I am at a complete loss to understand the occasional fragrance sample that I’ve seen called a “masterpiece” repeatedly here on Fragrantica, and yet smells to me like nothing but a cotton candy stand at a tire fire. (The last one was A*Men, although this was about 1/3 as strong.) I definitely smell nothing like eucalyptus, incense, or cedar anywhere in this, and nothing mysterious or oriental. Just spun sugar and burning rubber.

It’s not a matter of me not liking the scent, but rather, feeling like I must be smelling something totally different from most other people, because it’s not even a scent I could imagine anyone liking, let alone lavishing praise upon. Fortunately on me an entire sample, twice as much as I usually need to try out at once, lasted less than an hour before it disappeared completely.

I literally thought I had been sent a sample of the wrong juice, but fortunately I do now see a small number of other reviews mention “sickly sweet”, “cloying”, “sweet cotton candy burnt sugar”, etc., so I guess it was the real deal. I wish I could smell what other people smell, because I don’t see how those attributes could even be part of the phenomenal-sounding aromatic composition otherwise being described here, or anything that a “gray bearded old man”, “church”, or “zen monastery in Japan” would smell like. Must be something going on that I’m completely, congenitally anosmic to. Because this smells to me like a distant carnival burning down, and nothing else.