This is one of those times when it sounds like people are reviewing two different fragrances.

How can one fragrance be autumnal, warming and spicy, and dominated by cinnamon, yet also overly sweet, floral, fruity, and lean feminine?

The sample I got opens with a powdery, mild candy-sweetness similar to Joop Homme’s (coincidentally what I sampled yesterday) followed quickly by a slight hint of that “christmas cookie” accord I so often encounter and complain about, but soon goes in a different, but fairly conventional, direction. It does have a nice if very quiet base, slightly sweet, floral, powdery/lavendery, and soft, but very slightly suggestive of typical fougere or oriental accords.

It’s nice enough, but to me, it doesn’t stand on its own. It’s inoffensive, mild, and that’s not at all what I expected to be contained in a gold bottle called “One Million”. I like Paco Rabanne Pour Homme very much for occasional wear, so with this name and presentation I expected some real swagger. Instead, I smell like I’ve been transported into a Richard Brautigan novel.

UPDATE: Hours, and I mean _hours_, like 6 or 8 hours, after putting this on, suddenly I was suffused in the promised warm spices (and, again, that faint whiff of Christmas cookies, tolerable as long as Grandma isn’t using them to mask the smell of turpentine). Yes—cinnamon, spice, some rose to round it out, some amber & wood, suddenly the promised notes are here. Still a tad gourmand for my tastes but at least now I understand what everyone is talking about. What I don’t understand is what’s up with a scent that stays undercover for the better part of a day before suddenly appearing. I put this on this afternoon, it’s now midnight and suddenly it bloomed into the expected middle and base. Totally crazy. Better living through chemistry, I suppose.

Now, I can see someone wearing this. Not me, but someone. Probably someone wearing synthetic clothing, and going out to listen to synthetic music while doing synthetic drugs. And, with the help of this taste in cologne, probably taking home the hottest emotionally detached android in the place. I can dig it, on general principle, if not in precisely in practice. Gary Numan foretold this.