Panda (Zoologist)

Christian Carbonnel is the nose behind this one, and I have to say -- he nailed it. I’m talking about the 2017 formula here. Technically, I should call it Panda 2017, since the original was done by Paul Kiler around 2013 or 2014. But at this point, this version is Panda. It’s easily the freshest and most easygoing of Zoologist’s gender-neutral, masculine-leaning offerings, and I like it. A lot.

It opens with a cool burst of green tea and grassy, leafy florals. Nothing stands out individually, but they’re blended with just enough texture and nuance to give the air a soft, glowing greenness. Then comes a green apple note -- crisp, a little bitter, almost like a crab apple -- tempered by a hint of sugar. It’s not candy-sweet, more like the scent of just-picked fruit. There’s an earthy thread beneath the apple, never dominant, but present. Imagine a ripe apple resting in damp soil. That’s the vibe. Nothing here smells loud or synthetic, and despite civet being listed in the base, I don’t detect it at all. Maybe it’s there just to deepen the earthiness. If you’re an apple note lover, this is paradise. 

Of course, I have one caveat: you can get your apple fix for a lot less. Donna Karan, Hugo Boss, even Cool Water and Nautica Voyage, plus the fragrance in my next review -- they all do great apple-adjacent scents without the Zoologist price tag. So why splurge on Panda? Well, because Carbonnel’s take smells luminous, natural, and unusually lifelike. It’s a crisp-fruit reverie, bottled. If that’s your thing, and your wallet agrees, then by all means, go for it. I just don't have the scratch. 

Brut Splash-On Lotion (Unilever)

Closing out May, let's take a look at European Brut Splash-On. Here in America, we rubes are given tacky plastic bottles that look and feel junky and are in an unnecessarily deep shade of green. It's as if HRB thinks the darker color will help buyers overlook the fact that they're splurging on a great big bottle of cheap. But not in Europe -- oh god no. You fancy-pants Euros get the expensive plastic that looks and feels like glass and is finished in a tastefully subdued translucent green. 

How does your supermarket Brut smell? Well, after the initial alcohol bite, which is unexpectedly more pronounced than the American version, the Euro Splash-On settles into a delicate and very sweet sugared lavender fougère with wispy woody underpinnings, reminiscent of the Unilever EDT in glass (squat bottle). My war-torn nose sometimes struggles to get the full picture, but what I glean is that this is an "aura" fragrance, something any bloke with a few quid can grab in a pinch to send olfactorily subliminal signals of very civilized masculinity out to the world. An eau de cologne version of the Unilever formula, if you will. The irony here is that Europe and Asia, where this formula is primarily marketed and sold, is loaded with sophisticated and eye-wateringly expensive haute parfumerie, most of which fails to capture the ethereal beauty of this understated classic. You can find it across from the condoms at Tesco. 

This formula of Brut is sweet, gentle, yet nuanced enough to smell like a real composition. It "feels," more than smells, as if I'm relaxing in a grassy meadow full of wild pink catchfly, their dulcet aroma whirling past my senses on a warm breeze, along with a hint of English lavender from further afield. There's also a warmer hay-like essence, powdery and woody, just underneath. Truly beautiful for a drugstore pong, possibly better than HRB's here in the States. Now for a prawn salad and a bowl of Heinz beans. 

Brut Aftershave (Unilever)

I've used Brut aftershave for many years, but always the American formula, which comes in the usual green plastic. The Helen of Troy formula (Idelle Labs) was formidable enough and got it done until about 2016, at which point they lost the plot and pinched a penny too many, leaving little more than a sweet vanilla powder behind. Then High Ridge Brands snatched it up and did the best thing any company has done for a fragrance in the past thirty years -- reformulated it back to its pre-HoT days, circa 1995. 

But, as always, there is more than just one Brut, which at least partially explains my obsession with this stuff. The Europeans have their own formula, courtesy of Unilever, and it comes in the squat bottle, which also happens to be solid glass. Everyone knows perfume fares better in glass (and best in metal). Of further interest is how Unilever couldn't quite bring themselves to make it green glass, and instead opted for the cheaper route of coloring the liquid, which I find to be a little, what's the Euro word? Naff. But hey, at least they didn't do it to the EDT, I can't complain too much.

How does it work, and how does it smell? Beautifully, though not for nearly as long as the American version. The European EDT scales back the aromatics and amps up the woody vanilla, which really sings in the aftershave -- for all of thirty seconds -- before fading into the musky hum of a polite gentleman’s splash. Europeans pride themselves on being more sophisticated than their colonial counterparts, and this formula says, "I wear it for me, not for you." Very nice, and well worth owning if you're a Brut fanatic like I am. If not, stick with the American stuff. It's stronger and, thanks to fortune, smells just as good.

Brut Classic (Fabergé/Unilever)

My bottle of Brut Classic by "Fabergé" is the 1990s formula that was only sold from circa 1989 to circa 2000, after which point Unilever sold the North American license exclusively to Helen of Troy/Idelle Labs. I had never smelled this formula of Brut Classic until recently, having only owned several bottles of the 2000s stuff, which I was always a bit wary of. I'd spent years hearing older guys reminisce about how the current Classic smells like the original stuff from the 1960s, but I always questioned it. The fragrance smelled much better than the plastic bottle version sold in drugstores, but I felt it lacked something and seemed suspiciously thin in the drydown, a wispy white musk and powder vibe. 

The first five minutes of Fabergé's Classic smells very similar to the Idelle Labs reformulation, but the main difference that jumps out at you (if you have experience with the newer stuff) is that the vintage version has way more depth in its lavender and geranium accord, with brighter, mintier aromatics, and a sort of sparkling quality to the citrus and greens. The stearyl acetate accord really glows in Unilever's older version of Classic, and as it dries down the lavender remains lucid, guiding me through an array of powdery white florals and into a musky sandalwood and patchouli base that smells classy and overwhelmingly "adult" and sophisticated. Wearing it, it's hard to believe Brut was once the "cheap cologne" that anyone could grab at a Woolworths or K-Mart. Its projection exceeds the safety zone of three feet by at least another three, and its longevity is nuclear at 15 hours plus. Classic indeed, especially when you consider my bottle is the cologne and not the eau de toilette spray that was also available at the time. The Idelle Labs formula doesn't come close to touching this one in quality or strength. (The Parfums Prestige formula, also Unilever, is a different story.) 

It's interesting that Unilever kept the Fabergé marquee going for another decade after it was all but moot to associate the name of a Baltic jeweler with an inexpensive American barbershop scent, but I guess when a British multinational firm of its size buys something as iconic as Karl Mann's 1964 fougère, the incentive to maintain is there. Of note to me is how their post-'89 formula doesn't smell the least bit cheap or simplistic -- there's quite a stew of notes at work, and all of them smell sprightly, dimensional, and, for lack of a better word, solid. It stands apart from its powdery post-shave brethren, reminding me more of Trumper Wild Fern than Pinaud Clubman. If you have the cash, I say get this. 

Brut EDT, Gold Vs. Silver (Unilever)

I've always wondered why Unilever's Brut EDT comes in two shades, as shown in the image above. Are they distinct in scent, do they offer unique benefits, or is it just marketing through arbitrary packaging? I owned the silver-capped version (with a matching medallion) and bought the gold-capped one to investigate.

The truth is, there's no difference between the two beyond the metal color and one minor detail specific to my bottles. The silver bottle's clear plastic box had a manufacturing sticker lacking any company information—no Unilever "U" logo, making it hard to trace its origin. The gold bottle's box, however, bears a Unilever logo on a more detailed sticker. Otherwise, both bottles are identical in appearance and scent.

Despite the identical fragrance, I’m left wondering why Unilever offers two colors. My theory is that silver targets the Asian market, while gold is aimed at Europe—a notion I vaguely recall reading somewhere, though unverified. Like much of Brut’s branding, this choice remains a mystery, although a scam has surfaced on platforms like eBay and YouTube, where Indian resellers package genuine or fake Parfums Prestige silver bottles in Fabergé Brut Classic boxes, passing them off as vintage. At least one YouTuber fell for this, reviewing a current bottle in a vintage Fabergé box, which is unfortunate.

Buyers should beware of Brut Classic boxes with the Fabergé logo, especially from sellers omitting bottle photos. Many of these boxes are likely counterfeit, part of a petty Indian scam. It’s baffling why resellers don’t just use the clear plastic packaging typical of '70s vintage Fabergé bottles, but there you have it.

Brut Special Reserve (High Ridge Brands)

It's Back

Brut Special Reserve is no longer discontinued. Sorry, eBay scalpers. You'll have to forget about charging $125 for 89 milliliters of this stuff, because it can be had for $18 again. And, I have more bad news for you: the $18 formula, new from High Ridge Brands, is better than the old version from twelve years ago. So go fish. 

Is there a lot to say about this new Brut? No, not really. I finally understand what High Ridge Brands is doing, and it makes me feel a lot better about my life. Back about four years ago, they reissued Brut 33 (the plastic bottle drugstore version) with a beautiful formula that took Brut back to 2000. I was awestruck by it, because I never expected anyone to buy an old, over-reformulated legacy drugstore cologne and "fix" it. But that's exactly what they did, and it smelled great. I bought two backup bottles. 

Then HRB did the unthinkable, and quickly reformulated it, cheapening the top notes and messing with the warm, ambery finish by adding shrill white florals. Not terrible, and still miles better than what Helen of Troy had brought us to, but why? Well, now I know why -- they decided to take their first formula, increase the concentration by 10%, and put it in a glass bottle, to be marketed as the new Special Reserve. This new stuff smells rather similar to Brut Special Reserve 2013, but it's smoother, drier, more put together, and a bit less crude in how it impacts the nose. I like it better, let's put it that way. 

Brut remains one of the most difficult fragrances for me to pin down, given its myriad incarnations and the simple fact that it's been around for 61 years. I find myself obsessing over Brut in much the same way I obsess over Creeds, and indeed, I have a bottle of the original glass Fabergé cologne on the way, so I'll be taking my obsession to its logical endpoint. Stay tuned. In the meantime, if you're someone who has been gnashing his teeth over Special Reserve's discontinuation, and you had not, until now, heard of its re-release, well, you're very welcome. 

This One Is Now Officially "Cheap"

It has always bothered me that Drakkar Noir is so expensive. Online, hard to get for under $25. In discount retailers, even harder to get for under $30. At retail? Ridiculous, naturally, typically $45 for 50 ml, and don't even know what they ask for 100 ml bottles. I'd scratch my head and ask myself, what gives? Why is this old foghorn from the early eighties still commanding a premium price, when nobody really wears it anymore? 

Even on eBay, it was difficult to source a big bottle for less than $30. Many would fall under that price, but they'd come without a box, which always put me off. If you can't get Drakkar Noir with its box, one wonders what you're really getting. The other day, this all changed -- I hopped on eBay and found what I'd always hoped to find -- Drakkar Noir has now slid into clearance bin prices. I just bought a 100 ml bottle with its box for $16, free shipping. This stuff is now cheaper than Cool Water. Finally! 

But the question is, why now? Why didn't this happen twenty years ago, when the fragrance was still well past its expiration date? There's no clear reason, but I have my own theory, and I think it's kind of obvious, once you get past the shock of seeing the market turn on a famous men's cologne to the point where it prices it under Coty's Aspen on some sites. Drakkar Noir is a sharp, crisp, bitter, soapy, somewhat peppery, somewhat green/grey lavender-centric fougère. You know what isn't popular today, and hasn't been popular for over ten years? Sharp, bitter, greenish fougères. 

But not being popular (in the high school cafeteria sense of the word) isn't enough to drive a fragrance's price down by ten dollars or more. There are plenty of fairly esoteric frags that go for big bucks. If Drakkar Noir was the first to go against the grain, it'd never lose its retail value. No, the thing that put it out to pasture is what is popular: extremely sweet and cloyingly saccharine olfactory sugar bombs. Liquid candy that you can spray everywhere, even on your crotch, and suddenly feel hungry. Everyone and their cousin is into these extreme derivations of Le Male and Joop! Homme that have evolved from those relatively modest semisweet masterpieces into nefariously nectarous beasts. 

Against this gourmand tableau, Drakkar Noir smells all the more bitter, peppery, smoky, unapproachable, and downright intimidating. Drakkar Noir is too much of a contrast, and a bridge too far for the budding Gen Z crowd of saplings who now smell Le Male and Joop! Homme and wrinkle their noses. The thought that anyone who was born after 2000 would find Drakkar Noir an easy wear is increasingly laughable. Not so in 2015. No so in 2005. Certainly not so in 1995, when virtually every other fragrance that was released riffed on Guy Laroche's signature masculine. One forgets that Drakkar Noir was once the Dior Sauvage of the fragrance world, inspiring countless imitations, clones, and smell-alikes that barely hid what they were trying to do. For nearly two decades, Drakkar Noir was the cornerstone of masculine perfumery, shaping its trends and defining its essence. How distant and even bizarre that very fact has become now. 

I'm sure there were legions of men who revelled in the discovery that Drakkar Noir had officially lost its premium department store cache, and was no longer going for Macy's prices. I imagine the hen-pecked Gen X guy who walked into a Walmart in 2003 and happily discovered Drakkar Noir priced at $38 instead of $48. Fast forward to today, when finally, after extra innings, it isn't even worth Walmart prices anymore, and can be had for less than $18, consistently less than Avon fragrances. It probably means nothing to the youngsters out there, but I'm overjoyed. Finally I can stock up on a few bottles of Drakkar Noir, and wear it with abandon. 

1 Million Royal (Rabanne)

Did the world need this? It's not really the fragrance I take issue with, although that also sucks, but what's with the price? They're asking $145 for 100 ml of this, retail. I'm sorry, but if I have $145 to spend on a fragrance, I'm going to look into an upscale Guerlain, or Tom Ford, or even an aftermarket Creed. The last thing I'd do is drop that kind of cash on Paco Rabanne's 1 millionth 1 million flanker. Especially when I can get 1 Million Royal's scent profile for $120 less and done a gajillion times better by Lataffa's Qaa'ed (2018). 

This one opens with, you guessed it, bubblegummy vanillic notes, supersweet and cloying, not to mention insanely chemical. It rapidly mellows into a sort of sweet woody/foody thing, the cardamom, before sticking a woody amber landing of mostly benzoin, cedar, patchouli, and vanilla. Rabanne attempted a sage or lavender note here, but it just smells of nakedly chemical sclarene. There's also a bit of a scratchy quality to the amber, suggesting garden variety amberwood/Ambroxan at play. Meh. You could go wild and buy a bottle of this, but only if you happened to love all things Rabanne and had a limitless budget. 

As for the comparison to Baccarat Rouge 540, all I can say is I haven't really gotten into that one, and often wonder if Francis Kurkdjian single handedly ruined perfumery forever with it. In our post-Baccarat world, the landscape is awash with bubblegum-laced quasi-gourmand fragrances, and I'm really starting to hate the world because of it. If you want to smell like this, but prefer to smell interesting, wear Qaa'ed. If you desperately wish to cement your NPC status by losing all unique identifying traits and wandering with the herd repeating pointless memes on X, this is for you.  

Linen Vetiver (Banana Republic)

The Banana Republic Icon Collection fragrances, the originals in the black boxes produced by Gap’s sister brand, are increasingly difficult to find. These scents aren’t budget buys -- retailing around $100, with online prices hovering near $45. For deals, discount retailers like Marshalls, Ross, and Burlington often stock them at roughly $20 for a 75 ml bottle. Recently, my local stores have had an abundance of Dark Cherry & Amber, Gardenia & Cardamom, and Cypress Cedar, with occasional sightings of 06 Black Platinum. However, 90 Pure White, Linen Vetiver, and 78 Vintage Green are becoming scarce, especially Vintage Green. Fortunately, I recently scored a bottle of Linen Vetiver, and it’s a standout fragrance.

It's good because it's obviously an unused mod of Julien Rasquinet's Asian Green Tea, released by Creed in 2014. It opens with a lively bergamot and petitgrain accord, tinged with a spiced sweetness that evokes crab apple. This apple-like note lingers, framing the scent with subtle fruitiness. The heart reveals a blend of iris, hyacinth, and watery jasmine, closely mirroring Asian Green Tea’s profile. Despite its name, Linen Vetiver lacks vetiver, making it a remarkable, streamlined take on what Creed could have achieved with a simpler floral chypre. The vetiver-shaped hole instead of the note suggests that Banana Republic’s perfume team has a wry sense of humor, repurposing a potential Creed scent with a nod to Olivier’s habit of naming fragrances after absent ingredients.

The key distinction lies in Linen Vetiver’s lack of a tea note, relying entirely on its florals to carry the composition—a choice that works beautifully. In Creed’s version, the tea note felt sharp and astringent, almost celery-like, as my mother once noted. Banana Republic’s decision to focus on the floral structure, sweetened by a green apple haze, results in a fresh, mass-appealing fragrance. It’s unclear why Creed passed on this formulation, but their loss is my gain. At Banana Republic’s accessible price point, Linen Vetiver is a gem I’ll happily keep in my rotation for years to come.

L'Aventure Fraîche (Al Haramain)

For reasons that continue to elude me, Silver Mountain Water clones seem to be the yardstick by which Dubai perfumers measure their worth. There are so many variations on this one Creed fragrance that I sometimes wonder if Pierre Bourdon struck a secret deal with a sheik. It’s as if every brand is legally obligated to release its own version of his scrapped L’Eau d’Issey brief. At this point, I’ve lost track of them all. I already own a handful—Ajmal’s Silver Shade, Rasasi’s Al Wisam Day, Al Rehab’s Silver, Armaf’s Club de Nuit Sillage, Afnan’s Supremacy in Heaven, and now this latest entry from Al Haramain, L’Aventure Fraîche.

I’d be lying if I said it was easy to keep these fragrances straight. You’d think that owning SMW itself, plus half its clones, would help build a mental map, but no. This is only my second Al Haramain fragrance, and Amber Oud Carbon Edition was a bit of a letdown for me. Its take on Cool Water was a splice between that and Coty’s Aspen, and I’ve always preferred Cool Water, so its faint pine note threw me off. Interestingly, that same pine note shows up again in L’Aventure Fraîche, and this time, I like it. Silver Mountain Water has a whisper of pine anyway -- unlike Cool Water, which contains none -- so it’s not a stretch to see how a perfumer might lean into that aspect. And here, it works. Instead of fizzy orange and metallic aldehydes, the top notes present bergamot, pine needles, and that same sharp metallic shimmer, blended into a smooth and surprisingly high-quality accord that smells nearly as good as the original Creed. On a budget, this passes muster. 

But like most SMW clones, L’Aventure Fraîche turns a little sour in the drydown. Its crisp metallic brightness eventually gets muddied. The synthetic ambergris, which is popular in UAE perfumery, lends a faintly dirty comb effect that becomes more noticeable about six hours in. Compared to SMW or its closest clone, Sillage, this scent is much simpler. It builds a base around green tea, ginger, and violet leaf, which hums along for hours under the frosty veil of bergamot and pine. There's nothing to complement the whale vomit when it arrives, making it feel out of place. In comparison, Sillage also uses Ambroxan, but balances it with a salty accord that L’Aventure Fraîche lacks. Still, it's beautifully built, it smells expensive, and it’s perfect for sweltering summer days.

If you love the Silver Mountain Water profile, Sillage, Supremacy in Heaven, and the Creed itself are all you need. Add L’Aventure Fraîche only if you’re like me: fully obsessed.

Moth (Zoologist)

Tomoo Inaba is the author of both Moth and Nightingale, and I found the latter beautiful, if strained and derivative. It draws heavily from antique chypres, chiefly Mitsouko, with a whisper of modern flair. It smells lovely, and I’d wear it -- except, well, Mitsouko. Inaba clearly lifted from it, and did so skillfully, but in the end, Guerlain does it better, and for far less. There’s no sense in paying a premium and waiting for an import from Canada (or California, if you’re a Luckyscent customer) when you can find a superior rendition on eBay or Amazon and have Mitsy at your door the next day for $200 less.

Moth, however, is another story. I wouldn’t wear it even if you paid me --  and if you offered a million-dollar check, I’d hesitate. It opens promisingly: nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, pepper, saffron, cumin, with each note distinct and vivid for five fleeting minutes, and a lemon aldehyde lifting the whole into clarity. I almost believe I could enjoy it. Then the curtain drops. Florals: mimosa, rose, iris, heliotrope, and jasmine well up sweetly, but are yoked to a synthetic oud accord that crushes every bit of their natural dreaminess. It smells like damp wood, dried mouse droppings, and mothballs. It doesn’t evoke a forgotten drawer; it shoves you into a rotting attic, like something from a gothic horror movie set. Oh, and it fleetingly reminds me of how my great grandmother's house used to smell, back when we'd visit her in the very late 1980s and very early 1990s, shortly before her death. Her house reeked. Truly a dismal memory. 

For the first hour, I hoped to love Moth. It lingered in that peculiar space of possibly being another Cockatiel, i.e., a Zoologist I'd consider buying. But at ninety minutes, Moth crossed the point of no return. The oud, the faux ambergris (not Ambroxan, as it smells like Inaba needlessly attempted to go the long way around and do his own painstaking reconstruction), the honey, the unwashed patchouli -- all of it grotesque, like a brutalist portrait of decay. It conjures the stench of wood saturated by decades of human hands, like old church pews blooming on a humid summer's day with their own unholy spirit. That’s Moth, for no less than twelve suffocating hours. Ugh.