Is "Naturalism" In Perfume Valuable?

Nothing wrong with going natural in nature!

This question has come up numerous times over the years among those who enjoy fragrances at varying price points. The biophysicist Luca Turin considers "naturalism" in perfume to be a misidentified value, one that holds some interest from an aromatherapeutic angle, but has very little worth beyond that. Chandler Burr revels in finding accords that combine natural odors with blatantly synthetic constructs, even when the naturals are supposedly repulsive, like the scents of armpits and anuses. Intelligent people understand both Turin and Burr's points of view on this, although there are certainly morons at a sixth-grade reading (and writing) level who express difficulty with understanding these basic descriptive approaches.

Then there's the question of how well the common man perceives the transition between the "real" and the "fake," and how this bodes for his enjoyment. In my last post about Playboy's VIP for Men, I mention in not so many words that its old-school aftershave fern composition is largely synthetic in scope, yet still satisfying to me. I was glad to receive some comments by a man named John, who expressed his issue with enjoying truly "cheap" compositions:

"I find it really compelling the way a single, beautiful rendered piece of rendering (say, the hesperidic opening of Eau Sauvage) experientially anchors the abstraction that follows. At the moment, I'm a sucker for the slight-of-hand entailed by this transit from naturalism to abstraction. And I'm just not getting as much naturalism from the cheaper things I'm trying."

I understand his conundrum entirely. To him, the thrill of a scent resides with the movement from identifiable, recognizable notes into artistic, abstract, man-made accords. The more natural those top and early middle notes smell, the more enjoyable the transition, if such a thing actually moves into a successful place. Unfortunately, he doesn't get this thrill from super cheap fragrances like Brut and Skin Bracer. Neither do I.

However, is "naturalism" really that valuable? To me this is similar to how one refers to women. Some are "natural beauties" who don't need a single particle of makeup to convey their physical attractiveness, relying instead on healthy lifestyles and willing smiles to do the talking for them, while others are "average," and simply glam up nicely. Is one subset of women more beautiful than the other? Perhaps, but does it matter? True love doesn't stop at the surface.

There are perfumes like Garner James' Nature Boy that smell natural from top to bottom, with crystal clear notes that are blatantly representative of their material; they gracefully rope into a set of accords that maintain clarity on two levels, the singular and the collective. While the sandalwood, labdanum, and floral elements of Nature Boy maintain their identities and "separate," they simultaneously convey a new effect, a larger whole, without losing a shred of their natural feel. This is arguably the most difficult feat to accomplish in perfumery, and why Nature Boy is to date the most impressive perfume I've ever smelled.

Then there are fragrances like mb03 by Biehl Parfumkunstwerke that smell natural at first, but then transition into more synthetic and diffuse bases, and "waft" from time to time from skin. These little wafts are somewhat natural, and somewhat synthetic, retaining with clarity at least two of their initial naturals, but eventually rely on the synthetics to carry things forward. With a fragrance like mb03, which has generous amounts of pink pepper, patchouli, labdanum, incense, precious woods, and elemi resin, this works, even if the carrier is a relatively bland musk.

The majority of fragrance enthusiasts, those not wedded to making perfume a lifetime pursuit, encounter upper-shelf designer compositions like Eau Sauvage, and can be won over. This sort of fragrance falls just under the other two for me, because its naturalism is more limited, even in its top notes and early middle stages. While it certainly possesses a crisp citrus-woody opening of bright neroli, bergamot, and rosemary, very easily decipherable, a large dose of the synthetic Hedione is present, and remains prominent all the way to the far drydown. Eau Savage's naturalness is embellished from the start, and marks not so much a shift to more synthetics, but rather a rebalancing of more naturals and fewer synthetics to more synthetics and fewer naturals, a movement hinging on Hedione. The dihydromyrcenol overload of scents like Drakkar Noir and Cool Water are other examples of this type (for a Hedione bloodbath, Acqua di Gio).

Last but not least are the hoi polloi splashes like Brut and Skin Bracer. While there are noticeable traces of natural materials in the surprisingly busy opening salvo of Brut, replete with lavender, anise, mint, moss, and lemon aldehyde, they're already fairly tightly "fused" into one soapy, oily characteristic, which only grows more vague and synthetic with time. This is why most super-cheap masculines are often described as being "soapy." They resemble the vague cleanliness of fresh soap smells and not much else, from up close or afar. If you're someone who values that scintillating effect of many natural notes mingling together into a beautiful crowd of new ideas and accords, with fluctuating balancing acts and constant movement, Brut will disappoint.

However, as I've outlined here, there are at least four different types of perfumes out there, ranging from most to least natural and well-blended, which means that people have choice, and probably a wide range of reasons for those choices. If I enjoy Nature Boy, or similar scents (as far as naturalism goes, and not necessarily scent) like Annick Goutal's Duel, Polo Crest, Sunwater, or Oscar (feminine), I'm looking for both note clarity and compositional balance. But I may also enjoy Brut and Skin Bracer when I'm in the mood for simplicity and feeling "clean," with no frills. The first set accomplishes what I'm after beautifully, and so does the second set.

There are some outliers to these broad categories I've mentioned. They are fragrances that smell uniquely synthetic all the way through, yet also smell good. Take The Dreamer, for example. It's a tremendous fragrance, a delicious celebration of woody tobacco delicately blended with a lightly floral soapiness over a nondescript amber. A true postmodern oriental, if you will. It breaks all the rules, defies all the conventions I've listed above, and still comes out smelling great. How?

In order for a perfume to utilize completely synthetic notes and still smell coherent and wearable, it needs to emulate synthetic materials, using the same compositional principles that more traditional compositions employ. So while it is entirely synthetic in material, structure, and scope, The Dreamer uses these synthetics in much the same way Nature Boy uses naturals. Instead of natural tobacco leaf, The Dreamer contains the wry sweetness of treated cigarette tobacco, which is the smoker's equivalent of cured supermarket Black Forest ham. Instead of natural lavender oil, a super sheer, ultra-soapy lavender essence is used. This is meant to convey lavender soap, not actual lavender. You get this gist, and perhaps with an open mind you also recognize that this is a conceptual fragrance, very boldly executed.

People seek this sort of thing all the time. Often they're not aware that synthetic notes are what they seek, and don't notice any correlation between them and the emotions they elicit. One person on Fragrantica, "Manny44," clearly enjoys synthetic compositions, namely scents that employ synthetic materials to deliberately mimic synthetic aromas, but doesn't particularly enjoy certain "natural" compositions, where the opposite approach is at least partially used. For example, he has this to say about The Dreamer:

"GodDAMNNNN this smells good. Worried this would smell dated but it is not in the least dated . . . Rose, Geranium, Fir, Sage, just a touch of sharp vetiver-on top of the 'can't go wrong' base of Lavender and Tobacco. These all make Dreamer a multifaceted scent that women and men love. A Fall and Spring masterpiece I hereby nominate for the Hall of Fame."

But this was his reaction to Tom Ford's Grey Vetiver:

"I don't hate this cologne but I don't like it either. Bit too earthy for me. Something in the spice notes here that is too old-school masculine in the way that a strong oakmoss note can be."

His sentiments sum up what I've been saying perfectly - tastes vary, and so too does the value of "naturalism" in perfume.

VIP For Him (Playboy/Coty)

Looks cheap and kinda fun. Smells the same.

I was watching one of my favorite Youtube channels the other day, "Fragrance Bros," and it got me thinking. In reruns of the channel are reviews by Daver and Jer that denigrate "cheap" fragrances like Royal Copenhagen and Brut, with the prevailing sentiment being that after experiencing a broad range of pricy designer and niche perfumes, your taste "trends up." It's the proverbial "your" being used in this case, because I certainly don't understand their point, but I understand what they're trying to say, at least to a degree: when you've smelled the good stuff, you can't go back to drugstore.

There may or may not be a kernel of truth to this for some folks, but it stymies me. First, why would smelling a three figure fragrance like the new Fougère Royale dent my opinion of five dollar Brut? Taking it a step further, why would it effect how I feel about any fragrance under fifty dollars, if that fragrance objectively smells at least good enough to wear repeatedly without offense? Sure, Fougère Royale smells great, and I'd love to have a bottle that I could use every day, but I don't. And I don't for a reason - it's hard to justify buying it when something as inexpensive as Brut smells just as good to me.

Now I won't argue that Brut's quality is on par with Fougère Royale. It's not. It's just soapy lavender with powdery, semi-animalic musk in the base, and the ingredients are as pedestrian as it gets. But the composition is incredibly deft. Using only a few hundred super-cheap synthetics, the perfumer managed to make lavender and herbal aromatics come alive for ten minutes, truly sparkling and shimmering, before settling with dignity into a warm, burly glow of woodsy wannabe Musk Ambrette. It's fresh, it's intentionally raw, it's clean, it's streamlined, and it works. For five dollars. This is dollar store material that smells great. Furthermore, it lasts a good eight hours with liberal application. Many guys complain about Brut disappearing after fifteen minutes, but I can smell faint whiffs of it all day long.

Do I lump it in with Fougère Royale as being a great fern for the modern man? Yes and no. It's apples and oranges in the quality department - the Houbigant scent is simply divine on every level, the liquid apartheid of doubt and true love, with photorealistic accords that define true olfactory beauty - and certainly it's more presentable at weddings. But if something smells good, then price, guesswork about ingredient pedigree, and adhering to old stigmas regarding "old man" scents should get dusted into the can. Brut smells good. If I want to wear it to a wedding, I will.

So tastes don't "trend up." Because there is no "up." There's only "good," and "not good." And it's almost always subjective. I can't tell you how many times I've wished that Creed would just forget about these postmodern fresh concepts and simply compose a traditional wetshaver fougère. They're the kings of cloning (and improving upon whatever they clone), so why can't they just remake Brut or Canoe in the Creed image and call it a day? This is evidence that I don't believe Daver and Jer's contention. If what they're talking about were true, I wouldn't be wishing for more interpretations of five and ten dollar perfumes. I'd be wishing those super-cheapies would disappear.

There is one word that creeps into perfume dialogues from time to time, and it's "aspirational." When a perfumer tries to make his concoction smell fancier and more expensive than it could ever possibly be, he's falling into the aspirational pitfall of inexpensive fragrances. It's fine to embrace cheapness and make the most of it, as Karl Mann did in 1964. But it's another thing to embrace pretense and attempt the impossible, as countless perfumers have done since Mann's time. Luca Turin famously dubbed Carlos Benaim's 1989 entry into the Calvin Klein catalog "aspirational," and he's right.

Which brings me to one of the recent Playboy colognes, a fragrance formulated and released by Coty. They've done something that is neither slack-jawed, nor aspirational; bucking convention, Coty referred to one of the oldest masculines on the books, and re-tooled it ever so subtly for a much more current generation of unwashed masses. The hilarious thing about VIP is that it's basically the scent of Skin Bracer, that eighty year-old whiskered-codger aftershave that guys under thirty avoid like the plague. But I guess if anyone could sell a classic wetshaver fougère to twenty-first century youngsters, it's Hugh Hefner, the God of Manliness (in the cheesiest, most cliched sense imaginable). What surprises me even more is that Coty actually improved upon the idea by adding a sweet lick of red apple and a dab of smooth white chocolate, both notes accenting lavender and coumarin respectively. It's quite well done!

Interestingly, VIP is not the first fragrance to further stretch Skin Bracer's archaic formula. Several years ago, a small French concern called Jeanne Arthes issued a lovely woody fougère called Cotton Club, which has a very simple and clean lavender, coumarin, vanilla, and sandalwood structure. The sandalwood, though very synthetic, is more prominent in CC than it is in VIP, but the latter boasts a richer coumarin note, well-rounded with gourmandish flourishes not found in its progenitors. Fragrantica claims there's rhubarb and rum in there, but I honestly smell only a vanillic hint of something akin to powdered white chocolate. It smells very good, very clean, not quite gourmand, but close enough to be affable and comfortable. This sort of scent smells cheap, but it's supposed to. Skin Bracer never smelled expensive; men wear this kind of fougère to broadcast that they're solid, sturdy, no-frills guys that women can depend on, and VIP accomplishes this well enough.

A friend of mine has been eschewing designer fare, usually going for at least twenty dollars an ounce, for cheapies like VIP. He's been saying that he can't imagine why anyone would want to spend on pricier fare, when it's unlikely to accomplish anything more than something like VIP, the 1.7 oz bottle of which currently costs sixteen dollars at Walmart. I honestly don't see the comparison between VIP and something like Bleu de Chanel, for example, which I think is also related to old-school aftershave smells. The same size of Bleu costs about seventy dollars, but it just smells better. Its ingredients aren't top notch, but they're of a higher grade, with much better dynamism. Also, it retains clarity and performance for eight solid hours.

VIP, despite smelling good, eventually muddles out after an hour, becoming a very two-dimensional semi-sweet "fresh" scent, essentially all you can ask for from this type of fougère. (Skin Bracer is the "proto-Brut," much less assertive, quite a bit simpler, and significantly flatter performance-wise; anything as closely related to it as Cotton Club and VIP are bound to feel just as simple and underwhelming in the performance department.) I find it interesting that Skin Bracer costs six dollars, and is the simplest of this type, basically super cheap mint, lavender, and a vanillic coumarin and musk.

For five dollars more, you get Cotton Club, an even smoother blend of caramelized lavender and synthetic woods, but still super cheap. And for five dollars more than that, you get VIP, which elevates similar super-cheap notes to a level where you can discern fruity, gourmand, and floral nuances, but only just barely. So each scent is cheap, but incrementally more expensive, with their quality commensurately improving.

To me, it goes too far to suggest that any competent department store fragrance like Bleu de Chanel or Dior Sauvage would have nothing to offer in the face of VIP, Cotton Club, or Skin Bracer. The latter three certainly can't eclipse the intrigue that more complicated compositions in the fifty to eighty dollar range offer. However, I would point out that a fragrance like VIP is not eclipsed by more expensive fragrances, either. If you expect a shorter experience, and are okay with that, then it's likely that VIP will be just as satisfying as a good department store fragrance, at least in terms of the smell. But I would never consider a fragrance like VIP a replacement, or apt substitute for a good department store scent. The prices for department store fragrances are not so high that they don't warrant fair judgment on quality and value against cheaper fare. With Fougère Royale, I avoid buying because I can't really justify the splurge. With Bleu de Chanel, the value at seventy dollars for a small bottle is much better, especially for what you get.

If you're into the proto-Brut fougère, and just want to have more fun with it, then I recommend VIP. I suggest using it as an aftershave, diluted with water. Or using Skin Bracer, and pairing VIP as your SOTD. Or even using Cotton Club as your aftershave and pairing with VIP. Don't expect designer quality material here, but enjoy the cheapness! Hey, it smells good, and something that smells "good" doesn't really smell "cheap" as a negative. Smelling good doesn't have to be expensive!

Invictus (Paco Rabanne)

It's ironic that when I first approached the Dior counter to try Sauvage, an eager salesboy cut me off to try Invictus, a scent I'd already tried twice before. Even more ironic is the fact that Sauvage is pegged as being "generic," "disappointing," "non-Sauvage," "boring," and "synthetic," when in fact Invictus is the real embodiment of those charges, a hundred times over. In comparison to Rabanne's scent, Sauvage is a delicately balanced niche act that only the best noses should deign to poo-poo.

When I think of a blatant designer masculine fragrance fail, I certainly don't think of Sauvage, nor do I think of Bleu de Chanel, Platinum Egoiste, or something as unfortunately ubiquitous as Rabanne's own 1 Million. No, I think of Invictus, a terrible fragrance from top to bottom. This scent is the epitome of cheapness. Its profile - sweet fruit and ambery, vanillic musks - is overtly synthetic, compositionally scratchy (the notes pierce my nose), and as innocuously forgettable as elevator muzak. Its eventual drydown to a bland, super-soapy "fresh" amber is none too convincing, even as far as "youthful" scents go, and if you're looking for a better soapy frag, look no further than Paco Rabanne's original masculine from forty years prior.

Invictus' citrus notes are perhaps its strongest feature, with a somewhat presentable grapefruit and mandarin orange accord that isn't outright offensive, but these are infused with a despicable "sea foam" note, a very chemical, fake-salty element, loud and ill judged alongside the relatively modest fruits. Again, if you want a woody citrus accord with a good sea spray accent, look no further than another terrific classic from the last thirty years, Cool Water (pre-2014 version). Why suffer through the unnecessary noise of Invictus' tidal wave chemical blast when Bourdon did it better, and for less money?

I can rattle off a bunch of other classics that Invictus reminds me of, including Drakkar Noir, Eternity, and Aspen. Invictus is remotely similar to all of these in certain ways, except it's dressed like David Arquette, sporting a Justin Bieber haircut. Worth the designer price for a bottle? No. Enough said.

Kouros, September, My Readers, & The Danger of Trusting Others Over Yourself

It's September, that weird month where summer sees its end, and the bridge to autumn is raised (yet intense, July-like heat simmers on interminably). I used to hate September because it was "back to school" month, but I found a solution: just wear Kouros.

For the last six years, I've been wearing Kouros strictly in September, and loving the hell out of it. This year I ran out of my white-shouldered version of the scent, and had to seek out a new bottle. I decided to skip the most recent formulation (which lacks the term "Eau de Toilette" on the front entirely), and opted instead to find an older, chrome-shouldered vintage. I'd already sourced an incredible deal at a brick and mortar shop in Connecticut, $37 for the 3.3 oz size, so I just drove on over, grabbed it, and bought it.

The code on the back of this "new" bottle reads: 51AA, which puts its manufacture date at January of 2004, arguably making the actual vintage of the juice itself autumn of 2003. Which makes it the oldest version of Kouros I've ever owned. As such, I expected the fragrance to be incredibly dense, long-lasting, and viciously strong, the sort of frag you can only wear two or three spritzes of to take you through the day, twelve hours and counting. After all, most written accounts on the internet suggest as much:

"I have a bottle of vintage (pre-L'Oreal) Kouros and once splashed on the skin it opens with that fantastic sweet civet urinous scent which is like nothing else out there. For me this is well balanced with hints of pine (I see why some think or urinal cake when they smell this) , balsam and toluene in the background. As anyone who smells Kouros will know, the sillage is MONSTROUS (again, a reason to love it, not fear it) and its longevity is the stuff of legends (24 hours+ on my skin)." - scotrob

"I am smelling the vintage and oh- what a stunner! So rich and opulent." - Labaloo

"I have as good a vintage collection of this Legend as anybody...absolutely stunning stuff. The complexity, depth, power, and sex appeal of vintage Kouros has no comparison in the history of male fragrances." - Jude1321

"I had this bottle of Kouros (Sanofi-era/Vintage) . . . The barbershop vibe with the aldehydes, citrus, white florals, smooth honey, pungent herbs & spices, warming musk and pronounced civet (as well as costus root in the early formulations)...with smooth amber, rich oakmoss, and leather with a beautiful incense accord in the base is very different from the powdery talc infused with some of the original notes in the current. Everything is dialed down now." - ericrico

So imagine my surprise when I found that my pre-L'Oreal vintage smelled surprisingly smooth, mild, and tame in comparison to my 2009 and 2011 vintages. Instead of a monster, I got a mellow, super-smooth, relatively low-sillage fragrance that resembles a restrained seventies barbershop splash more than an intense eighties powerhouse.

Now, this isn't to say the scent doesn't have complexity, depth, or legs. It definitely has throw, it's as complex as can be, and much richer than the L'Oreal version. But judging from the reviews, I expected more. I figured an older bottle would be that much better, to the point where bothering with the new version is pointless. Unfortunately, this proved not to be the case, and I've actually needed to use the 2011 version to help bolster the longevity and intensity of the older Kouros, literally layering them before going to work in the morning.

I also noticed something troubling about the reviews for vintage Kouros - none of them mention ambergris. I think a really old review on Now Smell This points it out to readers, but on Fragrantica the word isn't used at all (except in my review). And there happens to be a huge ambergris note in the 2004 version that is lacking in subsequent versions that I've smelled. If you're familiar with ambergris, you know it's a very salty/metallic sweet smell, with a clear mineral quality, and a decidedly musky edge, a note that "sparkles" when it is conveyed with good raw materials, as it is here. This is why it's so popular in Creed scents. In truth, vintage Kouros smells more like a Creed than Creed's own Orange Spice, which uses a rather pale ambergris in comparison.

This highlights my point about Dior's new fragrance, Sauvage. The point is that you really can't know whether or not you'll like or dislike something, or why you'll like or dislike it, until you've tried it for yourself. Reading other people's impressions, and going by them alone is a sure way to be led astray. Now, you may be able to glean some half-truths from reading reviews. You may be able to get a good idea of what you're in for, and they may take the element of surprise away from your sampling experience. But until you've judged for yourself, no real judgment can be leveled.

An experienced reviewer that I sometimes read recently wrote the following:

"Therein lies perhaps the biggest problem with a release such as Sauvage – what does it have to offer someone like me, and after looking at the list of notes, none of which is compelling to me, why wouldn’t I think that the reviews, which seem to be as uniform as I can remember for any new release, are good enough for my purposes? . . . I would be very surprised if I didn’t like Sauvage, but that’s not what I’m seeking, and for someone to presume to know what I’m seeking (as some seem to) is laughable, considering all that I’ve written on the subject on this blog and the major fragrance sites!"

The question as to what it has to offer the writer can never be answered, as long as he refuses to try it. There can be some "good guesses," from impartial reviewers who are simply describing their experience with Sauvage, and there can be some misleading statements also, particularly from those who only try it on paper.

Pointing out the banality of the notes listed, presumably the Fragrantica notes list (and/or Dior's own notes list) is nowhere close to enlightening. Lately Fragrantica's note pyramids have been ridiculously inaccurate, leaving dominant notes out, and inserting notes that don't exist. An example of the former practice can be found in their pyramid for Old Spice, which inexplicably leaves clove out, even though it's the dominant drydown ingredient, front and center, rather loud and going on for ages. An example of the latter is in the pyramid for Mitsouko EDP, where lilac is inexplicably listed. There is no lilac element in this, or any version of Mitsy. So trusting Fragrantica's pyramids is a bad idea.

And Dior's pyramid is the very thing that this writer often rightfully touts as being untrustworthy "marketing," which shouldn't be taken that seriously. Popular ideas are going to be described, and not the actual fragrance sitting on the counter.

Then there's the curious fact that this person seems to view the collective reviews as being "uniform," which is shocking, since they're anything but! Many hate it, and many really like it. Sauvage is polarizing. You can see that for yourself in this basenotes poll on whether or not people like it. Opinion is practically split down the middle. Plus, on Basenotes alone, literally dozens of perfumes have been compared to it, most of which have nothing to do with each other at all in terms of their scents! Here's an imcomplete list of the masculines that Sauvage has been compared to on BN:

1. MFK Pluriel Masculin

2. Bleu de Chanel

3. Eau Sauvage Parfum

4. Platinum Egoiste

5. Acqua di Gio

6. Mont Blanc Individuel

7. Franck Olivier Sunrise for Men

8. Fierce

9. Mont Blanc Legend

10. Nuit D'Issey

11. CK Contradiction for Men

12. Dunhill Icon

13. Invictus

14. Fahrenheit

15. L'Occitane Cade

16. Aventus

17. Green Irish Tweed

18. Dior Homme Eau

19. Bottega Veneta Pour Homme

20. Prada Luna Rossa

That's just the first twenty. There's easily another twenty fragrances this thing is compared to on there! So if anything, Sauvage is the sort of fragrance that a reviewer worth his salt should try for himself, because there is no stable reference for it outside of that. If I believe Sauvage is truly comparable to even half of the fragrances in the list above, that means I believe it is the most complex fragrance ever released in the history of masculines, ever. Show me how Eau Sauvage Parfum and Invictus compare. Oh, wait a sec, nevermind - let me just smell Sauvage . . . not!

The last part of the writer's comment, about "someone [knowing] what I'm seeking," IS laughable, because nobody in the blogosphere has presumed as much. In fact, the encouragement has been for this person to not trust reviewers, and to trust himself only. But alas, this is what happens when you paint yourself in a corner with faulty logic. You wind up boxed into the idea that you shouldn't do something that might enhance your knowledge because your knowledge doesn't need enhancement.

I've reviewed the better part of a thousand perfumes in my time on From Pyrgos, and my readers have their own expectations. I get messages on Fragrantica all the time from people who enjoy my impressions, and openly thank me for them. Doubt that? Just take a quick look at this screenshot of my Fragrantica mailbox (click the pic to enlarge):

Many are spurred by my words to try certain perfumes for themselves, and thus far nobody has ever lost anything in doing so. Trying a perfume is a "nothing to lose" scenario; if you don't like a fragrance, you don't have to apologize for it, nor do you have to buy it. If you do like it, then you've found something else new and interesting to think about.

I'm glad I read all the reviews about vintage Kouros that I could find, and equally glad that I found an older bottle and bought it. Is it what I expected? No, not at all, really. I never expected a mellow Kouros with less citrusy civet and more ambergris. But I found it, because I went for it myself. It's possible that this eleven year-old vintage has aged out some of its top notes, which would be a ruefully consistent experience I've had with vintages (and I really love a fresh citrus/musk top note in this scent), but having read about vintages and tried many myself, my experience here isn't surprising - I expect some degradation, and the older a scent, the more I expect it.

But all told, trying is the key to enlightenment in this pursuit. It's the reason people read this blog. I thank you for that!

Sauvage (Dior)

Surprisingly, after all the chatter about Sauvage on the interwebs, I have little to say about it myself, having now worn it. I have a sample on paper also, which I think smells remarkably better than the skin tests.

On paper, Sauvage opens with an aggressive salvo of fresh, "gummy" fruit notes, a veritable cavalcade of bergamot, red apple, pineapple, and something very dry, perhaps lime. This accord is so synthetic that I wonder if I couldn't get the same effect from one of Old Spice's recent animal-themed colognes. Wolfthorn is in the same league, for seventy dollars less. There you go.

Except that roughly thirty minutes in, the "gummy" notes fade, leaving a crisp, bright, realistic bergamot, which drones on for a while, and smells very good. On skin, the bergamot remains far more restrained, but seems to accompany an equally fresh musky amber, presumably the slug of Ambroxan that many report as a primary element in the formula. Sixty or seventy minutes into the drydown, this aspect dominates with its vague hints of black pepper and creamy suede. Anytime suede is a note, it bodes ill for the overall wearing experience in my book, and it doesn't take long for the reality to set in: Sauvage is a fresh leather scent. That's unfortunate, because as anyone who has worn Calvin Klein's recent masculines can attest to, there's nothing more trite than a "suede" cologne.

The best notes here are the bergamot and the Ambroxan, and I appreciate the tiny butyric dab of sweetened red apple on the fringes, which lends the fruitiness some depth and character, but unfortunately there isn't much else to do with Sauvage. Longevity is good, but that's not saying much. Two hours in, the fruitiness has faded to a bland sweetness with no distinct qualities, and five hours later I'm left with just a clean muskiness, with perhaps the softest touch of pepper, that incredibly mild woody accent, which Dior had to include. I'm a bit disappointed that the composition is so simple and clean, little more than a well-made soap smell.

I'm also annoyed that the comparisons on fragrance forums have been so far off. Some have said it smells similar to Creed's Aventus. There's absolutely no similarity to Aventus here. Others mention Bleu de Chanel. I've mentioned that scent in the context of Dior's commercial strategy, but here I'll compare the two by saying that Bleu is a much nicer and more distinguished fragrance. Acqua di Gio, Mont Blanc Individuel, B*Men, and a dozen other fragrances were also mentioned elsewhere. There is zero similarity to the Armani, only the faintest hint of a connection with Individuel (mainly in how the sweetness is handled), and perhaps a passing similarity to B*Men in the loosest way possible. I can't say I had an "Aha!" moment when I initially smelled Sauvage, as no other popular scent came to mind.

In some ways, this makes Sauvage rather special - I can't say I've ever smelled a fragrance quite like it. Its combination of notes creates an accord that is very unique, and whether it smells good or not is as subjective as can be. There are no comparatives online that reliably classify this scent.

But maybe that's also the problem with it. Bleu at least resembles old-school aftershave, and the other scents have their niche in the high wall of famous masculines, but nothing in particular connects Sauvage to its progenitors. It's as if the facelessly bland freshness of its structure exists in a sad vacuum, pleasant enough to wear on the weekend, but entirely alone in its banality. A shame.

Try Before You Buy A Fragrance, Or Its Reputation On the Internet

Or Perhaps It's Really Good. Who Knows?

In an altogether common bit of irony, there was recently a thread on basenotes about Dior's Sauvage, in which the OP elicited such member responses as:

"I haven't smelled it yet, but I suspect neither has many of the people who posted reviews about it on fragrantica." - silentrich

"I suspect this also to be the case. Either way I'll be deciding myself after a good testing." - adam090273

"I'm looking forward to trying it, but judging something on the basis of Fragrantica's reviews is probably not fair. The hit rate there is much lower." - gimpy

What makes me laugh about these comments is that they're in a thread posted by a person of questionable intelligence who truly hasn't smelled Sauvage yet! Also, the comment by "gimpy" couldn't be more untrue. Fragrantica boasts much, much higher hit rates than basenotes, across the board. Alexa.com organizes its traffic ranking statistics for site popularity in descending order. Currently, basenotes' ranking resides at a paltry 27,993, while Fragrantica enjoys a much more comfortable traffic rank of 4,905. So I have no idea where "gimpy" got his information, but put simply, he's dead wrong.

Anyway, is it wise to get seven or eight hundred perfumes into this "hobby," and then decide your nose is experienced enough (and jaded enough) to preclude the chore of trying presumably unadventurous mainstream designer fragrances?

In my opinion, the answer is a resounding "no." As in, no, it is not wise to get a few hundred fragrances down the road, and then consider yourself to be "above" smelling future mainstream releases based on what internet chatter says about them.

There comes into the picture an awkward question of why one should bother trying something that just smells "good" or "nice" if that's literally all it accomplishes. Why spend eighty or ninety dollars on something that smells nothing more or less than "nice," when you can get a "nice" scent for a few dollars?

Comparing things based on mundane descriptors is a fool's errand. I could argue that every fragrance in my collection is equally nice. Yet their prices fall across a fairly broad spectrum, and their effects on the nose and on people around me are quite different. YSL's Kouros is "nice." It's a dense, unique, dirty-clean composition that is as wearable as it is unforgettable. It costs about seventy dollars a bottle, a price that varies by roughly twenty dollars in either direction, depending on source and vintage. When I wear it, I feel good, and it always makes me feel that way.

Jeanne Arthes' Cotton Club is also "nice." It costs about ten dollars. It's a light, crisp, sweetish Saturday spritz that elicits compliments. Wearing it feels as comfortable as wearing my own skin.

So two entirely different fragrances smell "nice."

If I consider Dior's Sauvage, and decide it's not worth smelling because reviewers collectively peg it as being little more than "nice," or something akin to "nice," I'm letting an entirely useless idea influence my judgment. That isn't very smart.

And what about price differences? One could make the argument that for some people, spending eighty dollars on a department store frag is the equivalent of spending four dollars for others, but who cares about that? Price is only a primary concern when buying a perfume. Price should be (but sadly isn't for many people) a distant secondary concern when it comes to liking a perfume. I'd rather know what both the eighty dollar and the four dollar fragrances smell like, and base my purchases off how I feel about those smells. If someone includes information about the health of their banking statements in their reviews, and tries to use that as some sort of useful information about the fragrance, I'll likely consider their reviews a waste of my time. That you can afford a fragrance that you've experienced is of little to no interest to me, and it shouldn't interest you, either.

In the language of behavior analysis, the theory behind differential reinforcement of higher rates of behavior (DHR) indirectly comes into play for those who limit expectations based on frequent and recurring satisfactory results from relatively cheap fragrances. If you enjoy the effects of cheap clones and drugstore-quality frags, and begin to base your standards off whether or not other fragrances fall into the same experiential category, you'll remain entrenched in the "cheaper is usually better" idea. All the ten or twenty dollar cheapies you buy and own and enjoy will collectively begin to cancel out your enjoyment of more expensive fragrances. If you try fifteen cheap fragrances (ten dollars or less) and really like twelve of them, and then try two comparatively expensive fragrances (eighty dollars or more) and dislike them both, surprise, surprise: you increasingly believe pricier fragrances aren't worth checking out, simply because your sampling pattern ratios are biased. With this continued sampling pattern, ignoring and not even trying more expensive fragrances because you prefer their cheaper counterparts becomes self-reinforcing behavior.

There's nothing inherently wrong with that, unless you're trying to come across as an "experienced" reviewer who knows what he's talking about. Disclosing that you have a price bias contradicts whatever impression of perfume worldliness you're trying to cultivate in your readers, even if your bias is for cheaper scents. Unfortunately, fragrances at Macy's that cost a hundred dollars are just as deserving of your attention, and your readers deserve to know what you think of them, after you smell them.

What should interest all of us is what fragrances smell like, and whether we like them. Period. When I do come across Sauvage in stores, I'll try it for myself. What I won't do with Sauvage, or any perfume, is pass judgment without experiencing it.

Cool Water Has Officially Been Destroyed

Well, they finally did it. It took nearly three decades and at least four reformulations, but the manufacturers of Davidoff's iconic fresh fougère have officially ruined the fragrance. This is a devastating development for me, as this fragrance was one of my absolute favorites. Let me explain what happened.

Contrary to what you usually read about reformulations (from morons who opine about diminished ingredient quality and dramatic packaging changes), the changes here were insular, streamlined, and sneaky. I've had a theory for a while now that Coty Prestige is beginning to lose faith in this brand. The constant annual cycle of summer flankers and special editions belie the financial hard times this perfume has, in my estimation, fallen on. The truth is that Cool Water isn't embraced by youngsters anymore. People in their teens and early twenties aren't really wearing it. I haven't met a single young person in the last six years who claimed to wear Cool Water, and I've met a few people recently who have actually never even heard of it, which is hard to fathom.

Compounding the issue is the recent rise of the richer-smelling Green Irish Tweed. As of eight years ago, Creed's woodier, muskier take on this genre was still an obscure niche scent with little to no commercial visibility. A handful of eighties fougère connoisseurs knew about it, but it didn't have the notoriety that it currently enjoys. Then the buzz started. Threads began to fill the boards at basenotes, Fragrantica, Badger & Blade, and guys rendered their collective verdict to the world: GIT is better than Cool Water. This cut into Davidoff's cache. Where it once was the popular choice for people who wanted a semi-sweet, semi-green freshie, now it was being derisively labeled "cheap," "chemical," and "inferior." That GIT is just as cheap to manufacture, almost as chemical-smelling, and in no way more effective at what it does than Cool Water did not register. People simply equated "richer" with "better," and that was that.

My guess is that declining sales over the years have spurred Coty to reevaluate the formula. They're in it to save money at this point. I'm intimately familiar with all forms of this scent, including the deodorant spray, and I believe that they used the deodorant formula in the new EDT. Which wouldn't be a big deal, except the deodorant was always simpler and flatter smelling than the EDT. Instead of crisp, long-lasting lavender and green apple notes, the deodorant opens with a muted lavender, only lightly brushed with apple, that swiftly segues to a muted tobacco/musk accord. It's the stale, wet cement note that used to crop up in older versions of CW. It has incredible power and presence, and still fills a room. I imagine it's not immensely cheaper than what was in the EDT, but it's definitely less.

The result is a fragrance that simply lacks dynamism and contrast. It also lacks its sparkle and appeal. I don't want a dull tobacco powder on my skin for eight hours. I don't want something that far removed from the neroli-shimmer of the 2013 formula. Having done a code search, I can tell you that my new bottle was manufactured in December of last year. And oddly enough, Coty's people decided to enlarge the Cool Water logo on the bottle by a few millimeters, which I'm guessing cost them next to nothing (no dramatic color, design, or packaging change), but lets them identify the different formulas by simply glancing at the bottles. I know that enlarging a logo by a few millimeters can be done in InDesign within ten seconds, and would add nothing, or next to nothing, to the printer's bill. But just eye-balling the new bottle next to the old one reveals the difference, and cleverly makes identifying which bottle is which very easy.

This would be a true disaster if Green Irish Tweed and Grey Flannel didn't exist. Frankly, I like Cool Water better than GIT. But not anymore. This new version doesn't smell very good. It smells much less fresh and appealing than the version before it, and I'd rather save my money and buy GIT. So sad, and very rare for this to happen. It is literally the first reformulation in my collection that has made me feel this way.

Classic Match "Drakkar Noir" (Parfums Belcam)

True beauty is usually copied.

Drakkar Noir is cheap enough to make spending anything on a knock-off seem silly. It's not like we're looking for an affordable alternative to Creed here. But the fun in spending five bucks or so on a faux Drakkar comes with finding an olfactory alternative that puts a twist on the original, while maintaining the same general profile.

For example, Buxton extended the sweetness of Drakkar's mint and the warmth of its amber, creating Taxi, a different scent that was nevertheless an unabashed Laroche clone. Francesco Smalto Pour Homme diffuses the focused lavender/pine attack of Drakkar into a heady melange of smoky notes, which winds up smelling rather like Drakkar covered in sun-baked grass clippings. Lomani Pour Homme aggravates the dihydromyrcenol and linalool "fresh" effect, becoming at once soapier and more transparent than its congener. Diamond Collection's Dakar scent is closer to Taxi than Drakkar, but it's certainly close enough to Wargnye's idea to pass muster with Drakkar fans. As I mentioned last month, it's arguably useful to dispense with the term "clone," and replace it with the word "idea," because each scent is its own unique experience, and each is very different, but they do play off the same idea.

Enter Parfum Belcam's Classic Match version of Drakkar Noir, which oddly enough doesn't have its own name (the bottle simply says "classic match"). We're given to assume that it's a close copy of Drakkar, because its creators didn't feel the need to bestow upon it an original moniker of any sort, leaving the unambiguous associations of its bottle's shape and color to speak for itself. This makes Belcam's scent an outlier among clones; companies generally attempt to fob off the inherent crappiness of cloning by having fun with letters and rhyming their formula's name with the original's - Belcam chose not to. I already own Drakkar and Taxi, so I figured I'd pay the price of three rolls of toilet paper and pick up a small bottle of Belcam's clone. I've read about this one, and apparently it's very close to the original version of DN from 1982, to the point where scientists conducted a gas chromatography comparison between the formulas. Interestingly, the results show that the two chemical compositions are almost identical.

The differences are, however, quite clear in the wearing. Drakkar is a smooth, soapy, bitter, and smoky fragrance. Its opening salvo of spike lavender, tart citrus, and pine is one of the finest accords in the history of masculine perfumery. Classic Match's top accord is, in my estimation, about 97% the same as Drakkar's, but that three percent is noticeable. There's much more patchouli in Belcam's version, with more than a light touch of woodsy skank, an oilier pine note that hovers between synthetic freshness and earthy intrigue. Most significant of all is a distinct basil note, which doesn't exist in Drakkar. As the minutes pass, it becomes clear that this non-gourmand basil element is Belcam's replacement for spike lavender, and the effect is predictably more herbal. The patchouli tempers it, though. Put simply, it smells paradoxically brighter and dirtier than Drakkar.

The drydown, which arrives in fifteen minutes, reveals a tenuously balanced base of patchouli, synthetic oakmoss, cade oil (that juniper-derived smokiness I've come to love), lavender, and peppermint. It's not very complex, despite how it sounds. It's basically just another Drakkar-like soapy effect, this time from a headshop. What I like about it is that its "clean" elements are gently offset by accents of vaguely filthy wood, which makes Belcam's scent memorable enough to warrant owning. It also smells somewhat natural, although here I'm sure the perfumer would rather I use restraint in this analysis, as the blending isn't so great, and the balance between natural oils and synthetics is somewhat crude. Still, not bad.

Will this replace Drakkar Noir? Is it as glamorous as those eighties power scents that guys like me love? I think it's almost as good as Drakkar, but not quite. Honestly, I think it would make a very good aftershave. It does possess a sort of sexy shimmer of its own, rather like seeing a beauty from a bygone era through a speckled, colorless lens. I don't regret the purchase. If you're in it for next to nothing, why not try Belcam's Classic Match? At least they got the "classic" part right.

Jōvan Ginseng NRG (Coty)

I'll be blunt - this scent smells like a woman's floral-perfumed skin after a dip in a heavily chlorinated swimming pool. It's basically muguet soap and musk oil diluted in pool water. Ginseng NRG was released in the late nineties, around the time I graduated from high school, and at that time it was something I seriously considered wearing. I considered it, and passed. Why, you ask? Hard to say. For one thing, it's not particularly exciting, or groundbreaking. It smells "fresh," and "clean," and "soapy." Typical nineties fare, especially with its hint of sweetness, thanks to all that musk. I guess I liked its perkiness, that hit of natural ginseng blended in with bitter citrus and soft amber. It's nice.

It's also a "sporty" frag (hence the "NRG"), the sort of thing that lasts three hours max, maybe a little longer after a rigorous, sweaty workout. At that time, I wasn't a "sporty" guy. I'm actually a hell of a lot sportier now, in my thirties, than I was in my late teens, and given my penchant for couch-potatoing with popcorn and movies, that's saying a lot. But no, in the late nineties I was not a "sporty" dude. I was naturally stick thin and led a fairly (moderately) active lifestyle, just doing day-to-day chores, so working out and then dousing myself in transparent, citrusy colognes wasn't on the schedule.

This is a youthful scent, and as Tania Sanchez says, it smells very soapy, and perhaps a little generic (she made a good GNR joke in The Guide), but it's altogether a solid offering from Jōvan that I'll continue sampling every time I pass it at Walmart - nobody buys this stuff. If you intend on buying it, get it while supplies last - rumor has it Coty discontinued NRG, and I expect to see inane price increases in the near future.

Stetson Sierra (Coty)

The subtlest victories of masculine perfumery come as nods to femininity. The violet prettiness of Cool Water and Green Irish Tweed. The sugary toffee rush of A*Men. The candied yuzu of Caron's Third Man. Each masterpiece contains an element of bisexual appeal. Most American guys don't wear any fragrance at all, but those who do generally approach them with subliminal consciousness, choosing what "smells good," without realizing their choice may very well smell surprisingly close to a girly-girl's perfume. Those who recognize these contradictions wear such scents as code.

Stetson Sierra is a frag that I've passed a million times at Walgreens and Walmart, and the former always has a tester out, alongside the original Stetson and Stetson Black. Every time I spray Sierra, I recognize a classical twentieth century masculine structure, ubiquitous, unadventurous, yet brilliantly subtle in its message. Released in 1993, it was a departure from its namesake, which is an unglamorously feminine oriental (not so subtle, that one), the "outdoorsy" Stetson, at long last. Rugged men, pine needles, herbs, woods, mosses, musks. Five o'clock shadows, leather boots, blue jeans, pick-up trucks, Winchester repeaters, buxom girlfriends named Dawn who cashier at the supermarket. Real men don't wear cologne, so this one has to be a real cologne - light, transparent for most of its duration, and rather aftershavey, that hint of "clean" and "musky" that classier guys don't mind spending a few dollars on.

That's exactly what Sierra delivers, until you get to the base accord, the very thing that is supposed to cement its direct masculinity into the workday and be forgotten by lunch. It starts off very directly, and very much an early nineties scent, bright and fizzy bursts of fresh bergamot, pine needles, lavender, and near-odorless aldehydes, morning in a Maine forest. The piney hi-fidelity aftershave effect segues into a mélange of herbal notes, mainly wormwood, caraway, rosemary, juniper, black pepper, basil, and geranium. I'm reminded of the long discontinued Polo Crest, and for about ten minutes Sierra smells like a somewhat cheaper copy of Crest, a good thing, given that Crest is a beautiful scent. Then the manliness gets patchouli heavy, and an accord similar to Preferred Stock creeps in and hangs around for about five minutes, before introducing the main attraction.

That main attraction is jasmine. Hello, sweetheart. How'd you get here? I thought this was an inexpensive testosterone fest? But is it really that inexpensive? Twenty bucks for 1.5 ounces? Almost thirty for two ounces? This is pricier than the original Stetson, and frankly the quality of its craftsmanship is on par with the dollar increase. The far drydown yields an understated musky, piney jasmine note, delicate, sweet, sheer, still quite "fresh," but now interminably "floral." Incredibly, Sierra's jasmine note is of better quality than things more famously floral, like Tea Rose Jasmin, for instance, which has a very literal rendition of jasmine, (perhaps too literal), Tommy Girl, with an overly luminescent synthetic jasmine accord, or even Anaïs Anaïs by Cacharel, a sublimely dry white floral blend.

How to account for this? I couldn't tell you. Forget the fake male swagger. There's plenty of that in the first twenty minutes of this scent. Embrace the crystalline beauty of the simple jasmine accord that follows, and recognize why you like it, wear it, and observe. The men and women in your world will pass by en masse, but every so often, one will read your code, and remind you that the phrase "it's a man's world" has several subtextual connotations. From that power flows the beauty of this little scent from Coty.

Boss N° 6 (Hugo Boss)

Fancy package, working class contents.

It seems fitting that Ryan Reynolds is the recent face of Hugo Boss' sixth masculine release. The actor is a middle class success story, a man who made his way to the top without the help of wealthy parents and trust funds. Likewise, Boss N°6, also known as Boss Bottled, is a modest fragrance that has become a sleeper classic, something of an olfactory signature for the late nineties, and arguably the first in a short but prestigious line of sweet, semi-gourmand fougères of that time period.

But is it a fougère, really? It contains two simple accords, the first being spiced apple, and the second a vanillic woody amber. Bear the lineage in mind; Cool Water's main accord is crisp lavender and crab apple, followed by tobacco-tinged woody amber and musk. Ten years later, Boss N°6 arrives with an even bigger apple note, this time very red and edible, followed by a saccharine bouquet of muted florals and synthetic woods, punctuated by hints of cinnamon and vanilla. Perhaps one could say it's an oriental, but good ferns have a way of hiding lavender and coumarin in plain sight. In Moustache, the lime and green notes disguise the lavender, with an oakmoss note serving as a bittering agent for the hefty slug of hay-like coumarin that follows.

In N°6, the lavender is mated to spiced apple, preventing it from smelling feminine, while the coumarinic effect of a true fern is evident in the drydown's powdery aura of almost-edible warmth. I think N°6 was the inspiration for Chanel's original Allure Homme, which came a year later. However, I don't find Annick Menardo's fragrance to be as compelling as Jacques Polge's. Allure presents a fascinatingly complex structure as a suave blend, with few notes outright discernible, yet all somehow very detectable. Fragrantica has recently lost credibility with me in the note pyramid department, as much of their pyramids have suddenly changed to exclude notes that are present in various compositions, and include notes that have nothing to do with them at all. Allure is a victim of this development, as its Fragrantica pyramid now lists silly things like coconut and peach (neither note exists in Chanel's scent).

However, once upon a time, Allure's pyramid accurately included rosewood, which is conspicuously absent from Boss N°6. Also missing is Allure's stunning synthetic labdanum, and the deep sandalwood impression I get about five hours into wearing it. Boss is all about soft, smooth notes, with a creamy take on woody amber, which is why I consider it a "warm" scent. It also plays a bit safe and bland. The word "innocuous" comes to mind. Many guys refer to apple pie in their reviews of N°6, and while I don't get that impression from it, I can certainly understand it, given the combination of gourmandish cinnamon and herbalized red apple.

If you're looking for a more convincing apple pie effect, I recommend trying Aubusson Pour Homme, or Witness by Jacques Bogart. With Boss N°6, you're better off expecting a very soft, sweet teddy bear of a fragrance, the sort of thing American males used to wear, back when Bill Clinton was President and Britney Spears still topped the charts.