I've always avoided the House of Burberry, a company with an inane public image, made worse by inane advertisements. The whole tartan sleeve motif really grinds my gears. Tartan sleeves? Really? My perfume is more sophisticated than yours, see? Cuz it's wearing a kilt. Is yours wearing a kilt? Yeah, I didn't think so.
Thankfully, the flagship masculine in Burberry's lineup eschews all things tartan, favoring traditional glass instead. Nothing embarrassing there. Released in 1995, Burberry For Men is a true '90s fresh fougère, packed to the gills with minty citrus, clean lavender, and sweet woods. It opens with a bright puff of peppermint iridescence, made astringent by bergamot and piquant floral notes. This opening reminds me of Tom Ford for Men's, minus the lemon. It's fresh, smooth, and a little hard to smell. It's just an inoffensive fizz, which makes for rapid olfactory fatigue. This is demure stuff.
Eventually tobacco and cedar notes appear, forming a pleasantly staid heart accord of dry, sweet woods. The woodiness is prominent for the duration of the scent's life - I get about six hours out of it. The far drydown yields an amenable vanillic musk, very soft and bittersweet. Burberry isn't the most exciting fragrance, but it's a good scent for the workplace. It's something an introspective and serious-mannered high school senior would wear while perusing the sports section of the library, utterly oblivious of the librarian's longing gaze.