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.