Well, here we a contradiction. The gray color of this stuff is perfectly apropos; the word “intense” in the name is absolutely not.

I consider this the “schwa” (ə) of scents. Perfectly unassuming and inoffensive, in a positive way. It smells good without the least risk of offending anybody or even of calling attention to itself—in my mind the definition of an office-suitable scent. I do like it, I wear it occasionally to switch things up, although as I never work in an office or indeed go anywhere where I need to smell inoffensive but good as I’m carrying a manila file folder, it’s not something instinctively reach for from my fragrance bar when I get it in my head to throw a little something into the air around me. It’s a very practical fragrance, it almost defines “practical” as a variety of fragrance.

It’s a very unified, extremely well-blended scent too. I have a hard time picking out individual notes. It’s perhaps slightly synthetic-smelling in that regard, but typically that’s not praise. In this case, it is. It’s the scent equivalent of a crease in fresh-pressed gray men’s business slacks, it’s clean and straight and it is what it is and there’s nothing else to it.

If I have a single complaint, the drydown is perhaps not the greatest. There’s eventually something ever-so-slightly powdery and perhaps cheap-smelling under there. Or, I dunno, maybe the Paco Rabanne I wore a few days ago is still clinging to my robe.