking contrast and dynamism, presenting more as a single, multi-faceted note—ginger with a few supporting elements. The freshness, likely from ambergris and a cool, aqueous musk, combined with the ginger, gives the fragrance its "blue" character, evoking the sensation of crisp water and clear air.

Some reviews suggest Tabarome Millésime is ideal for the office or for older men. Luca Turin called it a "sport fragrance" and dismissed it as "mislabeled and pointless." Given how faint the tobacco note is, it might indeed be mislabeled, but pointless? I beg to differ. The gingery woods at the heart of this scent, a concept later mastered by Jacques Polge in a world-shattering perfume, carry considerable weight within the realm of masculine fragrances. One Fragrantica reviewer compared it to Dirty English by Juicy Couture, and I see the resemblance. Ironically, I’ve compared Dirty English to Bleu de Chanel in the past, referring to it as "Brun de Chanel"—Dirty English smells earthy and brown, with a streak of blue running through it. It shares enough DNA with Bleu that I view it as another stepping stone toward the final 2010 iteration of this idea. Masculine perfumery evolves in stages, a few years at a time.

Why does Dirty English evoke a color? Once again, we find the same combination of notes that parallels Tabarome Millésime and Bleu de Chanel: cedar, vetiver, smoky woods (perhaps "oud"), and a sharp, synthetic citrus note that doesn’t resemble real fruit but feels like a technicolor image of one. ISO E Super is just as prominent as the esters and aldehydes. Though far from an aquatic or ozonic fragrance, and certainly not marketed as one, Dirty English achieves a distinct "blue" tone, a fresh yet somber quality that echoes in Chanel’s later creation. To be clear, Bleu de Chanel is the most refined of these three, while Tabarome Millésime, despite its high-quality ingredients, suffers from an inferior composition and balance. Olivier’s scent feels too evenly spread, with the notes never truly playing off each other. In contrast, Dirty English, the cheapest of the trio, smells livelier—but it’s a zephyr next to Bleu de Chanel's tempest.

All of this leads to one conclusion: the best "blue" fragrances evoke the color itself, and the tranquility it suggests, without relying on tired aquatic or synthetic accords. The "blue" quality of Bleu de Chanel, Tabarome Millésime, and Dirty English stems from their ability to conjure a mood—a certain quiet, misty atmosphere, the austere beauty of nature in the early morning, before the light fully dispels the night. These fragrances inspire the sensation of a color rather than a seascape or a sunlit beach. The genius lies in the perfumer’s ability to distill this achingly familiar feeling into a scent, one that transports us to that place we all recognize as "blue."

Dissecting "Bleu" Fragrances That Aren't Blue: A Meditation on Perfume Synesthesia, Part One

In 2010, the perfume world experienced a watershed moment, much like Hollywood did in 1999. It was a year marked by great releases and intriguing innovations. Fragrances like Portrait of a Lady, Memoir Man, Eau Sauvage Extrême (new), Sartorial, Bang, Aventus, and Bleu de Chanel hit the shelves, revitalizing department stores struggling to stay afloat. Among these, it was Bleu de Chanel that captured my attention. I purchased a bottle soon after its release, though I found its backstory both plausible and dubious. Jacques Polge claimed the inspiration came from the scent of men washing and shaving in airport bathrooms—an aromatic memory he couldn't shake. To me, Bleu de Chanel embodied the apex of a movement in masculine fragrance, representing the color "blue" without invoking any of the typical "blue" scents.

What stood out most was its innovative structure and the unusual combination of notes. Ginger, a staple in men’s perfumes, was handled with a fresh, dynamic twist, alongside grapefruit, pink pepper, vetiver, incense, green tobacco, white florals, patchouli isolates, birchwood, synthetic oakmoss, and clean musk. None of these notes fell into the aquatic or ozonic categories that dominated the previous decade. Instead, they came together in a composition that smelled serene, somber, cool, and terrestrial—a shade of grey-blue that conjured inner calm. For me, the fragrance veered more towards tan or taupe, with the ginger and vetiver giving the heart a distinctive warmth. Synesthesia was in play.

As I wore Bleu de Chanel, I often pondered its origins. What perfume might have preceded it in the same way Drakkar Noir and Green Irish Tweed led to Cool Water? It felt so original that I suspected Chanel may have borrowed from a lesser-known brand. But the search for a clear predecessor proved elusive. Over time, I realized I had been misled by the "blue" marketing. I needed to explore beyond color and consider other successful mainstream fragrances. One contender that came to mind was Malizia Uomo Vetyver by Mirato. With its fresh vetiver, touches of ginger, citrus, cut grass, and neroli, it seemed to be a distant cousin of Bleu de Chanel. Yet, despite the similarities, Bleu wasn’t as overtly "green" as Vetyver. The ginger was subtler, and Vetyver’s transparent, sporty vibe didn’t carry the same gravitas as Bleu, which had an earthy, almost musty depth far removed from the frosted blue-bottle offerings at Perfumania.

I often wonder how differently I would have perceived Bleu de Chanel had it been housed in a brown bottle. Would the ginger and vetiver have spoken to me in a new way? Might I have imagined parched summer fields instead of misty autumn woods? The bottle’s color and name undeniably influenced my perception of the fragrance. Take Aqua Velva Ice Blue, a product of the 1930s that still smells remarkably modern. Its notes—menthol, citrus, peppermint, cedarwood, and abstract florals—create a balance between fresh top notes and earthier base notes, with a unique interplay of incense and leather. The parallels to Bleu de Chanel are clear, and I often wore both fragrances after a shave, with one person even remarking that I smelled “really beautiful.”

Yet, even with these comparisons, I can't shake the sense that something is missing. While Ice Blue and Vetyver share a gingery-peppery freshness, they occupy a lower tier in the commercial landscape compared to Chanel. It's hard to believe Polge would have drawn such direct inspiration from them. There’s a missing link—some forgotten fragrance in the higher echelons of the market—that quietly failed but laid the groundwork for something like Bleu de Chanel to flourish . . . 

What Are "Aquatics"?

Over the years, I’ve immersed myself in a sea of perfume literature, and one of my biggest pet peeves is when people misidentify the classification of a fragrance by claiming it belongs to the wrong genre. This confusion is especially common with fougères, chypres, and aquatics, with the latter being the most perplexing. While I understand the confusion around fougères, given the tricky distinction between "traditional" and "aromatic," and chypres being somewhat outdated, the mislabeling of a fragrance as an aquatic mystifies me. How does this happen?

Let’s unpack the term. An "aquatic" fragrance is one that conveys "aqua" elements above all else. These elements can evoke the scent of either saltwater or freshwater, each with distinct olfactory traits. Saltwater fragrances, often referred to as "marine," tend to be more defined, while freshwater scents can sometimes blend into ozonic or laundry musk notes, rather than anything explicitly liquid. Interestingly, freshwater fragrances rarely advertise a watery theme and often simply feature a color palette between green and blue. In contrast, saltwater fragrances usually convey their aquatic nature through packaging and names, suggesting a beach escape or a dive to explore a coral reef.

So, how should a true aquatic fragrance smell? There’s no single answer, but the fragrance should impress with certain distinctive qualities. I often associate salinated water with a genuine aquatic scent, so oceanic compositions resonate most with me. Examples like Heeley’s Sel Marin, Mario Valentino’s Ocean Rain, Bvlgari’s Aqva, Ralph Lauren’s Polo Ultra Blue, Creed’s Millésime Impérial (and Armaf’s Club de Nuit Milestone), Halston’s Unbound for Men, Nautica's Voyage, and Azzaro’s Chrome Legend are quintessential examples of aquatics. Sel Marin stands out as a pristine example, featuring a tangy citrus blend saturated with sand, salt, seaweed, and brine. It evokes the scent of your skin after a refreshing swim in the Irish Sea on a crisp 55° day, clad in a Speedo.

Bvlgari Aqva combines seaweed and salty accords with an abstract floral arrangement, allowing its briny elements to bask in daylight. Polo Ultra Blue is intriguing for its synthetic nature and often criticized as overly generic, yet its balance of herbal and citrus tones contrasts well with heavy salt notes, creating an abstract representation of a rocky beach at high tide. Ocean Rain captures a similar beach at low tide but further down the coast, where sand meets gentle rain—a true representation of beach petrichor. The rest of these fragrances offer fruitier and fresher variants, but all share salty, vaguely briny seawater notes. These are true aquatics.

When it comes to freshwater aquatics, clear examples are rarer. From my collection, two notable ones are L'Eau Bleue Pour Homme by Issey Miyake and Silences by Jacomo. Yes, I consider Silences a freshwater aquatic. Wearing vintage Silences reveals it’s not aiming for a field of greens; Jean-Claude Niel’s 1978 creation evokes a foggy emerald over glassy pond water at dawn on a frigid 42° Fahrenheit morning. The scene is blanketed in mist, with only sage thickets and cattails visible through the murk. It’s eerie, green, and murky, reminiscent of pond water. Similarly, L'Eau Bleue offers a cool, crisp watery aroma, complemented by a complex mix of aromatics that gradually shift from aquatic to more terrestrial notes, though the water reference remains throughout.

So, what isn’t an aquatic? My prime example is Davidoff’s Cool Water. Despite its name and blue glass bottle, it doesn’t fit the aquatic profile. Yes, the name "Cool Water" and the blue bottle suggest an aquatic theme, but here’s the issue: Cool Water lacks the salty, marine quality, and its freshness doesn’t evoke natural freshwater. Pierre Bourdon aimed to create "a new kind of freshness" using familiar aromatics like linalool and Hedione, along with a substantial amount of dihydromyrcenol. This latter component smells ozonic, slightly metallic, and woody on its own. In Cool Water, it adds a frosted effect to mint, lavender, and florals, with a touch of room-temperature crab apple and tobacco notes.

Cool Water includes a hint of salty sea spray, sweetened by a smidge of Calone 1951, which is indeed an aquatic element. However, this doesn’t make the fragrance as a whole an aquatic. It’s better classified as Bourdon’s "modernized" aromatic fougère, with fougère notes making up about 90% of the composition. The remaining 10% consists of standalone aroma chemicals like Ambroxan, Hedione, and a more marine-like Methyl Cyclopentenolone. The name "Cool Water" implies the wearer is "cool" due to the fragrance, an update on the French "Eau Fraîche". While mint and lavender are cooling, and the blue glass suggests "coolness," these factors don’t make it an aquatic.

Another non-aquatic example is Bleu de Chanel. Despite the reference to "Blue," the fragrance has nothing to do with the ocean or a lake. Inspired by men’s aftershave, it bears a striking resemblance to Aqua Velva Ice Blue. Jacques Polge aimed for a moody-woody scent, using ginger for freshness and ingredients like incense and vetiver for depth. It’s a woody-fresh scent, more a glorified woody amber than anything aquatic. So, please stop calling Bleu de Chanel an aquatic.

There are other examples, but these two are significant. I could continue ad infinitum, but I’ll conclude by saying that if you want a true aquatic fragrance and want me to recognize it as such, avoid anything in the Green Irish Tweed or Dylan Blue realms. Instead, opt for something that genuinely evokes the sea or a lakeside, like the briny saltiness of a mineralic, sea-weedy coast or the murky dankness of a quiet fishing pier at dawn. Think of the essence of dirty water, and you’ll be on the right track.

Velvet (Commodity)

Velvet hits the skin with a rush of saffron and almond, creating a striking 3D, non-alcoholic amaretto accord, quite unexpected from this house, and something that immediately drew me in. Commodity’s booklet mentions “black amber,” which I take as a nod to an accord akin to Noir de Noir’s black truffle and amber. Indeed, Velvet bears a strong resemblance to Noir de Noir (and by extension, Club de Nuit Intense for Women). As the top notes fade, the heart of Turkish rose and balsamic notes rises, leaving me wondering if they were aiming for a Tom Ford effect here.

As it continues to dry down, the fragrance becomes sweeter. Hints of hot chocolate, toasted nuts, vanilla, amber, and musk dance in and out, until the vanillic notes firm up, blending seamlessly with the rose. The result is a semi-floral, semi-gourmand vibe that projects steadily for at least eight hours. Despite its allure, Velvet belongs to an overwrought scent profile that has been a bit too popular in the last twenty years. Although it lacks Noir de Noir's oud, wearing Velvet delivers a similar experience. Yes, it feels a little less opulent, a touch cheaper, but for those avoiding the Armaf route, Velvet offers a niche-like option without the hefty price tag or overt gendering. The plush amber gives it a distinctly unisex character, leaning slightly masculine. This sort of fragrance has never been for me, but it's undeniably pleasant.

Yet, I can't help but wonder about the people who buy and wear Commodity fragrances. Why doesn’t this brand resonate with me? The minimalistic bottles, the postmodern typeface on color-matched labels, the clinical names—they both attract and repel. My inner Curious George longs to “get” whatever it is I’m seeing and smelling, while another part of me simply doesn’t care. I picture myself in The Backrooms, drifting from one liminal space to another, until I stumble upon a Commodity bottle on a table in a hallway. I spray it, briefly thinking an eternity in damp-carpet purgatory might not be so bad—until the lights go out. Time to move on.

Beach Walk (Maison Margiela)

A.I. Still Struggles With Hands

Artificial Intelligence has been with us for over a decade, with Nvidia and other software companies challenging traditional norms in creativity and beyond. Smelling Beach Walk by Maison Margiela, I can't help but wonder how many perfumes have been created by AI in that time. This one smells like a carbon copy of Tom Ford's Soleil Blanc — essentially a high-end suntan lotion scent. We've encountered this fragrance profile at least half a dozen times before: a jasmine/ylang bouquet with coconut and benzoin.

Can an AI perfume be identified by scent alone? I suspect I have a couple in my collection. Grassland by Banana Republic, for instance, smells like an AI-generated fragrance from start to finish. It's as if someone ran a gas chromatography analysis on Parfums de Marly's Greenley, fed the data into an AI composition tool, and voilà — Greenley on a budget, minus the expensive pine notes. It smells like a computer's take on seafoam green, with smooth mints and a vague freshness that avoids being generic or cheap. Beach Walk has a similar vibe, except it seems like a straightforward, slightly cheaper copy of the Tom Ford scent. Would a human perfumer even bother with that?

A growing concern with AI is its rapid learning and improvement — it’s evolving at a dizzying speed. Just a year ago, AI-generated imagery was grotesquely mediocre, but today the quality is worlds apart. Now, the only human input required is crafting keywords that yield the best result; the AI does the rest. AI has been capable of high-level generation since at least 2010, possibly earlier. Beach Walk dates back to 2012, and I wouldn't be surprised if the perfumers simply used Soleil Blanc’s formula as their prompt.

Let's Talk About Tea Fragrances.

Tea notes are among the more mysterious elements in the perfumer's organ, and I've always been intrigued by them. I own several fragrances where tea is a central feature, some of which are my favorites, and all of which I would buy again. Here, I want to explore what tea means in perfumery terms, as the note is far from monolithic, with many twists and varieties found in both mainstream and niche compositions.

In my collection, the most successful rendition of tea is probably found in Thé Brun by Jean-Charles Brosseau, a 2005 creation by Pierre Bourdon aimed at the niche crowd. This was a semi-retired Bourdon playing with ideas that '90s designers had rejected or overlooked, such as his now-famous pineapple note, which he paired with an ethereal, salty accord distantly related to his earlier Millésime Impérial for Creed. To me, this fragrance captures an Earl Grey type of black tea with remarkable accuracy, featuring the distinct bergamot of Earl Grey followed by a creamy "brown tea" note reminiscent of a morning tipple with milk. The tea note persists throughout the fragrance's life, from the first spray to the far drydown five hours later. While I'm not particularly impressed with the rest of the pyramid, I find the tea note grounding, calming, and serene.

Bourdon, like his teacher Edmond Roudnitska, revered Japanese art and tradition, drawing inspiration from the orientalism of the 20th-century Old Masters. There are whispers of floral sweetness—perhaps cherry blossom?—and a faint woodiness under the salinity, like a garden near the sea. The black tea, diluted to a warm brown, shimmers in a cup at dawn. These impressions are evoked by the fragrance, and at no point does Thé Brun feel ordinary or trite; I am certain I've never smelled anything like it. Unlike most tea fragrances, Bourdon didn't disguise a white floral note with lemon to call it tea; his tea is literal, a refreshing and realistic effect, like spilling Tetley on my collar. Although Thé Brun has not been well-received by everyone (one female coworker wrinkled her nose and said, "Not a good one, Bryan"), I like it.

If Thé Brun is a placid Earl Grey, Alyssa Ashley's Green Tea is a verdant spin on the theme. Dirt cheap and probably the least compelling tea fragrance in my collection, it is still a satisfying wear, largely due to the interesting pairing of lavender with papery gunpowder green notes. The fragrance smells aromatic, dank, and slightly stale—but intentionally so. I've compared it to the smell of pool or pond water, that green, murky scent of water infused with botanicals. In 2002, this was Alyssa Ashley jumping on the green tea bandwagon, which had kicked off almost a decade earlier with Bvlgari's Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (1993) by Jean-Claude Ellena. The fragrance feels fresh, bright, eccentric.

Here, the tea note isn't as relaxing but more of an abstraction for the nose to play with. At times, it smells a bit chemical until I realize that the lavender doesn't always blend well with the other aromatics, as if it wants to dominate. This isn't a lavender fragrance—it's a tea fragrance, and while lavender has its own calming properties, green tea possesses a serene stillness when it cuts through flanking accords. Thus, the fragrance manages to smell tense, with the crisp aromatics, citruses, and a cold, perhaps forgotten green tea note pulling at my senses.

When I'm in the mood for a '90s pop of unisex-leaning-feminine tea, I reach for a fragrance that wasn't made in the '90s: Elie Tahari's signature feminine from 2019, a buoyant fruity-floral brimming with notes of sweet pear, tart bergamot, green apple, and what reads as a bergamot-infused green tea, with that crisp sour citrus element carrying most of the plot. Elie Tahari's tea note isn't about meditative seclusion from the world; it wants its wearer to feel sunny and happy, and the fruit notes are so in-your-face that feeling down is nearly impossible while wearing this scent. Composed by Nicole Mancini and Rodrigo Flores-Roux (although "composed" may be a stretch since AI has been signing briefs since at least 2016), it smells like an unused mod for a Bvlgari tea entry that the perfumers freshened up and repurposed for the brand.

I like Elie Tahari, but it wears rather "thick" and oily on me, smelling weirdly dense and unzipped, as if it needs a few extra hours to open up and truly shine. This could be because the fragrance is blended almost to an extreme; the typically standoffish notes of pear and apple somehow merge to create a new type of fruit, rendered to stunning effect. Instead of a standard pear note, they chose the exotic lushness of Doyenné du Comice pear, which smells heavenly against the backdrop of magnolia blossom and tea. The quality of materials is surprisingly high for the price (you can get a bottle for less than $20 if you play your cards right), and the tea note is the central spine that holds all this frivolity together. A few sprays on your collar, and it's 1999 again.

To me, tea is a spiritual note, something felt more than smelled, with a naturally quiet and monastic aroma. CK One is an oddly spiritual take on tea, blending green and the rarely-used white tea note—a very soft, almost powdery-musky variant of the leaf. It remains one of Calvin Klein's finest perfumes. There are ten-ounce bottles of CK One on eBay, and I'm inclined to purchase one. I wore this scent today and realized it is masterful and unforgettable, a fragrance that immediately transports me to a jetty on a foggy lake, with glassy water at early dawn, an hour before the sun rises. Everything is colorless and still. The roses and orange blossoms of a nearby garden carry on the faintest breeze, pulling with them the many essences of the greens growing by the water and the distinct bite of cedar from the wilderness beyond. A morning frozen in time.

Here, tea is brushed into the artistic body of the perfume in a way that both mutes and magnifies its scent; the greenness is fresh, but the dryness of the tea leaf is still present, while the white tea sends a snowy veil of watery freshness across the woody florals. Several potent white musks support this fragrance, and while I'm not usually a fan of them, I make an exception here. CK One smells like a dream but also captures the essence of its niche—a Gen-Xer's scent of the day, if that day is an eternal Saturday with plenty of time to kill at Borders Books before a matinee with a date.

Speaking of dates, Chez Bond is an interesting throwback tea frag in that Bond took the basic structure of Green Irish Tweed (lemon verbena, violet leaf, iris, sandalwood) and transformed it into a semi-gourmand flavor of tea. The lemon twist one might add to morning tea replaces the lemon verbena, and instead of powdery iris and sweet violet, there's a milky-smooth sweetness of sugared black tea that lasts for five to eight hours. Chez Bond is fairly linear and isn't in my collection (yet), but aside from some off-putting minty notes in the first five minutes, I like it. It's one of Bond's better compositions, even though it clearly riffs on the Creed. How does it make me feel? Green Irish Tweed feels very '80s and formal, but because Bond went for a warm mug effect, Chez Bond feels more early 2000s and hipster-ish—something clever and comfy to wear while book shopping in Soho.

Abstraction in perfumery is becoming rarer, with perfumers increasingly opting for intense and overtly clunky orientals and chypres, especially in the upper-bracket of the niche market. If you want an abstracted green tea note, Azzaro's Chrome Legend takes the vibe to a definite 2000s place. I find Legend to be a bit of a paradox; the perfume is unique and, to date, never imitated, yet it is little more than a great big house accord welded to a heavily pixelated jasmine. Overlaid with white florals is a disjointed green tea note, which emerges intermittently as the loud aquatics simmer and fizz. Green apple is perhaps the most approachable note here, yet the green tea seems determined to be the star, consistently playing off the sweeter jasmine to give Legend the aura of futuristic suntan lotion. Not the most relaxing green tea, but intellectually stimulating and well-crafted. I still have a couple of ounces left, and this one is popular with women.

Lastly, perhaps the most beautiful fragrance in my collection is the celestial Supremacy in Heaven by Afnan. This is one of the most irresistibly gorgeous scents, likely one of four or five masterpieces I've come across in the past fifteen years. I hope to the supreme heavens that they never discontinue it. Marketed as a clone of Silver Mountain Water with a few drops of Aventus, the more I wear it, the more I feel this is just a lazy marketing ploy by Afnan's top brass. The Supremacy series has several popular entries, and I'm open to trying the others, but even if I don't, I can die very happy, as this is a tea scent for the ages. I'm constantly surprised that this perfume isn't getting more buzz online, but maybe that's a good thing. Afnan's scent packs are very reasonable, and their quality control is generally high, so I would suggest picking up a bottle (it's only $25-$30 on eBay).

If Silver Mountain Water represents a cold green tea note undercut by metallic ozone, Supremacy in Heaven is the dark blackcurrant twist, with the freshness of white tea writ large across the evening sky. There's a pale iris here too, as if the perfumer wanted to give his tea note a slightly floral edge, reminiscent of how Mugler Cologne imbued its floral soap with a white-green jasmine leaf. Whether there is actual tea in this composition is debatable, but it smells like a mug of silver needle left to cool in a Japanese teahouse. In the buzz, Supremacy in Heaven sounds like a cheap clone of a Creed fragrance, but I find that my heart has abandoned Silver Mountain Water almost entirely in favor of this—and I don't think I've ever preferred a "clone" to its predecessor before. (Spoiler alert, I love SMW too, and consider it a masterpiece.)

All in all, tea in fragrance remains something I find indispensable. The purity and peacefulness it can bring to the wearer through scent are unmatched.

Purple Patchouli (Axe)

Whenever I see a rack of Axe at the drugstore, I'm instantly reminded of my teenage years—my friends spraying themselves with Axe like it was bug spray, and me choking on the aerosol fumes. Within five minutes, I'd feel a little lightheaded. Anything delivered via aerosol is already compromised by the delivery system, not to mention the low budget that typically goes into the scent. But Axe hasn't changed: it's still cheap, canned swill.

Axe has a "Fine Fragrance Collection" series of supposedly "premium" sprays containing "real essential oils" and boasting ridiculous names. "Purple Patchouli" sounds like something Montale might release, so I fully expected a sweetened patchouli oil. No such luck. The perfumer seemed to struggle with the eponymous note and instead focused on an Aventus-style citrus and a dry woodiness described as oak on the can. The oak is pretty much all there is—dry, woody, no patchouli. It smells passable, if you can get past the aerosol fumes. It doesn't smell premium, but it might be an okay spritz in a pinch.

Axe often gets unfairly criticized for what it offers, especially when you consider that for the price of a gas station sandwich, you get a fragrance that delivers without being obnoxious. Sure, you can tell it's canned air, and a fraghead with $200 bottles will turn their nose up at it. But this stuff has been responsible for quite a few babies being born. I'd say it's worth using if you're a cash-strapped kid, but it's not 1998 anymore, and there are better drugstore options out there (Cremo, Dossier, Pinaud).

Camel (Zoologist)

Image by Bryan Ross

Creating a fragrance that balances classical elegance with sensual allure is one of the most challenging tasks in perfumery. If the scent leans too much toward the classical, it risks feeling stuffy; if it pitches too far toward the sensual, it can seem overtly provocative. But when the balance is perfect, the fragrance evokes the image of an unknown woman -- beautiful, vulnerable, timeless, and mysterious. Christian Carbonnel's specialty is Middle Eastern orientals, with a portfolio spanning dozens of rich, resinous, floral, and oud-laden perfumes, so it comes as little surprise that he's the nose behind Camel (2017). This is an excellent fragrance, and, surprisingly, it doesn't try too hard to impress.

I feel a zing of delight upon first spraying it, as it rings out with a bright chord of Nag Champa incense, spicy myrrh, and soft orange zest—just enough to give the first fifteen minutes a freshness and roundness I've only encountered in pricier orientals. There's a palm date note in the pyramid; I'm not sure what that smells like, but my guess is it's the honeyed sweetness that mingles with the heart of amber, cedar, and orange blossom (the zest gradually deepens into the flower), yet I can make out cinnamon, civetone, rose, sandalwood, and tonka bean clearly in the drydown. Camel has a crystalline depth and quality, with every note perfectly balanced, every accord seamlessly connected, and every whiff a pleasure to experience. The Nag Champa aspect lingers throughout, but the way Carbonnel blended the synthetic civet with the florals and woods feels exotic and sultry, despite being standard oriental fare.

The sexiness here is likely in the musks, but to me, Camel reads as an updated take on classics like Arpège and Tabu, with enough classical poise that it never becomes gauche. There are no sharp angles in Camel; the structure is an assemblage of the many curvatures of resins and fibers, the gentle textures of floral softness against woody rasp, with the civet note lending a seductive skank that is sure to attract at least a few animals in the night. If you're familiar with Furyo by Jacques Bogart, you could consider that fragrance a masculine counterpart to Camel, which leans slightly unisex with a feminine tilt due to the prominent florals (rose, jasmine, orange blossom) and its unyielding brightness. This is one of the better offerings in the Zoologist line, and I'm here for it. Good stuff.

Navy for Men (Noxell/CoverGirl)

The year was 1995, fully five years after the release of Navy for women by the Noxell Corp., an absurd time to issue a masculine flanker for what was, even then, a lowbrow drugstore fragrance. CoverGirl, owned by Noxell, in turn owned by Proctor & Gamble, said fuck it, let's goooo, and did it anyway. Those of you who have been reading this blog since the beginning know that I've already reviewed Navy for Men, and you recall that it was the version made by Dana. The Dana formula and the Noxell formula are two completely different fragrances that bear almost no resemblance to each other. Thus I treat them as completely different fragrances, each worthy of their own review. 

But they are in no way equally worthy fragrances. The Dana version isn't bad, per se. But it isn't particularly good, either. I consider it to be the sort of thing a college guy, a cash-strapped undergrad would wear, and hell, it would probably get him laid quite a bit if the rest of him measured up. I've known guys who had no sense of personal style in regard to clothes or fragrance, but they kept good hygiene and could pass for Paul Rudd after a few beers. The jeans-and-t-shirt guys. Dana's Navy is for them. It's a laundry-clean scent, brimming with sweet tangerine and synthetic mints and lavenders and white musks, and it manages to smell like Febreeze if Febreeze smelled good. Why anyone over the age of twenty-two would wear it is beyond me, but I guess a guy could do worse. 

Noxell's original formula is a completely different story. This formula died sometime around 2003, a slow death, I might add, by formula drift that started when CoverGirl sold the rights to Dana sometime in the late nineties. Your window for enjoying the Noxell version was pretty brief, only a few years at best, and it was the sort of fragrance that few outside of the aforementioned demographic would have bothered to avail themselves of. Surviving Noxell Corp. bottles with the Hunt Valley, Maryland address are growing increasingly rare, though they do not yet command anything near unicorn prices. The back of the box and bottle should look like mine, with Noxell on both for deep vintage:

So, how is this one different? Put simply, it's leagues better. Leagues. Don't get me wrong, it's still a drugstore fragrance, but it smells absolutely gorgeous, even thirty years later. It's the smell of the boy's locker room in high school, freshman year. Dihydromyrcenol, up the wazoo. A drop of Calone 1951, but only one small micro-drop, adding New West levels of pink sweetness but with none of the lucidly piney textures overlaying it, except for that Monster-sized juniper berry note that explodes off the top and pervades the entire drydown with its evergreen, gin-like aromatic magic. If you need a straight-up juniper berry fragrance, you'll be hard-pressed to find one better than Navy for Men by Noxell.

The fragrance as a whole has a passing resemblance to things like Drakkar Noir (1982), Horizon by Guy Laroche (1993), and Polo Sport (1994), with Polo likely serving as CoverGirl's inspiration, given its release the year before. Yes, Navy is a nineties locker room all bottled up in blue, but it's also the smell of your neighbor's house in 1996 when you went over to play video games with their son. A few sprays of this stuff fills several rooms. It's deodorant-fresh and blatantly synthetic, yet it encapsulates everything Pierre Bourdon meant when he described creating "a new kind of freshness"—though he wasn't the nose behind Navy, and I have no clue who was. I also have no idea what the feminine version smells like, but I imagine it's worlds apart from the masculine one, given their five-year age gap. CoverGirl had a Ken doll type in mind with this flanker. 

Of note is the fact that Navy for Men smells good, really good, and better than a number of super expensive niche fragrances that I reviewed this year and last. This reinforces the point I made in my previous article: Are niche fragrances a rip-off, especially if you have access to these classic scents that are still made well today? Vintage Navy could easily be bottled in a swanky, blinged-out bottle and marked up to $150 for an ounce, and I doubt anyone would suspect it came from a drugstore. They'd probably say, "Oh, this is that locker room scent from your childhood, except done right." Well, no. No, it isn't. It's literally that locker room scent from your childhood. And that's how far we've fallen since then.