Patchouli Cologne (Bourbon French Parfums)

When it comes to patchouli, people have experience-driven, subjective views. If you're older than 60, you picture headband-wearing, half-naked hippies who haven't bathed in months and use patchouli oil to cover the stench. If you're an old Millennial (X-ennial) like me, you tend to match it with balls-out masculine powerhouses of the '80s, stuff like Giorgio for Men and Lapidus pour Homme, which were still widely worn through at least the first half of the 1990s. If you're a young Millennial (born during or after 1986), you think of "dad" or "grandpa", and if you're a Gen Zombie with your characteristic lifeless stare, you recall Angel and A*Men, likely worn by an older brother or sister. In other words, somehow, someway, you know patchouli. 

Or do you? How many people turn to patchouli in the 21st century as a single-note material for niche perfumery? I'd hazard to guess, not many. An essential oil derived from the leaves of the Pogostemon cablin, an herb in the mint family, patchouli has a rich, earthy, and slightly sweet scent profile, and has been the cornerstone of perfumery since the dawn of time. A base material, it deepens and enlivens a scent structure while also strengthening core accords and enhancing longevity. Want a vibrant woody masculine that leans heavily in the abandoned sawmill direction? Patch. A crisp oriental with many disparate notes in desperate need of enduring unification? Patchety-patch patch patch. A basic fougère that simply needs a touch of testosterone? Where my Hare Krishnas at? 

But patchouli has a very real problem nowadays: it gets lost in the mix. The days of appreciating it as a "soli-note" material seem to have slipped into the distant past, with most of the Free Love era having aged out, and the remaining generations having disturbingly little love leftover for the natural woody distinctiveness of high-grade patchouli oil. Patchouli still gets used in perfume, as often as it ever did, finding its way in some form or another in many mainstream designer blends seeking to recapture the magic of the next Thierry Mugler phenomenon, but the heaploads of diabetes-inducing sugar that gets crammed into every new thing tends to obscure its presence, at best. When was the last time Paco Rabanne released a chesty one-note patchouli cologne? When was the last time a drugstore brand offered a mainline of patchouli with everything but the tourniquet and syringe? I hear crickets. 

Like nearly anything that is good these days, the only places to turn to for this sort of thing are ultra-expensive luxury brands or affordable but esoteric indie brands that require more than a modicum of interest to suss out of hiding. I've been on the market for a solid one-note patchouli fragrance for years now, but my hangup has been price; with so many economical classics on the market, I don't want to splurge and dump $350 on a Chanel like Coromandel, $450 on Dior's Patchouli Élixir Précieux (or their technically more budget friendly Coromandel comparative, Patchouli Impérial). Ironically, these perfumes are great and feature prominent patchouli, but with the exception of perhaps Patchouli Élixir Précieux, are somewhat embellished multi-note compositions that merely allow patchouli to star in an otherwise ensemble cast. No, I'd rather just find that hidden gem and truly one-note patchouli that insiders covet and gatekeep. The problem, of course, is that such a fragrance will be kept behind that gate, and finding it will happen only by chance. 

Enter "Patchouli" by Bourbon French Parfums. I happened upon it by chance. I tend to search for fragrances that are "grassy" and "green" and "woody-floral," so I was in the right ballpark. In my travels, and after reading about a handful of Lush and retired Jōvan fragrances, suddenly Fragrantica's Bourbon French page appeared. I was reading Shamus's reviews (author of the retired Pour Monsieur blog), and he had one for this fragrance. He writes:

"Whoa, this is some rip-roaring patchouli. Dark, damp, and dirty are the only words that adequately describe it. This is raw, balls-out, uncompromising patchouli that takes no prisoners . . . It's far too potent and ballsy to wear at the office, unless you're the guy in charge." 

This, of course, piqued my interest. Now, full disclosure: my familiarity with patchouli is limited to the essential oils found in health-food grocery stores and Indian markets. There are several of the former and only a few of the latter here in Connecticut. Most of the oils found at them are mid to low-grade in quality, and speak to the true essence of patchouli without offering a hi-fidelity take that you can comfortably wear. In other words, pretty good, but too crude. Decent enough to understand the scent, but rough enough to dissuade you from splashing it on. 

But a patchouli cologne from a respectable indie brand in the South that has offered fine toiletries since 1843? A scent that gets thumbs up from nearly every reviewer? Common threads—"raw" and "dark" and "potent"— mean count me in. I ordered the 4 ounce cologne blind and hoped I wouldn't be disappointed. After all, if it's "rip-roaring patchouli" and if it gets praise from Shamus, who spent years endorsing the most high-testosterone brews deemed worthy of a wardrobe, it must be the stuff. 

So, is it the stuff?

Well . . . not exactly. No.

Here's the thing. What Mary Behlar, owner and perfumer of French Bourbon, has done is take an essential oil akin to what you find in a health-food store, dilute it to a safe cologne strength (gotta abide that IFRA), and bottle it. Then she sells it for not much more than what you'd pay for the raw version at the grocery store. I should mention that it's unclear what concentration Shamus and other reviewers are writing about when describing this fragrance, so it's possible he's actually referring to the perfume strength version. I imagine that version would simply smell exactly like the grocery store oils, but then again, maybe the perfumes are where Behlar really showcases her artistry. 

Here in the cologne, however, I'm not exactly blown away. Bourbon French's Patchouli smells dark(ish), a little dirty, not at all damp, sawmill-floor dry, and mostly like a discreetly finessed and polished marble of a patchouli after the rough edges of the raw material have been tidily rebalanced and tamed via the aforementioned dilution process. I do sense a slight touch of real perfumery in the drydown, with what feels to me perhaps like a light brushing of watercolor cedar, a microdose of Iso E Super to enhance that crisp-woody finish that decent patchouli oil naturally possesses. And that's another point in its favor—quality patchouli oil. Say what you will about the complexity or artistry, but there's no denying that whatever grade of patchouli is used here is a cut above what you'd find at your local Whole Foods. 

It's possible that my post-Covid nose, which sometimes waffles in sensitivity, simply isn't picking up the richer and bolder nuances of this fragrance, and maybe with more time I'll come around. It's also true that I'm able to catch very vague whiffs of the stuff throughout the work day with pretty modest application, we're talking one spray to the shirt and a couple under it, and it comes and goes like a phantom, sometimes entirely invisible, and others tripping the olfactory center of my brain into action. I agree that it smells entirely natural, which is of course a good thing, and it also smells pretty exquisitely balanced, which is probably the greatest technical feat here. Taking something as saturnine and burly as natural patchouli from India and recalibrating it into an easily wearable yet appropriately raunchy cologne is no small feat. 

With that said, this isn't the balls-out monster I was led to believe it would be. It's easily wearable at work. I wear it to work, and I work with several people who have no idea what a landline is. It is commanding in profile, yes, but in performance it feels civilized to a fault. I think my Givenchy Gentleman, which isn't even vintage, swings its patchouli dick more than Bourbon French's does. I get unwashed hippie imagery with both fragrances, but that honeyed chocolate snarl in reformulated Gentleman (even sans the intense civet of its 1970s formula) just feels more aggressive to me. It's an EDT concentration with very artfully blended supporting notes, while Behlar's blend has the disadvantage of being a lighter concentration with patchouli and not much else, so perhaps this isn't a good comparison. I will say again that it is uncontroversially better than the raw oils you get at your corner granola dive, so if you want something at least better (and allergenically safer) than that, this fragrance is a good place to look. 

I should also sincerely acknowledge that I do like this fragrance quite a lot, and I wear it, and I'm glad to own it. As a patchouli fragrance, it is undeniably good. And also, I want to age it a bit in the bottle, especially with air in there, and see how it matures. Perhaps in a few years it will darken and take on a more throaty timbre. Perhaps I should drop the extra $40 and look to the perfume?

In the meantime, the search for the truly intense and complex patchouli, which might only exist in my mind, continues . . . 

The Summer of '78: Ralph Lauren's Polo

When even cologne was too cool for school.

In my 2009 Fragrantica review for Polo, I wrote: 

"Polo is Yatagan without the bite. The smell of damp, freshly-cut grass in late September, complete with the earthy tinge of wood and soil. There's some old pine needles resting in there, too. I like Polo, but I'm not sure I would wear it. Other similar fragrances likes Quorum and Yatagan can be had for less, and offer just as much, if not more." 

I read that today and think, is this still true?

It used to be true, particularly with late vintage Cosmair bottles from my high school days, which were blessedly overdosed with oakmoss and could clear a room with one spray. Polo belonged to the Grey Flannel school of "mean green" masculines, harkening from an era when manliness meant smelling like you'd just finished a long hot day of doing yard work. But times change (as I spent ample time complaining about in my prior post), and so does fragrance; Polo has been reformulated into the current "stubby sprayer" Luxury Products version in square green glass. How does it measure up in 2026?

I refer to the 2006 thread on Basenotes titled, "Polo Crest vs. Polo (Green)" and scroll down to "ChuckW's" 2017 comment: 

"I got my new bottle of Crest today. Not having owned this in almost 20 years, I had forgotten how much it's like the original. It's almost like 'Polo Lite.' This is a very nice scent. I'm glad I bought it." 

This was my experience with Crest, which I consider "Polo in miniature," with a pinch of sweet herbs and a simpler base of cedar and musk. If Polo Green smells like Connecticut woodland after a rainy night in the dead heat of July, Crest is those same woods after they've thinned and dried out in early October. But I recently added the original Polo to my collection, curious to know what time and possibly neglect has done to this landmark 1978 masculine. I myself have neglected Polo, only acquiring a bottle now, after nearly 20 years of connoisseurship and having already owned and enjoyed other Carlos Benaïm creations like Eternity for Men (1989) and Polo Ultra Blue (2018), after suddenly realizing that despite my love for all things green and rugged, I've never owned it. 

The current Luxury Products version of Polo is, in essence, Polo Crest with tobacco instead of sweet herbs. Lighter, fresher, airier than the hoary Warner iteration and even more rugged Cosmair formula, with that same bright piney opening accord, attenuated to ten minutes instead of an hour, followed by the rich, earthy, woody, slightly balsamic smell of, well, Polo. Not as much flab in the midsection, which was once a dark foray into the shadowy netherworld of 1970s oakmoss mysticism; the current Polo favors Crest's open-collared late summer breeze of humid grass, woods, and tobacco leaves. If there's a summer fragrance, it's Polo, just as it's always been. 

I think the current formula (mine is a 2023 batch) is perfectly fine, quite good actually, and with the exception of the missing oakmoss, I see no call for complaints. Unfortunately with fragrances as famous as Polo, there's also a lot of crappy takes out there. People speak of it as being a "fall/winter frag" despite Polo being a summer sport, the green bottle with gold polo player alluding directly to the verdant exhilaration of summer sport, and the fragrance itself piled high with accords that directly convey the aromatic experience of galloping after a polo ball through grass and pine scrub. So . . . . winter? Really? 

Even in its current formula, Polo smells quite literally like the woods here in central Connecticut on a humid 90 degree afternoon in early July. It's as if the fragrance were conceived of after Benaïm spent a week here traipsing through the wilderness, as I used to do as a child. The smells are all there, and Polo captures them as a thunderstorm is rolling in to break the sweltering heat, with the first heavy drops smacking down through the leaves. A winter fragrance this is not, for not all summer fragrances are about "light" and "fresh" and "blue." Summer is regional, and Polo is how it smells where I live. 

But Polo is also something more. Released the year Woody Allen filmed "Manhattan" (in which the feminine fragrance, Lauren, features prominently in one scene), the legendary '78 Buick Regal rolled into showrooms, and Abercrombie & Kent defeated Tulsa in the U.S. Open Polo Championship, Ralph Lauren's Polo has adopted a reputation for being the quintessential wealthy, middle-aged man's cologne. It is associated with East Coast wealth, success, and erudition, much more so than anything by Chanel, or Dior, or even Creed. Something about the branding—polo player on horse, polo as a wealthy person's sport, and the scent as something truly rarefied in its uncompromising adherence to masculine archetypes—puts Polo in its own special league as a fragrance for those who understand how personal scent conveys personality. 

I smell some Aramis Devin in it, even today. A sneaky dusting of cinnamon in both fragrances was an ingenious way of lending them some woody skank without needing any complex musk molecules, and both Devin and Polo utilize that judicious cinnamon in their heart and base accords. But where Devin leans on floral jasmine to give space to its trees, Polo takes a deeper, woodier tobacco direction. Its jasmine and rose petals offer brief flashes of brightness, like pockets of oxygen that lift Benaïm’s forested olfactory chiaroscuro, without ever turning into a literal flower garden.

Polo also makes good use of basil, which is often employed by perfumers as both a supporting player and even a full-on stand-in for pine. Here it adds to and extends the brief pine needle top note, giving that semisweet green snap a presence as the deeper brown tones take over. Chamomile was once a star note in the Warner and Cosmair versions, and while it flits briefly through the opening moments of the Luxury Products formula, it's too fleeting to consider it a serious part of the fragrance. I experience it as a nuance now, and am glad that it's at least allowed to be that. 

In recent years, I've written about how the woody, earthy, musky masculines of bygone eras are no longer practical for use in today's postmodern Millennial/Gen-Z culture. Young women have been conditioned into considering sugary body mists and barely-there cucumber waters desirable on both themselves and their men, thus rendering these virile classics as little more than stodgy dinosaurs and "dad scents." Polo is no exception. However, I would caution today's youngsters by pointing out that although it is the scent of 1978, which is nearly half a century ago now, 1978 was a pretty cool year, with some pretty amazing movie culture, some groundbreaking fine art, and some brand new (at the time) hit singles like "Just What I Needed" blaring from radios everywhere. 

Think stuff from 1978 is old-fogey "dad" juice? Listen honey, every girl could use a daddy. Polo was the scent of underdog cool guys on the prowl, and a lot of babies were made in its sillage. Just sayin'. 

Revisiting the 1980s Fragrance Not for the Kids: One Man Show (Jacques Bogart)

Keep out of Reach of Children

There's something militant about One Man Show, Roger Pellégrino's 1980 creation for the middle-shelf brand of Jacques Bogart. The battleship grey box. The olive green glass bottle, with even greener fluid inside. The way the brand's signature "b" glistens in brass like the cockade on a Russian soldier's cap. It all spells "Not for Children," as if Bogart execs wanted to convey a sense of inherent danger to anyone unprepared for what happens if you carelessly depress the atomizer. 

I used to dislike this fragrance, but time has a way of wrestling men into submission, and after many recent developments in the fragrance world, I find myself face-down on the mat. Back when I had things like Kouros and Krizia Uomo to turn to, One Man Show was a pointless exercise in olfactory crass that lacked the compositional genius of the former or the material focus of the latter. If I wanted an animalic fougére fix, the animalis (civet, tonkin musk) of vintage Kouros was impossible to beat. For rich woods, look no further than the photorealistic cedar base of Krizia Uomo. Back in 2012, I wrote: "The calibration was inspired but simple, of equal parts pine and oakmoss, styrax and castoreum, incense and geranium, all tuned to a high-pitched shrill. It smells weirdly majestic . . . " And I agree with me—it certainly did smell weirdly majestic, but also intense, raw, rugged, and a bit scary, like the problem-drinking teacher who grips your arm a little too tightly after breaking up a schoolyard disturbance. One Man Show wasn't for the young'uns. 

Today, Kouros is neutered and all but discontinued, Krizia Uomo is a dinosaur, and where can a guy go for a classic, early 1980s animalic punch in the nose? Come back, One Man Show, all is forgiven. I purchased a 100 milliliter bottle on eBay last month for $14.88, and I received it in a box stamped with an October, 2016 batch code—or maybe a 2006 batch code, since these codes tend to repeat every ten years. It came with a little dried-out and empty tube of aftershave balm, and from what I've heard they're always dried out, so naturally one must figure there's an obsessive-compulsive thief out there sitting on a vat of stolen One Man Show aftershave balm. The box warns: HIGHLY CONCENTRATED, and the bottle's black plastic atomizer sticks out from its cowl like the barrel of a gun. The text, "Jacques Bogart Paris" is printed in black, as if stamped, "Fit to Serve." 

With some trepidation, I sprayed One Man Show for the first time in 14 years. I was hit with a bright burst of aldehydic greens, followed by a grassy accord of what mainly smells like basil, artemisia, galbanum, and a particularly harsh bergamot note that recalls the skanky citruses of past classics like Moustache and Aramis, except here it competes with all those grassier tones. There's also a hint of civetone, but there's an even stronger hint of castoreum, which foretells what is to come. The first ten minutes smells the most like Krizia Uomo, minus the obvious lavender and fougére elements, but as the castoreum note steps forward, this changes. The focus here isn't on cedar, although there is some cedar tucked away somewhere. No, this fragrance is about the musks. Animalis, castoreum, a surprisingly restrained wink of textural civetone, all blaring together in that familiar New Wave masculine "powerhouse" way that only something from 1980 can manage. 

It's impossible to spray this stuff on and not immediately think of Phoebe Cates in a leotard. Fragrances like this were designed to bring out the inner animal in a man. It makes sense that the person who brought us Macassar and Gem would channel all the lusty stink of post-disco machismo into something as brutish and raw as Bogart's second masculine release. I've read from cognoscenti that current iterations of this formula neglect the animalics and naturals, but if so, my nose must be unaware of it, because this 9 (or 19) year-old bottle smells plenty old-school, natural, animalic, and mossy to me. There's no moss listed on the box, but if you know what it smells like, you know it's in there. Maybe they just, eh, forgot to alert the IFRA of its presence. 

Does this stuff scratch the itch left behind by those other lost masterpieces? Kind of. Look, the further out we get from the 1980s, the more this sort of thing dazzles, even when it's as crudely done as it is here. Pellégrino perfected the animalic citrus accord in his later and much more refined Versace L'Homme (984), and if you squint with that one, you can sort of see the resemblance to One Man Show. I can settle for this fragrance when I want the animalic snarl that I used to get from Kouros, and it'll work in a pinch when I wish I had the piney-green ambiance of Krizia Uomo. But the rough edges of this monstrosity are such that wearing it will be an exercise in cringe-inducing caution. Don't want to get hurt, and certainly don't want to hurt others. 

I work with a few people born in the 2000s, and spending more than 30 seconds around something this virile and overtly sexual might traumatize them. Lock the bottle in a safe, and memorize the combination. Little Johnny's not old enough to shoot yet. 

Shuhrah pour Homme (Rasasi)

While Rasasi and many of its UAE contemporaries are often known in Western fragrance circles for inspired-by takes on popular designer and niche scents, they occasionally put out something that feels more original (even when it really isn't, as rose/oud combos are anything but). In 2015, Rasasi did exactly that with Shuhrah pour Homme. The name “Shuhrah” refers to fame or renown in Islamic culture and is also used as a feminine name, which already gives the concept a slightly playful angle. The idea seems to be about status and attention, a scent for being noticed, whether you want to be or not. I happen to think that YouTube frag-bros and Reddit dipshits fuel most of the Arabian perfume craze here in the USA, so naming a perfume "Woman for Man" is culture-coded for us more than anyone in the Middle East. See my review of Tom Ford's Oud Wood for how I really feel. 

Shuhrah opens with a sharp, stemmy-green blast paired with a watery, soapy floral effect. Fragrantica, Parfumo, and Basenotes call this “tomato leaf” and “freesia,” but that framing doesn’t really hold up. Tomato leaf is unmistakable, but there is no literal tomato leaf note here, just a green, crushed-stem impression likely built from materials like cis-2-hexenol, Stemone, and other related aroma chemicals that mimic that bitter vegetal snap. The floral side reads more like a clean white floral accord than any specific flower, lifted by airy materials such as helional and Florol that give it a slightly aquatic, soapy brightness. It’s brisk, a little sharp, and honestly a bit divisive in those opening minutes.

Then it settles into what the fragrance is really about: rose. A big, dense, slightly honeyed Taif-style rose takes over and becomes the backbone of the entire composition. It’s rich, full-bodied, and carries a faint soapiness that feels more like budget construction than intent, which makes sense given the price point. Around the 90-minute mark, a smoky, ashy nuance starts creeping in, likely from something like cypriol (nagarmotha), which dries out the florals and adds a burnt, slightly tobacco-like edge. From there on, it’s a steady rose-and-smoke pairing, with the rose clearly in control while the smoke just adds atmosphere. It performs well and projects strongly, easily lasting most of the day. Whether that works for you depends on your taste for loud rose fragrances: if you like them, it’s an easy win at the price; if you don’t, it won’t change your mind, and more polished rose options exist from houses like Mancera and Montale.

Drakkar Bleu (Guy Laroche)

Sebastian Jara's review of this fragrance is what prompted me to buy a bottle, as his resentful dislike of Drakkar Bleu borders on hilarious. He goes on a tangent about how people diss him for liking old-school fragrances, like the original Drakkar and famous flanker Drakkar Noir, and then said this new "blue" flanker of Drakkar (or Drakkar Noir?—can a flanker be flanked?) smelled way too basic, unoriginal, synthetic, and juvenile for him. If he were talking about any other fragrance, I might've just finished his video and forgotten about it. It's not like it's the only thing Mr. Jara has openly disliked. 

But smelling Drakkar Bleu, released in 2025 and formulated by anonymous, I immediately pick up on a boomerang effect of Guy Laroche copying something that copied Drakkar Noir. This makes sense, because the something that copied their flagship masculine embellished its New Wave fougère structure in a way that was, for lack of a better phrase, simply genius. Combe Incorporated, makers of Aqua Velva products, released a humble little plastic-bottle aftershave in 1994 called Aqua Velva Ice Sport—Drakkar Noir in hard candy blue raspberry flavor. I still think about it today, 32 years after its initial release (it was discontinued for a brief while, then brought back). That silly little $3 aftershave smells better than some of my $40+ perfumes. It stands to reason that the dihydromyrcenol and menthol accords of faux lavender and mint would work wonders when combined and carefully balanced with the fruity esters of banana, pineapple, and cherry.

Drakkar Bleu opens with a blast of spiced menthol and pineapple juice, which is rapidly joined by a fairly restrained ethyl-maltol sugar rush that threatens to turn the whole affair into another dismal designer cotton candy for Gen-Zombies. Fortunately, this stage remains restrained, almost to a fault, and I'm able to discern that the perfumer behind Drakkar Bleu wanted to copy Ice Sport, but not be obvious about it. As it all dries down, it reveals an abstract raspberry haloed in a wonderfully malted lavender so big that it's actually scarily easy to miss, as it looms over the entire fragrance evolution like a big blue eye-in-the-sky. The Drakkar Noir idea that became the Aqua Velva Ice Sport idea has now come full circle as a fully fleshed-out modern fougère in eau de parfum concentration, and ironically Drakkar Bleu dials back the sweetness by reducing the fruit candy to a background hum. I actually like this stuff, and I really didn't expect to. 

Ignore the YouTube reviewers who, in true NPC fashion, all blather about "mint mint mint" and "apple with patchouli." It's a fool's errand to try to discern spearmint or peppermint here. It's just sweetened menthol, and it's all the better for it. There's hardly any apple, and the patchouli is merely a lithe dose of Akigalawood. These people just imitate each other; if one person says "mint," then everyone feels safe saying it in their video. None of them have any clue what's really going on with this fragrance, and I doubt they're familiar with Aqua Velva Ice Sport. All I can say is, if you're stepping into the Drakkar arena, know your barbershop frags. I expect Bleu will be discontinued by the end of 2027, by which point prices will skyrocket to Drakkar Essence levels. 

Givenchy Gentleman (Givenchy)

Released in EDT concentration in 1974, Givenchy Gentleman was almost anachronistic at that point in time, when modern aromatic fougères were at long last threatening to usurp the reign of bitter-mossy midcentury chypres. Technical marvels like Paco Rabanne pour Homme, Grey Flannel, and Blue Stratos had begun to poke holes in the stuffy citrus-leathers of the 1950s and '60s, and so another olfactory brown study might have seemed passé. Hard to know what saved Gentleman from the fate of, say, Lancôme Balafre, or the original Drakkar, but I have a theory: maybe it was the patchouli. 

After all, patchouli was decidedly in with both the hippie and glitterati of the era, and if there's one thing Gentleman has in spades, it's patchouli. I've read a few dozen reviews of this fragrance, and everyone waxes poetic about its nuances, mentioning things like vetiver, and tarragon, and Russian leather, blah, blah. Perhaps those notes are there, but patchouli, with its myriad facets, is a magical material, capable of replicating an entire accord of subtle seasons. A quality patchouli oil will read as minty, cedar-like, chocolatey, leathery, grassy, and floral before it even begins to dry down, and the patchouli in Gentleman shows it all before you put the bottle away after spraying.

It’s essentially a citrus-herbal chypre, with a soft hint of bergamot and a tart, green note like tarragon—I don’t get much cinnamon—followed by an unfurling garrison flag of patchouli. There’s also something dry, bitter, and smoky, possibly vetiver or just patchouli’s darker side. A small touch of semisweet amber sits in the base, though it could be an early version of Paul Léger’s honeyed carnation from Anaïs Anaïs, or simply patchouli’s sugared finish. Either way, the materials feel top shelf; the fragrance is radiant yet modest, and if you love patchouli, this might be as good as it gets. Beautiful stuff.

The Reddit Test That Confirmed My Suspicions: When Politics Sneaks Into Perfume Recommendations

A few days ago I dropped a simple, pseudo-anonymous question into r/fragrance:

“Which Fragrance Blog: From Pyrgos or Varanis Ridari?”

The post was deliberately short and neutral. I wanted unfiltered opinions on two long-winded masculine-fragrance blogs. Anyone with two minutes and Reddit’s post-history feature could figure out it was me, as my handle is easily recognized on Reddit. That was the point. I wasn’t hiding; I was testing whether the answer would stay about the writing or drift somewhere else. Knowing that Redditors would self-censor and pass on commenting at the mere sight of me, I hoped that a clueless few would step into my room and take the test. After all, it's a fair question.

One lone commenter stepped up almost immediately: electrodan. His verdict:

“Varanis Ridari by a long shot.”

Strong words from Dan. When I politely asked what specifically made him prefer Derek’s site over mine, he gave a measured reply:

“FP is fine I suppose, there have been some times I don't enjoy his attitude, and he's made a few comments I strongly disagree with. I prefer VR’s demeanor and I think his knowledge is as strong or stronger than most, especially about traditionally masculine marketed scents.”

Fair enough on the surface. But when I asked for even one concrete example of what he meant by “attitude” or “comments I strongly disagree with,” the tone changed. He ran the post-history search, realized who I was, and the response became:

“Well, I find the fact that you’re pretending you’re some rando… disagreeable. You posted a way too long screed about a conversation you had on Reddit about Olivier Creed on your blog…”

Talk about a non sequitur. He was referring to my November 2024 piece, “The Trump Anomaly: How Olivier Creed Accidentally Harnessed the Unfortunate Power of ‘Orange Man Bad.’” In that post I simply noted how both Creed and Trump get misquoted, misconstrued, and misrepresented by false narratives convenient to the "progressive" class. I also pointed out (with photos, here and on Reddit) that vintage Creeds in larger flacon sizes have their Royal Warrant printed on the boxes, which is the detail a different Reddit troll had wrongly claimed was missing entirely from Creed's story.

That was the trigger for Dan. Suddenly the “by a long shot” preference wasn’t about prose, depth of experience, or scent knowledge anymore. It was about the fact that the From Pyrgos author has expressed conservative views that support the current President of the United States of America. How dare I?

Here’s why I ran my test and why I’m writing this now.

Fragrance appreciation is supposed to be about the perfumes, their notes, their history, the craft in creating them (not the art, wink, wink), but it is not, or at least it should not be a loyalty test for political tribes. When someone says “by a long shot” about two blogs that both deliver thousands of words on masculine scents, then pivots to politics and "Hey, no fair!" when pressed, that tells readers the recommendation was never about the writing. It was filtered through an external lens, and in this case the lens of a pugnacious NPC who had difficulty reading a room with one other person in it.

I’ve been at this for over a decade. My readers know exactly where I stand on everything because I’ve never hidden it. They keep coming back anyway, not because they agree with every aside, but because my fragrance analysis holds up. Derek’s blog is newer and also excellent; I’ve said so publicly many times. But the moment a reader’s preference flips from “by a long shot” to “you’re pretending to be a rando” after he remembers my politics, the mask slips and the truth becomes clear: the left will say anything.

The pernicious part isn't the politics alone; people are allowed their views. What’s corrosive is when those views quietly become the unspoken filter for “which blog is better.” It turns a community of scent enthusiasts into another battleground. I’ve watched it happen in other pursuits; once it starts, the actual subject matter (perfume writing in my case) gets sidelined, sometimes out of sheer necessity. My 2023 post about Reddit trolls and the decline of Parfumo/Basenotes was written for exactly this reason. This test just supplied fresh evidence.

If you’re reading this and you like Derek’s writing, great — keep reading him. Derek is a fantastic voice in the fragrance community, and deserves everyone's readership, including mine. If you like my blog, stay here. If you like both, even better. Just know the difference between a recommendation based on the actual writing and one that arrives with an invisible asterisk attached. My readers have always been here for the scents, not the scoreboard, and I’m grateful for them every single day.

Jaguar for Men (Pardis SA/Sodimars)

The more I read about this fragrance, the more confusing its history gets. Thierry Wasser is credited as having authored the original formula at the ripe old age of 19. But then in 2002, Dominique Preyssas reformulated it into Jaguar "Classic" which is the version I reviewed last year. However, Perfume Intelligence does not credit Wasser with Jaguar 1988. This suggests that Wasser was not the perfumer after all, and that Basenoters and others (including me) have spread yet another rumor as fact into the ether. 

We may never know who the actual perfumer was. I find it difficult to believe that Wasser, at 19, could have formulated the vintage version in my collection, which dates to the early and middle 1990s. The Sodimars formula smells very old-school in a great way, and the word that springs to mind is "plush." Rich but softly-rendered mandarin orange top note, followed by gentle but radiant accords of resinous evergreen woods and patchouli, with a hint of artemisia (the one note that does not appear in the reformulation), a sort of vague white floral that for some unknown reason people pretend to know is gardenia (again, I'm one of them), cloves, the dusky silhouette of incense through all the agrestic artifice. The main thing that separates vintage Jaguar from current is the obvious presence of oakmoss, and and overall powdery-green aura that recalls one of its contemporaries, Gucci Nobile. 

The reformulation in the darker glass with silver cap has a much more vibrant citrus accord that lasts and pervades the structure into the drydown, and for some reason the subtle shifts in focus from spicy-green (1988) to cedar-green (2002) slides my association from Nobile to Krizia Uomo. Preyssas's formula is soapy; the original formula is more powdery, and not soapy, although not very powdery, either. Between the two, the vintage is softer, its patchouli vibes with oakmoss in a quieter and more sophisticated way, while the reformulation is sharper, brighter, and could also be compared with accuracy to any version of Paco Rabanne XS pour Homme, while the vintage could not. An interesting fragrance that has been through some interesting permutations over the decades!

Archives 69 (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Christine Nagel of Hermès fame (H24 line) authored Archives 69 for ELDO in 2011, and I find a stylistic connection between it and Nagel's later work. She seems to favor creating bold and bittersweet accords that are abstract, durable, memorable. Much like modernist New York School painters, she deals in the spontaneous fluidity of individual artistic gestures. In H24, narcissus (daffodils) becomes dark green bananas; sclarene sage becomes citrus; rosewood becomes magazine ink. She subverts expectations by using disparate perfumery materials as a sculptor in 1954 used wire—twisting, tying, weaving—to create new forms not previously witnessed by man.

Archives 69 is more focused than H24 in that it isolates and then cultivates our perception of incense. Nagel allows incense the flexibility to become a bouquet of flowers, and a grinder full of exotic peppercorns, and even a synthetic machine-moulded polystyrene yogurt container. After a brief, peppered-citrus topnote, Archives 69 moves to a Day-Glo dab of olibanum, kaleidoscoping its spicy, sweet, smoky, resinous, floral, woody, milky, and bitter facets into a smoothly undulating central accord. Archives 69 invites an experience of movement, color, and depth that it abandons at the thirty minute mark, to become disappointingly weak and thin. In those early moments, I find genius in how Nagel portrays incense. It possesses not any one particular quality, but all the qualities lightened to a very low f-stop, an over-exposed brilliance that gives life to a material then tends towards leaden solemnity, at least in most ecuminically-minded perfumes. Various citrus and floral nuances float and drift in and out of perception, and the fragrance feels complex yet effusive and friendly, a 1960s hippie chick in a bottle. 

Then the deflation happens. Everything runs out of puff, the notes flatten, the accords suddenly feel frozen and vaguely chemical, and Archives 69 stalls. I blame the art direction of Etat Libre d'Orange more than I blame Christine Nagel for this; the brand clearly wanted a light and evanescent incense fragrance that one could imagine as patchouli-adjacent in true post-Summer of Love, Woodstock fashion. All fine and well. But if you want that, you have to make some practical concessions, and one of those would be to accept that the only way someone can give you an avant-garde incense cologne that actually smells good for a few hours is to let the materials say what they need to, for as long as they need to. Running out of steam after ninety minutes says, "We cut the budget," and for that sort of thing you're better off naming your fragrance Archives 79. Why do I keep feeling like this brand could solve its many problems by picking better names for its fragrances? 

Brut Cologne (Sodalis)

The Best Drugstore Brut in Years

I know. Another Brut review. 

Hear me out. You can't find this stuff on store shelves in Connecticut. Grocery and drugstores everywhere only carry the Splash-On formula, not the cologne. I have no idea why. Seems to me if you're selling the weaker formula, you can just as easily sell the stronger one right next to it, but no. Not in Connecticut. Here we are dead-set on providing only the bare minimum. 

I saw a bottle on eBay that I thought was High Ridge Brands’ Brut cologne and bought it. When it arrived, there was no mention of HRB anywhere on the label. Instead, it says it’s distributed by Sodalis USA in Westport, Connecticut. A quick search shows that High Ridge Brands was acquired by Sodalis in October 2024, and Sodalis took over manufacturing and distribution for several brands, including Brut. Like the HRB version, this one is made in Mexico for the North American market.

It smells great. It’s a slightly stronger take on the HRB Splash-On. That version leaned heavily into lavender, with a fresh, powdery feel. This cologne brings out more of the amber, but unlike the Idelle Labs releases, it doesn’t push too far into sweet, vanilla-heavy territory. There’s not much separating this from what was sold in the 1980s and ’90s. It’s fresh, ambery, lightly sweet, and a little musky. I like it a lot. It’s better than HRB’s reformulated Splash-On and probably the best plastic-bottle Brut I’ve smelled in years.

What’s interesting is that recent manufacturers seem to be steering the formula back toward an earlier profile rather than continuing down the cheaper path Idelle Labs took. My guess is that Sodalis has people closer to my age involved in these decisions, and they’re paying attention to what enthusiasts are saying online. Maybe they’ve seen discussions on forums like Badger & Blade, Basenotes, Fragrantica, or even this blog, and realized that people want Brut to have some swagger again. Whatever the reason, they made the right call, because this Brut actually smells quite good.

All I can say is, thank god Helen of Troy no longer makes it. Their final formula was absolutely abysmal. 

Brut Spray Cologne (Helen of Troy, Canadian/Northern Territories Formula)

There isn't much I can say of interest about this particular version of Brut, because let's face it, at this point in my career, I've reviewed Brut to death. They no longer make the plastic bottle spray cologne in North America to my knowledge, as High Ridge Brands hasn't released one, at least not in my neck of the woods. Back about ten years ago in Texas, Helen of Troy/Idelle Labs produced the plastic spray bottle pictured above for the Canadian market. I figured it would smell identical to the American Idelle formula from that time period (roughly the mid to late 2010s)—which is to say, cheap.

To my surprise, this version smells better. Much better. I don't know if atomizing it is what makes the difference, or if it's just my imagination, or if it's actually better, but despite remimisenses on the gradual crappening of Brut under Idelle's regime, this spray bottle version diverges from even my best memories of their American product. It opens brisk and minty, very crisp and bright, and the stearyl acetate materials smell very green and lavender-forward. This is a stark contrast to the vague, snowy top accord of the American formula, which I didn't mind, but always wished was better. From there, the Canadian stuff gets woodier and richer with understated vanilla and powdery tones. In this regard it swings closer to the Brut I remember, yet it somehow resembles Unilever's current glass formula more. The glass formula, by the way, is great. Weird.

Eventually it all calms into that familiar powdery vanilla 'n talc base, with noticeable ambery musks (things that replaced musk ambrette, perhaps Ambretone and/or ambrettolide) tucked in there for depth and staying power. Spray this stuff on fabric, and you get a decent 4.5 hours. Get it both on and under the shirt, and you can probably get through a 7 or 8-hour work shift while still catching faint whiffs of woody vanilla. By no means is this Canadian stuff, now semi-vintage and discontinued, anything to go crazy over, or even bother seeking out. But I'm here to tell you, if you can get a bottle of this for less than a bottle of the glass spray in any iteration, do it man. Do it now.