Wild Vetiver: Cut The Sh*t, Creed

I can see how this new release by Creed could be considered "great." It smells great in a safe way that borders on generic. It feels pretty good to wear it. It's a very attractive bottle, sort of a proprietary shade of green that I haven't seen elsewhere, save for lime popsicles from the dollar store, the extra-cheap kind that come wrapped in waxy white paper. Even the name is fun, conjuring imagery of unconstrained fields of tall vetiver grasses waving hello as far as the eye can see. It's all good. 

Except Wild Vetiver is a little too close to Eladaria. Same bored, sugared peony-rose thing, which weirdly smells nothing like an actual flower. This note, by the way, is pretty much the whole shebang when you get past the initial Yankee-Candle "timur pepper", which is really just a mildly spiced grapefruit/bergamot hybrid with a bit of supporting aspartame blackcurrant. What I find strange is the fruits smell deeply fake and sweet, just like the rose, and rather like—you guessed it—Yankee Candle. You can identify everything, and it smells bold enough to stick for a few hours. Not exactly cheap, per say. But Silver Mountain Water's blackcurrant is also sweet, and even a bit sour, and it doesn't smell remotely foody or aircare-like. Not so, Wild Vetiver. 

I hoped the base would bring in the grassy fields to justify the name. But the drydown is merely a watercolor sketch of Ambroxan and Habanolide, Ambrettolide, and maybe even some methyl laitone for more silky-smooth pseudo sweets. Ever since Carmina, Creed has been playing with this low-sugar rose-jam-meets-orange-marmalade thing that worked great in that fragrance, and somewhat well in Eladaria, but with Wild Vetiver it's a case of diminishing returns. Creed's new "Senior Business Development Manager" is happy to take a successful accord and milk it. Fine for some, perhaps, but for me? Cut the shit, Creed, and bring back Green Valley. You can do "green" better than this.

What note didn't I mention because I never once smelled it here? 

Crap, it'll come to me. 

Eladaria (Creed)

People Like to Bitch, but I think Kering's Creeds are Sexy!

In 2019, Banana Republic released Peony & Peppercorn, a fragrance I own and still enjoy wearing occasionally. It is restrained with respect to peppercorn, instead foregrounding a bright, soapy, pink peony accord. While it does not read as conventionally masculine, I have never found it uncomfortable to wear. The fragrance was composed by former VP of Takasago,Vincent Kuczinski.

Last year, Creed introduced Eladaria, describing it as a “morning rose” built around dewy accords and cool textures. Having finally spent time with it, what immediately stands out is its striking similarity to Peony & Peppercorn. This is eyebrow-raising, particularly given that Carmina previously exhibited subtle parallels to Banana Republic’s Dark Cherry & Amber. In effect, Eladaria smells like a partial convergence of those two Banana Republic fragrances. Its rose accord appears to rely on the same structural framework used in Carmina, while its peony is rendered with the same bright, sudsy clarity found in Peony & Peppercorn. The difference is one of emphasis: in Eladaria, peony ultimately dominates, whereas rose jam with hints of lavender and orange zest leads in Carmina.

The handling of pepper distinguishes the two peony-forward compositions. In Peony & Peppercorn, Kuczinski’s formula barely acknowledges the peppercorn note, allowing peony to carry the fragrance from opening through drydown. Eladaria also privileges peony, but its pink peppercorns remain a consistent and defining textural element from the first spray through the base. Banana Republic’s fragrances are licensed by Maesa, and to my knowledge there is no formal relationship between Maesa and Creed. That said, one cannot help but wonder whether Vincent Kuczinski himself is the perfumer, or at least a main collaborator behind Eladaria.

If that were the case, it would explain a great deal. This particular Creed reads as a luxury refinement of Peony & Peppercorn, though it does not meaningfully extend the original concept. Instead, it remains faithful to the same pepper-and-floral architecture. I detect aldehydes and pink pepper at the top, followed by a faintly ambery sweetness—likely ethyl maltol used in a non-gourmand capacity—before an intensely soapy, citrus-free transition into a linear peony accord, anchored by the same firm rose structure present in Carmina, except here the rose is far lighter. Eladaria is a peony scent.

There is no question that Eladaria is beautiful, and it fully earns its name. Still, it is difficult to ignore the oddity of Creed seemingly mining the Banana Republic mod bank. Dark Cherry & Amber likely contained several viable formula iterations that went unused until Creed’s attention yielded Carmina (although I still think it's closer to Love in Black). Now Eladaria presents itself as an unmistakably close modification of Peony & Peppercorn. The addition of Ambroxan lends salinity and depth, reinforcing the familiar musk and cashmere wood base, but beyond that, the two compositions are uncomfortably close, frankly much closer than Carmina is to Dark Cherry & Amber.

Kuczinski has been VP and Senior Perfumer at MANE since 2011, and MANE perfumer Mathieu Nardin composed Delphinus (which I have yet to review), so there is proof that Creed has collaborated with Kuczinski's firm in recent years. I'll go out on a limb here and say that given this connection, it's likely that Kuczinski was in touch with Creed during Eladaria's development, and perhaps a notebook formula of his 2019 creation was purchased and Creed-ified into the scent. 

I would happily buy and wear Eladaria, but that is more a confession than a recommendation. More rational consumers might look at the price tag for this Creed, compare its scent to Peony & Peppercorn, buy the $20 fragrance instead, and live the based life. I say more power to them. 

Is Dunhill Fresh Creed's Green Valley on the Cheap?

Green Valley is my favorite fragrance. It’s the most beautiful scent I’ve ever smelled, and nothing else has truly come close. Creed’s Original Vetiver is in the same neighborhood and gave me a similar sense of awe, but Green Valley went further: richer, lusher, denser, more expansive, more complex, and unforgettable.

Since Creed discontinued it back in 2010, cruelly in my opinion, I’ve been searching for something comparable. Nothing really measures up. Paul Smith Man is maybe halfway there if you squint, but it’s still a stretch. Dior Fahrenheit (the original, not the flankers) also shares some grassy-floral, green qualities, but its defining petrol-violet “barrel” accord dominates too strongly for real comparison. I’ve read Dua Brand’s Vert Instinct is the closest clone, but it’s pricey, and I don’t trust Dua. They don’t seem like true perfumers, and I’m not comfortable buying from a company that outsources its wares.

Recently, though, I pulled out my bottle of Dunhill Fresh. This one’s odd. Released twenty years ago by Maurice Roucel, the name suggests citrus brightness, soapiness, maybe aquatic freshness. Instead, it opens with a muted violet accord reminiscent of Fahrenheit, only blurred, as if Roucel draped a foggy green filter over it. And here’s the twist: it reminds me of Green Valley. At first, I thought it was just the Fahrenheit overlap, but when I went back to my empty Green Valley bottle and sniffed the atomizer, I noticed something uncanny. The residue, oils clinging to the glass, gives off a rich violet and tea-like aroma that matches the heart of Dunhill Fresh almost exactly. It feels as if Roucel captured that hidden aspect of Green Valley but left out its grassy-bright overture, likely because Dunhill wasn’t paying Creed’s budget for natural materials and there was no realistic way for him to replicate them. Since he's a true genius, Roucel didn't even try. 

Dunhill Fresh doesn’t smell like Green Valley -- let’s be clear about that. What it does smell like is the semi-evaporated dregs of Green Valley. There’s something in its structure that carries a mysterious resemblance. In the far drydown, ten hours later, when I smell where I sprayed, a familiar fruity cadence emerges, followed by a soft grassy lilt. It’s faint, a ghost of an accord, but it brings the comparison into focus. At that point Dunhill actually does echo the Creed.

It’s a tricky comparison because Green Valley has often been likened to other Creeds, especially Green Irish Tweed and Silver Mountain Water. Back in 2011, when I was still wearing my bottle of GV, I understood the SMW comparison but never the GIT one. To this day, I can’t see the resemblance. GV and GIT are worlds apart. With SMW, the link is clearer: GV carries an accord of blackcurrant and warm citrus, just as SMW blends currant with mandarin orange. But in GV that accord is just one thread in a much larger tapestry, while SMW remains leaner and far simpler.

Dunhill Fresh is also lean and simple, though it handles its plush accords sparingly, which is rare in perfumery. Somehow Roucel bottled the soul of Green Valley, but the soul alone isn’t enough. To understand what GV truly was, you need the bitter wildflowers rising through fields of tall grass, the gingery-bright shimmer breaking through a misty morning of sunlight in liquid form. Roucel couldn’t capture that, and perhaps no one could. Yet one has to wonder if he wasn’t the shadow hand behind GV itself, since to this day no perfumer has ever been officially credited for its creation.

Carmina (Creed)

In 2019, Banana Republic released Dark Cherry & Amber in its Icon line, a wonderful table cherry and praline composition by Claude Dir that is as majestic as it is austere. It smells great, and wears well in most situations and seasons, but I find that its praline and cherry blossom accord is easily its best feature, with the cherry merely a top note that segues well into the florals. It's a cheap fragrance that doesn't smell cheap, and could easily pass as something by Montale or Etat Libre d'Orange.

Carmina is one of the first Kering Creeds, released in 2023 shortly after their acquisition, and is thus subject to the latest version of “Let’s Shit on Creed,” formally titled “Kering is Driving Creed Into the Ground.” The premise is simple: Kering is a big company full of suited gorillas who wouldn’t recognize a proper perfume if it popped them in the schnoz. Naturally, their ownership of Creed means that all future Creeds will officially suck and not smell like Creed. Every NPC from here to the Kerguelen Islands will consider themselves privileged to impugn the legitimacy of a brand that has forever eschewed its former base blend of natural ambergris tincture and Ambroxan for new, “scratchy” Norlimbanol and safranal bases that smell generic and flat. Since Carmina comes in the new 75 ml Kering bottle and boasts a pyramid suspiciously similar to Dark Cherry & Amber, it must be an unused Claude Dir mod that was simply appropriated and given a luxury makeover.

Not so fast, cynical NPC. I've finally had a chance to wear Carmina and spend some quality time with it. As an owner of Dark Cherry & Amber, I can tell you that Carmina is similar about three hours into its drydown, but the differences from top note to eleventh-hour base make owning both far from redundant. Carmina smells gorgeous at every stage, shimmering for hours with a remarkably radiant accord of sweet Bing cherry preserve, fruity pink pepper, Fahrenheit-style violet, and jammy Turkish rose. This is all atop a stunning blend of safranal, Cashmeran, Norlimbanol, and Ambroxan. The material quality is Creed level, and the scent is reminiscent of Creed Love in Black (2008). The fragrance resembles Love in Black just as much as it does Dark Cherry & Amber. Frankly, I think Kering didn’t pay Dir's formula much mind at all; they took an easier route, using a forgotten mod from Creed’s own feminine line from 15 years prior and “updating” it with contemporary tropes of cherry and overly sweet florals. Carmina feels like a rush job by Kering, relying on a pre-existing Creed formula that they merely gave a facelift.

Anyone who gives this a thumbs down needs to explain why, as I find it hard to believe anyone could smell this and think it's just another overpriced cherry fragrance. There’s a reason Carmina has become popular among women; it has effectively become Creed's feminine Aventus—ironic, since Aventus for Her exists. Carmina smells amazing. I don’t miss the ambergris; Love in Black didn’t use it either, likely because it doesn’t suit this scent. It's addictive, with crystalline cherry and rose as its standout features. Unlike Dark Cherry & Amber, Carmina captures the essence of cherry from top to base. Creed has a new masterpiece, and as always, the only question is: who is the perfumer?

The Trump Anomaly: How Olivier Creed Accidentally Harnessed the Unfortunate Power of "Orange Man Bad"

"Donald, this smells familiar."

This weekend I was on Reddit. I know, I know. What was I thinking? There was a thread on Creed titled "Creed company's origin? How are they getting away with a fake story" -- and I had to pitch in my two cents. I know, I know, I know. What was I thinking? It's not bad enough that Reddit is populated with ignorant trolls that ceaselessly babble about stuff they know nothing about; they occasionally venture into interesting territory, and turf up just enough nonsense to lure the likes of me right on in. And boy, was I in. 

The gist of the thread was that Olivier and Erwin Creed are liars who have conned the world, ala Gabe Oppenheim's The Ghost Perfumer. Nothing new there, folks. I've already hashed and rehashed my opinion on that. But just to choke it up again, and I'll be as succinct as possible here, it's not all that bizarre for Creed to do that. Did they stretch the truth on multiple occasions? Did they exaggerate their pedigree to make their brand more appealing? Did they "con" the world with dubious claims about royal appointments and a three hundred year legacy? Maybe. Sure, maybe they did. 

But let's be honest here, people. We know what the Creeds were doing. It all made sense. They have an old family that does date back several generations, and their forefathers were in the fashion biz. They were in the "riding habits" biz. Eighteenth century leather makers like the Creeds were in a sophisticated business, one which entailed the production of leather goods, but which also required such goods to be palatable to the public, and in the 1700s, that meant making the leather smell like something other than disgusting raw animal hide. Gee, I wonder what would make dead skin smell good?

Aside from that, James Henry Creed and all the Creed tailors of that bygone era were busy making saddles and boots and gloves and jackets, and probably also made saddle soap, powders to condition and scent the gloves, little olfactory trinkets to scent the boots and jackets and get rid of the nasty. Every high-end leather maker since the dawn of time has done that. Every tailor dealing in "sports" equipment dating back to Caesar has done it. Can we stop pretending we don't know this?

This gets me back to the Reddit thread. On this thread were numerous young men who were all about pretending they don't know everything I've just said. It was all about how the Creeds are liars, con men, they have "no evidence" of perfuming anything prior to 1970, how do they get away with the lies, the lying liars that lie? 

One guy commented: 

"If you want a company with REAL history just go with Guerlain."

Another guy said,

"They claim to have made fragrances for the likes of Winston Churchill and such, but there is no proof. Compare that to Guerlain who has an extremely well documented history. Creed = lies lol." 

 And yet another said:

"My take is Creed is probably 50 or so years old and the rest is marketing to convince you that bottle of perfume that cost $10 to produce is worth $500."

This was followed by a response from another user:

"Not true. There are actual receipts etc from the 1800s for tailored goods and royal warrants. The original store in Paris has the actual warrant from Napoleon framed in the store. There is history to the Creed brand but not just for making perfumes. Doesn't matter if they embellish things a little, every company does for marketing reasons."

This prompted a response from the other guy:

"Can you provide a link to a verifiable document? Up until as recently as 2 years ago no documents could be verified anywhere. There seems to be a long history of no documentation, including a total absence of warrants. If they have proof in their shop it seems reasonable the rumor would have ended."

This led to me saying:

"My friend, you clearly don't know what you're talking about. You want to see Creed's royal warrant? Just look at any one of their Private Collection boxes. Their warrant with royal signature is printed on the back of every one of them. I get it's fun to criticize Creed. But you've just embarrassed yourself.

This got a windy response that ended with the sentence:

"If you have something objective to add, let's see it." 

I posted this photo: 

 

It has the royal warrant clearly displayed. The guy had claimed that he owns Private Collection fragrances and that none of his boxes have the warrant on them, but when I posted this picture he shut up right quick and I haven't heard from him again. Conversation over, as it should be. (Pretty clear the only lie on the line was the one about owning Private Collection Creeds, as evidenced by how easy it was to shut this guy down.)

This got me thinking about how people grapple with what I call the Creed Conundrum. I’ve written about this before: there’s something about Creed that seems to cloud rational thought. Call it Creed Derangement Syndrome: an obsessive need to heckle the brand, accusing it of fabricating its entire history. The prevailing narrative? Olivier Creed conjured the whole legacy out of thin air, hired modern perfumers to craft the scents, and let the truth be collateral damage. And if I don’t buy into that outrage, well, then clearly I must be a gullible fool, a perfect mark for this suave charlatan and his so-called phony empire. How could I be so naive? What’s wrong with me?

This is the same dynamic I see with Donald Trump. For example, he steps up to a microphone in front of a crowd and says something like, "I love Mexicans and Mexico, they’re wonderful people. But they’re not sending us their best. The people crossing the border are drug dealers and rapists." Okay, it’s a bit uncomfortable, I’ll admit. The phrase "I love Mexicans" is meant to soften the impact, but I have to carefully unpack what Trump is actually saying: he believes that many illegal border crossers are young men with bad intentions, no viable way to earn a living in the U.S., and likely to engage in more criminal behavior while here. Laken Riley’s family would probably agree with him on the issues of drug dealers, killers, and rapists.

I then sit back in my chair, and think, "Well, he didn't say that very well. And he's not as clear as he could be. He's trying to say that Mexico and Mexicans are generally likable -- lovable, even. He likes them. But the border problem is the worst of Mexico mixed in with some of the others, and it's those baddies that we need to focus on, because if we're just letting them into the country, no questions asked, we've got trouble."

Then I turn on the news. 

The chyron: . . . TRUMP SAYS MEXICANS ARE DRUG DEALERS AND RAPISTS . . . 

And I sigh. That's not what Trump said. It's on tape. I know what he said. Why are you gaslighting me on what he said? It's the border. We've been having issues down there for decades. They've been getting much worse in the last twenty years. He's addressing that. He's making his case. I don't particularly like how clumsily he's making it, but he's making it, and I get it. Why are you pretending you don't get it, mainstream news people? 

Trump addresses the Charlottesville fiasco with the Confederate statues, and says that in the debate about whether the historical aspect of those statues should be preserved, there are "Very fine people on both sides." The mainstream media and the Democrat party interpret that as, "Donald Trump says white supremacists are very fine people." 

Again, not what he said. 

In 2024, much of these gaslighting messaging tactics have been debunked on X, Elon Musk's platform after his Twitter buyout, and the majority of Americans now have a revised opinion on exactly what Donald Trump stands for, which explains how a majority of voters put him back in office, including about 50% of hispanic voters (mostly men). Now, whether or not that was a good thing is up for very deep debate, and there is a strong case to be made that Trump should not serve another term, and should perhaps serve jail time instead. That case is convoluted, hard to understand, impossible to identify with. I don't get it. Neither do 75 million Americans. But, there is another 75 million who do get it, and to them it's very real. I can live with that. I can work with that. I can respect it.

I bring this up because the same thing happens with Olivier Creed. Olivier does an interview and says to Le Figaro in 2013, "When I entered with my creations exclusively in a provincial perfume store like Le Soleil d'Or, in Lille, in 1963, it was a real challenge against the big brands." Gabe Oppenheim translates this to: "Perfumery was a brand new business for us, so I chose to soft-launch it in the sticks." 

That's not what Olivier said.

He clearly said that he positioned himself in a provincial commercial setting because he was up against the likes of Chanel and Dior. He's stating that when you take your perfumes from the land of bespoke and into the designer market, you have an uphill battle on your hands. What Olivier is implicitly saying is that when your perfumes have to speak for themselves because you don't have a rich financial backer to foot the bill, and your own money is at stake, wealthy as you may already be, it's still a major uphill battle. For comparison, look at how Pierre Montale made out. He was also a "perfumer to the royals" in the Middle East. Despite that, he still needed a rich financier to fund his launch of the Montale brand. Without that, and despite all of his private clientele, he wouldn't have gotten his own perfume business off the ground. 

Olivier has honesty on his side there, the same sort of honesty that Donald Trump kinda-sorta has when he kinda-sorta just is himself and says exactly what he thinks, at least in the moment he thinks it. But here's the thing about Olivier Creed, the thing that Trump doesn't have: he's got mystery on his side. Yes, there are things about Olivier and the Creed dynasty that are not known to the public. He has kept it that way for a reason. Mystery about him and his family gives him cover. 

This cover creates a vacuum of information and knowledge, which gets filled with speculation. But like with Trump, the speculation is touted as fact. "Creed's perfume business only dates back to the seventies." "Creed lies about the perfume part, but the tailoring business was real." "There is no verifiable proof that Creed created perfumes prior to 1970." All of these ideas swirl around in the bleakness that Creed's mystery has cast on the yearning public, those fragrance-obsessed guys who spend all of their time seeking out and buying the most obscure niche crap they can find. 

The claim that Olivier started the perfumery end of the Creed family business is tempting to believe. There are a slew of factual arrows that point in that direction, and many are mentioned in Oppenheim's book. Indeed, Creed did show up at Le Soleil d'Or in nineteen sixty-something with a couple of perfumes that had no clear provenance, and he was, by his own account, looking to sell. He claimed to be a perfumer. He continued to offer perfumes to the shop, and as Oppenheim's book elucidates, those perfumes actually moved units. Oppenheim acted like the number of perfumes that sold was meager, but I was impressed by it. Twelve-hundred bottles sold in 1970? That's a hundred sold every month. That's about three bottles per day. For a small family brand with no designer clout, that's amazing. 

My problem with all of this is that it doesn't track. Just as the slings and arrows fired at Donald Trump fail to land, the same degree of skepticism thrown at Olivier Creed misses the mark and hits something else entirely. Oppenheim fails to deliver the goods on my questions about where Olivier got the "Creed Water" formula of real ambergris and musk from, or how he came up with his impressive list of briefs for the Grey Cap lineup. You can say a guy pulled briefs out of his butt, conned a few perfumers into making them, and touted them as heirlooms . . . but he pulled this off with Fleurissimo, Orange Spice, Épicea, Baie de Genièvre, Bois de Cèdrat, Citrus Bigarade, Sélection Verte, Bayrhum Vétiver, Herbe Marine, Ambre Cannelle, Angélique Encens, Aubépine Acacia, Bois de Santal, Santal Impérial, Chèvrefeuille, Animalis Pimenta, Bois de Rhodes, Cyprès-Musc, Ylang Jonquilles, Royal Scottish Lavender, Cuir Imperial, Verveine Narcisse, Vétiver, Fleur de Thé Rose Bulgare, Irisia, "Vintage" Tabaróme, Royal English Leather, and Zeste Mandarine Pamplemousse?

Sorry, Gabe, but no. 

There is a huge chunk of information missing here. Most of these perfumes aren't color-by-numbers pieces; they are weirdly sophisticated and speak to the sort of Old Money wealth that only aristocratic Europeans enjoy. You can't fake that. You, Mister Oppenheim, have failed to shed light on most of this.

The skeptics sling everything they can at this, and miss every time. The word they like to use that gives away their bad aim? 

"Proof."

They want "proof" that Creed is responsible for creating perfumes prior to 1963. What they ought to be asking for is "proof" of who is responsible for the lion's share of perfumes that predate Green Irish Tweed, and fundamentally question whether the perfumers who have laid claim to some of them, like Pierre Bourdon did with Fleurs de Bulgarie, were acting on brand-new from-thin-air briefs, or adapting archaic, time-worn formulas that needed overhauls to be brought to commercial market. Almost nobody is asking about that.

The narrative that Olivier Creed simply waltzed into labs and stole formulas is more entertaining, even though it doesn't really make sense when you consider the scope of the lineup mentioned above.

If I had a leather riding goods and tailoring firm in the 1700s, my focus would be on the functional accoutrements to leather. This was a time when perfume barely existed. I would create products like saddle soap and homespun perfumes designed to make the hide smell tolerable. The formulas I developed would be proprietary to my leather goods firm. If they proved successful in their duties over the course of a century, I might parlay one or two of them into actual fine fragrance at some point in the nineteenth century. 

These perfumes would be little stocking stuffers offered to faithful clients in tiny bottles of an ounce or less. They might even gain some steam in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, when the leather goods end of things has closed shop, and the tailoring has picked up. By the middle of the twentieth century, I might have some period-specific pieces on offer like Orange Spice and Fleurissimo. These might migrate from the 1950s to the 1960s, into the hands of a young Olivier Creed, who might eventually decide to "amp up" the perfume piece and make it everything. 

None of this is hard to believe. None of it requires proof.

Orange Spice, by the way, is an example of a perfume that I think adds to the Creed mystery. Pierre Bourdon is not the nose behind it, despite its resemblance to Kouros. If he were, the formula would have been mentioned in Oppenheim's book, and it wasn't. (Varanis Ridari has the scoop there.) I smelled the comparison to Kouros in my bottle, but I also smelled a strong comparison to another fragrance from the 1950s called Max Factor Signature for Men. Same musky orange and wood notes. Slight hint of ambergris and nitromusk in the base. The two fragrances clearly hail, at least in spirit, from the same era. That goes a ways in backing up Creed's claim that Orange Spice is from 1950. 

That might sound trite, but the truth is less glamorous than the narrative we've been spoonfed by the skeptics. Again, anything is possible, but if Creed faked the provenance of Orange Spice, well then, man, did he nail it. Total bullseye. He managed to get a perfumer to make up something that smells quite literally like some obscure fragrance from the 1950s, which happens to also be in my collection. 

The Reddit user is right to say that Guerlain has real history to prove they made perfumes. Creed isn't Guerlain. Guerlain is a behemoth of nineteenth and early twentieth century perfume; Creed is a footnote. When Pierre-François Pascal Guerlain was gunning for a spot in the Eau de Cologne Hall of Fame, Creed was merely doing private little ditties for wealthy clientele. Privately-commissioned fragrance. This is what Olivier Creed and his son, Erwin, have claimed their family dealt in for hundreds of years.

There would be zero proof of any privately-commissioned perfumes. They would not come in mass-produced bottles. They would probably be delivered in little apothecary bottles. And they would not have advertising or a paper trail of any kind, beyond whatever perishable receipts of the tax year might require. 

None of this is hard to believe. None of it requires proof.

These formulas, probably a bit hackneyed and unscientific, unsophisticated even, would eventually need to be made in earnest by trained perfumers, if they were to survive at all. Cue the 1970s. Cue Olivier's quest to hire professionals on the low-down and make things properly. Suddenly Fleurissimo exists in a mass-produced flacon with a label and anyone with money can buy it.

None of this is hard to believe. And the proof is in the perfumes.

Why must we go all Trump Derangement Syndrome on Creed every single time the subject of their historical bonafides comes up? Must we keep pretending that Creed's claims about making perfume are preposterous? The part about making the perfumes, I mean. If you want to poke holes in all the claims about serving perfume to royals, have at it. But making the perfumes. Really? We can't believe that some Creed sometime before 1963 came up with a few perfumes? Even if they were purely functional perfumes used to soak leather hides and give them a signature smell? Scented gloves for ladies? Scented habits for riding? The stuff that people actually used back then, as opposed to the luxury stuff of today that people don't need to use? 

Is it the fake tan thing? If Olivier's tan was real, and not orange, would he be more credible? Or still in the doghouse like Trump? Has Olivier, in being a successful businessman with a knack for exaggerating his accomplishments, harnessed the unfortunate power of "Orange Man Bad?" 

The moral of this article is the following: Stop expecting proof of things that never required proof prior to you coming along and demanding it. If a family made bespoke perfumes for wealthy Europeans dating back hundreds of years, those Europeans would have had titles and nobility. That's how Europeans with money rolled back then. If you had money, it was likely inherited. And it was disposable, and even then, it was used for frivolities like fancy riding habits with citrus and floral scents. Such personal bespoke projects would not survive in any way to yield "proof" of their existence centuries later. They would simply melt into the annals of time. If this is what the Creed family did, then the only proof they need is the warrant printed on the box. Read it, and shut up already. 

Dissecting "Blue" Fragrances That Aren't Bleu: A Meditation on Perfume Synesthesia, Part Two

This is both the second part of my meditation and a review of Tabarome Millésime. Here’s the crux of it: Tabarome Millésime is the most important Creed of the 2000s, and yet no one discusses it. Before you dismiss this claim, hear me out, and then draw your own conclusions. My argument rests on a theory that ties this Creed fragrance to one of the biggest successes of 2010—a wildly popular Chanel, recognizable by its name and its signature "blue" hue.

To be clear, I’m referring to the years 2000 to 2009. Several notable Creeds came out during that decade, including Himalaya, Original Vetiver, Santal, and Virgin Island Water. While these other scents were derivative, Tabarome Millésime was a precursor to greater things. Most intriguingly, it defies its brown label and tan-green liquid. Instead, it smells like a rough draft of Bleu de Chanel—a very rough draft, mind you, but all the essential elements are present. There’s a sweet touch of citrus, followed by ginger, sandalwood, black tea, and green tobacco leaf. Hints of vetiver and mild smokiness are nestled within, while the sandalwood, dry and pale, echoes a birch note. Strangely enough, Tabarome Millésime feels more "blue" than Bleu itself.

Its resemblance to Bleu de Chanel is both fascinating and unsettling. From what I can gather, Olivier Creed is the actual perfumer behind Tabarome Millésime—not a "ghost perfumer" like Pierre Bourdon or Jean-Christophe Hérault. If this is true, it’s a monumental fact, more significant than most realize. Amidst the accusations of Olivier’s perfume “theft” and dubious business tactics, and the widespread belief that he’s more of an "evaluator" than a creator, we find ourselves in complicated territory. If Olivier’s 2000 release indeed paved the way for Chanel’s blockbuster a decade later, then he is far from inconsequential. In fact, he might even be a visionary.

So, what makes Tabarome Millésime smell vaguely "blue"? It opens with a sharp, sour citrus accord, bracing and almost unpleasant in its tartness—bergamot with a lime-like bite, only slightly softened by sweet mandarin. The ginger that follows isn’t as effervescent as I expected, but it’s deeper and rounder than anything I’ve encountered in a designer fragrance. Beneath the ginger, black tea, sandalwood, smoky-salty ambergris, and raw tobacco leaf emerge, all resting on a base of petitgrain and white musk. The composition is simple, lacking contrast and dynamism, presenting more as a single, multi-faceted note—ginger with a few supporting elements. The freshness, likely from ambergris and a cool, aqueous musk, combined with the ginger, gives the fragrance its "blue" character, evoking the sensation of crisp water and clear air.

Some reviews suggest Tabarome Millésime is ideal for the office or for older men. Luca Turin called it a "sport fragrance" and dismissed it as "mislabeled and pointless." Given how faint the tobacco note is, it might indeed be mislabeled, but pointless? I beg to differ. The gingery woods at the heart of this scent, a concept later mastered by Jacques Polge in a world-shattering perfume, carry considerable weight within the realm of masculine fragrances. One Fragrantica reviewer compared it to Dirty English by Juicy Couture, and I see the resemblance. Ironically, I’ve compared Dirty English to Bleu de Chanel in the past, referring to it as "Brun de Chanel"—Dirty English smells earthy and brown, with a streak of blue running through it. It shares enough DNA with Bleu that I view it as another stepping stone toward the final 2010 iteration of this idea. Masculine perfumery evolves in stages, a few years at a time.

Why does Dirty English evoke a color? Once again, we find the same combination of notes that parallels Tabarome Millésime and Bleu de Chanel: cedar, vetiver, smoky woods (perhaps "oud"), and a sharp, synthetic citrus note that doesn’t resemble real fruit but feels like a technicolor image of one. ISO E Super is just as prominent as the esters and aldehydes. Though far from an aquatic or ozonic fragrance, and certainly not marketed as one, Dirty English achieves a distinct "blue" tone, a fresh yet somber quality that echoes in Chanel’s later creation. To be clear, Bleu de Chanel is the most refined of these three, while Tabarome Millésime, despite its high-quality ingredients, suffers from an inferior composition and balance. Olivier’s scent feels too evenly spread, with the notes never truly playing off each other. In contrast, Dirty English, the cheapest of the trio, smells livelier—but it’s a zephyr next to Bleu de Chanel's tempest.

All of this leads to one conclusion: the best "blue" fragrances evoke the color itself, and the tranquility it suggests, without relying on tired aquatic or synthetic accords. The "blue" quality of Bleu de Chanel, Tabarome Millésime, and Dirty English stems from their ability to conjure a mood—a certain quiet, misty atmosphere, the austere beauty of nature in the early morning, before the light fully dispels the night. These fragrances inspire the sensation of a color rather than a seascape or a sunlit beach. The genius lies in the perfumer’s ability to distill this achingly familiar feeling into a scent, one that transports us to that place we all recognize as "blue."

Comparing "F" Batches of SMW

A Montage Using A.I. Generated Imagery
(Except for the Bottle)

The new generation of Creed fragrances now come with batch codes starting with an "F" followed by numerals. Unlike previous codes, these are harder to decipher, and none of the online cosmetic code checkers have been updated to read them. When I tried plugging one in, I got an error message. Recently, I received my second bottle of Silver Mountain Water, a 100 ml size, and noticed the batch code differs from my 50 ml bottle, which still has about an ounce left. There's a notable difference in scent and performance between the two bottles, as Creed still engages in batch variation.

I suspect the 50 ml bottle is from an older batch. The code is F000160, and when it was new, it had a CK One vibe—fresh florals with a hazy green tea effect that lingered into the drydown, about twenty minutes after application. However, longevity was poor, lasting just ninety minutes to two hours, and the scent's complexity was muted. After about nine months of maceration, the fragrance has become more piquant and defined, with better longevity (around eight hours) and clearer note separation. Now, I can distinctly smell citrus, blackcurrant, petitgrain, a hint of rose, green tea, sandalwood, and musk. No ambergris, though. It seems Creed no longer includes it in SMW, but there’s a subtle hint of Ambroxan, though at a much lower dose than in Armaf's Club de Nuit Sillage.

The 100 ml bottle was a better deal because it had been used a couple of times, prompting the seller to knock seventy-five dollars off the price, bringing the total to $219—a fantastic deal for a non-tester bottle. The code is F000399, and I’m guessing this is a more recent batch, as I’ve read that the newer batches are stronger and fuller-bodied. Indeed, from the first spray (without priming the atomizer), I noticed a difference. This batch is richer, clearer, and a bit more floral. The citrus and metallic notes are louder, the blackcurrant is more prominent, the tea and petitgrain are subtler but more enduring, and the white musks provide impressive longevity—easily ten hours or more. Still no ambergris, though.

This might seem like a minor detail, but for those that are interested in the newer batches of Creed but doubt their tenacity, I want to reassure you, at least when it comes to SMW. I can't speak for other Creed fragrances yet, but with two different "F" batches, my experience has been positive. I have mixed feelings about the loss of the ambergris note. On one hand, it’s a bit disappointing, as it removes some of the classic Creed feel. On the other, the ambergris could sometimes be overwhelming in older Creeds. My vintage bottle of Fleurissimo, for example, has continued to macerate since I first used it in nineteen years, and now that new air has entered the bottle, it has become dominated by an intensely salty ambergris, which gives it a beached flower scent.

It's a great smell, and I'm happy to have it. But Silver Mountain Water is one of those delicate Creed freshies, meant to be subtle and relaxing, not in-your-face. So the absence of extra-salty ambergris isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If I want that, I can look to Royal Water instead, which is likely the most ambergris-forward of the nineties Millesimes. Royal Water is ambergris from the first spray to the final afterglow twelve hours later, and it works because the citrus and aromatics are arranged to complement its salinity. So if you’re considering an "F" batch of SMW, rest assured—everything’s fine.

These eBay Sellers SUCK!

What a Rip-off!

Ebay is both a blessing and a curse for a fraghead. I use it almost exclusively for my purchases (Fragrancenet and Amazon for the rest), and I've always had good luck with it, but that's because I'm lucky. It's not uncommon for people to get scammed by shifty bats, and this article is intended to highlight the ways a Creed buyer can get ripped off.

Let's start by taking a look at the picture above. This is a listing by a merchant who enjoys the company of a cadre of like-minded assholes that I call the "Red-Liners." Many Creeds are packaged in opaque bottles that obscure their content levels, which makes it tough to know how much product you're getting by a photo alone. This prompts merchants to Photoshop red fluid level lines over the bottles, which is itself no bad thing. My problem isn't with the line; I object to the price. It isn't commensurate with the amount of fragrance being sold, and it almost never is. In the picture is a bottle of Silver Mountain Water that is down a full ounce, as indicated by the red line, yet the merchant prices it at $245, which is $25 more than Fragrancenet is asking for full bottles of the same size. This one has no box or cap, and the price is way, way too high -- it should be no more than $180. 

Then there's this listing, for a bottle that ostensibly includes a box, but no cap. The bottle is legit, and the box probably is too, but here's the problem: the atomizer is aftermarket. Not just the nozzle, either, but the entire atomizer unit, from the crimping on the neck all the way to the nozzle itself. No generation of Creed atomizer ever looked like this, and it's clear that someone removed the original atomizer, refilled the bottle with something other than SMW, and then attached this crappy unit on there, hoping that it looks close enough to the old firehose sprayers of yesteryear. This guy wanted a typical eBay Creed price for this thing, and it's clearly been tampered with. The kicker -- the bugger sold it! 

Above we have what I like to call a "Flashlight Bully." Instead of using the red line, he opts for the flashlight approach, shining it from behind the bottle to make the fluid level visible. Again, I have no problem with people doing this, and actually prefer this approach to the red lines, because at least I can actually see with my own eyes how much juice is being sold, which removes a layer of doubt. The price isn't super offensive, although I feel it's about ten bucks too high. My issue is with how this product is listed and described -- the seller cites the condition as "brand-new" and "unused," yet there's clearly about twelve mls missing. In the description, "Approximately 97/100 ml remaining." Uh, no. That's not three ml, and the item has obviously seen some real use. Nice try.

In these three screenshots we see a listing by "Sketchy Bottle Guy." These guys always post super janky-looking bottles with bizarre deformities that the seller never attempts to explain. The top photo shows a Green Irish Tweed with a strange white area on the upper neck, which looks rather like someone tore the black finish off the glass while trying to pry the atomizer off. The next picture shows what we're meant to think is the same bottle with the atomizer sprayer removed to reveal the white plastic ring characteristic of genuine Creeds, but there's one problem: it isn't the same bottle, which is obvious because this one has no white area by the neck and collar. Clearly a visual misdirection. The last photo shows the bottom of the bottle, and maybe I'm being nit-picky here, but the stamping of "Made in France" looks a bit strange. That's neither here nor there given that the previous two pictures show a fragrance with enough red flags to attract every bull in Pamplona. 

Here we have a listing by a "Fake Boxer." These guys have a little cottage industry going where they crank out these full-production fakes, with graphic print boxes that Creed has never made, with awkward-fitting plastic caps that Creed would never use, and with bottles covered in cheap acrylic that cracks by the lettering, a feature that no genuine four-ouncer ever had (let us be thankful for the little things). But for their trouble, these jerks expect buyers to fork over $400+, mostly because they peddle the supposedly "vintage" 120 ml bottle size, which eBay has automatically deemed worthy of pricing north of $450. They tend to target SMW, Aventus, and Viking the most, so if you see these fragrances with weird graphics on their boxes, or some sort of box "sleeve," run, don't walk. 

And last but not least, we have a listing by "Coffret Guy," the eBay merchant who wants you to believe that at some point Creed made 1 oz mini-me bottles of its three hottest masculines and sold them together in a little gift set. While the box is admittedly well made, Creed never produced anything of this sort, and it's as fake as a porn star's bosom. Close scrutiny of the bottles reveals that they're merely clumsily-made chromos in a humorously diminutive size, meant to represent "travel Creeds," and again, Creed offers 50 ml bottles for a reason: they travel. The 30 ml size has always been an entirely different bottle design, not a smaller version of the 120 ml size. 

Other things I often see: listings asking full retail for bottles that are seven hundred years old, or close to it. This is perhaps forgivable with something like Bois du Portugal or a well-kept GIT, but steer well clear of buying deep vintage Millesime Imperial, Silver Mountain Water, and Green Valley. They age like milk, and spending anything more than $50 on 120 mls is highway robbery. I guess I could see spending a little extra for an older 120 ml bottle of vintage "Imperial Millesime" in gilt gold, just for the cool bottle, but I wouldn't pay any more than $100 for it. 

Also be wary of the larger size decanters, the 8 oz or even 17 oz flacons, as they were never factory sealed, and it's no difficult thing to simply take an empty one and fill it with whatever. This brings me to the reason you never want to use counterfeit perfume: you simply don't know what you're spraying on yourself. It could be cheap but harmless cologne, or it could be battery acid. You have no way of knowing. If you're in the market for a genuine Creed, or any expensive niche frag, and you want to buy off eBay, know what you're after. Study the product. Familiarize yourself with the little manufacturing quirks, the things a company always does, sometimes does, and never does. Read everything, look carefully at every picture, and ask for more. If they decline to send more, pass. 

There are the "One-Pic Guys," those who list a Creed with one lone picture of the actual bottle, and nothing else -- no atomizer pics, no lot code pics, no box/packaging pics. They annoy me. Some of the bottles are probably legit, but why not post a thorough rundown of the product? Multiple pictures means business; one picture means funny business. And in closing I'll mention the "Stock Photo Guys," the eBay merchants who list all of their Creeds with company web images from twenty years ago, or generic Photoshopped (often blown-out) images, without showing buyers the actual bottles that will be sent upon purchase. 

Steer well clear. Buyer beware! 

I Finally Read Gabe Oppenheim's Book. Here Are My Thoughts . . .

First, a quick explanation for why it took me so long to finally read The Ghost Perfumer: Creed, Lies, & The Scent of the Century. I'm a busy man. Last year I received a work promotion, and when I'm not working, I'm wearing perfumes and publishing reviews on From Pyrgos. Oh, and also putting energy into my relationship, and ensuring I find some time to dip in and check on my family. Finding five or six hours to sit down and read a book is extraordinarily difficult. But I was lucky to have a bit of spare time this week, and figured I was overdue to read Gabe Oppenheim's 2021 book, so I went cover-to-cover with it yesterday. Here are my thoughts. 

I'll start with the good stuff first, and go from there. The good stuff: my favorite thing about this book are the circumstances under which it was written. Oppenheim was exclusively a sports writer prior to delving into the topic of perfumery, and from his own telling in interviews and in the book itself, it sounds like the pandemic helped to make his project possible. Being trapped indoors for months on end spurred him to explore the addictive world of fine fragrance, and it paid off. I appreciate that he ventured beyond his comfort zone and attempted to penetrate the inner workings of the perfume industry, and I'm also impressed that he could develop a rapport with high-profile people like Raymond Chaillan, Jean-Christophe Herault, Laurice Rahmé, and not least of all, Pierre Bourdon. 

I like how the book pinpoints a specific crack in Olivier Creed's meticulous façade, which might be evidence that he falsified his family's entire perfume legacy. Oppenheim casually details how Bourdon lost to Edouard Fléchier an early eighties brief for L'Oréal's Courrèges in Blue. Bourdon's rejected submission was then "bought" by Olivier Creed, and became Fleurs de Bulgarie. This is notable because Fleurs de Bulgarie is one of Creed's supposedly historical perfumes, cited by the brand as having been originally created in 1845 as a bespoke for Queen Victoria, "under whose reign Creed served as an official supplier to the royal court." It is a clear case of an overlooked formula that our notorious perfume swindler sneakily appropriated and claimed had been made by one of his forefathers, when in fact it is as modern as a microwave oven. 

Unfortunately, that's about all the good stuff I could find here. The rest was, well, underwhelming, to say the least. I'll get the petty stuff out of the way: on a grammatical level, the book is horribly written. It reads like a first draft that has been given a cursory once-over. Oppenheim's prose is rife with spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors, including several ridiculous hypotactic sentences. Take this one, for example:

"And if he confused the two accounts, so that members of the latter were often held to the severe standards he helped set in the former, well, that was to both the great fortune and detriment of his little boy, who'd come to understand young just what was considered an artistic contribution worthy of Dior's imprimatur -- and all the brilliant work that, for any number of reasons never shared, either with the boy regarding his homework or perfumer-aspirants their trials, was not." (chapter 4, page 42, Kindle edition)

He also has an unruly habit of deviating from an interesting subject, sometimes mid-paragraph, to an uninteresting one, and I often found myself wondering if I'd purchased the wrong book. In the final third of his narrative, he goes from talking about Olivier Creed (interesting), to talking about everyone else in the industry (uninteresting), from Coco Chanel, to Estee Lauder, to Roja Dove, to Pierre Montale, where he goes into unnecessarily elaborate detail about the many hidden legal problems that plagued the Montale brand. None of this was interesting, because it had nothing to do with Olivier Creed, or Pierre Bourdon. Obviously a book about perfume will digress to elucidate the milieu of the main players, but Oppenheim's concludes with his big meeting with Bourdon, and his lengthy Montale digression was so close to those final pages that I feared it was camouflage, or perhaps filler, for something anticlimactic.  

My fears were well-founded; Oppenheim's day with Bourdon was uneventful, and he failed to illustrate any deep conversations that were shared with the master perfumer. Instead, he merely describes Bourdon's castle and interior design aesthetic, his paintings, his wife's fashion choices, a near-miss with orange juice and a fancy rug, and an emotional moment in the backyard after Bourdon awkwardly asks the author if he's Jewish. This is conveyed as a bonding moment, which might have resonated, except that earlier the young American had tried to brown nose his elder host, and received the coldest of snubs. Bourdon simply shrugged and turned away from Oppenheim to engage with Givaudan perfumer Shyamala Maisondieu, whom he no doubt was far more interested in. To me, this indicated an end to Bourdon's interest in conversing further. There is no formal interview with him, no direct questions and answers regarding his storied career, no firsthand accounts of his relationship with Olivier Creed, which I feel would have been quite stirring. 

Oppenheim peppers throughout the book what useful information Bourdon offered him, but suggests it was acquired via email correspondences with Kathy, the Frenchman's half-British wife. The whole crux of the narrative is that Pierre, son of Rene Bourdon, the general manager of product development at Christian Dior, desperately wanted to follow in daddy's footsteps, but he was disapproving and hard to love. Young Pierre then ventured into the industry under the tutelage of the legendary Edmond Roudnitska, and proceeded to pursue his vocation at the esteemed "oil house," Roure. For some unknown reason, Oppenheim describes the budding perfumer's sexual escapades in borderline-lurid detail, including an unnecessarily vivid depiction of when he lost his virginity. I sensed that this was the author's way of signaling to the reader that Pierre had trusted him and confided in him, but it comes across as pointless and a bit underhanded. 

The story follows the arch of Pierre's career, his separation and eventual divorce from his first wife, his time in New York and New Jersey, and the moments leading up to his creation of Dolce Vita with Maurice Roger. Oppenheim interprets Bourdon's path as an agonized estrangement, both from his wife and Roure, and it is repeatedly suggested that he would have been better off had he remained with both. It is also implied in elliptical language that Bourdon's ego is fragile, and that the many frustrations of his failed briefs, particularly the eight rejections of his formula for Cool Water, followed him into retirement. The problem I had with all of this is that it seemed to come entirely from Oppenheim, not Bourdon. While the history lessons were interesting enough, and the Bourdon narratives were consistently amplified, their provenance was suspect. 

I found the way in which Oppenheim tied Bourdon's trajectory to Olivier Creed's to be even less satisfying. A major problem the author had here was that nobody in the Creed family would speak with him. Olivier and Erwin both spurned requests for interviews, and there were descriptions of uncomfortable exchanges with folks in their close orbit. The company briefly flirted with a direct interaction on behalf of Oppenheim's book, only to abruptly withdraw without explanation. This left the author to speculate that the nature of his project would conflict with a far less controversial self-promotional coffee table book the business had in the works. I found this to be pathetic, because the reason was far simpler, and worse, it was dead obvious: Creed knew Oppenheim had already framed their enterprise as fraudulent. Why on Earth would they ever engage with him? 

This fact, which seems to have eluded the author, speaks to the folly of harboring forgone conclusions at the outset of a "journalism" project. Oppenheim put the cart before the horse here. Before he had written a single word, his view was that the Creeds had been spinning a complex web of lies about themselves, and his ensuing correspondences with industry insiders were attempts to validate it. Clearly, word got around. Worse still, instead of finding his "smoking gun," he uncovers some dead-ends that are incompatible with his hypothesis, which he admits are baffling. I could literally smell the cognitive dissonance wafting up from the pages as I read about these facts, and it smelled pretty foul. I had to inhabit Oppenheim's mentality to fully comprehend where he thought he could go here, and it turned out there were almost no avenues of enlightenment available to him.  

Bourdon and Creed intersect with Olivier pilfering each failed brief that the budding perfumer finds himself burdened with, starting with the formula for Courrèges in Blue (Fleurs de Bulgarie), then moving on to Lancôme's Sagamore (Green Irish Tweed), Erolfa (Bourdon can't remember what that one was originally for), Imperial Millesime (unclear if that was ever for anyone but Olivier), L'Eau d'Issey Miyake Pour Homme (Silver Mountain Water), and more. Oppenheim describes Olivier as a parasitic playboy with an ungodly amount of charm and charisma, the likes of which could seduce even the most stalwart perfumer, a man who simply walks into a lab uninvited and begins smelling mods without permission. He was drawn to Bourdon when Christian Dior held his Kouros release party next door to his shop, and attached himself to the unfortunate Frenchman from that moment onward. The con-man had his mark.  

This is what we're meant to believe. Oppenheim injects this air into his writing, a beleaguered sense of extreme cynicism that permeates every sentence about Olivier Creed. As I read through the timeline of Creed's heist, I found myself thinking that none of it was news, except for Fleurs de Bulgarie. It was never a question that Green Irish Tweed, Imperial Millesime (later changed to Millesime Imperial), Silver Mountain Water, and Original Santal were all Bourdon's creations. Of course they were; the man created Cool Water and Joop! Homme, for Christ's sakes! Bourdon's name was already attached to the rest. I kept waiting to read some deep insight, some probing backstory to the machinations of each perfume, and there was none. The entire gist was simply that Pierre was underpaid for his labor, and Olivier Creed had shrewdly made out. Again, not news. 

I didn't need Gabe Oppenheim to rehash old news, information that Luca Turin had revealed years earlier in various online writings and comments. Plus, there are major gaps in his timeline, just as there were for Turin. Nobody has ever touched on the briefs for Bois du Portugal, Neroli Sauvage, Green Valley, or Tabarome Millesime, which seems convenient. Despite all talk to the contrary, there are still some compositions that the fragrance community attributes to Olivier, usually the less successful ones, and Tabarome Millesime has always been one of them. (It makes me want that Millesime more.) 

What I did need was an explanation for how Olivier managed to assemble his original "grey cap" line of eau de toilettes. This is where the real money is for any book that purports to analyze Olivier's rectitude. Where did Royal English Leather come from? Vetiver 1948? Royal Scottish Lavender? Epicea? These fragrances all predate the "Bourdon Breakthrough" of 1985's Green Irish Tweed, and were all far more traditional in style. Oppenheim delves into Olivier's "origin story," and his mysterious appearance as a twenty year-old on the doorstep of Soleil d'Or, a little commercial shop in Lille, in 1963. Employees there recount how the young man was his own brand ambassador, with a fully-formed range of products that he claimed were "my creations," implying that he was the perfumer. Oppenheim wonders how this was possible, given that Creed has since explained that the compositions were his father's, and were formulated in the fifties.

At this point, which is fairly early in the book, my eyebrows were raised. I was reading Oppenheim's narrative, and said to myself, "Okay, not exactly convincing me that Olivier is the liar you've made him out to be." The author states, with an air of incredulity:

"The Soleil d'Or further makes the case quite accidentally for Creed's backdating, for a distortion of time no less imaginative than H.G. Wells's. Again, page 41, on these first three Olivier-presented scents:

'They anticipate everything that will characterize his future creations: originality, classicism, simplicity, a mark of real good taste.' 

If true, and the fragrances bear Olivier's own imprint, their formulation can't possibly have predated his adulthood or birth."  (chapter 3, page 39, Kindle edition)

Why not? There is no answer. The only masculine grey cap Oppenheim explains is Acier Aluminium, but Creed has always said that Acier Aluminium was released in 1973, so who cares? We get a variation of the perfume heist story, this time with Bernard Ellena, Jean-Claude Ellena's brother, again claiming Olivier would appear in his lab uninvited and smell everything. But Ellena makes it sound like Olivier was allowed to do this, and that it was less an invasion of privacy and more a mutually agreed-upon arrangement.

The weirdest part of the book is the chapter about Aventus, which is yet another heist narrative, with Jean-Christophe Herault the mark. Here the logic is warped; Herault is Bourdon's protégé, who knew the older perfumer at a stage of his career when he was fixated on pineapple notes. Once again, Olivier waltzes in, and at this point I wondered why Bourdon hadn't warned Herault of the predatory rich man's scheme. If Olivier was such an ungrateful leech, why wouldn't Herault just tell him, "thanks, but no thanks," and move on? But no, the cycle repeats itself, different only in that this time Olivier allows the young perfumer to publicly take credit for his work. Aventus was such a success, and Olivier had his eye on the exit ramp, so he figured, what the heck? Let the artist get his due. Seems pretty fair to me, and it helped launch Herault's career. 

To sum up, the book is entertaining, but it suffers from countless plot holes. The exact origin of the grey caps is never explained. Fleurissimo and the rest of the feminine Creeds, with the exception of Bourdon's Spring Flower and Fleurs de Bulgarie, are excluded from the narrative entirely. (I consider Fleurissimo and the feminines that predate the nineties, like Irisia, Tubereuse Indiana, Vanisia, and Fantasia de Fleurs, to be grey caps also.) Oppenheim's main contentions about Creed's veracity are occasionally warranted, but often exist in an evidence-free vacuum of self-serving speculation. His account of Pierre Bourdon is stilted, cluttered with unnecessary subjective interpretations and interjections, and surprisingly dull. One never gets a sense that the author got to know the master perfumer, and without that, what else can a book like this offer? I might have enjoyed the read more if I'd felt the story was organic, self-forming, its author learning along with me, but instead it was merely a belief in search of validation. 

Fleurissimo (Creed, 2005 Batch), and An Open Question: Is This Creed a Blatant Christian Dior Clone?

First I want to review Fleurissimo, and then I'll get into some other stuff. This is the first proper Creed fragrance review I've done since Aventus Cologne, but that's a "new" Creed (2019); the last time I critiqued one of the brand's "originals" was my 2014 review of Windsor, which I totally panned. Let's talk about an older Creed that I do like, and then get into why the fragrance is such a bizarre mystery. I'll leave comments open to anyone who wants to chip in on Fragrantica. You can PM me and let me know your thoughts. 

Fleurissimo is one of Creed's more scrutinized classics. I say that because Olivier Creed has stated that it was released in 1956, which ties it to the whole Grace Kelly, Princess of Monaco narrative (one of the few Creed stories that even I summarily dismiss as utter bullshit), yet after Gabe Oppenheim's awkward little exposé on the house, Basenotes and Parfumo quietly changed the release date to 1972. I vaguely recall reading something a long time ago about it being released to the public in 1972, following the conclusion of its sixteen-year stint as a bespoke fragrance, but I'd have to dig up the receipts on that. I still haven't read Oppenheim's book, so I'll suspend judgment there as well. I've known Fleurissimo since 2015, when I gifted the body lotion to my mom. It was wonderful; creamy, floral, a little green, which also describes the EDP. 

Fleurissimo opens with a lick of bergamot, one of only two non-floral notes in its composition. The citrus is tempered by something mildly warmer and sweeter, which I suppose could be a bit of orange zest for balance, but hard to say. The 2005 vintage has a hint of an indolic whirl bridging its citrus to its heart structure of white florals. It only lasts for thirty seconds (perhaps longer when it was new), and I like that it lends the perfume some quirk. Then its core floral ensemble appears, and I must confess a lack of familiarity with the various exotic white floral essences that your big-city florist takes for granted, so it's hard for me to authoritatively say exactly which blooms are represented here. To me it resembles hyacinth and lily-of-the-valley, but many people say it's tuberose, which I haven't smelled in real life (I live in Connecticut and tuberose isn't popular here). 

The fragrance is typical of classical Creeds in that it doesn't attempt an abstract, not-found-in-nature effect, and instead renders its notes quite literally and directly, merely presenting them together. If Creed were a crappier brand, this wouldn't work so well, but of course Fleurissimo smells like money. Its citrus is a freshly-sliced piece of fruit; its florals are literally growing on my skin; its simple ambergris base shimmers with a bitter and vaguely marine sparkle that only natural ambergris has. I take pleasure in finding a robust clutch of warm rose notes tucked under the white florals, and they actually lend the bouquet a richness and heft it would otherwise lack, as its fresher and sweeter notes are often used in antiseptic/functional applications, like scented toilet paper. The perfumer for Fleurissimo folded the florals over each other, letting some smell distinct and others play supporting roles, with all coalescing into one brilliant bouquet.

Overall, Fleurissomo is a light, natural smelling, and cheerful floral, fairly simple in construct, fairly stupendous in execution, and unfairly mired in Creed's stuff. Let's talk about Creed's stuff. I want to point out that there is surprisingly little written about this perfume online, outside of Basenotes and Fragrantica. Almost no surviving fragrance blogs have written about it. There is very little information to read, outside of the limited scope of Creed's own marketing and the copycat pieces echoing it. The only notable detail is the change in release date, and here's where the stuff is -- oh, the stuff! I find myself wondering about Creed's critics, just a little bit, especially when it comes to Fleurissimo. How is it that none of them have ever accused Creed of cloning Diorissimo, Edmond Roudnitska's 1956 lily-of-the-valley magnum opus for midcentury Christian Dior? 

I mean, the clue is right there in the two names: Fleurissimo/Diorissimo. Maybe I'm off on that one, as I have yet to experience Diorissimo, so I'll withhold an opinion until I smell whichever iteration of that fragrance I can get my nose on. I've been wanting to pick up a bottle for several years now, and just never got around to it. But the dates: Diorissimo was released in 1956, and Olivier claimed that Fleurissimo was also released that year, which is now disputed. As I said, I'm not sure where 1972 came from, and I'm unaware of Olivier or Erwin ever directly mentioning it. Their perfume is unattainably both fresh and modern, yet paradoxically rustic, with its own softly vintage vibe. It smells very fifties. It's also impeccably structured, with distinct phases, clear notes, and superlative materials, a standard maintained by the brand until the BlackRock sale. Everyone calls Olivier a liar, yet Fleurissimo is perhaps the greatest example of what I call "The Grey Cap Mystery," as it falls squarely into the brand's unlikely and mysterious era of "first releases." 

Who is the perfumer for Fleurissimo? How did Olivier commission something as poised, restrained, and perfectly representative of his brand's dual antique/modern olfactory aesthetic, and do it without pissing someone off enough to blow his cover? Did he use Pierre Bourdon? Was the hook for the young perfumer a limitless brief that sought to imitate the greatest perfume of his father's tenure at Dior? Was the allure compounded by the fact that he had learned everything he knew from Dior's best perfumer? If those were the circumstances, how could he possibly resist? 

There's one little problem with this: the result of Bourdon's labor would most certainly not have been Fleurissimo. Roudnitska's formula for Diorissimo reputedly contained a smidgen of Calone 1951 (watermelon ketone), which put it forty years ahead of its time, and which Pierre Bourdon definitely knew about. Bourdon built his career on using novel synthetics, and was a student of Roudnitska's, yet Fleurissimo contains no Calone. We're to believe that the young Bourdon resisted the temptation to build on his teacher's method when Olivier asked him to copy Diorissimo with price as no object? This puts him and Olivier uncharacteristically behind the curve, especially considering that the latter could have claimed credit for pioneering the use of Calone. It doesn't wash.  

Fleurissimo isn't an inaugural fragrance. It has none of the hallmarks of a twentieth-century debut (a gazillion notes crammed into ponderous accords, concentration too loud, feeble naturals stop-gapped with aldehydes and synthetics), and instead feels like a masterwork by someone who had been doing Fleurissimos for quite a while. Olivier commissioned it, smelled it, and was like, okay, I wanted Diorissimo, but this is tuberose decked-out with muguet, rose, hyacinth, and a little lilac. It's too good. I can't say no. It's my Diorissimo clone, but I can't call it that, and I want customers who like it to make the subliminal connection. If only I could integrate 'fleur' into the name . . . 

He did all of this in 1972, when his brand was a complete unknown. Fleurissimo was one of his debut perfumes, with no perfume heritage to draw from. Fleurissimo. One of Olivier's first releases. Beautiful, disciplined, near-flawless. 

Do you see how impossible that is? 

It doesn't add up. With Creed, nothing ever does. 

Understanding Arabian Market Creeds, and the Countless Paranoia-Inducing Inconsistencies in Creed's Packaging

Western Creed on Left; Eastern Creed on Right, with Gold Delete Box

I've always wanted an Arabian market Creed, and I finally bought one. What's so special about the Creeds sold to the Saudis, you ask? Well, not a whole lot, actually. They're still the same old fragrances; it isn't like Green Irish Tweed in Dubai smells like glittering angel spunk or anything. There is an old rumor floating around on Basenotes or Fragrantica that Creed made their Middle Eastern fragrances a touch stronger to better withstand the punishing desert heat, but I believe that's a myth. I'm not after higher concentration, although that would certainly be nice. What I've always liked about the Arabian Creeds is the gold delete on their boxes, i.e., no gold leaf trim around the fragrance name-frame or on the Welsh crest above it. The box itself is uniformly white, and to my knowledge this was how all Creeds looked in that region. 

Here's the funny thing about that: many people have questioned this version of the box and asked if they'd bought a fake when they received it. It elicited a consistently suspicious reaction, mostly from young men who of course stupidly dropped hundreds of dollars on a perfume without researching it first. Those of us who actually read about Creed and obsess over every tidbit of information we can glean from the brand always knew that the Saudi and Far Eastern markets got the gold-delete boxes, while the rest of the world had the gold leaf version. I couldn't tell you the reason for this; I suspect the broader international market had developed a more demanding taste for the brand than Europe or America had, and thus Creed cut down on the slightly pricier detail of adding gold leaf to their boxes to maintain profit margins while still quasi-mass-producing their fragrances. More boxes needed? Make them a little cheaper. Makes sense to me. 

But of course Creed never really addresses its packaging discrepancies, which leaves buyers wondering. The bottles of Fleurissimo pictured above are from different eras, with the newer Western bottle on the left boasting beautiful gold trim on its box and an English-language leaflet, and the Arabian bottle on the right, the bottle I recently purchased, with an even more beautiful gold delete box and Arabic-language leaflet. My bottle is vintage, dating back to 2005, and interestingly it lacks the 1760 embossing under the Welsh crest, while also having a paler green velour name-frame compared to the Western version. When you go back to 2005, you start to creep into a vintage territory with Creed where the packaging details get hazy and harder to understand. I can see how if someone received the Arabian bottle, they would immediately wonder if they'd been conned with a fake. It's a semi-racist knee-jerk response that Westerners have when they see something that they expected would be thoroughly Anglicized is instead bedecked with what looks like a cheaper box and literature printed in a foreign language. 

Last week I joined a vintage Creed enthusiasts group on Facebook, and had a brief chat with one of its founding members about counterfeits. He's been in the game even longer than I have, and told me that when it comes to feminine Creeds, you're almost guaranteed to receive the real deal, even on eBay. He said the exception to this is the recently-released Carmina, which he stated was Creed's real "Aventus for women," (as opposed to the actual Aventus for Her). I told him I had no idea it was that popular, but apparently Carmina is making a splash. I think BlackRock had decided to focus more on the female buyer, which actually makes sense for Creed. I mentioned to him that Love in White and Floralie are also faked, with the former being fairly obvious and the latter more insidious. He pointed out that it would be utterly futile to try to counterfeit Love in Black, given its inimitable bottle, and that virtually all of the clear-glass feminines were virgin territory for fakers, which I must admit sounds right. When was the last time anyone was conned with a dupe of Fleurissimo? Of Jasmin Impératrice Eugénie? Of Fantasia de Fleurs? How many threads have women or their boyfriends posted asking if their bottle of Vanisia or Fleurs de Bulgarie or Tubéreuse Indiana was real? 

The truth is that Creed is two brands split by gender marketing: the "male" Creeds, which are the heralded fragrances of high quality, and the "female" Creeds, which are viewed as if they belong to another brand altogether. The "femme" Millesimes are independent of the rest of the line. Varanis Ridari and I have both made the mistake of claiming that Original Santal was the last of the Millesimes; Love in Black is stamped as a Millesime, and was released three years later, which potentially makes it the last. I overlooked this little fact because like many enthusiasts I tend to forget about the femme line, which seems ridiculous because it is. The feminine fragrances are mostly considered "second-tier" by enthusiasts, although I am not one who shares this view. Fleur de Thé Rose Bulgare is an incredibly gorgeous tea rose fragrance, rather like Tea Rose done on a limitless budget, and with natural ambergris added. I have a review of Fleurissimo pending (provided my bottle hasn't become "eau de bowling shoe"), but remember it as a delicate and creamy white floral with hints of banana-like ylang for extra sweetness, thoroughly beautiful, and hopefully as much in vintage form. Love in Black is a somber but gorgeous perfume, with all the Creed quality there to feel, and Spring Flower is equally magnificent. None of these feminine releases rate as inferior to me. I should do better. 

So I purchased my vintage Fleurissimo with confidence that it is real. But I also marvel at the potential for a less experienced buyer to feel afraid; the packaging is so different! Consider the many variances in Creed packaging, and then ask yourself how anyone knows what the fuck they're buying. There's the Western gold-gilt packaging, and if you go back ten years or so, you have the velour name-frames, the Welsh crest, the 1760 emboss, the gold lettering on the bottom front of the boxes, the lettering on the top, the lettering on the back, the logo-embossed background print on the boxes, the lot number stickers, the velour and flat labeling on the bottles, the atomizers (three generations to consider), the "white ring" under the nozzles (probably the only constant feature), and the question of what are commonalities with fakes. If you can say anything about Creed with 100% confidence, it is that the brand is consistent about its inconsistencies. 

Go back to the mid 2000s and earlier, and things get even weirder. You have the red stamping of various royal crests on the boxes, which look like someone literally hand-stamped them on, which they probably did. You have things like the "sailboat version" of Erolfa, with its pretty little boat painting in the name-frame. You have boxes that have the Creed logo embossed everywhere, and boxes that don't (see below). You have bottles with different cap colors, and some frags that went from opaque to clear caps. You have feminine bottles shaped like masculine bottles. You have different iterations of the "royalty list" on the top of the box, the back of the box, and different versions of the lettering on the bottom front of the box. You have some Creeds that had their names printed right on the glass, and those same Creeds eventually adopted the velvet/velour label. You get into the Arabian market, and you see discrepancies between packaging features there versus here. Because Creed never explained the gold delete feature, one can only speculate, as I have, but regardless of reasoning, it looks badass. Not really sure why I like it so much, but I do. Must be my formal training in graphic design (a BFA in graphic design). For some reason it looks like it makes sense on an Arabian box. Saudi Arabian Royal Water, pictured below, looks beautiful with its silver delete box. 

I imagine dozens of wealthy oil sheiks in Dubai plowing through bottle after bottle of their favorite Creeds, maybe even throwing them around to guests at parties like candy, and Creed struggling to keep up with the demand. Olivier tells his packaging manager, "Get rid of the leafing on all but the lettering, it will speed up box production and keep costs down." He adds, "And lose the full-panel embossing of the company logo on the maculine/unisex boxes." Voila, the Arabian Creed. Clearly the demand was no less for the feminine Creeds, even the more obscure ones like Tubéreuse Indiana.

Or perhaps it isn't so clear. Perhaps Creed simply wanted an easy way to visually differentiate the Eastern market Creeds from their European market counterparts, and so used this simple and cost-effective way to do so. Perhaps it was something that Olivier felt was an apt allusion to an oil sheik's white keffiyeh, which would be a fittingly semi-racist European view. Whatever the case may be, I strongly suspect most of the gold delete boxes have been retired by BlackRock, and Kering will maintain the status quo. 

Add to all of this the imperfections in Creed boxes and bottles, especially the feminine Creeds, with things like bottles with and without bowties, bottles with and without clear corner contouring, bottles with faded lettering, bottles with weirdly marked lot numbers, bottles with faded 'Paris, France' embossing on the glass, and bottles with no laser-etched numbers. The one constant with all Creeds is the clean white ring around the atomizer stem, probably the easiest marker to seek for determining authenticity. 

Everything else is a variable that might or might not be of help.