CHRG Pour Lui (Adidas Sport)

Adidas fragrances are currently licensed by Coty, and I have to say that they've done a pretty good job with the brand. Most of the masculines are sneaker juice, but the quality of materials is kept to a slightly higher standard than one might expect, and occasionally a good one sneaks in. Sport Field remains one of the better green-grassy casual spritzes out there, and it's an option if you're looking for something light and well made. Fast forward to today, and we have CHRG pour Lui, which was released in 2019 and contains a super-sweet and surprisingly green fruity amber accord. It isn't something I wear very often, but I don't regret it when I do. For 100 ml at $14, what's not to like? 

It opens with a tropical accord of green apple and kumquat, and after light application I sense a touch of grapefruit adding a bit of balancing acidity to all the sugar. Spray heavily, and the top notes last for thirty minutes and smell syrupy, weird for a "sport" fragrance. Eventually the fruits ease up and allow woodier notes to poke through, mostly cedar and a dusting of fresh pine, and they get a tad salty and dry. The perfumer, who remains anonymous, injected a bit of sea air into the mix, which works in a composition that started its life smelling so close to being gourmand. Longevity is respectable at four to five hours, and projection is polite, perhaps extending five or six inches beyond your collar, at least in the morning. This isn't going to wake anyone up if they skipped their A.M. coffee fix, but it's a nice little buzz of brightness to wear on casual Fridays. 

Adidas markets CHRG as part of their sport division of fragrances, and here's where I think it gets a bit weird. While the salty quality seems designed to blend well with the salinity of human sweat, the sweetness, which never truly dissipates, might feel like overkill during a run, especially in summer heat, so be advised if you're interested in using this as an actual sport cologne. There are far more appropriate options out there, some of which aren't even marketed for sport use, like Davidoff's Sea Rose and Malizia Uomo Vetyver, and even Azzaro's Chrome Legend. But regardless of how you use it, if you're looking for a fruity-green spirit-lifter, Adidas has you covered here, and there's no shame in that. 

Victory League (Adidas)

In sports, victory is usually attainable by putting the other side on the defensive and watching them squirm while you play through. Adidas appears to enjoy releasing cheaper variants of designer successes in the hopes that their competition will come from frags in higher price brackets. In this case the target is Allure Homme, a variant of Cool Water that has itself spawned numerous imitators, many from its own brand. Allure's market share is generally unshakeable; the scent has secured the admiration of millions of consumers in the last sixteen years, and woe be it to those who think a lowly twelve dollar cologne could distract from its beauty.

I think Adidas punted well in releasing Victory League, because it strikes me as a competent shot at Chanel's lofty goal post. While not exactly the same, and clearly a different structure in terms of specific notes used, VL aims to generate a lighter, sweeter version of Allure's profile, using distinct vanilla and spiced fruit notes. Some reviewers have said it resembles Boss Bottled, and that may be, but I get a definite Allure vibe when I smell the cinnamon-dusted citrus and apple notes in VL, and the drydown brings a pleasantly smooth and warm vanillic amber with hints of wood, mainly cedar. The requisite white musk plays against the amber, lending transparency and freshness to an otherwise sturdy gourmandish fougère. I find the lavender in this is light and transient, with its own soapy sweetness, rather similar in effect to stuff like Skin Bracer and Cotton Club. I'd classify this frag as being "Allure Lite."

I doubt VL was ever popular enough to make the suits at Chanel worry, or even take notice, but at least the boys in Adidas' back room tried. One might argue that it is a touch too sweet, and at times it does feel that way, perhaps due to the preponderance of vanilla, but as in Sport Field, the material quality seems decent enough to give VL some texture and prevent it from becoming "blobby." I find it's no sweeter than Avon's Mesmerize for Men, another underrated scent with edible notes. Victory League's longevity clocks in at eight hours, making it a viable option for an office scent. Why not drop ten dollars or so on this the next time you see it? At the very least it's something fun to wear while shopping with the family on the weekend.

My Spring Picks

May is the loveliest month. It's not too hot, sometimes even cool outside, with occasional showers coloring everything forty shades of green. And man oh man, do I like me some green - the greener the better.

This month I've used a steady rotation of all the greenest stuff in my arsenal. Mind you, I consider anything with heady florals and herbs to be green, as well as pure greens featuring citrus and grasses. The season for green is surprisingly short - by August I've switched to muskier fare. But it's beautiful while it lasts. The past two weeks have seen repeated applications of the following:

Tsar (Van Cleef & Arpels) - Simply an amazing fougère. Such gorgeous bergamot, lavender, artemisia, oakmoss, and many other dark, spicy green notes. It's more refreshing than a walk through a forest in the rain.

Sport Field (Adidas) - This is Creed Green Valley Lite. A pop of lemon and ginger, then hours of air conditioned coumarin playing the grassiest one-note I've ever smelled. Divine, and criminally affordable.

Silences (Jacomo) - Perfect for rainy days. Starts off with a punch of galbanum, and slips through the reeds into flowers and bouquets of cut stems. When I smell this on my shirt the day after, I totally understand the meaning of "true green" in perfumery. This is nature in a bottle.

Sung Homme (Alfred Sung) - A good spicy, soapy, and unerringly green chypre with the soul of a fresh fougère. Nice on Thursdays and Fridays when Irish Spring 2.0 is the desired effect.

Horizon (Guy Laroche) - Bright grapefruit, mint, lavender, crushed herbs, dihydromyrcenol, ambergris, and cedar, all bundled in a seaweedy aquamarine-colored bottle. I don't reach for it as often as the others, but I never regret it when I do. Another good one for the rain.

Brut (Helen of Troy) - White floral powder. Not good for high heat, but when there's still a cool breeze to cut the sun, Brut works wonders, especially with light application.

Pour un Homme de Caron (Caron) - I'm never really sure when to wear this scent. Its frigid lavender top is too cold for winter; the warm and powdery vanilla-musk base is too heavy for summer. Spring is a good season I suppose. Autumn too, but we have Yatagan for autumn. Anyway, you can't go wrong with hyper-realistic bouquets of French lavender. The fragrance for gentlemen, this stuff is.

Just as an aside: Am I the only one who finds Kristen Stewart attractive? My guy friends think she's mediocre, even unattractive. As a movie buff I'm familiar with all the current beautiful female stars, and there's certainly a slew of more traditionally-beautiful women coming out of Hollywood, but I dunno . . . Ms. Stewart has always captured my imagination in ways the other gals couldn't. Although I hate most of her films (except The Runaways), I often find myself watching them just to see how she moves through the frames. The girl's got something going on. Anyhoo . . . thanks for reading.

Sport Field (Adidas)

Sport Field reminds me of one fragrance: Green Valley by Creed. I have yet to review Green Valley here because I'm saving that one for the spring. I consider it a wonderfully bittersweet grassy chypre, with top notes to die for. Adidas developed a green scent several years before Creed's creation, one that similarly conveys the bitter aroma of cut grass in an open field. It's as though someone took a scalpel to Green Valley, removed its top notes and two minutes'-worth of its heart, shifted some ingredients around, and then repackaged it as the "new" Sport Field (I know nothing of the original green-boxed Sport Field). It's Green Valley on a budget.

I'll get this out of the way first - Sport Field's ingredients are clearly pedestrian in quality, and there's nothing in the scent profile that raises eyebrows. However, the composition is a departure from the expected sweet waterfruit/violet leaf/white musk "sport" formula. It's a sport fragrance in the '70s tradition of Aliage, not Polo. The elements may be budgeted, but they're well chosen and composed. It opens with a bright burst of lemon and ginger, which rapidly transitions into a delightful wedding of coumarin (hay), and a nondescript pastel-pink sweetness that weaves between the greens. Light touches of pine, anise, and tomato leaf lend it depth and lengthen its lifespan, and its base is a simple hay and pine affair. 

Having found love for Sport Field, I'll be exploring other Adidas scents with more enthusiasm. I'm realistic though, and doubt that Fair Play, Ice Dive, or Pure Game will yield anything for me. Still, I'm happy to have Sport Field, and find no shame in wearing it. Chypres are hard to come by, and to find one that nobly embraces the bitter verdancy of meadow grass is something special indeed. Highly recommended!