Royal Copenhagen Spray Cologne (Five Star Fragrances)

I wrote a scathing review of Royal Copenhagen on basenotes, which I can't change because those fuckers banned me last winter, and I wore Royal Copenhagen Musk when I lived in Prague a few years ago, and disliked it intensely. My opinion of the original Royal Copenhagen has, rarest of rare things, changed. And changed for the better. The other day I bought a gift set of RC spray cologne, deodorant, shower gel, and bar soap. For $20 I figured I couldn't really go wrong, not with all that other stuff thrown in the box. I've been wearing the cologne and now I must say, this is not as I remembered it years ago. I wonder if it differs depending on spray or splash - I originally tried the splash, and it smelled awful. The spray, on the other hand, is quite nice. I'm enjoying it.

If you take a look at King Frederick VII of Denmark up there, and think carefully about what this chap from nineteenth century Europe might have smelled like (especially as his portrait was being painted), you should get an approximation of Royal Copenhagen. This stuff smells spicy, soapy, powdery, and pretty darned stodgy, but with little oriental flourishes that carry it into its own league. It's an ambery oriental with a brusque vetiver top note, playing loudly through heavy aldehydes, not dissimilar to the opening of Tabac Original, but without the intense citrus. Light notes of bergamot, orange, and lemon are detectable however, and provide a fresh lift to the vetiver, preventing its rootiness from overpowering the proceedings. Neat.

Within thirty minutes the scent simplifies, becoming very powdery, with hints of cardamom, cinnamon, clove, and oakmoss tinging the winterscape of its wispy base. It reminds me a little of Gold Bond body powder, which sounds horrible, but I actually like how Gold Bond smells, so . . . so there. Am I damning an outdated oriental with faint praise? No, I hope not. Listen, there's only one way to say this: you gotta be a guy's guy to appreciate Royal Copenhagen. It's probably not all that easy to understand the vibe of this stuff if you're a metrosexual man, or a modern woman with postmodern sensibilities. Ambery seventies orientals are not accessible to today's nose. Released in 1970 and bearing the namesake of an old Danish porcelain factory, Royal Copenhagen adheres to a rich tradition of scents like Old Spice and Tabac, which offer warm, diffuse, slightly soapy, and very powdery-oriental "fresh" profiles. Unlike its predecessors, RC comes as a blue-dyed barbershop juice, with a silvery royal-mark label, and a dated bottle with a royal blue cap. The blue suggests "stately masculine clean," which translates to "barbershop." Think warm citrus, smooth floral notes, sprightly spice, and that famous talcum drydown we've smelled on older gentlemen of bygone eras. If that makes sense to you, then RC is something you should own, or at least look into.

I like it a touch more than Tabac, and about the same as Old Spice, although I think it perfects Old Spice and creates a more dynamic oriental experience, in what can only be oxy-moronically described as a modern Old-World style. One more thing - wearing RC ensures you're wearing something only one or two other men in your country are wearing. No one wears this stuff anymore. I mean it. I'm amazed it still exists. There must be a lot of grandmothers buying it for their grandsons, mistakenly thinking, "it's blue - it must be that hairspray crap all the young'uns wear these days!" That's a shame, of course, but great if you consider that you can duck the cliche of donning Old Spice without sacrificing quality, and still smell unique. You could try to "bring it back," and make RC fashionable again. Maybe powdered wigs will make a comeback, too. Think of the possibilities.

Success (Five Star Fragrance Co.)

America's richest blowhard, otherwise known as "The Donald," recently attended a Yankee game, got fed up with Alex Rodriguez, phoned the organization to express his delicate position on said batter, and Tweeted, “A-Rod must be dropped in the Yankees line-up tonight if they want to win. He simply can’t perform without drugs.” Well, as it turned out, he was right. We all know what happened. Those two home runs were not hit by Mr. Rodriguez, and the second one should have been. 

Was it Trump's killer white-collar instinct that aided his unlikely call? Perhaps his esteemed, forty-five year career of struggling against the tide to earn a profit in the real estate business helped deliver his uncanny foresight? All those summers working at McDonalds as a teenager jogged his memory, and reminded him that Americans should only be rewarded with millions of dollars after sweaty, toilsome, thankless work, the kind that snaps bones and pulls muscles like Silly-Putty. After all, if you're not carrying your share, you don't deserve the immunity of an internationally-accepted comb-over, right? Right . . .

Trump is the embodiment of yet another American success story that doesn't really involve much in the way of actual success (for the headliner in this category, see Mitt Romney), yet he perseveres against all odds as the weirdest, wildest, most outspoken celebutante of our time. Despite what he may say, his true business model was always his father's, and can anyone blame him? When it comes to perfume, however, his strategy is based on, of all things, the most recent masculine offered by none other than Creed. Success is an English-version rehash of Aventus.

The scent carries a very standard "Mens Cologne" opening that loosely mimics the sweet-fruity topnote of Aventus, which is considered pineapple by the admirers. I appreciate Aventus and its crisp top, but it's not the most faithful fruit note from this house. For an easy example of how well Creed can do fruit, give Acqua Fiorentina a minute of your time, and savor its photo-realistic plum. But Aventus? Its pineapple is clear and fresh, and doesn't actually smell like pineapple (it resembles a more literal 'pine/apple' accord, with the apple picked from Green Irish Tweed). It lacks the curdled edge of ripened pineapple flesh and juice, and takes an almost-citrus approach instead. For comparison's sake, check out Lapidus Pour Homme. Lapidus is for pineapple what Pour un Homme is for lavender. Success is much less focused than any of these fragrances, and instead offers a vague shampoo-froot accord that could be anything: berries, melons, stone fruits, whatever grows for worms to nibble at. It's nice, and it's inoffensive of course, but it's not exactly an eye-opener.

The Donald's spritz eventually becomes woodier, with an ashen birch note that approximates Aventus' inky birch/man-rose core. Ginger and synthetic vetiver stand in for oakmoss, and an airy flurry of nondescript greens closes everything out. Five Star Fragrance Co. is known for rehashing classic masculine formulas, and often proves that a downmarket brand can flog quality with the best of them. Couple their expertise with that of Tom Ford nose Yann Vasnier, and Success has a fair shot at, well, success. How does it really fare? If you take a shower and wash your hair with something good, like Old Spice's only extant shampoo (which also resembles Green Irish Tweed), and enjoy your hair-washing ritual more than you should, then Success is a fine extrapolation of that, with its portability beyond the limits of your bathroom an added bonus. And we all know how important bonuses are these days.