My Brief Thoughts on Club de Nuit Bling

So Armaf has a new one dropping right now, and the internet is buzzing.

Weirdly, the brand has opted to shroud the fragrance’s pyramid in mystery, listing only a few notes and fantasy accords: “stardust,” “velvet woods,” “flower prism.” Supposedly there’s some citrus and vanilla in the mix as well. The Fragrantica write-up by Sandra Raičević Petrović hints at green notes like geranium and lavender, but her information appears to be secondhand.

My first thought was, maybe this is a Green Valley clone. I have this fantasy that Armaf will finally cut the crap and craft a worthy copy of Creed’s fabled 1999 masterpiece, but the two percent of me that dares to hope is violently oppressed by the ninety-eight percent that knows it’ll never happen. Green Valley is the ultimate modern green scent, and it would be pure genius if Armaf cloned it. Unfortunately, they’ve long abandoned the Y2K, late-nineties throwback vibe in favor of milking the post-Aventus cash cow, endlessly cloning Bourdon’s pineapple formula. I own one of Armaf’s better-known Aventus clones, and while I admire it and wear it now and then, I still think Aventus—and anything that smells like Club de Nuit Intense Man—just isn’t my thing.

What’s annoying about the Bling rollout is how people online are pulling random theories out of thin air. For some reason, a bunch of guys on Fragrantica and Reddit are convinced Bling is a clone of Chanel’s Allure Homme Edition Blanche. “It’s got citrus, vanilla, and woods, so it must be Allure Homme Blanche.” To which I say—what? Why? Where did that even come from? Because it has citrus, vanilla, and “velvet woods,” that automatically narrows it down to an Allure Homme flanker? There are no Armaf clones of Allure Homme or its flankers, for that matter. Honestly, none of this makes sense. If you haven’t smelled the fragrance, nobody’s telling you the real notes, and bottles aren’t even in circulation yet, how do you just declare it a clone of something? Where did that comparison even start?

This is a wait-and-see situation. There are maybe two or three guys online who have smelled it and posted ridiculously brief “first impression” reviews on YouTube, almost as if they’ve signed NDAs. They all suggest it smells like Club de Nuit Intense Man with a big mango accord and a pinch of herbal aromatics layered over the usual smoky pineapple, bergamot, and ashy woods. If that’s true—and that’s a big if—then Club de Nuit Bling isn’t worth the wait. I’m still sitting quietly in the background with my fingers crossed that, against all odds, Bling turns out to be a creamy-green nineties golf fragrance disguised as metrosexual fluff.

Hope springs eternal.

Côte d'Azur (Féraud)

Released in 1988, Côte d'Azur by Avon/Féraud smells of salt and peaches (interesting combo) in the top accord, which rapidly resolves into a tuberose and muguet heart, with that salty essence lingering in the periphery well into the base. 

I agree with Derek (Varanis Ridari) that this smells like it could easily be the feminine version of Mario Valentino's Ocean Rain (1990), which was Edmond Roudnitska's final farewell. Valentino's scent is a very Roudnitska-esque arrangement of overripe, banana-like fruits, salty brine, and dry sandy tones over a pared-down chypre base. Féraud's is simpler on top (not quite as avant-garde) and smells perhaps 60% similar, but winds up in a different neighborhood at the ten minutes mark: Creed's Fleurissimo.

I'm talking vintage Fleurissimo, 2005 and older. For the rest of its considerable duration, Côte d'Azur is a dead-ringer for the Creed, and nearly the same quality. The biggest difference is the lack of real ambergris, which is abundant in the vintage formula of this particular Creed, but that salinated accord isn't half-bad. If you remember Fleurissimo as it was pre-Kering (and pre-Aventus) but can't swing the cost of a vintage bottle on eBay, try Avon's ghostwritten late eighties Féraud. Heck, it might've been done by the same perfumer. Who knows?

From Pyrgos Using "GoDaddy Airo" and an Explanation of Benefits

This is the "soft opening" of my blog relocation: frompyrgos.com (link here)

Not all of the content has been uploaded yet. Still working through 13 years of posts and gradually transferring them over in alphabetical order. So bear with me, and if the attenuated amount of content bothers your OCD or something, I won't take it personally if you'd rather wait until 2026 to stop back. 

Someone asked me recently why I chose GoDaddy Airo as my hosting service, and told me there were better options. No argument there -- for blogging, there are far better options. It might seem like a strange choice, and it is, in some ways. GoDaddy's blog hosting is clumsy at best. The options for how to set up and organize content and a "blogroll" are severely limited. The best option was to do the scattered menu approach of just having brands alphabetically listed out, with "All Posts" at the top for those who are just looking to read the latest review. It works better on desktop than mobile site because the mobile lets you click on a brand but doesn't automatically take you down to the posts, forcing the user to scroll to the bottom of the screen to read what they clicked on. Pretty stupid, but apparently it's the best they can do. In regards to the writing, they only offer a grey font (a little on the light side for my liking, but again, no choice), but otherwise the posts themselves look fine. You also have the option to use a vertical brand list on each article page, which may or may not be easier to navigate on both desktop and mobile. You be the judge.

There is a method to my madness, however. While far from ideal for blogging, GoDaddy Airo's main strength is commercial online product sales, and they offer a slew of services for those who want to sell from their site. While not currently a commercial site, I plan on dabbling with making a perfume in the future, which may or may not be something I want to sell (will have to see how that all goes, of course), so by the end of 2026 or early 2027, that will potentially be a thing. For that, GoDaddy will deliver the goods, should I go in that direction. And with the number of formulas I have, there's a good chance that at least one will be worthy of small batch production and distribution. My plan is to formulate something that will smell of ballpark Creed-like quality (maybe 75% there) and sell it for Davidoff prices (sub $100). When I see what the chems are priced at, it's amazing to me the markup on these niche frags. It's also amazing to me that people have given up on the middle class buyer who just wants something that smells of 1970s Brut quality for under $300, and can't find it because it doesn't exist. 

So I essentially went into this looking for a fragrance blog site that could double as a merchant site. There were competitors to GoDaddy that offer similar things, but Airo's ease of use and beginner-friendly merchant options (sort of) were fine for my needs. I've read a lot of criticisms of the user-friendliness of this host, but thus far have only had simple and straightforward experiences. I'm not thrilled with the limitations for site building, but I have a fairly low-tier plan and don't expect much more than what's on offer, so I guess I shouldn't complain. Feedback is always welcome, of course, and you'll be able to find me on Fragrantica if you need to reach out and have a convo about anything fragrance related: My fragrantica page (link here).

Also, please bear with me in regards to the number of new posts here. I will continue to post for the remainder of the year, but you'll probably notice a decrease in the frequency of postings, all of which will be due to the transition. Don't panic. Once I'm fully up and running in the new location, things will get "back to normal," as my grandmother would say. See you there!