Old Spice Wolf Thorn: Cool name (kind of), but super-cheesy packaging. Kind of has an Ed Hardy look to it, doesn't it? There are almost no photos of this in spray cologne form on the internet, so I had to take my own for From Pyrgos. The Walgreens in my area carries a few interesting products, and this new fragrance by P&G is one of them. It's twelve bucks a bottle, so be on the lookout for it, and don't hesitate to buy it. Wolf Thorn isn't complicated and it's not top-shelf quality of course, but its lack of ambition works in its favor, and you definitely get what you pay for here.
Wolf Thorn is basically a redux of Davidoff's Cool Water, a simple citrus aromatic cologne with mostly grapefruit and lemon on top, and a brisk, slightly bitter drydown of violet leaf, neroli, tobacco (surprisingly good), and some smoky-salty-sweet ambergris, the same unusual note found in Old Spice Fresh, diluted tenfold. The main attraction here is citrus, and it dominates most of Wolf Thorn's evolution. Its grapefruit and lemon notes start out very bright, fizzy, and naturalistic. Good, clean fun, without stooping to synthetic sweetness or scratchy ozonic notes. Within fifteen minutes the citrus begins to hollow out and turn rather grey and flinty, but that's the budget kicking in. They spent the bulk of their dollars on that fresh intro, surprise, surprise. But at least it isn't super-synthetic, and it achieves a convincing fresh-clean effect. If you like bitter, unadulterated, breakfast-at-eight-in-the-morning grapefruit, you'll probably like this fragrance. There are better grapefruit notes out there, but for the money, this one is pretty good.
When the citrus notes wane, naked violet leaf appears, very peppery and spare, with a slight floral sweetness behind the spice. Underlying that is an odd gummy note that inhabits all the current P&G scents, sort of a weird cross between ambergris and burnt cigarette tobacco. I think it's a few steps above Pure Sport and Smooth Blast. I could be wrong about this, but Wolf Thorn's spray cologne might be a limited edition thing that P&G discontinues in a year. If you're an Old Spice fan, get this while you can.