Continuum [12:00 GMT] (Tumi)

I don't know what to make of Tumi fragrances. Atlas is very fresh, quite a bit woody and green, and reminiscent of a '90s masculine, with actual oakmoss in the formula. Yet I rarely feel like reaching for it. Continuum keeps turning up at a steep discount at rack stores, and it gets good reviews, with people like Derek (Varanis Ridari) saying it's excellent and complex, so for $30 (down from $125 retail) I picked up a 100 mL bottle.

Catherine Celig of Takasago perfumed Continuum [12:00 GMT] for its 2021 release. I will say that Tumi's packaging is exceptional; the box is solid and supports the bottle with stiff inner leaves, and the bottle itself is copper-hued glass, quite hefty and with an even heftier metal cap that locks in place. How these managed to filter downmarket is beyond me. On packaging alone, they should remain at or near their retail price point. The liquid is atomized in succinct little bursts, and I feel the sprayer could be a little more generous, but whatever, first world problems. The perfume opens with a puff of transparent mandarin, a dash of cinnamon, a speck of sweetness from pink pepper, and some resinous and woody-green depth from olibanum. Kinda reminds me of a super high-def interpretation of Hot Spice by Arion (see my 2017 review) in those first few minutes, but that doesn't last.

What unfolds after forty-five minutes is quite impressive: Virginia tobacco leaves, flue-cured and honeyed, dominate the drydown, which lasts for hours on end. I get over 12 hours out of Continuum, with modest application. The tobacco is bolstered by a bit of cedar, and a bit more by a healthy dose of frankincense. The ultimate destination here is rich tobacco and incense, and it hums along beautifully, smelling crisp and bright, only a little sweet, a little earthy, with hints of white smoke via the incense. Continuum is basically a straightforward tobacco fragrance, and a damn good one. Some compare it to vintage Amouages like Jubilation XXV, but I get none of that. Did Amouage do tobacco? Older Amouages were rich and complex. This smells simple but natural, a solid all-day wear. Something tells me I'll be reaching for Continuum quite often . . . 

Club de Nuit Maleka (Armaf)

"We worked with outstanding naturals, chosen for their purity and depth." So says Olivier Cresp, master perfumer, of Armaf's 2025 Club de Nuit Maleka, gesturing to what looks like crushed olibanum, pink pepper, and orris root on a table while violins play in the background. This perfume is "refined in every detail" and clearly aims for aristocratic women, despite being poured into a cheesy translucent-purple version of Armaf's fugly Club de Nuit bottle. Curb your expectations. Aristocrats are Gen Z now.

Maleka is the first truly original perfume in the line; it isn't a clone of anything. Adding to its mystique is the name behind it: Olivier Cresp, the man behind the 1989 Femme Rochas I reviewed a few days ago, and the original Angel for Mugler (1992). He's more than a master perfumer; he's a legend. From Champs-Élysées for Guerlain, to Dune pour Homme for Dior, to Kokorico for Jean Paul Gaultier, to Light Blue for Dolce & Gabbana, his credits are huge. So how did Armaf snag him?

It's unclear, but I have a theory: the formula preexisted Armaf's brief. Cresp proudly did PR for Maleka, including video shorts aimed at Middle Eastern and European clients (unlike the rest of the line, it was never widely channeled into North American grey markets), and by all accounts, including his own, it's his work. But I suspect that when Sterling Parfums came calling, he rummaged through his back catalog of unused mods and handed over the best match. Maleka smells high-end designer, a major departure for Armaf: soft, elegant, and devoid of the rougher edges typical of CdN. In a shapely Carolina Herrera bottle or wrapped in a Lancôme bow, it wouldn't surprise me in the least. Only the rose construction ties it to Armaf: the same sweet-and-sour, syrupy, weirdly transparent rose found in CdN Intense for Women and Club de Nuit Élite, which Cresp may have been obligated to tuck in. But Maleka is more a modern iris perfume than a rosy Delina wannabe.

The iris is gorgeous: fresh, airy, and sweet, redolent of midnight-blue blooms on a cool May night, with a gentle, slightly powdery grape-sugar quality that pulls at my nose hairs. The "lychee" and pink pepper opening is sweet, pert, and rosy, but the iris steps forward within five minutes and never steps back. I get eight hours. By afternoon, the nondescript "praline" sweetness so many perfumers rely on asserts itself in the base, but it's discreet and beautifully blended. As the iris fades, the gentle woodiness of Ambroxan and synthetic sandalwood buzzes by, subtler and notably more expensive-smelling than the Ambroxan in any other CdN.

How did Cresp manage this on a low-end Armaf budget? At $55 retail, Maleka is cheap even by designer standards. I'd guess he had the mod ready and merely adjusted materials and proportions to fit Sterling's formula budget; time is money in perfumery, as in all business. Technology has also advanced so far that rendering notes like bergamot, raspberry, and iris, and making them smell realistic and coherently blended, is not as expensive as you might think. That Armaf charges so little speaks more to the grift of the big niche and luxury houses than to a product shorcoming. Luxury is now "fast."

My verdict: a soft-spoken fruity iris made with good materials, masterfully blended. Wear this one to relax. It isn't groundbreaking, which may be why Cresp had it sitting around without a haute couture buyer, but it avoids the powdery, lipsticky trappings of Prada Infusion d'Iris, Lancôme Trésor, Hermès Hiris, and Frédéric Malle Iris Poudre. It's a tender little piece of floral euphony, the sort of tune that draws you in long enough to close your eyes and savor the soft, sweet music. 

" Wolf " (Rayhaan)

I deferred to my fiancée on this one. Azzaro’s The Most Wanted EDP Intense came out in 2021, and around then I was gifted a 30 mL flacon that I never wear. Nothing is wrong with it; it’s a decent fragrance that smells good. But with its Batman bottle and ridiculous name, it is as “basic butch” as it gets. That’s right: Basic BUTCH. Clout-chaser clubbing juice.

It doesn’t get more basic. Intense bubblegum orange blossom opens the fragrance, with just enough cardamom to add a woody-spicy dimension. Next comes a toasted-sugar interlude that Azzaro calls “toffee” but that smells like more grapey bubblegum, all resting on an unabashedly synthetic, vanilla-soapy “amberwoods” base that drums along like the Energizer Bunny for hours. It’s less a fragrance than an olfactory texture: smooth.

But smooth gets boring, and the human brain, ever in search of meaning, starts combing that near-featureless landscape for anything that breaks the monotony. By hour six, the cheap chems Azzaro smudged together are jangling in your nasal canal like Marley’s chains on Christmas Eve.

For some ungodly reason, Rayhaan decided to clone it. Why? Who the fuck knows. A large bottle of the Azzaro runs about $70 if you apply yourself. That’s not cheap, but it’s hardly Creedy, I-blew-this-month’s-rent niche pricing. If I can hop on eBay and get it for the price of a discounted Montale, and it smells good (which it does), I’m solid . . . right?

Well . . . Rayhaan may have done the rarest of rare things and created a clone that is effectively superior. They aimed low and somehow bullseyed it. The fragrance has no printed name, only the striking relief of a wild canine on both box and bottle. It’s easily the most gorgeous bottle in my collection, and it deserves some sort of award. If I found it in a stranger’s luggage, I’d be slightly unnerved; it’s a container fit for Victorian vampires. Yes, the graphics are A.I., and yes, that kinda sucks, but it just works. It looks badass.

The fragrance? Basic Butch. It’s 99% Azzaro, minus the cardamom and with a more distinct toffee note in the heart. Without the cool spice, it’s smoother, more balanced, and warmer than its template. The top is little more than concentrated orange blossom and that same toasted sugar: sweet, a bit grapey, a bit floral. Expensive chewing gum.

My fiancée, who has a great sense of smell, called the Rayhaan “rounder,” “softer,” and, interestingly, “more complex.” She almost favored the Azzaro but found it too loud and piercing, and said she’d prefer it toned down. To her, the cardamom was indistinct yet detectable, a spice that enlivened things. The Rayhaan struck her as sweeter, more vanillic, and warmer, while the Azzaro, despite its spice, smelled cooler. She found that counterintuitive until I explained that cardamom is considered a “cool” spice. Her verdict: too close to call. The Azzaro is fresher and less sweet; the Rayhaan is richer, with a more resolute candy thing going on and a smoothness that never relents.

Here’s what Rayhaan figured out. When smoothness goads the brain into picking a fragrance apart, an unlikely spice like cardamom eventually addles that brain into submission. Keep it sweet all around, and the dissection becomes sensory quicksand. The more you fumble for something solid to grab onto, the deeper you sink into the sugary morass, only to realize that dying a smooth death is sweeter than living a spicy life.

The cardamom in the Azzaro is an interesting note, but because my brain seeks it out, it becomes THE note. Removing it leaves a simple chord of grape bubblegum, butter toffee, and woody amber that is truly coherent, the olfactory equivalent of a T-shirt and ballcap. I feel weird wearing it, since I don’t drive a tricked-out Subaru and I don’t call everyone “Bro.” But I still like it. It might just be the perfect clone.

Club de Nuit Iconic (Armaf)

Bergamot, Tobacco, Ginger, & Vetiver

I went into this one expecting a Creed clone, and I wasn’t disappointed. Club de Nuit Iconic (2022) hit YouTube and TikTok as a supposed Bleu de Chanel clone. Countless broccoli heads and fragbros made the comparison not because they believed it, but because everyone else did.

Having owned and worn Creed’s Tabaróme Millésime (2000), I saw Iconic in a different light. Tabaróme Millésime was important to the fragrance zeitgeist of the 2010s, arguably in Aventus’s league, yet nobody recognizes it as such, because it’s understated, pallid, and overlooked even among Creed fans. It’s also simple: bergamot, ginger, tobacco, and vetiver over Ambroxan, tied together by a watery melon à la Millésime Impérial. Bleu de Chanel (2010) is more complex, with pink pepper, nutmeg, mint, ginger, jasmine, grapefruit, labdanum, incense, patchouli, and synthetic sandalwood. It smells beefier, mintier, and far more woody-floral, with a flinty whiff of smoke from the incense. Vintage Bleu was Aqua Velva on steroids.

Weirdly, Tabaróme Millésime smells like a simplified Bleu. Whether it’s the interplay of bergamot, ginger, and slightly sweet tobacco leaf, or the way the nutty vetiver plays off the aromatics, it reads to me as a precursor to Polge’s Chanel. Likewise, Club de Nuit Iconic smells virtually identical to vintage Tabaróme Millésime, making it yet another Creed clone by Armaf, and a damn good one. It offers crisp lemon and bergamot, ginger root, light and grassy Virginia tobacco (tea-like in nature), and vetiver, with a restrained (for Armaf) Ambroxan and white musk in the base. It isn’t heavy or dense, and it’s just as watery and indistinct as Tabaróme Millésime. A nondescript melon note flutters somewhere in the heart, but it feels like a molecule and never resolves into a definite fruit.

Does it smell like Bleu? Only as much as Tabaróme Millésime does, so yes, sort of: a weaker, simpler, proto-Bleu de Chanel. The blue bottle makes everyone assume a Chanel clone, but I think it’s a successful misdirection by Armaf. Market it as a Tabaróme Millésime clone and fewer guys will bite. Make them think it’s cloning Bleu, and social media lights up as if Fragrantica’s review section were Kevin McCallister’s house.

Femme, 1989 (Rochas)

Femme has a long and storied history as Edmond Roudnitska's breakthrough chypre. According to legend, it was created in a dusty old warehouse that doubled as a lab in war-torn Paris, 1943. One imagines perfumer's alcohol being stored in used bottles of Vichy water, but I digress—one spray, and my first thought was, Mitsouko!

Except it's Mitsouko with warmth and carnality. Instead of Guerlain's laser-focused bergamot, I get cumin, fistfuls of cumin. There are conflicting accounts of how the cumin accord came to pass. Some sources claim that Olivier Cresp of Quest International singlehandedly added the cumin when Femme was reformulated and reissued in 1989, which led to Roudnitska crying, "They stole my Femme!" Other accounts suggest that Cresp worked closely with Roudnitska on the '89 formula, and that the Master Perfumer asked him to utilize a cumin accord similar to what Roudnitska had formulated decades earlier for Eau d'Hermès. I tend to think that this story makes more sense. Roudnitska was still working in the late '80s, and there's no reason why Cresp wouldn't have deferred to him. The cumin is both skanky and fresh; the citrus, bergamot and mandarin, smells rich and perfectly rounded, offsetting the sweaty spice just enough to keep the top of Femme smelling subversively French. Think freshly washed vagina in perfume form. 

Armchair historians also claim the cumin was never in the original formula of Femme, but I'm not entirely sure that's accurate, either. There is no definitive description of the formula for Roudnitska's Femme, and given that he explored cumin as a "fresh" note, I wouldn't be surprised if 1940s bottles contained some. Perspectives on vintage Femme are somewhat indirect and inconclusive, and anything is possible. Once the superlatively spicy top begins to evaporate and melt into the aldehydes c-14, c-18, and the Prunol base, Femme gets very vintage Guerlain in vibe, and a familiar (and rudimentary) chypre accord emerges and dominates. Yet, where Mitsouko feels cold and aloof, Femme feels warm and personable. Mitsouko is a marble mausoleum in the misty woods of a forgotten cemetery; Femme is a hunter's blind at midnight in the same woods, with a roaring campfire illuminating a russet chiaroscuro of reds and browns and burnt greens. The chypre forest of Guerlain is haunted and silent, save for a subdued peach light from deep in the gloaming; the woods of Femme glow creamy and sweet, and are redolent of a post-summer harvest. 

I own two bottles of Femme, both nearly identical to the version pictured above, with the only major differences being that mine have black caps, and their liquid is much darker. More of a reddish-brown than a golden amber. There is no oakmoss in either bottle, and I detect that a patchouli accord was used to compensate for its absence. My bottles are the 1989 formula, and the cumin is dirty, but good dirty, evocative of how women smell on an intimate level. Were Cresp and Roudnitska attempting to replicate the natural perfume of a young woman's loins? Seems like a "yes" to me. Having had my fair share of sensual encounters, I recognize, with some amusement, that the first 30 minutes of Femme nails her deep musk. Then Prunol steps forward, and the fruitiness of the composition explodes on skin, a veritable basket of plum, prune, peach, and apricot, with the zest of mandarin still whispering in the wings. The edibles are joined by flowers: of chief importance are Bulgarian rose, jasmine, ylang, and immortelle. The immortelle lends the heart a curried sweetness, not unlike raw honey. And, of course, there's labdanum. 

In lieu of oakmossy powder, the base instead hews into cedarwood and birchwood, with a faint smoky angle from the birch, a brightness from the cedar, and that dollop of patchouli to smudge everything together. Benzoin and a dash of vanilla further cement the chypre structure, and Femme endures as a woody-sweet glow for well over 20 hours. This is a classic of French perfumery, ideal for cool autumn days and evenings. It's so good that if, like me, you are loath to replace your bottle of Mitsouko when it's finished, there is no cause for worry, for Femme is the sexier, friendlier, and more complex chypre.

La Petite Robe Noire Black Perfecto EDP (Guerlain)

This is a short review because there's really only one thing I can say about Black Perfecto that doesn't bear much in descriptive excess. I think you know where I'm going with this. For everyone out there who likes Creed's original 2008 Love in Black (LiB), but can't afford it, well, here's your fragrance. Guerlain's 2017 release in the seemingly endless La Petite Robe Noire (LPRN) line is very affordable these days at roughly $45 per 50 mL bottle, and it is 99.9% Love in Black. And, like '08 LiB, it's discontinued. 

The only difference between the Creed and the Guerlain is in the choice of fruit. Love in Black contains a somewhat abstract blackcurrant and cranberry accord that doesn't quite elucidate either fruit. Guerlain opts for a black cherry accord that smells perhaps a tick sweeter and a few ticks clearer, but which basically does the same thing. The rest? Virtually identical to LiB. I mean, these two are really, really close to each other. But the kicker is that Black Perfecto actually smells more natural, and thus feels a bit more luxe, and I can't believe I'm writing this, but I actually prefer it. 

The niche for this scent profile is hard to pin down. Guerlain's PR pushes Black Perfecto as the LPRN line's "rock chick" flanker, with supposedly clear accents of leather. I don't really get any leather. Instead, I get violet, iris—a ton of iris—and that dry, powdery, gothic gloaming of wilted roses and cedar chests. A haunted mansion somewhere in the hills, with a gorgeous widow forever grieving, still wearing the funeral dress from when her beloved died 140 years ago. Her dress, her hair, and her breath, all reek. 

But her perfume? To die for.

La Petite Robe Noire Eau de Parfum Absolue (Guerlain)

At the age of 44, I've finally developed a full appreciation for Guerlain. It took a while. For many years there, I wasn't convinced of the supposed quality behind their perfumes and was perhaps a bit blinded by the outrageous quality of 2000s vintage Creeds. We can't expect people to spend ungodly amounts of time macerating micro-batches, nor can we demand that they spend insane amounts of money on unnecessarily premium materials to make said micro-batches, so a little maturing on my part was in order.

I came around to the La Petite Robe Noire (LPRN) line when I realized that my bottle of Love in Black (LiB) was running low and I didn't feel like coughing up $140 for another one. If you're familiar with LiB, you know that it's a gloriously synthetic concoction of cheap-smelling violet ionones and all the sweet musks required to achieve an intense violet/iris accord, and that this unmitigated trashiness is the appeal. It's so cartoonishly "goth" and dark in its brooding floral sweetness that it works perfectly on a guy. No Guerlains promise that exact vibe . . . but a few come pretty close. La Petite Robe Noire Eau de Parfum Absolue, released in 2023, is one such Guerlain. (There's another that actually comes even closer to LiB, but that one is for a future review.)

LPRN EDP Absolue is "rich college chick" juice. She's 20 years old. She's working toward her psych major. Gorgeous, not because of any inherent qualities, but because rich people can afford to be genetically choosy. And she bathes in LPRN fragrances. The EDP Absolue is just her latest love, and she gushes about it to all her girlfriends and wears it to class religiously. But here's the thing: this fragrance is complex and really well made. Like LiB, it uses the Biolandes orris extract to render its slightly bready iris accord. But unlike LiB, it elicits a wide array of comments from people around the wearer, ranging from "a nice fruity smell" to "smells like pancakes and syrup."

I even had someone tell me it smells like Axe body spray. This speaks to the loudness of the fragrance more than to any deficits it may have. While I wouldn't call it "top tier" Guerlain, Absolue inhabits the Made-for-American-Girls category of dumb-reach fruity-florals that influencers can correctly characterize as "elevated." Yes, it's just another casual mall juice, something best worn for weekend errands. Yet Guerlain manages to infuse it with a level of material quality and blending that puts it in femme Creed territory. You'll get the same mileage out of this as you'd get out of Love in Black. It opens with bright, juicy cherry. Smells stunning. Laced through the juiciness is violet, which balances the tanginess with some floral sharpness. I also get the orris and a pleasant pink rose that doesn't smack you over the head. It slides like fine silk along steampunk sugared-cherry curves, a floral texture more than a living bloom.

There's a freshness that lifts the composition into another hemisphere, and that freshness is black tea. It's a touch tannic and smoky, even a little aquatic, in a freshwater way. There are subtle hints of licorice and not-so-subtle hints of marzipan, but then the heliotropin takes over, and a slightly leathery cherry-almond heliotrope accord carries the fragrance through the rest of the day. While not quite as pitch-black as Love in Black, Absolue feels sophisticated and sexually moody, sort of the way an indie French film from the '90s starring Juliette Binoche feels. Men can manage this fragrance thanks to its eerie aloofness, but wear with caution—this stuff fills large rooms.

Spectre Wraith Eau de Parfum (French Avenue)

A shot . . . of Espresso

Luca Turin once bluntly said, "Coffee fragrances don't work." This was after a year or two of waxing poetic about several fairly expensive coffee fragrances. It left me wondering if he'd been overly enthusiastic about the advent of coffee perfumes, only to realize with some chagrin that most of them smelled outré, chemical, unwearable. Thierry Mugler's A*Men was the world's first and only mainstream coffee frag, a mid-nineties attempt at saturnine gourmand accords that today reads as a bit harsh and crude, but back then was exotic and undeniably artistic. Its saving grace was an intentionally chemical interlude between its minty-bright opening accord and mocha-bean patchouli base, which manifested as a "tar" note of indescribably macabre weirdness. 

French Avenue, which is really just the label name for a company called Fragrance World Perfumes, operates out of the United Arab Emirates and has a small niche line of "clone" fragrances under the Spectre moniker. These include Spectre and Spectre Ghost (both 2023). While Spectre gets some cult love for its rendition of Matière Première's Falcon Leather, and Spectre Ghost gets oodles of heart emoji for being a damned close chromo of Ani, Nishane's brown study in wet oils, Spectre Wraith (2024) straddles the midline in popularity, garnering faithful adherents on one side, and dismissive regrets on the other. Ostensibly a copy of By Kilian's Black Phantom, Wraith aims to be a sultry coffee-based gourmand. I will say that its bottling presentation is one of the most creative I've ever seen. Wraith's matte black bottle, "shot" by a bullet that retained its casing, is striking. 

The fragrance matches. Wraith opens with a semisweet cherry cordial accord, rather like one of those pricy dark chocolates with the even darker fruit filling, and in those first five minutes, Wraith smells quite mesmerizing. It's like Wayne Szalinski shrunk me down to the size of an ant, took a bite from just such a choco-cherry confection, and dropped a glob of it on my head. It surrounds me in a rich haze of mellow sweetness, and I have to admit, it's pretty amazing. If it stopped there, I'd say it's merely a unique but linear crowdpleaser, but it doesn't stop there. The whole things morphs into an esoteric niche frag of black coffee with buttercream, and smells like a smoother and more refined version of A*Men's tar. This is something that will appeal to a relatively small subset of fragrance aficionados, and it should—it's abstruse but beautifully made, and perfect for cold autumn and winter evenings. This coffee fragrance does work. 

Drakkar Intense (Guy Laroche)

Jason Dean: "I knew this stuff would be
Too intense for her." Heather Chandler:
"In-tense. Grow Up." 

Drakkar Intense is not a flanker of Drakkar Noir. I repeat: Drakkar Intense is NOT a flanker of Drakkar Noir. It is better thought of as a pseudo-modernization of the original Drakkar from 1972. "Pseudo" because, well, read on. I've never actually smelled the original Drakkar, so no flexing here. But a comparison of the pryamids suggests a closer kinship to that first Laroche masculine, and what I smell recalls the '70s more than the '80s. L'Oréal isn't aiming for the youngsters with this stuff, that's for sure.

They're also not aiming for the average guy, either. The opening blast is upscale '70s barbershop. European barbershop, if you will, and specifically Parisian. Scratchy greens, indistinct in identity, but sharp, and cool in effect. Certainly some lavender and rosemary, juniper and citrus, very tart and bitter, but the cacophony settles into a certain type of muddled, somewhat coumarinic sweetness that vintage fanatics who are familiar with old-school masculines will immediately recognize. It's sort of floral, sort of hay-like, and rather akin to the romanticized idea of a sunset in the countryside, if you could bottle it. Think forgotten gems like MEM's Racquet Club, and even Monsieur Rochas. Intense boasts the same coumarin wallop, but not a contemporary woody-amberassault "tonka" that smells like candy. Any sweetness is from patchouli, and it's a little spicy from carnation, of all things. I also get some beta-ionone for woodiness, tobacco-adjacent depth, and a modern analog of macrocylic musks for the human skin feel. And again, being real: I really like it. It's anachronistic, but good, a literal blast from the past.

Gentle wisps of vanilla and amber add warmth and roundness to the base, and Drakkar Intense smells like a drugstore fragrance from 1972, which is early enough in the decade that it borrows heavily from drugstore fragrances of the 1960s. Many reviewers have claimed that this fragrance is "boozy" and "sweet," but it reads more woody and only incidentally sweet, like the crudely-blended naturals and synthetics just happen to have approachable personalities. It bears virtually no resemblance to Drakkar Noir and has precious little dihydromyrcenol, if any. I see myself curled up in a papasan, smoking shake while reading Portnoy's Complaint with the Stones in the background . . . 

Club de Nuit Élite (Armaf)

Armaf is making its move. The brand made its bones in 2015 with its first serious Creed clone, Club de Nuit Intense for men, an unabashed chromo of Aventus, and it hasn't looked back since. With varying degrees of success, it has offered the general public viable and in some cases superior alternatives to vintage formula Creeds. Club de Nuit Sillage (2020) is one such case of a better alternative, smelling rich and dimensional in a way F-batch Silver Mountain Water never did. Unlike other brands, Armaf doesn't just mindlessly cash-grab to take advantage of the unique circumstances in the superhot fragrance industry that dictate the dubious legality of outright copying another entity's commercial product. They put effort into making their copies more desirable than their templates. 

L'Oréal's first Creed release is Iris Debonair, and already the fragrance has positive buzz. This is a good sign. The big fear was that Creed's quality would take an irrevocable hit, and the magic would disappear. The truth is, their quality took some modicum of a hit when Kering Beauté took over back in October of 2023, and Absolu Aventus hit shelves. Sure, Absolu was a success and received favorably, but dig a little deeper into the feedback online, and you find that many weren't entirely sold. Even those who bought bottles and backup bottles acquiesced to the possibility that its lack of real ambergris tincture and top-dollar naturals was a problem, price factored in. 

The BlackRock era signalled that this change was coming, with the 2021 release of Wind Flowers, the first and last Creed released in a Chanel-style bottle with artificial coloring in the liquid (weird to see, as Olivier Creed still had a significant hand in production), along with Viking Cologne and the Aventus oil. But Kering really shifted the output and was aggressive in its approach, releasing 13 fragrances in the span of 3 years, starting with Absolu, and including gamechangers like Carmina and Oud Zarian, the former of which was the start of a new stylistic approach for Creed in the form of an herbal rose-jam floral. After Carmina, this novel rose accord appeared in several feminines, including Fragraria, Eladaria, and Kering's final release in March of this year, Wild Vetiver. 

To me, Wild Vetiver was an interesting release. Before I get into a summation of my personal opinion on the fragrance, I'll highlight how it was received more broadly: Creed Facebook groups and fragrance forums saw men everywhere expressing excitement that they were finally releasing a new vetiver, as Creed has always released pleasing vetivers, starting with Vétiver '48, and including the unicorn Bayrhum-Vetiver, Original Vetiver, and Vetiver Geranium. The anticipation was that Wild Vetiver would adopt the somewhat less natural post-buyout Creed style, but still smell green and fresh and utterly fantastic. 

You could hear the bottom fall out when it landed. At first, guys were in denial, saying they loved it, and it was their new favorite. But the enthusiasm faded quickly, and I started reading comments like, "I like this, don't get me wrong, but I like it better on my wife." Carmina's signature rose had returned yet again, this time having already been through the "dewy" pink peony Eladaria filter, and ensconcing it in oddly sugar-dusted green-grassy accords. Despite the name, there was only the faintest whisper of any actual vetiver at the 6-hour mark of the far drydown. By June, many guys were posting stuff like, "I like and appreciate Wild Vetiver, but it isn't for me." The fragrance that was anticipated to be a new masculine vetiver turned out to be a sweet(ish) feminine rose garden with woody flourishes to appeal to the "unisex" market that Kering was determined to corner. 

I view Wild Vetiver as frustrating on two fronts. The first: it smells like a greener rehash of Eladaria. The Carmina rose was spliced with a bit of Eladaria's pink peony and enlivened with peppery citrus, then made a little dense with "modern amber" in the mid, which to me was rather uncomfortably akin to what a Yankee Candle does when it wants to smell "outdoorsy." For a closer reference, consider the myriad designer offerings of the last ten years that attempt "green" while hewing to some form of nuclear woody amber for girth and longevity. This works fine in a $50 fragrance like Lacoste's reissued Original, which plays the same tune at a much more forgivable price-point, but when you're tacking another zero on the tag, one expects a little more. Wild Vetiver signalled to me that Creed's new approach is to take many very strong and expensive-smelling synthetics and arrange them into perfumes anyone else could make if they could afford to use that many strong and expensive-smelling synthetics. It's no longer about artistry. It's material sophistry. 

The second: Wild Vetiver is a green fragrance, yes, but Creed created one of those in 1999 that outdid all other green fragrances of the past 40 years, and it was called Green Valley. Fans held out hope that Kering would reissue it under a new name, but Wild Vetiver is not that reissue. It's cope on my part, of course. I could lose my delusion, let go of the past, and accept the present. But I'm bitter. Green Valley was a masterpiece. It was better than Green Irish Tweed. Better by miles than Aventus. Even better than Original Vetiver, although in terms of vibe, OV is closest. I can understand not reissuing Green Valley as itself, simply by virtue of not having two fragrances with "green" in the name, but give it a new AI-generated name, L'Oréal, and pretend you created it. I don't care if you strip out 90% of the naturals, remove the ambergris base (already a given), and paste in the new nuclear post-Covid synthetics. Go ahead, do it. I'll still love you for bringing Green Valley back from the dead. The foibles of the past decade would be forgotten. 

But, so far, nobody has done that. Kering's farewell shot was Wild Vetiver, and I had smelled Carmina's rose in a few iterations, so encountering it in Wild Vetiver didn't thrill me. With that said, I recognize something now that Armaf also spotted, probably years ago: it's easier than ever to clone a Creed these days. When you don't have layers of natural tinctures and real ambergris to contend with, the challenge changes completely. At this point, Armaf can utilize the newer multi-tier GC/LC-MS and chemical analysis AI to dissect the exact Creed formula. When a new one is comprised, they can do a bang-up job of buying the same materials for their carbon copy and release it at a tenth of the price. Gone are the days when Creed would source small-farm oils for things like petitgrain, neroli, juniper berry. Now it's just any designer-grade natural oil of modest quality, utterly attainable by the likes of Armaf. And they show up in Club de Nuit Élite's ingredients list, which cites several naturals, including May rose and juniper oils. 

Armaf also included the Carmina rose, virtually identical to the flower in Carmina. Here, one should understand the truth: Kering derived this rose from Armaf. Club de Nuit Intense for women contains that exact rose, and it was released several years before Carmina. Creed added its accents of lavender oil and orange marmalade, which I guess was to disguise this familiar accord and make it Creed's own, and Armaf has since adopted hints of those and tucked them into the May rose found in Élite. I will say that the main difference between Wild Vetiver and Élite, to my nose, is that the rose in the latter does not possess the peony angle of the rose in the former. Élite hews closer to Carmina than to Eladaria. Armaf's fragrance opens with a piquant citrus in the same vein as Wild Vetiver, but perhaps a touch greener and less spicy, which I think is a plus. The lack of heavy-handed pepper tones down the Yankee Candle association. The citrus is soft and fresh, and the first five minutes of Élite are pleasantly green and masculine in feel. Many have commented on there being a green tea note, but I smell a nondescript grassiness with pert juniper and vetiver accents even in the top, and don't really sense any tea. 

The rose accord steps forward fairly quickly, and while it isn't shy, it also isn't as central as in Wild Vetiver, and manages to share the olfactory space with subtle wafts of grassy tones, black currant, a pleasant geranium leaf that gives a little eucalyptus nuance, a bit of piney juniper berry, and Armaf's signature black ambergris reconstruction, which I appreciate for its technical precision beyond just slapping Ambroxan into the mix. The marine quality is only slightly more pronounced in Élite than it is in Wild Vetiver, but Armaf still remained true to the Creed's sugar-dusted woody amber. I say "dusted" because this isn't a dessert-cart amber, nor was it one in the Creed. It's just a bit of a sweetness to complement the woody, patchouli-adjacent intensity of modern amber molecules. I also feel some mineralic nuances, and just as I did with Wild Vetiver, I feel like Élite is expressing the idea of tasting a sweet after a picnic lunch in a field of vetiver and wild roses. Again, vetiver ripples in a breeze behind that very attractive rose.

And here is where Armaf is making the right moves: Élite does something better than the Creed it emulates by employing a true wild rose note, alongside the aforementioned darker rose. If you're familiar with wild roses, Rosa rugosa, you know that they possess a distinctly lemony freshness that undergirds the more typical rosy richness. Their citrusy quality coalesces with the floral sugars into something uniquely green and fresh, and it blends with the leaves and stem of the plant to make sniffing it a profound religious experience. If you want to smell it in all its glory, try Zoologist's Dragonfly Edition 2021, which is a deep meditation on wild roses. I'm familiar with them because my partner's father grows them in his garden in Maine. The flower is also found in Armaf's Club de Nuit Élite, and my goodness, what an upgrade. Why Kering didn't use this same rose in Wild Vetiver is beyond me, because if they had, my opinion of it would've been different. Instead, I find it here in a $60 fragrance, and for once, Armaf has not only outdone Creed in general execution, but outsmarted them in their choice of notes. Those who like Wild Vetiver might like it less after smelling Élite. 

And then there's the last thing, which is that Wild Vetiver doesn't do much with vetiver. Yes, you can sense some vetiver in the base, and it shows up around hour 6, like I said earlier. But in Élite, there are subtle flickers of vetiver all throughout the fragrance evolution. Élite isn't a vetiver bomb either, but it doesn't claim to be a vetiver fragrance anyway, so it doesn't matter. That it uses far more vetiver than its template says something about the level of intelligence employed in the perfume's creation. I'm no lover of vetiver, so I'm perfectly happy to have it play a low-key supporting role, surrounded by other things, and Armaf's fragrance allows it to exist with clarity without completely dominating. Very nice. As "meh" as I was with Wild Vetiver, I find myself liking Club de Nuit Élite quite a bit more. For one thing, it smells like a Kering Creed, and at no point does it smell like a Club de Nuit fragrance from the 2010s. The quality here is amazing. And for another, Élite simply smells better than Wild Vetiver, using the same high-end synthetics to achieve a smarter and dare I say greener fragrance. Two thumbs up for this stuff, and well done, Armaf. 

Is Deep Vintage Aspen Worth It?

Brand-new is left; Early '90s is right

My memory of what is now "deep vintage" Quintessence Aspen cologne spray is weirdly perfunctory. I'm referring to what I recall of it back in the 1990s. I didn't wear it then, but my best friend did. I just remember sleeping over and seeing the little green bottle on his dresser. This was before his Le Mâle days (he wore the hell out of that, and everyone in Connecticut knew it), when we were in middle school. We're talking 1993, and probably until freshman year of high school in 1996. 

Back then, men's cologne was potent. There was no hiding in evanescent citrus colognes or slapping on thirty-minute Old Spice aftershave. The 1990s was a decade of excess, much like the decade that preceded it, except instead of burly, cigar-box, patchouli-laden musk bombs, guys spritzed "fresh" powerhouses, which was literally Cool Water, Tommy, ck One, and yes, even drugstore darling Aspen. Dihyromyrcenol was huge, and Drakkar Noir enjoyed its peak years between 1989 and 1995, with every other dad and soccer coach bathing in the stuff (Drakkar Noir, by the way, was more popular than any other masculine fragrance, including Cool Water). 

Aspen was the logical entry point for budding cologne enthusiasts on a teenager's budget, an unassuming little freshie that cribbed directly from Cool Water and Drakkar Noir to offer a mintier, woodier, and drier take on this particular aromatic fougère theme. It inhabits a sort of halfway point between the sea-spray sparkle of the Davidoff and the smoky juniper of Laroche's fragrance, taking the green apple from Bourdon's composition and mating it to Wargnye's wry amber, while losing any overt aquatic tones and arguably nodding to Green Irish Tweed in its heavy-handed use of grapey orange blossom in lieu of iris. Aspen didn't last very long—maybe four or five sprays could get you four hours, three at a low hum—but 60 milliliters went for $7.89 at my local Wilcox drugstore, so it was hard to beat.

You can still get Aspen today for around $8, right this minute, if you hop on sites like Jomashop and eBay. It's dirt cheap in big box stores like Walmart and Target. It's branded by Coty now, with a somewhat hazy corporate distribution history that spans Barry Shipp and Bernard Mitchell's reacquisition of Jōvan, to their creation of Quintessence in 1988 (they were basically Jōvan by a different name), to their sale of Quintessence to Benckiser in 1991, to the eventual landing place of Coty (also bought by Benckiser) owning Aspen's formula. Some careful digging into the corporate filings suggest that IFF might have been the house responsible for Aspen's compounding oil, and even deeper digging links Aspen to Carlos Benaïm, who at the time was IFF's lead perfumer. 

Even deeper digging still (we're practically in China) points to the possibility that a Benaïm underling at the time named Franc Schiet may have actually been the one to author the final formula, but I can't confirm this. What I do know is that IFF was Shipp and Mitchell's oil house of choice in their Jōvan Musk days, so it would stand to reason that they'd return to familiar ground upon re-establishing themselves. I also understand that by 1988, Carlos Benaïm was corporate-exec tier, and not likely to stoop to making a drugstore budget formula for old Jōvan alums. This is why the Schiet angle makes sense. Franc Schiet had very little to his name at that time, and yet he was beginning to prove himself as more than capable, so the notion that IFF threw the Aspen brief at him makes sense. 

But I digress; Aspen of 1990 is a different animal to the Aspen of 2026. Not wildly different, mind you, but different nonetheless. To my nose, the chief difference is in concentration. Deep vintage Quintessence Aspen is at least twice as strong as the current stuff. I can get four hours of noticeable fragrance from my Quintessence bottle. With the same number of sprays, I might get 120 minutes out of the current Aspen, if humidity and dewpoint are just right. If I go a little heavy with Quintessence Aspen, I can easily get a full work day out of it, and I don't need to go nuts with the atomizer. Put the stuff on fabric and it survives. There's something to be said for a fragrance at this price point performing admirably. While it still isn't anywhere near designer-level sturdiness, it's at least a cut above your plastic-bottled Old Spice and Brut in performance. 

Another big difference is in brightness and depth. Quintessence Aspen opens with a livelier, brighter, crisper accord of what smells like a remarkable blend of lavender, wintergreen mint, eucalyptus, geraniol, lemon oil, and lemon aldehyde. The wintergreen note fuses to the eucalyptus to form a uniquely sour vibe that verges on unpleasant without ever actually tipping over. What saves everything is the rapid entry of sweetened Granny Smith apple, a mellow but incredibly clear element that both grounds and focuses the fragrance's opening stage. As the bitter aromatics, including the lavender, begin to recede, the apple gets stronger, now joined by that grapey orange blossom I mentioned earlier. With it are soapy green notes that weave themselves out of what's left of the citrus to peripherally resemble nuances of pine sap and cedar. A fuzzy drugstore-grade amber plays the coumarin chord to keep Aspen in the fougère lane, and this all settles onto a white musk drydown, smelling very MTV-in-your-pajamas, but with your hot female neighbor who wants to make out.  

Quintessence formula Aspen is, in a word, casually suave. Almost too casually, if you ask me. You'd be forgiven for smelling this stuff in 1990 and asking yourself (if you're a middle management dad on an upward-trajectory salary), "Is it me, or does this smell too close to Cool Water?" Even the square-shouldered bottle with the jewel-cut siding looks dangerously close to commercial plagiarism. Good thing they changed the color scheme! But wait—you smell it, looking at the weirdly blank bottle with the poplar leaf and nothing else, no name for the scent, no nothing, and say out loud, "I like it!" You feel you can project yourself onto that green glass, a successful guy who really can't afford to constantly re-up his Cool Water, but certainly can afford to re-up (and re-up, and re-up) this nameless beauty. What's the price again? Hell. Sold. 

And here's the thing: when you wear Quintessence Aspen, you've won. Sure, it's a cheap cologne. But it doesn't really smell cheap. The opening accord isn't a flat jumbled mess of notes that take a minute to resolve. No, that opening is rich and clear, and potent enough in the first half hour to wake you up and then some. For the price of a deli sandwich, you've got yourself a fragrance comparable to the way more expensive Cool Waters and Drakkar Noirs. (Nobody knows Green Irish Tweed exists, so that never enters the conversation.) Aside from a mild longevity issue, this Green Lantern can arguably replace your Christmas present 125 mL Davidoff, and nobody's the wiser. There's value here, with the word meaning more than just "I saved a bunch of money." 

But what does that all mean in 2026? Well, as much as I love this style of classic 1980s DHM-fueled New Wave fougère, I can't escape something that the Eau d'Ericas and Gents Scents of the world are keen to remind me of: this stuff smells dated. If you asked me in 2005 if it smelled dated, when I was fresh out of college (I should've graduated in 2004, sue me) and eager to wear anything, I would've laughed and said of course not. And I wouldn't have been wrong. The Cool Water scent profile, which was by degrees related to the Drakkar Noir scent profile, still possessed a modicum of street cred in 2005. Sure, there were several other things making waves at that point, and Gucci Envy was still fresh in everyone's minds, but if you wore Cool Water, you were cool. 

Ask me today, and it's a different story. I fully concede that yes, this type of fresh fougère smells very '90s at this point, and if it's your signature, people will assume you're either stuck in the past or old enough that it doesn't matter. I can't escape that any iteration of Cool Water or Aspen smells like a throwback. Yet they still manufacture and distribute both through mainline commercial channels, and anyone can still buy a bottle of either of these fragrances and wear it like it's the latest thing. What has Coty done to Aspen? Not much, actually. The biggest knock I can make on Coty's Aspen is the very thing I like in Quintessence's. It's the opening accord. Coty has neutered it. There are still some fizzy pops of lavender, wintergreen, and lemon, but the eucalyptus effect is completely gone, which suggests that several synthetics and naturals have been removed. It doesn't feel as bright, or as deep, or as natural as the deep vintage does. 

It's also notably weaker. While the top notes aren't as good, I will mention that after five minutes those would be gone no matter which version you wear, and what comes after in Coty is 97% the same as the original formula. Same big green apple. Same vague, soapy-green piney thing. Same warm amber. Same grapey orange blossom, and same inexpensive white musk. It's all there, and it's all the same. It's also somewhat weaker. You need to spray the hell out of it to get it past four hours. It's do-able. It's just not desirable. Where Quintessence Aspen felt like a formidable James Bond scent, Coty Aspen feels more like a weekend errands thing that you spray on after a quick shower and forget about the minute you step outside. In light of its bygone style, this might be a plus. 

This then falls to the question of, who are you? If you're like me, and you absolutely must have this style of classic fresh man-juice in your wardrobe, and you truly love the scent profile, then deep vintage Aspen is totally worth it, and you won't regret hunting down a bottle. I was very lucky. I found a 60 mL bottle that was brand-new and unsprayed. I had to really prime the atomizer to get those first drops out, and when I did, I could tell the bottle had been well stored for 36 years. This sort of discovery thrills me.

I will go a step further, even, and point out that if you only just appreciate this style of fragrance, then to find a sizable Quintessence bottle for less than $30 is worth it. You don't have to wear it much or obsess over it to be advantaged by having it. It smells great. Why not own it? If you wear it to graduation ceremonies or family dinners, you'll smell classy without smelling stuffy. Nobody will dislike your scent. 

But if you're just a young guy who is curious about this type of fragrance and doesn't have more than $15 to spend on cologne, Coty's version is more than good enough. Despite some downgrading of the opening accord and a slightly weaker concentration, Coty's Aspen is still very much Aspen, particularly in its heart and base. To buy and wear it is to buy and wear the legacy of this stuff. It still smells great, it still performs in normal conditions, and you'll still smell classy without smelling stuffy. Even if you're an older millennial like me, creeping into your mid 40s, and you're not in any way into old-school stuff, you'd be fine if the one place you strayed off your beaten path of Gaultier and Rabanne designers was Coty's Aspen. You'd like it well enough, you'd wear it once or twice a year, and you'd enjoy having the green bottle on your dresser (with "ASPEN" conspicuously printed in big letters under the poplar leaf), so no need for deep vintage, or even early Coty vintage. 

It means nothing to you, so why bother? More for me.