I deferred to my fiancée on this one. Azzaro’s The Most Wanted EDP Intense came out in 2021, and around then I was gifted a 30 mL flacon that I never wear. Nothing is wrong with it; it’s a decent fragrance that smells good. But with its Batman bottle and ridiculous name, it is as “basic butch” as it gets. That’s right: Basic BUTCH. Clout-chaser clubbing juice.
It doesn’t get more basic. Intense bubblegum orange blossom opens the fragrance, with just enough cardamom to add a woody-spicy dimension. Next comes a toasted-sugar interlude that Azzaro calls “toffee” but that smells like more grapey bubblegum, all resting on an unabashedly synthetic, vanilla-soapy “amberwoods” base that drums along like the Energizer Bunny for hours. It’s less a fragrance than an olfactory texture: smooth.
But smooth gets boring, and the human brain, ever in search of meaning, starts combing that near-featureless landscape for anything that breaks the monotony. By hour six, the cheap chems Azzaro smudged together are jangling in your nasal canal like Marley’s chains on Christmas Eve.
For some ungodly reason, Rayhaan decided to clone it. Why? Who the fuck knows. A large bottle of the Azzaro runs about $70 if you apply yourself. That’s not cheap, but it’s hardly Creedy, I-blew-this-month’s-rent niche pricing. If I can hop on eBay and get it for the price of a discounted Montale, and it smells good (which it does), I’m solid . . . right?
Well . . . Rayhaan may have done the rarest of rare things and created a clone that is effectively superior. They aimed low and somehow bullseyed it. The fragrance has no printed name, only the striking relief of a wild canine on both box and bottle. It’s easily the most gorgeous bottle in my collection, and it deserves some sort of award. If I found it in a stranger’s luggage, I’d be slightly unnerved; it’s a container fit for Victorian vampires. Yes, the graphics are A.I., and yes, that kinda sucks, but it just works. It looks badass.
The fragrance? Basic Butch. It’s 99% Azzaro, minus the cardamom and with a more distinct toffee note in the heart. Without the cool spice, it’s smoother, more balanced, and warmer than its template. The top is little more than concentrated orange blossom and that same toasted sugar: sweet, a bit grapey, a bit floral. Expensive chewing gum.
My fiancée, who has a great sense of smell, called the Rayhaan “rounder,” “softer,” and, interestingly, “more complex.” She almost favored the Azzaro but found it too loud and piercing, and said she’d prefer it toned down. To her, the cardamom was indistinct yet detectable, a spice that enlivened things. The Rayhaan struck her as sweeter, more vanillic, and warmer, while the Azzaro, despite its spice, smelled cooler. She found that counterintuitive until I explained that cardamom is considered a “cool” spice. Her verdict: too close to call. The Azzaro is fresher and less sweet; the Rayhaan is richer, with a more resolute candy thing going on and a smoothness that never relents.
Here’s what Rayhaan figured out. When smoothness goads the brain into picking a fragrance apart, an unlikely spice like cardamom eventually addles that brain into submission. Keep it sweet all around, and the dissection becomes sensory quicksand. The more you fumble for something solid to grab onto, the deeper you sink into the sugary morass, only to realize that dying a smooth death is sweeter than living a spicy life.
The cardamom in the Azzaro is an interesting note, but because my brain seeks it out, it becomes THE note. Removing it leaves a simple chord of grape bubblegum, butter toffee, and woody amber that is truly coherent, the olfactory equivalent of a T-shirt and ballcap. I feel weird wearing it, since I don’t drive a tricked-out Subaru and I don’t call everyone “Bro.” But I still like it. It might just be the perfect clone.