Grape Raspberry Eau de Parfum Spray (Al-Rehab)

Smelling Al-Rehab's Grape Raspberry fragrance is like experiencing my own version of Stephen King's The Langoliers. I've accidentally stepped through a time rip into a past that sits empty and devoid of life, with every molecule of this past world lingering in a forgotten state. It's November 12th, 1988. The week of my first flu. I spent the whole day in bed, and at 4:30 pm, mom entered my room with a big bottle of Dimetapp Elixir, which she duly unscrewed and administered to me via tablespoon. Just as memory recalls, a bottle of Dimetapp Elixir is there on my nightstand, and the spoon rests beside it. Except mom and the child version of me are nowhere to be found. Feeling nostalgic, I unscrew the Elixir and pour it into the spoon, marveling at how closely it resembles alien blood. As I bring it up to my lips, I catch a whiff of its radioactivity: fakey-fake "Great Grape Taste."  

Grape Raspberry EDP spray is that exact flavor in fragrance form. Every sniff gives Dimetapp. There's no sense in trying to parse "notes" with it. There are none. It's just artificial grape with an acrid sugary aftertaste, diabolically potent and difficult to stomach. And yet I'm strangely drawn to it. It smells like my childhood, specifically the ailment-ridden part of it (I wasn't often sick, but when I was, I was sick sick). Perfumers usually overlook that sort of thing in favor of happier recollections. The impulse is to attempt romantic or adventurous angles, with all sorts of gourmand, fresh, dusky accords meant to evoke happy summers at the beach, or huddling under a baseball dugout during a rainstorm with someone who wears a totally normal cologne. But what about being a sick kid and ingesting a bizarre purple pancake syrup for a low dose of phenylpropanolamine (PPA)? Which, by the way, is now restricted due to young women developing hemorrhagic strokes from a much higher dose of PPA in diet pills. Good times!

I'm not sure if the rest of the world also used Dimetapp Elixir, or if it's uniquely American, but my guess would be there are massive swaths of Europe that would be horrified by both the texture and flavor of it. Likewise, the scent of Al-Rehab's Grape Raspberry is the stuff of nightmares, a dense, syrupy-sweet onslaught of synthesized methyl anthranilate, petroleum-based chemical byproducts of synthesized methyl anthranilate, and refined white cane sugar in a concentration high enough to kill a man. Jacques Bogart's Silver Scent eschews this level of crude bombast by allowing the orange blossoms from which its methyl anthranilate is derived to peek through and lighten its load; don't expect that level of care here. Al-Rehab has always been a garbagey brand that isn't worth the $5, but with this fragrance they've out-niched the topmost echelon of esoteric niche and given me, perhaps the sole inhabitant of this niche, exactly what I needed. 

Dakar (Al-Rehab)

It's been a while, so I'm revisiting my Drakkar Noir clones. I ran out of the real stuff a year ago, and never restocked it for reasons that elude me. Yesterday I wore Taxi for the first time in over a year. I'm not sure if it macerated in the bottle, or I just never noticed its strength before, but it's a beast! I got fifteen hours and ridiculous tenacity out of it, and still smell it on the inside of my jacket. It's a lot better than I ever gave it credit for; Drakkar is a smooth, smoky fougere with near-perfect balance and adequate projection, but Taxi is smoother, at least compared to Drakkar's current formula. It's great stuff.

People have been asking me to review Al-Rehab's version of Drakkar Noir for years, and I never got around to it. Called "Dakar" (no relation to the capital of Senegal), their clone is a pale shade of green, and comes in roll-on and EDP spray. I bought the 50ml spray for ten bucks off Amazon, but that isn't the greatest deal. Parfums Belcam sells 75ml of their clone for eight dollars, and it smells surprisingly close to the original. And when I want something similar and at the same price-point as Drakkar Noir, I reach for Francesco Smalto's excellent version. Given how successful these are, I had high hopes for Dakar.

And Dakar did not disappoint! It's an interesting variant of the theme: all drydown. From top to bottom, it smells of an aged (and intensified) Drakkar Noir, conveying its wood-smoky characteristics with near perfect accuracy. The only noticeable changeup is a distinct cumin note, which adds exoticism to the otherwise familiar milieu. Its weakest phase is the top notes, very brief, unfocused, flat, and cheap. Nonetheless, this doesn't detract from the wearing experience. Dakar smells directly on point after two minutes on skin or fabric, and really blooms in its drydown. Vintage, full-throated Drakkar Noir is alive in this fragrance.

If you're into collecting Drakkar clones like I am, I highly recommend giving Dakar a try. After going through a few different versions, I've come to believe that Drakkar Noir is a remarkably easy formula to imitate. I suppose it's a straightforward case of GC analysis, with the understanding that roughly 10% of the main course is dihydromyrcenol. Dakar has a fairly complex ingredients list, with oakmoss included pretty high up the ranks. So yeah, this scent is about 98% identical to vintage Drakkar Noir from the 1980s, and maybe the 90s. It's strong, fresh, and smells like it belongs in a John Hughes or Joe Dante movie.

With that said, if you're someone who just wants a handful of Reagan-era classics, and you don't obsess over fougeres, just get Drakkar Noir. It's like $40 on Amazon, and you can get the 7 oz bottle, which should last you a hundred years. In any case, if you do opt for Dakar, just know that you're getting a powerhouse fern from a bygone era. This is going to raise eyebrows if you wear one spray too many, and even if you don't, you sure as shit won't smell "au courant." To me, that's a major plus!

Al Rehab "Avenue" Alcohol-Free Concentrated Perfume Oil (Crown Perfumes)

In light of the fact that Creed will soon raise prices again on their entire fragrance line, now might be the time to consider getting into other things. If some of those other things include "clones," so be it. When it comes to Creed clones, choices abound. There are ten times more Creed clones than Creed fragrances, with every recent release getting at least a dozen copycat iterations at various price points. Which brings me to Al Rehab.

A faithful reader of this blog has recommended on several occasions that I try Crown's take on Aventus, named "Avenue." I approached Avenue with an open mind, expecting a typical Al Rehab-style execution of a Creed. Which is to say, I expected it would approximate Aventus pretty well, but as with Silver to SMW, figured it would smell much simpler. In truth, Avenue does resemble Aventus, but when I break it down in detail I find it is very much its own fragrance, with its own unique characteristics.

I consider Aventus a conceptual perfume. The concept is "success," and Creed's idea of "success" is to smell literally like dollar bills. After an hour on my skin, that's what Aventus smells like. Sure, I get the pineapple on top, along with red apple, citrus, birch, rose, oakmoss, and vanilla. Eventually the rubbery rose, the dry birch, and the bitter moss coalesce into a "clean smoke" kind of accord that flattens over time, until it smells like Federal Reserve ink. American money has a very distinct dirty-clean aroma, and Aventus captures it perfectly.

Avenue more or less achieves the same effect after a few hours on skin, so in this regard it is quite similar to Aventus, although Avenue's smokiness is from a dry patchouli note instead of moss and birch. That said, I think Avenue is much "fruitier" and far more citrus oriented than Aventus ever was, in any of its batches. The fruits in question are bergamot and lemon.

Avenue is bursting at the seams with crisp, vibrant bergamot, and conveys this note with such clarity and surprising quality that I'm shocked I haven't seen more accolades for Avenue from citrus fans. If you enjoy rich hesperidic scents, this scent should wow you.

Interestingly, Avenue has no pineapple or apple notes. So if you blind buy it hoping for an accurate take on Aventus-styled pineapple, you'll be disappointed. The absence of pineapple definitely puts some distance between Avenue and Creed, to the point where I wonder if they were even trying to clone Aventus at all. But I prefer bergamot and lemon to pineapple, so this doesn't bother me.

When you think of Aventus, you automatically think of pineapple. When I think of Avenue, I can't help but think of bergamot. I believe there's even a subtler hint of Sicilian lemon blended into it, which makes the citrus effect that much more pronounced. At its price point I can safely say that anyone who wants a great citrus scent for pennies on the dollar would be remiss to not try Avenue. This is citrus heaven. I imagine enjoying this immensely on a sunny summer afternoon at a beach in Italy.

Also notable are quiet notes of silver frankincense, pine, and patchouli. The citrus explosion on top of Avenue lasts about twenty or thirty minutes, before segueing gradually into a very light accord of frankincense and pine. For a few seconds this early drydown stage resembles Pine Sol cleaning detergent, but fortunately the patchouli and frankincense rebalance things, and any chemical nastiness is short-lived. But look, that's the budget making itself known. What do you expect, right?

After an hour the patchouli, still heavily tinged with citrus, begins to "smoke up" the scent a bit, and the dollar bills idea appears. Here is where Avenue really resembles Aventus: it doesn't have the dry rose or the lucid birch notes of the Creed, but patchouli and incense can do interesting things, and here they shine.

Would I recommend Avenue to someone seeking a faithful Aventus clone? No. I would mention it, however. I would say that Aventus is a concept that can be stretched and pulled into a few different directions, and one direction is to loosely take the concept of any fruit and mate it to something earthy and a bit "smoky." Avenue takes different fruits, distinctly tart citrus fruits, and tows them into that same "smoky" Aventus-like direction, without coming across as an obvious dupe.

I certainly would hasten to point out that Avenue is one of the best citrus bargains out there. Unlike other Crown oils I've tried, the fruits in Avenue actually smell like genuine citrus oils, and emit a feeling of depth and quality rarely found in fragrances that cost ten times as much, let alone Crowns' asking price of a few cents per milliliter.

This is a simple composition that achieves a sophisticated effect for the price of a bergamot at the supermarket. Buy it, wear it, and enjoy it. You have absolutely nothing to lose, and everything to gain with Avenue. It's hands down the best Al Rehab I've tried.

Just don't tell people you're wearing Aventus. There's no point - Avenue smells great on its own merits, and deserves full credit for it.

Revisiting "Silver" By Al-Rehab

In 1995, the house of Creed broke new ground by creating a perfume that defied classification. It was neither fern, nor oriental, nor chypre, nor cologne, nor aquatic, nor even a hybrid of any of those genres. It was simply a "fresh" fruity scent with strong whiffs of green tea, bitter berries, an odd, blatantly synthetic "ink" note, and clean musks, and its name was Silver Mountain Water.

Another thing SMW defied was gender branding. This isn't a big deal in the post CK One fragrance world however, and Creed considers it a unisex perfume. It's not even alone in Creed's unisex range, either - there's also Original Vetiver, Royal Water, Virgin Island Water, and a few others. Like RW however, SMW is unique in smelling strange and hard to describe. Because of its unusual note pyramid, and its remarkable combination of bitter and sweet, SMW is different enough to spawn a whole group of imitators. These include Hamptons by Bond no 9, Casamorati 1888 Mefisto by Xerjoff, and a little three dollar cheapie called Silver by Crown Perfumes/Al Rehab.

I've not tried the others, but I've owned a 6 ml roll-on of Silver for a couple years now, and used exactly a third of it, I think mostly to testing (I've worn it as my SOTD two or three times). My primary issue with it is that it's ungodly strong and difficult to apply. I actually put the roller on a shelf in the sun in the hope that time and light would degrade it a bit, and recently returned to find it has indeed grown weaker, but not by much. Out of curiosity I spent eight bucks on 43 ml of the stuff in atomizer EDP form, both a travel sprayer and a one ounce bottle. I was interested in finding out if the spray smells different than the oil.

The answer is most definitely "yes."

The oil to me smells much more like SMW than the spray does. Maybe it's the concentrated nature of it, but I get a firmer top accord of citrus, blackcurrant, and metallic "fresh" from the oil, whereas the atomizer is mostly alcohol in the first three seconds, then an overbearing, olfactory fatiguing citrus, and a paler, "inkier" berry note, all infused with an odd, musty smelling musk. The spray is more muted, overall. The biggest divergence is in concentration, with the spray seeming more diffuse and even a bit powdery, while the oil is sharper. I get three hours of noticeable sillage from the spray, before the scent becomes much, much tamer.

What strikes me most about the spray is that it resembles Royal Water more than SMW to me. If you asked me to identify what this scent is a clone of in a blind test, I would sooner guess RW after smelling the spray version. Its bitter, musty, herbal, and powdery characteristics are better aligned to RW's strangely hissy citrus, basil, and juniper berry blend than SMW's brighter tea and currant accord. Royal Water is also incredibly gender neutral, and in some ways I think it should have been called Silver Mountain Water instead of something as tacky as "Royal" Water. It actually smells like silver right out of the atomizer, and continues to smell bitter and a little dirty for hours. Its juniper manifests as a distinctly sweet(ish) purpley note, much like Silver's atomized currant note, but it's not nearly as sugary. All told, despite what might seem like drawbacks to fans of the oil, I like the faded aspect of the Royal Watery Silver better than the roll on by a considerable margin. Maybe I'm just biased against oil.

I definitely wouldn't classify the spray as a viable replacement for SMW, but the oil could easily do the trick if applied judiciously in hot weather. The spray replaces Royal Water though, obviously. The thing that merges all of these fragrances is an acutely synthetic vibe. None of these frags smell even remotely like anything in nature. SMW has that metallic tang to it, and Royal Water has its own metallic note, and a distinctly "perfumey" aura that Silver's spray mimics well. Whenever I consider buying a bottle of RW, the thing that holds me back is its perfumey feel. I'm not sure I want to wear a Creed that smells generically like unisex, somewhat feminine perfume. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of owning a Creed?

But then I smelled Silver again, and realized that the unisex gender-bending potential outweighs that con. There's something fascinating to me about a smell that seems masculine in some ways, and overtly feminine in others. Luckily I don't have to drop a Benjamin on a Creed to attain that level of sophistication (if you could call it that) - all I have to do is wear Silver. It should keep people guessing just as effectively.

Al-Rehab "Secret Man" Alcohol-Free Concentrated Perfume Oil (Crown Perfumes)

Probably the least talked-about Al-Rehab perfume oil out there is this one, "Secret Man," and for good reason: it's incredibly mediocre stuff. But like most of these, it rips off a very popular fragrance, in this case Tommy Girl by Hilfiger. If you like whitewashed, fruity tea-florals, then you might enjoy Secret Man. Then again, why wear an inferior clone when the original is still in production, and cheap to begin with?

The problem with Secret Man isn't even that it clones a popular nineties designer feminine, but that it conveys the citrus-sweet and floral-tea structure with shampoo-grade aroma chemicals. It smells like a fancy shampoo. There are hotels in Vienna (I stayed at one) that stock shampoos and soaps nicer than this, actually. So wearing Secret Man sends an unfortunate message - "I've showered using cheap hotel soap, and sadly cannot afford a better soap because I can't afford a better hotel."

The notes are aldehydic blackcurrant and lemon, green tea, jasmine, sandalwood, and musk. The blackcurrant note is identical to that used in Silver, and the jasmine is fairly close to the jasmine of Tommy Girl, so recognizing the influence is easy. The sweetness of the top accord flattens the tea note in the middle, which subsequently smells rather mute. Eventually Secret Man gets woodier, and dries down to the same musk that the rest of my Al-Rehabs exhibit. Not terrible, but disappointing, the smell of a man whose only secret is his good taste.

Al-Rehab "Al Fares" Alcohol-Free Concentrated Perfume Oil (Crown Perfumes)

Another big thank you to reader LustandFury for bringing a really good fragrance to my attention. He recently commented about Al Fares, and said it smelled rather close to his card sample of Green Irish Tweed, more than Cool Water or Aspen resemble the Creed. Naturally this piqued my interest, so I bought it. I've worn Al Fares a few times, and partially kinda-sorta agree with him. It definitely has a weighty, eighties-styled structure reminiscent of a brisk violet leaf fougère, yet I find it far more similar to Aspen. 

Since Aspen is a lushly coniferous variant of GIT, it's easy to smell Al Fares' relationship to either scent. (CW doesn't factor in as much, although there are some inevitable parallels to it as well.) My final conclusion regarding this oil is that it's actually a near-perfect clone of Eternity for Men, with a sprightly twist of wintergreen pervading its lovely heart.

One could splice Aspen's crisp, minty pine-sap top note with Eternity's woody base, connect the ends with an identical lavender note, and end up with Al Fares. In this regard you're getting the best of both worlds, while creating a whole new thing. But the latest version of Eternity actually has a brightened-up lavender, so any difference in smell is regrettably minimized. Al Fares is more successful in cloning Eternity than Cuba Paris Grey, which opted to transplant its progenitor's bulk with an airier Calone note. I think a better course of action in cloning is to take the template's strong point and amplify, even to the point of distortion, and that's what Al-Rehab did by greening up the lavender and intensifying it enough to stretch it across eight solid hours. 

If you're in the market for the finest extant clone of Eternity, one which captures with total accuracy the depth of that scent's original formula while nodding to the genius of Aspen's refreshing spirit - kind of a two-in-one classic mish-mash deal - then I heartily recommend this perfume oil. It won't disappoint. However, if you want a lighter, fruitier interpretation of Eternity, Cuba Grey may still be the way to go. Al Fares is stronger, heavier, and reminds me of why I avoid wearing Eternity: I don't like it. Adding a clean-green accord makes it much more attractive, though. I'll certainly wear Al Fares whenever I'm jonesing for Aspen (I'm all out of Aspen).

One more thing: I must say that I find it funny to encounter an Arabian perfume company that so nonchalantly shirks its geographical associations with exotic spices, rich incense, dark floral arrangements, and medicinal woods, to copy two cheap and immeasurably popular American frat house "fresh" fragrances. I know Al-Rehab's other scents are more characteristically Middle Eastern, but Al Fares suggests the guy under the Keffiyeh is Van Wilder. It's nice to know they have a sense of humor.

Al-Rehab "Fruit" Alcohol-Free Concentrated Perfume Oil (Crown Perfumes)

Sherapop's incredible blog recently opined on the woe that is oud. More specifically, "Oud Madness," a syndrome in which every designer and niche brand from here to Calcutta finds it necessary to market two or more oud-based perfumes. That this coincides with the recent development of a synthetic oud aroma chemical is beside the point - there is simply no reason for oud to be getting this kind of traction. This isn't Calone, people. When you step out your door in the morning and wait in line at Starbucks, then shuffle into the office, you don't smell a pungent, medicinal aroma wafting off your neighbors and colleagues. This scent has not permeated Western culture. Unlike freesia, vanilla, coffee, pink pepper, and the aforementioned Calone (fresh, aqueous, melon-like), you don't encounter oud on the street, in the office, at cafes, or in the gym. People don't even know it exists. Stop a couple of random clean-cut guys on the block and ask them to identify their favorite oud scent, and watch their already-bored eyes glaze over further. Their very first words will be, "what's oud?" Sorry oud fans, but you're living in a bubble.

To show solidarity with Sherapop, and anyone else who is tired of hearing about oud, I've decided to take my own little stand against the oud craze that has manifested itself in the various board rooms of Eastern and Western fragrance concerns. I'm not totally anti-oud, but I'd like to minimize its already minimal impact. I'll do it with Al-Rehab. When I review fragrances from Al-Rehab, I'll review their "oud-less" formulas only. That's tough to do, because Al-Rehab loves oud, and puts it to good use. Many of their alcohol-free concentrated perfume oils approximate the effect of oud, or incorporate that note in their pyramids. And Al-Rehab has dozens of fragrances, actually more than I can count. Their website has a complete index, but for buying purposes it's easier to jump onto Amazon to see what's readily available. There's no less than thirty different scents listed. Fruit, one of the lesser-known Al-Rehabs, is also there, currently going for under four dollars. Get it while you can. Who knows how long it'll be there.

I encourage you to get it because Fruit smells really good, and it surprised me. I expected it to smell harsh and synthetic, because fruit fragrances usually wind up very plasticky and mean. Al-Rehab's take does smell very synthetic, yet it approaches the subject matter in its own unique way. And strange subject matter it is - how many flowerless fruit fragrances can you think of? The whole "fruity-floral" category relies on the interplay between green and edible for a "fresh" and "sweet" effect. But Fruit isn't a fruity-floral. There's nary a flower to be found in its composition. Instead, this perfume is comprised of several highly-blended fruit notes that are mated to a heady, slightly funky musk. It's a weird accord that strives to be different and succeeds. This concept was risky, and I think they pulled it off. But just barely.

They have quite a catalog.

The first minute on skin is super sweet, syrupy, an intense blast of stone fruits, like wearing a big gummy wad of dried fruit punch. It smells exactly like fruit(s). Yet the question immediately arises: which fruit(s), exactly? There's a massive apricot note that leaps out at me and practically strangles me with a big, saccharine, juicy kiss. But there's more than just apricot. Blended in there is red apple, white grape, peach, plum, passion fruit, pineapple, strawberry, mango, and pear. Sniff once, and you can't get any of those specific notes out of it. Sniff again, and there they all are, for a split second, piled high. Then again, and they're gone, back into a sweetly abstract miasma of edibly-unidentifiable fructose. There's an underlying shadow to all the brightness, but I can't quite figure out what it is. Until the further drydown, an hour later. Then it becomes clear.

Settled under the brighter top and mid-stage is a colder currant note, and it smells identical to the blackcurrant in Silver, a more widely-known perfume. In fact, there's a crucial interplay between this familiar note and the snowy musk tucked just under it. That musk becomes quite a bit sweatier as the minutes pass. Three hours into the drydown, its twangy animalism is more prominent, with sweetness an afterthought, although it's a stretch to say Fruit becomes completely musky. It remains relatively discreet, with a careful balance between sweet fruitiness and skin-scent, never tipping into full-on musk-bomb territory. Shards of blackcurrant, apricot, and pear remain in play. It all stays rather simple-sugary right to the end.

Fruit is unisex, you can expect no less than seven hours out of it, and it's strong enough to work in cold weather as well as high heat. Is it better than Silver? I'd say this is preferable because it's weirder, very distinctive, much more unique. Silver vies for attention over Silver Mountain Water, which itself spawned several imitators in a subset of "fresh" fragrances from the nineties. But Fruit isn't quite like anything else out there. It's all about intense fruit. Brisk, juicy, sugary fruit. Musk just holds it together and makes it a proper perfume, and not a Yankee Candle. You can't get samples of Fruit, but for three and change, you have very little to lose in blind buying it to smell for yourself. Just go easy on it - too much and you'll smell like the Kool-Aid man.

Al-Rehab "Silver" Alcohol-Free Concentrated Perfume Oil (Crown Perfumes)

If Creed could be said to operate on the law of negative returns, then Al-Rehab, which is a trademark of Crown Perfumes, operates on bending the laws of all known returns, much as a high-quality prism bends and refracts the dullness of white light into a full-color spectrum. The feat of their magnificence isn't recognized in the quality of their products, but rather in what they charge for them: next to nothing. It's more expensive to purchase a bottle of Aqua Velva at Walmart than to buy a 6 ml roll-on of Al-Rehab perfume oil. With Aqua Velva, you get what you pay for, and not less. With Al-Rehab, you get more. Much, much more.

What amuses me to no end on internet fragrance forums is the collective need to "cheat Creed." People are always looking for a way around dropping hundreds of dollars on a Creed perfume, and they usually do it by finding a designer scent that duplicates the overall scent profile of a Creed at a lower cost. An obvious example of this is the Cool Water/Green Irish Tweed situation. Mont Blanc's Individuel has been accused on more than one occasion of being exactly the same as Original Santal. Paco Rabanne XS is, by many accounts, a better deal than Himalaya. And Mugler Cologne has no business being copied by Original Vetiver.

People's preferences are their own, and far be it from me to tell anyone what to like and not like (I review fragrances on the assumption that anyone bothering to read me cares what I think); we can only wear what we enjoy, and avoid what we don't. But it's pointless to kid one's self into believing a designer (or inexpensive niche) frag is capable of matching a Creed in quality and complexity. Even if its pyramid is fuller than the Creed's (Cool Water against GIT again), the quality of ingredients in Creed perfumes are such that individual aroma chemicals are multi-faceted, yielding their own vague "off" notes, their own facets. The depth of their compositions is not easy to match.

Many in the internet community of fragrance lovers find Al-Rehab Silver to be a dead-ringer for Silver Mountain Water, and it's very interesting because the believers are even more ardent than any of the staunchest Cool Water and Individuel fans. They don't think this smells "like" SMW - they think it smells EXACTLY like SMW. Any difference is negligible, detectable to only the most acutely sensitive nose. To quibble with the usual Creed sticker shock is criminal in the face of Al-Rehab Silver's existence, or so they suggest. This is, by many accounts, a surefire replacement for Olivier's signature scent. Look no further to smell like a Creedie.

How do I feel about all this? What do I think of the comparison? More to the point, what do I think about Al-Rehab Silver? I think the whole thing is a little overblown, but I say a little, not a lot. Quality of ingredients is not quite up to par with Creed (their Givaudan cassis-tea accord is far from easy to duplicate), and complexity is lacking, as Silver is rather linear, and SMW is not. That said, the quality of ingredients is nevertheless shockingly high, given what it costs for a 6 ml roll-on perfume oil. Three dollars? This is amazing. You could go tens times higher and still have room for price-gouging. Silver smells vibrant, alive, multi-dimensional, especially in its first five minutes on skin. I don't know how they did it, and more to the point, I don't know how they did it with inexpensive synthetics, but it's no small feat of technical wizardry, that's for sure.

How to compare? SMW opens with a crisp 7-Up citrus pop, bolstered by sweet blackcurrant and a bitter mineral/metallic accord. Depending on batch, it can either smell very citrusy and tea-forward, or very sweet and berry-strong. Eventually, SMW's synthetic element, that cold metallic thing, begins to separate into more decipherable components, yielding notes of mint, musk, petit grain, neroli, sandalwood, and ambergris. Blackcurrant stays the course, but gets very dark and "inky" before fading away. The fragrance remains sheer, sparkly, and fresh for the duration of its lifespan. It's pleasant and unique at all times, and there isn't a whole lot out there that aptly compares to it.

Al-Rehab's take is nearly identical for about five minutes. The top is a magnificent dance of lemon, blackcurrant, tea, and something metallic and redolent of hairspray. It's criminally close to SMW for this limited period of time, and all the better for it. Once that first pop subsides, things become significantly less remarkable, and diverge greatly from the Creed. The blackcurrant strengthens, nearly eclipsing the tea and the metal, and becomes almost cloyingly sweet, although it never quite crosses the line. For a good three hours, there's isn't much else to be had. If you're not wild about blackcurrant, you're not going to love this. Fortunately the tea note is just strong enough to balance things, and the metallic vibe fades in and out during the drydown, reminding me of the unique and indescribably modern characteristics to this type of fragrance.

Hints of sweet musk, just a little skanky, and the vaguest hint of jasmine accompany the far drydown, and to Silver's credit it remains fresh and well-made to the very end. If you're someone who appreciates this scent profile (Tommy Girl by Hilfiger is yet another option), but don't want to commit to something as egregiously expensive as Silver Mountain Water, then Al-Rehab's concentrated oil is the way to go. Aside from SMW, it does not get any better than this, and since SMW isn't a hugely popular fragrance, those who smell Silver on you won't have a clue that you're sporting a Creed clone. You're doing everyone a favor by sporting a great one. And if you insist on considering perfume an art form, it bears mentioning that some of France's greatest art forgers command incredible levels of respect from critics and collectors alike, so there's not necessarily any shame in flagrant imitation.

But if you're someone who truly loves this kind of scent, appreciates all the fragrances that cover its territory, but still feel that only the best will do, Silver Mountain Water is, in the bitter end, still superior, and still worth the money. It has suffered from batch variations in recent years, and isn't quite as reliable as it used to be (am I getting more berries, or more tea this time?), but its design is flawless, its execution is unparalleled, and its originality is a trait that can never be taken away. Silver is what happens when a talented nose wishes to pay homage to such greatness without sacrificing the integrity of his product. While it's not exactly a winning battle, I can certainly respect the effort, and the end result.