As many of you know, my favorite soap is Irish Spring, now produced by Colgate. So whenever I come across a fragrance reminiscent of Irish Spring, I get excited. Surprisingly, very few fragrances capture its exact essence, and only a handful fall within the same general realm. The only fragrance I’ve encountered that truly mirrors Irish Spring is Sung Homme. Even then, it’s not a perfect match—more like 95%. Sung smells as if someone deconstructed the basic soap scent, replaced its elements with higher-quality aromachemicals, added a few ingredients for complexity, and then recomposed it according to Colgate’s specifications. It’s heavenly stuff.
Amber Pour Homme doesn’t score as highly on the Irish Spring doppelgänger scale, but it’s about 70% there. It lacks the soap’s pungency and doesn’t combine vetiver and vanilla in the same way. However, Amber generates a similar clean, green, soapy vibe. It’s a modernized take on this fragrance type, and perhaps not coincidentally, Amber and Sung Homme share a similar purple hue. If you need a primer on what “soapy” smells like, try Amber Pour Homme—it’s an education in soapiness. One mystery with Amber Pour Homme, gleaned from reading online reviews, is that many people don’t perceive Irish Spring in it. Yet these same people find Irish Spring’s essence in Creed’s Green Valley, Green Irish Tweed, Aspen, and Cool Water—four fragrances that, in my opinion, couldn’t be further from Irish Spring. Amber Pour Homme’s resemblance to Irish Spring is the only reason I truly like it and consider it full-bottle worthy.
If you took Sung Homme’s angular soapiness, smoothed its edges, dialed back the synthetic green elements, and amplified the bright interplay of bergamot and neroli, you’d have Amber Pour Homme. This bright soapiness evolves into a deeper drydown of vanilla and myrrh, accented by hints of saffron, vetiver, and tonka. Common sense might suggest that citrus, herbs, and green grasses wouldn’t pair well with vanilla, but that assumption is entirely wrong. They work beautifully together, and without this combination, the concept would fall apart. Amber Pour Homme executes this blend with finesse, culminating in a musky finish that’s soft, warm, and breezy, like summer air wafting through a bathroom window after a shower. This fragrance’s dual warm/cool nature makes it versatile for any season, day or night. It’s casual and inoffensive yet playful and sexy, with a sweet freshness that cuts through sweat and other unpleasant odors. Gentlemen, whenever you’re unsure how you should smell, wear Amber Pour Homme. You simply can’t go wrong with a fragrance that embodies smooth, masculine soap.