Gold Man (Amouage)

Gold Man is my favorite Amouage fragrance. I have decants of six masculines from this brand, and Gold is the one that stands out the most. Actually, despite their obvious quality, the other five Amouages aren't products I would ever purchase and wear. If someone told me I absolutely had to buy an Amouage, Gold would be the one I'd drop coin on.

This is an old-school fragrance, through and through. The first thing I think of when it hits skin is none other than Royal Copenhagen (by Swank or Five Star). I think it's telling that Luca Turin compares Gold to Mouchoir de Monsieur in The Guide, because MdM has a prominent lavender note, and so does Royal Copenhagen. Thus, I must say that a powdery lavender note (and equally powdery mimosa) is responsible for the pop of freshness from the top of Gold Man, which aligns its scent profile ever closer to the ever cheaper RC. Adding to the stark beauty of the top notes is the sweet funk of civet, which emerges in the first thirty seconds, a natural-smelling animalic twist that puts a smile on my face every time I smell it. I happen to love civet, and don't encounter it enough in contemporary masculines. Here it is very satisfying.

What ensues is hard to describe. There is a listed jumble of notes that supposedly inhabit Gold's structure, but few of them will reach out at you during a full wearing. Gold is powdery, but I wouldn't say it's a powder bomb. It's just very, very dry. Almost too dry, as if Guy Robert were trying to bottle the essence of the Sahara desert when he crafted it. Many guys flock to Amouage to experience the brand's signature rendition of frankincense, and Gold showcases incense better than the rest of the range. After about twenty minutes, the incense note appears, smelling incredibly crisp, cool, and downright silvery, despite the composition's namesake. It pushes past a condensed barrage of clipped florals, mostly rose, jasmine, and muguet, with hints of mimosa and heliotrope. The floral accord, which persists throughout the lifespan of the scent, is what really accounts for Gold smelling so close to Royal Copenhagen, because both fragrances exhibit the same dessicated, pressed-in-book bouquet.

Accompanying the incense is a strong muguet-infused greenness, with just the barest hint of fruit, possibly peach. This effect comes and goes, but it all leads in the far drydown to a soft amber, comprised of equal parts spiced myrrh, powdery patchouli, and genuine sandalwood oil. Of all the Amouages in the classic lineup, Gold is by far the most masculine, and begs for a suit and tie. This is a diplomat's scent, something to be worn by men who keep apartments in New York City for downtime between speeches at the U.N. It's expensive, it smells expensive, and it's made expensive using good raw materials on a seemingly unlimited budget.

I think the real key to Gold's success is the nose behind it. Guy Robert is responsible for several masterpieces, including Dioressence, Gucci Pour Homme, the original Calèche, Èquipage, and Doblis, and Monsieur Rochas. He was one of those rare talents that always took purity and elegance to a higher level, and you can be sure that the understated exoticism of Gold has its rightful place in his esteemed list of masterful accomplishments. This scent is one of the greats.

Epic Man (Amouage)

Epic Man is little more than a "woody-fresh" masculine with a surprisingly lackluster drydown arch, especially when one considers the supposedly high-quality materials Amouage uses. One reviewer on Fragrantica writes of Epic:

"Amouage have been known to imitate French style. God knows they have made a few ten-course perfumes. Epic man is their five-course meal. It is the perfect middle ground between opulent and edited."

That's a good way to put it, but I think the editing is a little choppy. I don't smell the tea note that is supposedly in there, nor do I get a concise oud note (although oud is definitely there). I do smell quite a bit of fresh frankincense, which in its own way is rather nice, but Epic Man isn't about incense. I'm not sure what it's about, to be honest. It's one of the few Amouages that smells a bit cheap. It begins with a surprisingly unpleasant arrangement of camphoraceous notes, a weird accord of pink pepper, incense, caraway, mace, and geranium. It's very bright, and instantly reminds me of Vick's VapoRub. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure the smell of Vick's belongs in a jar of Vick's, and not in a perfume.

The drydown blends patchouli, saffron, the usual resins (myrrh, olibanum, elemi) with accents of mace, sandalwood, and cedar. To my nose, the drydown consists mostly of saffron, patchouli, and elemi, with just the faintest touch of sandalwood, and hangover hiccups of that nasty top accord. I read there's castoreum in Epic Man. I don't smell it. I do in earlier incarnations of Dali PH (fortunately not in its latest reformulation) and Chanel Antaeus, and in the end I don't care for castoreum. But perhaps castoreum could lift the composition above and beyond the ordinary, which is what Epic's drydown is: painfully, painfully ordinary. It's all very generic, old-school "men's cologne" at the four-hour stage, and from there I get patchouli, a smudge of precious woods (basically a disassembled woody amber), and the final peppery tang of elemi. 

If you like elemi resin, you'll find Oscar for Men to be a more rewarding experience. It costs about $15 at Marshalls, and actually smells quite natural and easy-going. If you want a no-frills "fresh" masculine, I can think of thirty fragrances that smell better, and at least five that surpass Epic on every count.

Reflection Man (Amouage)

I happen to like Reflection Man a bit more now than I did when I first tried it a couple months ago. Its greenness has grown on me (pardon the implicit pun). At first I thought it smelled like a marshmallow drizzled in lemon juice, but not anymore. Its bright neroli, pink pepper, and jasmine accord shines with total clarity, and I'm getting a huge dose of sandalwood and rosemary as well. There are a couple of comparatives for this.

My first thought is that it smells roughly the same as Perry Ellis Portfolio Green. That's a good thing because I like Portfolio Green's structure (although I dislike its execution - too chemical). Reflection is obviously made of better materials and is therefore a lot easier to wear than PG. But a part of me wants to say that this Amouage is a greener variant of the original Joop! Homme. That's tricky, because the two fragrances only have two notes in common - jasmine and sandalwood - but they treat the notes identically. Reflection's jasmine is really sweet and a little indolic, almost like an old-fashioned granny soap from around the time scented soaps were becoming popular, the 1940s and '50s.

Joop! Homme's jasmine is bundled into a very strange orange blossom, rose, and tuberose accord, the black-hole equivalent of a white wedding floral. All of its blossomy-green characteristics have been condensed down to a tight sweetness, tinged with indole. This is why Joop! Homme has always smelled a bit chemical to people - it's a highly blended composition with relatively poor note separation, and many of the notes share the exact same qualities, resulting in a sort of fuzzy effect. What saves Joop! is that it goes whole-hog in that direction and never compromises, with an equally fuzzy violet on top and sandalwood below. It never cops out and tries to apologize for what it's doing. It's the perfect postmodern floral, bright and alarming, like one of those neon-sign installation pieces you see at the MOMA.

Reflection is the same. Its jasmine is airier and fresher, but only the sweetness and slight funkiness of its blossoms peek through. Its sandalwood is also very smooth and grainy, with an abstract woodiness that is never like a natural precious wood. These strange chemical affectations work in the fragrance's favor, because they work together to create a fluffy, fresh effect. I'm pleased with what I smell. This is one Amouage scent that works pretty well in warmer temperatures, and I recommend wearing it during spring and late summer. Can I say it's a great value for the money? Perhaps. I'd never drop the big dollars on a full bottle, but I can see why someone else might. I'll stick to the two cheapies that work with similar elements at a tiny fraction of the cost, but I'm probably just a cheapskate.

Jubilation XXV (Amouage)

Myrrh is interesting. It has a sharp and bitterly-astringent side, and also a sweetly-resinous side, making its integration in perfume both easy and tricky. It's a fairly uncomplicated endeavor to use myrrh as a central note in a composition, as its cheery anisic characteristics cooperate well with many other resins and woods, like opopanax, elemi, cedar, etc. Opopanax shares myrrh's spiced sweetness, while elemi accents its piney-evergreen qualities, and woods like cedar and birch bring out its woody-ambery side. On some weird, clinically theoretical level it should be hard to pull off using myrrh in perfume without eliciting associations with antiseptic alcohols, as it's the primary scent and flavor in many antiseptics and mouthwashes (the original Listerine, for example), but when you consider that Myrrh smells good, it makes sense that it has been used successfully.

Jubilation XXV is a myrrh perfume, and a very good one. It has one of the richest fruity-resinous top notes I've ever encountered, loaded with blackberry, mandarin, opopanax, oud, and myrrh, myrrh, and more myrrh. The effect is syrupy, spicy, fresh, sweet, and very dense, but somehow coherent, especially when the incense begins to well up from the heart. There's the rosy sweetness of guaiac wood, an oozing honey accord, and a few other materials jumbled into the mix, all working together to frame the myrrh. The last time I met a myrrh note this strong, I was wearing Eau Sauvage Parfum. It's hard to know when myrrh is appropriate, because in winter it dries out and smells smokier and thinner than it should, while summer over-amplifies its fuzzier and sweeter qualities, and I'm not ready to endorse Jubiliation XXV as a summer fragrance. I do think it smells good (possibly best) in cooler, damper air. Try it in the autumn to see if it feels right.

Would I ever wear this fragrance? Actually, no. I appreciate its structure, its focus, and its execution, but find its notes too dense for my taste. In heat it takes on a Yankee Candle effect, and is almost nauseating. Bay and cedar notes sustain a pleasant period in Jubilation's evolution, but it's not enough to convince me that $300+ is a fair price. Why is it that when I abandoned Creed to explore other niche brands, I began experiencing saccharine Yankee Candle notes? Bond no.9 and Amouage are offenders, with a few chemically-sweet "fresh" accords that seem destined for overpriced wax. When family members smelled Jubilation, they said things like, "It's kind of generic," and "It's harsh." One person said, "It smells like a cleaner" (had to be the myrrh). So it's not a hit with your average nose, either. This is not a compliment-getter on me. Disappointing.

I still think it's a good fragrance, and wouldn't be surprised if people in Europe and the Middle East think it smells nice. Perfumes that are both deeply resinous and fruity-fresh are pretty rare, and when a good one comes around you have to take serious stock of what you're smelling - vegetal hydrocarbon secretions that serve in nature to repel, rather than attract. Human nature diverges from animal tendencies in finding these materials attractive, but if we think wearing them enhances our own attractiveness, we may have missed the plot. Jubilation smells good, but doesn't smell good on me, and therefore remains a quality perfume that I tried and passed on. Even Amouage can't win 'em all, but good show nevertheless, and bravo Bertrand Duchaufour.

Lyric Man (Amouage)

Lyric Man is a testament to the greatness of modern perfumery. It is inventive, culturally invaluable, and endlessly interesting. The world of rose soliflores and chypres abounds with examples of what I call "obvious flowers," fragrances that exhibit analogs of true rose via rose materials, usually damascenone and real rose oil. My reference for true rose is Tea Rose by The Perfumer's Workshop, and I challenge anyone to name a better soliflore. There are rose soliflores that are as true as Tea Rose, like Red Roses by Jo Malone, and Guerlain's Rose Barbare, but thus far I have not encountered a scent that surpasses Tea Rose. Doesn't mean a truer rose doesn't exist - it just means I haven't encountered it yet.

I apply the same open-mindedness to my experience with the other category of rose, i.e., rose compositions. These are usually chypres, but sometimes take the form of orientals and fougères. Scents like Pinaud's Clubman, Azzaro's Acteur, and Lauder's Knowing inhabit a space different from the soliflore, taking facets of rose and utilizing them as accents to broader flourishes. Clubman's rose illuminates the powdery, mossy-woodiness of the fougère. Acteur's is aromatic, and bridges cardamom and fruity notes to darker patchouli, oakmoss, and woods. Knowing lets its rose peer gently through a classical chypre structure of labdanum and moss, with just enough body to filter its ruby rays past the green. In each case the flower is noticeable, but not overwhelming. Lyric Man uses rose in an oriental manner, letting its velvety texture waft through a two-tiered structure of citrusy green notes and a dry, resinous woody amber, mostly incense, vanilla, wormwood, and Australian sandalwood.

The trick with Lyric is to recognize that it is a composition with a soliflore development (from a distance of six to ten feet - that's right, six to TEN feet), which resembles an old and bitter flower, aged to the point of being dry, and a bit stinky. I wore Lyric to work today. I was in the office for five minutes, when a female co-worker walked in and said, "Oh, god! What's causing that stench?" I grinned. "Uh-oh, it could be me." She walked over, sniffed me, and said, "Yeah, it's a sweet smell, but underneath is this burning thing. You don't usually smell that loud!" Lyric had been on my skin and shirt for an hour. My colleague likes perfume, and is usually complimentary, but Lyric was definitely not working for her.

Two hours later another co-worker walked by and said, "Oh, what smells so good?" I raised my hand, and she added, "That's nice. It's really pleasant, really soft." I took this to mean that Lyric had progressed enough to soften its blow, and its drydown was offering up some pleasant vibes. What surprised me is that she was about ten feet away when she commented, and Lyric had been on me long enough to be a skin scent. Apparently Lyric Man does not do "skin scent." Lyric Man can kiss a woman's nose from ten paces, and without the advantage of a moving host - I was standing still when she noticed me. Reviews for Lyric are mixed, and my experience with it has been mixed, but I still like it quite a bit. It starts with a nice burst of dry lime and galbanum, followed after twenty minutes by a rich fir note. The fir is woody, with the requisite dry-fresh appeal of your average pine note. Ninety minutes in, the incense reveals itself, flanked by saffron and nutmeg (I get nutmeg, mostly). Through every stage of development gleams a bitter, flinty, almost herbal rose note.

Longevity for Lyric is good. It remains noticeable for a solid twelve hours with moderate application. However, it quiets down at the six-hour mark. Comments ceased, the potential for compliments diminished, and I had a little difficulty finding it on my shirt, although it was still radiating softly from skin. As it ages, the rose becomes more prominent, and gives me a feeling of papery crispness, a dry, sour, almost unfriendly aroma. It's almost mean, but not quite. Despite its aridity, its quietness is so measured and well-judged that Lyric never loses its balance. Amouage's scent exhibits an Eastern rendition of rose, which isn't the sweet, fruity Western idea, but a dark, dry oil. It blends nicely with fresh incense and a spiced nuance of sandalwood. Because the note separation in Lyric is so good, exploring each note is not only possible, but necessary for full enjoyment. I spent a solid two hours marveling at the distinctions between fir, vanilla, incense, rose, spices, musk, and woods.

I've decided not to purchase a full bottle of Lyric Man, but if I come across another sample or a decant, I will spring for it. My co-workers' assessments seemed both damning and apt: Lyric is sweet and sour, with a strident bitterness that makes it stinky to some, and approachable to others. I think Lyric is Daniel Visentin's poetic take on rose, with the flower's musty, peppery, and musky facets brilliantly combined to form something old and new. It's the long way around to rose (Western iterations mark the shortcut). If any criticism should stick, it's that Lyric is needlessly stern (why not bend a little, and dribble some raspberry sweetness into the rose oil?), but it smells great from beginning to end, and warrants unlimited admiration and the utmost respect. I have not encountered a better rose composition, but I've hardly reached the end of the road. My journey continues.

Memoir Man (Amouage)

According to the company website, Amouage's Middle Eastern-inspired perfumes are now crafted in Grasse under the direction of Christopher Chong. Is Grasse where Amouage ended up, or has it always been based there? I lean toward believing the brand's official history, which claims that Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman approved the perfumery project in 1983 as a nationalist endeavor—presumably to showcase the country's exotic olfactory treasures. While some might question the legitimacy of once again linking royalty to niche fragrances, a glance at the Sultan's biography tells a different story. He was educated in elite English institutions and even joined the Queen's Royal Infantry battalion. It’s not hard to imagine that he blended his understanding of European luxury with his homeland’s deep-rooted traditions of incense, rose absolutes, and spices.

That said, he didn’t create the perfumes himself—Guy Robert was behind the first. It’s said that Amouage Gold was once the world’s most expensive perfume, and given its quality, along with that of every fragrance from this house, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true. These fragrances smell exceptional, yet there’s an oddness to them. This strangeness originates with Gold Man, which smells like a powdery, Scandinavian-inspired barbershop, far removed from the mysticism of the desert. Memoir Man, too, doesn’t strike me as particularly Omani, though I admit I’m no expert on Oman. Memoir smells more like one of those classic American fougères or chypres from the seventies, eighties, or nineties, the kind that were loaded with crisp minty herbs, aromatic tobacco, robust artemisia, cedar (reminiscent of Balenciaga Pour Homme or Venezia Uomo), and precious woods, all rounded off with a bold twist of musk and ambergris.

The ambergris is subtle, tucked behind a silvery veil of frankincense. It smells natural, but then again, so does everything in Memoir’s composition. This fragrance is a nod to the French tradition of woody ferns atop earthy sandalwood and moss bases, and it’s easy to forget that it was launched in 2010. Karine Vinchon Spehner, who also crafted Interlude Woman and Opus III, seems to have a deep affinity for wormwood, as the artemisia note in Memoir is beautifully rendered. Framing it with lavender, spearmint, basil, vanilla, vetiver, and carnation enhances its freshness while maintaining its piney sharpness without ever veering into Yatagan territory. Its structure is familiar to me from a handful of inexpensive designer scents, but that also works against it, and it doesn’t feel like something I really need to own. On principle, I won’t spend a fortune on a fragrance that, when broken down, resembles pieces of Balenciaga, Venezia, Yatagan, and even Tsar or Zino. 

Yes, Memoir is made with high-quality natural ingredients and feels rich—the way its oily sheen clings to skin suggests a high concentration of premium, viscous essences. Amouage delivers a three-dimensional depth and realism that I don’t experience from brands like Malle or Lutens. Still, I notice a similar richness when I wear Venezia Uomo, and in my view, the quality between Venezia and Memoir is comparable. If you love woody fragrances, Memoir Man is worth trying. Even if you don’t plan to buy it, you’ll appreciate its classic structure, crafted with incredible skill and the finest materials. Wearing it is a nostalgic experience; if you're like me, it might send you sifting through your collection of vintage scents to find at least one that shares its charm, if not its lofty price tag.