My distaste for Puff Daddy ("P-Diddy, Sean 'Puffy' Combes, Sean John) was crafted at the dawning of his miserable career, back in the early '90s when he launched the careers of several well-known rappers, most of whom are now deceased. When he launched his own music career with 1997's No Way Out, he leeched fame off of other musicians' successes. His two biggest singles, I'll Be Missing You, and Come With Me would never have been recorded were it not for The Police and Jimmy Page. Puffy's songs generously "sampled" Every Breath You Take and Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, relying so heavily on both tracks that I severely doubted the man had an original bone in his body. When Puffy stepped into the world of fine fragrance more than a decade later, he continued to stoke those doubts by blatantly cloning Millésime Impérial.
Unforgivable smells nearly identical to Millésime Impérial, with a somewhat "greyer" citrus accord, and a thicker watermelon note clumsily welded to candy ozone and amber. I'm not surprised by this, because Puffy has made no secret of his love for Creed, and apparently wears Original Santal regularly. Unforgivable's strength and tenacity is admirable, as I get a good six hours out of it - twice as long as the Creed.
Does it smell good? Actually yes, as its inspiration is a pleasant citrus-floral aquatic with a lovely overall demeanor. This scent is scratchier in execution, and lacks a true ambergris base, but is still a good copy. Adults with a nose for fragrance will easily smell the difference between this and MI, but if you're a college kid with little cash to spare, you're in luck: Susie in the dorm downstairs won't notice you're an aspirational klutz. It goes to show, if you're going to plagiarize, you might as well do it to the best of the best; good artists borrow, but great artists steal.