Kenzo Power

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Kenzo Power was described as a spicy woodsy scent–a rather banal genre for men’s fragrances which wouldn’t turn very many heads. That is, if only Power kept to that spicy woodsy description. Instead, Power is less so a spicy wood fragrance and more like a spicy floral.

Power

Power

In Bottle: Powereded florals and spice, I get cardamom but I definitely get some florals in this with some woods as well.

Applied: Starts off with a citrus opening that fades in with the spices almost immediately. Power starts off strong with an opening befitting of a classic men’s fragrance. The scent heads into its midstage with an increasingly floral presence as it settles in with a powdered flowers, a bit of creaminess and residual spiciness from the opening. The dry down is a fairly generic woods fragrance with a hint of amber and lingering spices.

Extra: Power isn’t your average men’s fragrance–at least not the average that I’ve been smelling. It’s got the male progression in the strong citrus blast up top and the woody dry down but the mid-stage has a nice femininity to it that doesn’t overpower the masculine aspects of the scent. Sure, there’s florals in this but it is still a men’s fragrance at heart. It’s soft and sophisticated and definitely different from your average aquatic or spicy wood. Kenzo Power was composed by Olivier Polge (Burberry The Beat and Balenciaga Paris).

Design: Rather interesting design, reminiscent of Montale’s fragrance bottles except done much better. Shiny metal with a fantastic heft to it. Feels good to hold, has a masculinity to the aesthetic but is not over the top and still manages to look modern and a little different. At the very least, the metal helps balance out the flower logo that should hint that this ‘Power’ has a little bit of floral in it.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Woodsy Floral

Notes: Bergamot, coriander, cardamom, florals, amber, woods.

Kudos to Kenzo for making Power smell the way it does. It’s a new and interesting contender in the rather repetitive abstract that is the men’s fragrance industry. Check this one out if you want a more creative men’s fragrance and you aren’t too afraid of flowers in your cologne.

Reviewed in This Post: Power, 2011, Eau de Toilette.

Creed Royal Oud

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Oud has always been popular amongst perfumistas. It took me a while to get used to it myself. But how could I delay it? People love oud. Companies have entire lines of fragrances dedicated to oud.  So how does Royal Oud stack up to the competition? Eh.

Royal Oud

Royal Oud

In Bottle: It’s oud all right. Dense and warm oud with a flowery bit of woodsiness and a major spice going on.

Applied: Okay, so here’s the problem with Royal Oud on me. It opens with a big spicy kick. Like the spices are a bit strong and overpowering at first and that makes it hard for my nose to adjust and get to the rest of the fragrance. As the spices settle down a bit, I get a warm, dense, slightly dirty oud and woodsy fragrance. The woods are a little distracting because I swear I smell a cedar note that’s threatening to take over and pull me away from the smooth richness of the oud fragrance. Royal Oud is a strange but rather boring creature. It’s strange in that it uses oud throughout its progression but the other notes in the fragrance seem to always be stronger and trying to overpower the oud. It’s boring because it smells like a spicy woodsy men’s fragrance with a little hint of dirtiness.

Extra: Oud has this dirty, dense, very resinous quality to my nose. But to describe oud is nearly impossible because there are so many ouds and so many different ways that oud can smell. It can be dirty, dense, deep, warm, sweet, and sticky. It also all depends on what type of oud you’re smelling and whether it’s a synthetic or a natural oud. It’s a talented ingredient that takes a good perfume to the next level if used right.

Design: The bottle itself is shaped and designed in a similar fashion to other Creed fragrances. Nice, heavy glass. Simple exterior with no unnecessary flourishes. The colors work well, the focus is on the fragrance and not the crazy gimmick bottle (here’s looking at you, Agonist. Even though I love Agonist bottles). It’s just a classic-looking Creed bottle that combines form and function very well.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Agarwood, woods, spices.

I don’t know how I should feel about Royal Oud except to say that Amouage did it better. Get yourself an attar if you want something that focuses a bit more on oud. Get yourself Royal Oud if you’re not sure you like the stuff yet but you want a confident fragrance that features oud but won’t overwhelm you with it.

Reviewed in This Post: Royal Oud, 2011, Eau de Parfum.

Chanel Sycomore

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Chanel Sycamore is a member of the Chanel Les Exclusifs line where the fragrance house tends to get a bit artsier than their mainstream releases.

Sycomore

Sycomore

In Bottle: Sycamore is vetiver, first and moremost. This dewy kind of vetiver instead of the dry grass that I usually get. It’s also a bit woodsy and smoky at the same time.

Applied: The vetiver comes up first and is joined shortly by sandalwood and tobacco. There’s a bit of powder and clean in this as well and a wet sort of smoky scent. This reminds me of my childhood and the smell of woodsmoke after a rainstorm. It’s a bit more perfumy than the memory I have of actual rain and woodsmoke but it is a very nice approximate and a very close concept. It takes me back to simpler times and I really like that. The fragrance itself is a vetiver centric scent with perfumed sandalwood, a bit of smoke with a moist, dewy personality. Very nicely done. I get fantastic longevity with this stuff.

Extra: Sycomore was a combined brain child from Christopher Sheldrake (Ambre Sultan from Serge Lutens and Daim Blond also from Serge Lutens) and Jacques Polge (Chanel’s Chance and Egoiste).

Design: Designed the same way as other members in Chanel’s Les Exclusifs line. A big glass rectangle with a simple label. It’s at recognizable as an elegant, simple, Chanel design. Also it has a magnetic cap so I’m sold.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy

Notes: Vetiver, sandalwood, aldehydes, tobacco, violet.

If the memories keep rolling in when I wear Sycomore, it might be large bottle worthy. All of the Les Exclusifs seem to be big hits with me and Sycomore, so far, is the biggest hit due to the memories it stirs up.

Reviewed in This Post: Sycomore, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Atelier Cologne Vanille Insensee

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Always on the look out for that next great vanilla to replace Spiritueuse Double Vanille. I don’t know why I keep wanting to upgrade. You would think once I find a fragrance that I love, I’d just stick with it? Maybe it’s the fear of SDV one day being discontinued. Or maybe it’s just the thrill of trying to find something just a little bit better.

Vanille Insensee

In Bottle: Spicy vanilla with a woody personality. Quite nice and quite interesting!

Applied: Citrus opener with the lime and a slightly sweet cedrat note. Maybe I’m inventing the sweetness but it smells a bit like lime and lemon with a hint of sugar. The vanilla evolves with this glorious green spiciness and woodsiness in the mid-stage. The woodsiness actually adds to the fragrance in the very subtle way that it’s used. Kind of like adding personality to the vanilla rather than just mixing with it. The florals are very light with the jasmine making the most pronounced appearance giving the fragrance a feminine touch and taking away from the level of gourmand this would reach if the woods and florals hadn’t been around to soothe it a little. This smells like warm vanilla pods and being in the woods with a cup of lemonade. It’s very easy to like and easy to wear and it’s a hint more special than your standard fare sweet and synthetic vanilla scent. The vanilla is, indeed, a little bit more interesting than your usual and it’s quite nice with this smooth and spicy personality that mixes really well with the woods. Very nice, indeed.

Extra: I almost forgot how nice a niche line could make a vanilla fragrance. I got a little caught up in the humdrum mainstream market for a while, smelling mostly synthetic vanillas and interpretations made for clearly younger audiences than me. It’s nice to come back to niche now and then and smell something this good.

Design: The bottle’s shape itself is rather simple, a little reminiscent of more common things like shampoo. But the design on the glass is what really makes it. Lovely colors, nice typography, great use of space. I really like how it takes a simple shaped bottle and turns it into something more luxurious and artsy. Nicely done!

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Gourmand

Notes: Lime, cedrat, coriander, jasmine, vetiver, oak moss, Madagascar vanilla, oak wood, amber.

I’m not entirely sure what a cologne absolu is or what its equivalent on the concentrations scale is. If I had to venture a bold guess, I’d presume Eau de Toilette, as the fragrance is a bit light but then you can’t really tell with these things anyway. Bah, regardless Vanille Insensee is a pleasant, unique vanilla scent and for $170, you can get a lot of this stuff (200ml).

Reviewed in This Post: Vanille Insensee, 2011, Cologne Absolu.

Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely

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Lovely is like one of the few fleeting breaths of fresh air in between the intoxicating aftermath of a fruit and candy explosion at the celebirty perfume factory. That is to say, this fragrance can stand up on its own even without SJP’s name on it.

Lovely

In Bottle: A mix of lavender, woods, and clean amber. Not at all what I was expecting from a celebrity perfume but word has it that Sarah Jessica Parker’s fragrances are usually a cut above the other contenders.

Applied: Lavender on the opening with a hit of citrus. The lavender here is used rather well though it’s definitely not some of the best quality lavender. Still, I can applaud Lovely for having the guts to use the note. Some lavenders wind up too strong, tending to smell medicinal if not used right. I actually like Lovely’s interpretation as it’s a woodsy, clean scent with a twist of herbal. The lavender seeps into the mid-stage as the fragrance introduces a hint of amber and woods as Lovely warms up quite a bit. There’s a certain soapiness to this that keeps things clean and accessible, which only impresses me further. The fragrance is so far being rather risque for a celebuscent but it manages to skirt the territory between highbrow smell experiment and department store safe. The fragrance ages down to a woodsy lavender musk. I dare say this stuff smells almost elegant.

Extra: Funny enough, my first experience with Lovely was in a book. A tester strip of this stuff was wedged into the back of Chandler Burr’s The Perfect Scent. The strip the fragrance was squished onto also makes a great bookmark.

Design: Egg-shaped, pink, easy to hold and use bottle. I don’t know what else I can say about this stuff. The shape is pretty generic and the bottle looks very unassuming. I neither love it nor hate it.

Fragrance Family: Aromatic Woodsy

Notes: Lavender, mandarin, bergamot, rosewood, orchid, patchouli, amber, cedar, musk.

Score another one for the celebuscent team. I try to maintain an open mind about fragrances no matter whose name is on it and I feel like the more I smell, the less impressed I get with celebrity perfumes. It’s because the great majority of them smell generic and synthetic. But once in a while something like Lovely or Cumming proves me wrong and I’ll happily accept that.

Reviewed in This Post: Lovely, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

By Kilian Rose Oud

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By Kilian hits a weird spot on my wallet. I love their fragrances. Love that they have a more detailed than usual list of fragrance notes with their perfumes. But I’m not loving the price tag and I doubt very much that I would ever purchase a By Kilian fragrance. I just have yet to find one that I really like.

Rose Oud

In Bottle: Rose Oud is pretty much what it sounds like. I get a big rose and oud presence in the bottle and I can’t complain. This stuff delivers what it promises.

Applied: Heads in with rose, crisp and dewy like you dipped a rose in a cup of water. The fragrance wafts in a bit of oud, giving the scent that dark slightly sticky but very complex and very sophisticated feel and smell. As the fragrance ages, the rose turns into a creamier version of itself, combining with the oud to form a very grown up, very dense scent that speaks quite well for the powerful aura this fragrance seems to project. As the scent dries down, the oud gets a bit more woodsy and the fragrance warms up a bit with a hint of spices layering in with the rose.

Extra: Rose Oud was composed by Calice Becker, who has also composed such fragrances as J’Adore, Marc Jacobs Lola, and Tommy Girl.

Design: Rose Oud is bottled in much the same way as other By Kilians. A glass bottle with lacquered sides and sold in a box complete with lock and key. For the price they’re asking for it, you should expect nothing less than over-the-top luxury when it comes to the packaging.

Fragrance Family: Floral Woodsy

Notes: Rose, saffron, guaiac wood, agarwood.

So like I said before, I have a hard time justifying the price tag of a By Kilian because while the fragrances and the packaging is nice, the truth is the scents could be had elsewhere for less. Or if I wanted to go full-out expensive, there are other niche houses that I prefer.

Reviewed in This Post: Rose Oud, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Comme des Garcons 2 MAN

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Comme des Garcons is one o those beloved niche perfume houses that outputs a wide variety of excellent smelly specimens. While I don’t like the style of their haute couture, I do like the way their perfumes swing.

2 MAN

In Bottle: Smokey with this smooth nutty quality that I presume is coming from the nutmeg. There’s a strong woodsy presence to this fragrance too. Very masculine, very empowering too.

Applied: 2 MAN opens with a woodsey incense that makes me think of old buildings with creaky floorboards. It mingles in that area for a while before it grows a bit more complex, taking in this smooth nutmeg scent as it ages and starts to deliver a wet grassy feel to it that I hope is the vetiver at work. The fragrance itself remains masculine, projecting this sturdy old building quality to it. Despite its powerful notes and what I suspect is a blend of cedar, mahogany and a touch of sandalwood, 2 MAN does all this without amping up the cedar note and smelling obnoxious. It’s strong but light and subtle. It projects a presence instead of simply projecting a smell. It’s a bit difficult to describe except that people will notice 2 MAN but they’ll notice it in a subtle way like you were meant to smell like this instead of an, “Ah, you need to tone down your fragrance” kind of way.

Extra: 2 MAN was composed by Mark Buxton, who was also responsible for a fragrance line that bears his name. He’s also done other fragrances for Comme des Garcons such as Comme des Garcons’ White and Original. You can purchase 2 MAN for a, all things considered, reasonable $120 per 100ml.

Design: Comes bottled in this offbeat flat glass flacon with the fragrance name written on it complete with an upside A that you have to look at the bottle twice to notice. A haphazard ‘2’ is scrawled on the glass and somehow pulls the entire look of this fragrance together. The bottle itself, thanks to how it’s shaped, cannot be stood up like most perfumes, so you’ll have to lie this baby on its side. It’s off-beat. I like it.

Fragrance Family: Smokey Woodsy

Notes: Incense, white smoke, saffron flowers, nutmeg, vetiver roots, mahogany, leather.

On my travels around the internet researching this fragrance and how it reacted on other people I came across a woman bemoaning her husband informing her that the bottle of 2 MAN she got for him smelled like urine then proceeded to refuse wearing it. Her son, being an avid connoisseur of Axe body sprays similarly rejected her offerings. While I cannot account for the tastes of others, I can guarantee you all that 2 MAN does not in fact, smell anything like urine.

Reviewed in This Post: 2 MAN, 2008, Eau de Toilette.

Diesel Only the Brave

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I was hesitant to test out this fragrance largely because I couldn’t get over the ridiculous-looking bottle. But hey, the gimmick got to me one day and I said, “Welp, might as well smell that fist perfume”.

Only the Brave

In Bottle: Citrus, something sweet and dirty in the background with a huge cedar note in the foreground. Hooray, more cedar.

Applied: Only the Brave opens up rather sweet to me, smelling a little bit like citrus candy. The candy citrus appeal doesn’t last very long as Only the Brave starts amping up the woods–more specifically–amping up the cedar as it floods the mid-stage, drowning out whatever else may have been in this. I have such terrible luck with cedar and certain wood notes. Only the Brave felt like it was actually punching me in the face with the woods in its composition. I managed to wait it out, getting too-strong wafts of woodsiness as I let the fragrance sink in and age. The dry down is a more agreeable affair with a soft, leathery warm amber fragrance touched with a bit of spice.

Extra: Only the Brave was a collaboration between L’Oreal and Diesel. This fragrance involved three noses for its composition too, Olivier Polge (Balenciaga Paris), Pierre Wargnye (Drakkar Noir), and Alienor Massanet (Tresor Sparkling).

Design: I mentioned the bottle in my opening sentences. Only the Brave comes packaged in a glass fist. I think the bottle design is ugly, clunky, and at times hilarious. Due to its shape, the bottle falls over easily so I imagine most people keep their bottles lying on their sides. Still, the humor in Only the Brave’s fist bottle isn’t lost on me and I can chuckle at it now and then. At the very least, there isn’t a single fairy on it.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy

Notes: Lemon, mandarin, coriander, violet, cedar, labdanum, amber, styrax, leather, benzoin.

Cedar ruins yet another fragrance for me. At the very least Only the Brave is a generic masculine fragrance that I don’t think is particularly unique or fascinating but probably wearable by everyone but me.

Reviewed in This Post: Only the Brave, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Sonoma Scent Studio Incense Pure

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Sonoma Scent Studio is one of those awesome independent houses with an excellent selection of fragrances that are magnificently well-blended. I’m a big fan of independent perfume houses, and am happy to see them doing things their own way. The mass market and even the niche market can sometimes be restrictive. So independent is the way to go.

In Bottle: Incense Pure is like a sniff of incense heaven. It’s heady, it’s sophisticated, it’s sensual and deep. The first smell out of the bottle or vial is like an invitation you can’t refuse.

Applied: Incense Pure starts off with an airy but very detectable blend of–well, incense. The myrrh really gets me. Makes me grin from ear to ear even. Incense Pure isn’t like most incense fragrances I’ve tried. This one is tempered, easier to wear, still absolutely lovely with that oh so distinctive incense fragrance but it’s tempered a bit by a woodsiness that digs itself up and bunkers down. There’s a lovely sense of sensuality about this fragrance too and a hint of ambery musk infused with a gorgeous vanilla. This isn’t your sweet, synthetic vanilla either. The incense seems to do wonderful things to vanilla, bringing out its spicy personality instead of relying on vanilla’s surface sweetness. There’s even, to my delight, oak moss in this! And the oak moss does wonders to give the fragrance a beautiful mossy green undertone. As if the incense wasn’t enough, it gets me twice with the oak moss too.

Extra: Sonoma Scent Studio offers Incense Pure in a variety of sizes and for some very reasonable prices considering the quality of the ingredients. You can read up about Incense Pure on their website.

Design: I have a sample of this fragrance, but the bottling looks quite nice. The shape of the bottle is clean and neat. A tall squarish bottle with a gold cap. Keeping it simple is always a plus in my books.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Incense

Notes: Frankincense, myrrh, labdanum, cistus, oakmoss, Indian patchouli, sandalwood, cedar, ambergris, orris, angelica, elemi, vanilla absolute.

If you’re a fan of incense, you really should try this. Even if you’re not sure whether or not you’re a fan of incense, you should try this. It’s quite the excellent experience.

Reviewed in This Post: Incense Pure, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Hemlock

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Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s Hemlock doesn’t smell how I’d assume Hemlock would smell like. But then, I didn’t expect this stuff to be green either. The real novelty here as most BPALs tend to be any color but green. Hemlock

In Bottle: Green  and a bit bitter with a slight woodsy undernote and a citrus note up front. I’d dare to call this refreshing.

Applied: Yep, citrus with a light green scent a bit of sharpness to make this fresh and a bit dewy.There’s something quite aromatic about this too, mint and a little bit of peppermint and some green leaves picked fresh off a tree thrown in. The woodsiness in Hemlock is ever present making the scent smell a little bit like pine-scented air freshener. But it’s a good thing, believe it or not.

Extra: Hemlock is a plant type. One of hemlock’s most famous historical deeds was poisoning Socrates.

Design: Bottled in the same amber glass bottle with the plastic twist cap as other general catalog scents from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. You’ll notice Hemlock’s label is a tad different in design. This design is employed for BPAL’s Rappaccini’s Garden fragrances of which Hemlock is a part.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy

Notes: Lemon, mint, peppermint, pine.

Just as a note that I am guessing at those notes up there. Now while I can’t really see myself wearing this as a fragrance, I do love it as a home scent. It’s got a classy air freshener smell to it, with my nose and I like those digs.

Reviewed in This Post: Hemlock, 2010, 5ml Bottle.