I am Trash - Les Fleurs du Déchet (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Etat Libre d'Orange isn't the niche brand to go for if you're looking for "natural." Unlike the offerings of Amouage, Xerjoff, Creed, ELdO's frags rarely inspire a sense of realism or depth; they clearly use synthetics, and appear to be very proud of it. I recall wearing Antiheros a while back and being struck by its harshness. It was like I'd lost a fight with a bottle of lavender hand soap from a truck stop restroom. 

I Am Trash – The Flowers of Waste goes all-in on its soapy-chemical tones, delivering a composition that wouldn’t feel out of place in the haircare aisle of a drugstore. I think ELdO was trying to emulate the smell of scented trash bags, but I could be wrong. Daniela Andrier seems to have drawn from her CK Contradiction archive of Y2K “fresh” profiles and leftover submissions when she handed this to Etienne de Swardt’s firm in 2017 or 2018. The result? A fruity-floral shampoo accord, drenched in the overly sweetened “fresh” aesthetic. A silvery flicker of tuberose, neroli, and green apple opens the fragrance before quickly dissolving into juicy fruit esters. The drydown settles into a crisp-woody base, courtesy of Iso E Super and Akigalawood. There are floral nuances that echo Tuberose Overdose, along with a heavy dose of apple, calling to mind just about anything from Donna Karan.

Fragrances like this are why the niche realm and the perfume industry in general have grown far beyond the bounds of what the market can ultimately sustain. There are too many products out there now, swamping the sub-sectors of what the average consumer will buy, with the gross overrepresentation of various segments exacerbated by needless designer-level entries in the niche realm. I Am Trash isn't really trash or trashy, but it's unnecessary, especially for a fragrance priced at over $50 an ounce. If you're in the market for something that smells like this, look to the aforementioned Calvin Klein, Banana Republic, or Donna Karan and save yourself time, money, and heartache.

Phantom Parfum (Rabanne)

Having never smelled Phantom EDT, I can’t fully assess the parfum’s place in the lineup, though, to be fair, Rabanne isn’t a brand I have much experience with anyway. (It was once called Paco Rabanne, after its founder, but in today’s world, gendering a company is practically a mortal sin—so begone, first name!) I’ll admit, I underestimated this scent. It’s actually quite pleasant.

The original Phantom, Rabanne’s first openly AI-generated formula, is a slightly bizarre hodgepodge of counterintuitive notes. The parfum, however, is a human-handed flanker, which raises the question: why not go all in? If you’re going to let the algorithm bless us, commit. Instead, Rabanne handed this one over to Dominique Ropion, Anne Flipo, and Juliette Karagueuzoglou, and it shows—Phantom Parfum smells “safe,” meticulously curated to fit every current trend: sweet, warm, soft, and loud. The opening is the same post-Invictus bubblegum top note I’ve smelled a dozen times this year. The transition? Predictably swift—an aromatic jolt of robust lavender, then the inevitable base of patchouli, vanilla, and woods. Familiar to a fault, though it does nod to Thierry Mugler’s A*Men (1996) and a handful of late-’90s and early-2000s gourmands.

Its best feature is the lavender heart, sharpened by what Rabanne claims is rhubarb—though I don’t detect it outright, more as a textural effect. As a starter fougère for men under thirty, it’s solid: well-balanced, versatile, and safely within the bounds of its target audience. Loud and sweet enough for a club night, but not so cloying as to repel anyone past that phase. I enjoyed it, but unsurprisingly, not enough to reach for my wallet.

Born in Roma (Valentino Uomo)

A prominent fragrance reviewer describes Born in Roma (2019) as opening with “fruity musky tones,” claiming these “nostril-tingling notes will recall the early 2000s Y2K dynamism and pop.” Yet, I find myself utterly perplexed about which fragrance he’s referring to. To my nose, this scent feels like a tired echo of the past five years—little more than a derivative riff on Invictus, akin to Hawas, but lacking its charm.

The perfume unfurls with that all-too-familiar sweet, pseudo-bubblegum accord—a synthetic medley of "froot" flavors that swiftly collapses into the predictable Ambroxan-driven heart. It’s a synthetic slog, a chemical haze that lacks any spark of originality. What elevates Hawas, in contrast, is its ambergris reconstruction, crafted with above-average, designer-grade materials. That salty, flattering ambiance lends Hawas a whisper of natural depth, a lifeline for someone craving even a hint of authenticity in their fragrance. Born in Roma EDT, however, doesn’t even attempt such finesse. While Ambroxan does appear in its expected dry-down slot, it sits there nakedly, exuding a stark, metallic saltiness with no effort to mimic the nuanced warmth of true ambergris. The result is a cheap, chemical midsection that feels oddly flabby and uninspired. It’s difficult to fathom why anyone would shell out the extra money for this when Rasasi’s Hawas delivers a superior experience at a third of the cost.

Perhaps Invictus, one of those early 2010s fragrances, was more influential than it first appeared, joining the ranks of Bleu de Chanel and Sauvage in shaping an era overrun with imitators. My issue lies in their sameness—they all seem to be chasing Invictus’s shadow. Born in Roma isn’t a bad fragrance, per se, but its “been there, done that” aura saps any joy from the wearing experience. I can’t recommend it. You want this? Reach for the original Invictus, or better yet, grab Hawas and revel in something with a bit more soul.

Gold+ (Commodity)

I'm pleasantly surprised by this fragrance. It consists of three main notes—nutmeg, saffron, and patchouli—and that’s exactly what I get. My issue with Gold+ is that it forgoes the vanilla freshness of its namesake in favor of a spice mélange that resembles Prada Luna Rossa Ocean EDP and Parfum, without adding anything new to the conversation.

Gold+ opens with an incredibly realistic nutmeg note, as if I had taken a McCormick shaker and dusted the spice directly onto my skin. The only other detectable note is a slight shimmer of ISO E Super to smooth the edges. Within ninety minutes, the nutmeg shifts to safranal, intensifying the fragrance with a quality reminiscent of Luna Rossa Ocean Le Parfum—but without the same depth or complexity. Still, it’s impressive.

The patchouli finally emerges, six hours later, though it’s weak. The nutmeg-saffron duo is so dominant that little else breaks through, leaving the scent locked into a simplified Italian designer profile. It remains static and unchanging until you do laundry or take three or four showers. Whatever these materials are, they’re nothing short of nuclear. With Ocean, even after four wash cycles, I can still smell it. Gold+ is just as clingy. If you want to drench yourself in liquid gold and never smell anything else again, this is for you.

Gucci Guilty Pour Homme Eau de Toilette (Gucci)

Frida Giannini

Gucci eventually surrendered its catalog of fragrances when Tom Ford parted ways with the brand in 2004, turning creative control over to Frida Giannini of Fendi fame. I sense her Italian influence in the original Gucci Guilty EDT from 2011 and sometimes wonder if Giannini's art direction, both during and after Ford's tenure, was shaped more by her years at Fendi than by Ford himself. At least she started out with promise; the myriad of offerings from Gucci in the years that followed are hit and miss. 

Guilty Pour Homme opens with a blast of crisp lemon, lavandin, and laundry musk, all undergirded with ethyl maltol as homage to the fruity-sweetness that every designer scent seems to need at weapons grade volume these days (it's rather quiet in Guilty).  The citrus and lavender manage to overcome the sugar in what becomes a suprisingly austere herbal/woody heart accord, something that plays well to both the unimaginative teen this is aimed at and the thirty-something who appreciates the zest of a cologne structure wedded to a base of modern musks, patchouli isolate, and the requisite 2010s wallop of Ambroxan. Also flitting in and out of perceptibility are notes of orange blossom and vanilla. 

There's a slight nod to Creed's Aventus in Guilty, although that's debatable. I smell a kindred stylization of pert fruitiness over dusky woods, and to be perfectly frank, the overall composition smells like it was an old mod of something from the early 2000s that was tweaked in a hurry to jog closer to Creed's new flagship fragrance. With that said, one is no substitute for the other, and if you think Guilty will get you to Aventusville, you're sorely mistaken. Where it does take you is to the ultimate middle-of-the-road designer hotspot of the mid-to-late 2010s, smelling fresh, clean, and, of all things, masculine. 

Eau de Protection (Etat Libre d'Orange)

Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back at my least favorite decade, the 2000s, I now see it was a time of freshness and metallic sourness, which is vastly preferable to the dessert-cart sugared ambers that dominate today’s fragrance landscape. Eau de Protection (2007), created by the Two Antoines, Lie and Maisondieu, house perfumers for Free Orange State, smells both fresh and sour, with a gorgeous rosy sweetness. Green and pert, it undergirds the ozonics. How does this read in 2025? Is it wearable?

Wearing a bittersweet green floral like Eau de Protection in today's world presents three issues. First, those too young to remember that era will think you smell weird. Second, the public may misinterpret the scent. Third, those who do remember might find it dated. Gen Z simply won’t understand, so if you’re a guy hoping to attract young women, good luck. Wearing a fresh green floral as a man also invites scrutiny from the gender discourse brigade, always eager to apply labels. Then there’s the occasional comment: “You smell like a girl I knew in college.”

Setting aside the social pitfalls, I really like Eau de Protection. It is unisex, leaning feminine, and reminds me of Banana Republic’s Peony & Peppercorn. This version, though, is far more refined, with better materials and a more subtle approach. This should be the defining masculine fragrance of 2025, if only because women have moved away from floral scents. Meanwhile, the Ambroxan-and-patchouli-isolate trend of Sauvage and Bleu de Chanel is played out. Eau de Protection is an ode to freshness, greenness, and floralcy, a gilded beauty in an olfactory Garden of Eden. I’m here for it. Full bottle worthy, though I tend to procrastinate with niche.