First out of the box was Secret Man. Initial impression: they've done a really remarkable job of simulating, for about three dollars, the sort of christmas-cookies-and-turpentine accord that I've previously always paid a lot more to be put off by. I put it on shortly before wading out into the city smog to go shopping.

While I was shopping, something strange happened... as I made my rounds, amidst the ambient background of car exhaust and eau de vagrant, I began to detect faint whiffs of something nice-smelling.

Fast forward an hour, I get home and smell my wrists and there's no cookies. There's no turpentine. This thing has done a complete right turn.

Now all I've got is very mild citrus, a little soapiness in the pleasing way some green scents are, a hint of woodiness. I'm not going to say it's an amazing fragrance, but it's definitely nice, and for a tiny fraction of the cost of, well, just about anything else, it's much more than a small fraction as nice.

Coincidentally, I recently discovered Kenzo Pour Homme. One of my goals in my fragrance journey — some of you are going to think I'm crazy, but some of you know and will fully understand — has been to find a more conventional fragrance that is a good substitute for the scent of Old Spice Captain deodorant. We'll leave the reasons for that aside, but Kenzo Pour Homme is so far the leading candidate, by a country mile. KPH is very much in the same family as Captain, very close in it's green/marine/woody accords, but, it's missing a certain soapiness. Layering it with other, soapier colognes hasn't been a notable success (like my belovedly soapy Mugler, a reliable dumb reach for me, but sometimes unfortunately dicey in less-than-careful combination with other favorites.)

But Secret Man...

I wouldn't even have thought of KPH until I came here to leave a review and saw the mentions. But, yes. No, it's not the same fragrance. But it's in the same ballpark, and better, seems weak in the things KPH is good at, and stronger in the soapy department KPH doesn't quite have. Together, these might form complimentary halves of the long-sought fragrance substitute for Captain, and spare me any further urge to slather myself head to toe with a stick deodorant every day.

And even if not, ok, Silver is a mixed bag by me, but Al Rehab has scored a relative hit on my second outing with them. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a $3 roll-on bottle that, at least after the strange initial gourmand opening thankfully disappears without a trace, lingers on smelling as nice or nicer than other bargain favorites that cost more.

UPDATE: On second wear, just a day later, I got an overdose of roses that I detected not even a hint of the first time, and which lasted literally through the next day, and no woodiness at all. Funny how olfaction works.

UPDATE DE LA UPDATE: Four days later, I gave it a third try. I don't know if this stuff just needs air for a few days or what, but this time, I opened it and was hit instantly with a huge bloom of rose and woody accords, and, I feel strange saying this about a $3 bottle of fragrance, but today, somehow, magically, it's not just nice, it's not just good for $3, it's _gorgeous_, full stop.

The whole thing is a mystery to me. But boy does it smell fantastic today. I shpritzed some Kenzo Pour Homme on top of it and let an hour go by, and, let me tell you, I am a happy and very good-smelling camper right now. I might even leave my house.

I don't dislike it at all. It's perfectly pleasant-smelling. It just doesn't particularly grab me. I wouldn't have expected to see such strong praise for it in the other reviews.

Goes on with a spicy, peppery edge that disappears very quickly. After that? I guess this is what amber smells like. There's something very slightly white-floral in there, too. To me it leans a little sweet and perfumey, I find it strange that so many people think this is so extremely masculine. I suppose I can see it for an older man, a very specific image men of my generation grew up with... think "Kolchak, The Night Stalker" out for cocktails on his night off from chasing the undead around the sepulchral Seattle underground.

I suppose I should try wearing it out and see if anybody says anything. As I round the hump of my 50s, I've leaned into it, and bought a Kolchak-type narrow-brimmed fedora that I've actually gotten a lot of compliments from strangers on. So maybe it'll work.

Well, here's something I haven't felt the need to do before... come back and drastically revise a previous review.

After my last review, I decided to give this juice more of a chance. It certainly was far from bad to my nose, and had so many strongly positive reviews, that I decided to stick with it for a while, give my other favorite scents a rest. So, I put a little of this on every day.

By and large, I wouldn't describe the scent in different terms than I previously did. How can I put this? Most of the time, I like barbershop scents. I think Paco Rabanne is lovely. Even cheapo Brut aftershave is appealing. I formerly felt this was similar to those kinds of scents, but perhaps a bit too safe and inoffensive. Either way, nice, but nothing to write home about.

But it really came into its own for me the day I left the house and ran some strenuous errands.

I came back, not exactly sweaty, but I'd had a few hours an exertion for sure and my skin was not dry. And then, I smelled it. This stuff worked with my body chemistry. It lost a little bit of the powdery/white floral thing and, I don't know, just smelled mild but thoroughly masculine and not at all a scent I would be opposed to frequently smelling like.

Since then I've gained an appreciation for it. This is an extremely serviceable scent, entirely suitable for daily wear or as a signature scent for someone who wants to smell good without smelling cheap nor make a giant, attention-grabbing olfactory splash.

Think of it like starching your shirts: Nobody is going to compliment you on it, but you're just going to look a little better.

I would kind of like to layer it with something to give it just a little bit of a unique edge, but only once I can figure out what will really work with it. I might try a touch of my secret weapon Al-Rehab Sultan Al Oud with it. But I've come to appreciate how well composed this is, I'm not just going to splash pine needles and rocks and seaweed on top of it and think that that's going to improve it.

Himalaya is the first Creed scent I was just disappointed by.

The initial blast is pure alcohol, period. I quickly picked up an odd barbershop note... not odd, really, in fact, very common and familiar, which is what's odd, for a Creed. But I've learned never to judge a Creed until after the first 30 minutes . So, I was patient.

30 minutes later, I said, well, this is definitely a Creed. It has that rich Creed base that I've become very familiar with, I have no idea what it is (ambergris?) but I think of it as a "satiny", "lustrous" smell, if that makes sense. And on top of that... nothing else. If I inhale deeply I still get that very conventional barbershop note.

It faded to a skin scent relatively quickly. Over the course of the day I've fairly bathed in it, reapplying it heavily as it's faded, hoping to catch a whiff of what so many people are raving about.

This just doesn't have any of the personality or "wow" factor that every other Creed I've tried so far has had to one degree or another. First one I probably wouldn't bother buying even if price weren't an object. My favorite Creeds seem to me to all have that characteristic base, which I do love, and then meld that seamlessly that with something else fantastic and unique. But Himalaya takes that base, and then does nothing with it. Except perhaps tops off the gap usually occupied by something interesting with a little touch of something very generic and conventional, maybe. And maybe even just a little perfumey and feminine.

So far, Creeds always reliably smell better than anything else, and there are always cheaper colognes that people will say smell similar, but the cheaper alternatives have never proven to be worth it and despite the much higher price I've always thought the Creeds always proved to be a much better value. This is the first time I don't feel that way. If I want to smell this nondescript, there are much cheaper barbershop scents (which I do wear and enjoy) that this really is so trivial an improvement on that the vast price difference isn't worth it.

This has a note in it that I haven't learned to identify yet, but it's in a few Creeds and I love it. I've mentioned it in a few reviews... something broad, floral, soft, round, organic, sweet, and rich. (Like a soy latte. It's very much like what I imagine it would smell like to be standing next to Dr. Jill Stein.) Whatever I'm wearing, I often will layer just a single pump of Royal Oud on top just to give it that same quality. Lasts long, too, I catch whiffs of it throughout the day. It makes me feel empowered, like I'm standing in strength and allyship with the women in the nursing circle at an Ani DiFranco concert.

[NOTE, two months later: my feelings about Royal Oud have not changed in the least, but apparently the person whose review was right below, which mine was mocking, has reconsidered, and deleted theirs, leaving mine looking like a standalone review from someone with oddly specific cultural references. At any rate, no doubt this is because they've wisely come to reconsider their social views, not in any way out of embarrassment at being the recipient of a well-deserved display of sardonic wit.]

After a while the spice emerges. The patchouli is clearly evident but not overwhelming. I happen to like patchouli in moderation but if someone really loathed it this scent might not go over as well with them. I think it blends well enough not to risk being much of a problem, though. Like all Creed scents I've tried so far, this smells very "natural" and gives the impression you cared enough to spend money on quality. That said, I think it's still priced too high for what it is. I like it a lot, but nowhere enough to part with what they're asking for it.

I've only had it on for about 3 hours so I'm not sure yet but the longevity seems middling. This definitely is not a strong scent. In another review somewhere I saw someone say scent should be discovered, not advertised, and this fits that bill. If it cost about 1/3 as much, it might be worth having as a signature scent just to be known as "that guy in accounting who always smells really good".

If I had to conjure it in one image, I'd say, picture stumbling onto Cary Grant, in a tuxedo, sitting in the woodworking shop of a high-end furniture maker, eating the world's best-smelling take out Indian food. It's one of those fragrances that really can't be done justice in words, but that's kind of the references it evokes for me.

It also has a hard-to-define quality in the base that I've noticed in Royal Oud, too... a "thickness" or "fullness" that reminds me of smells like, say, chocolate, or jasmine, even though it smells like neither. But it's got that sort of very round, satisfying, complex "natural" character underpinning it. [Edit: could it be rose?] The drydown brings it even closer to Royal Oud, albeit still spicier and more herbal.

I didn't expect to like something called "Viking", and certainly didn't expect it to be this sophisticated.

As with all Creed's best, the achilles heel is the price point. I would easily buy full bottles of my top few Creed favorites if it wouldn't cost me in the 4 digits to do so. If I did that, this would absolutely be one of them. Unfortunately, though, as it's only my 2nd or 3rd favorite, until I strike it rich I'll settle for keeping a small decant around for an occasional treat.

EDIT: A day later, I can't stop thinking about this scent. I can't wait to try it again. I might eventually wind up dropping some serious coin on it after all.

So I sprayed this on immediately, I couldn't wait... and my nostrils were immediately assaulted. They literally burned.

Now, several of my favorite Creed samples, I've spent the first few minutes wondering what all the hubbub was about, before they really opened up. So I'm patient with Creeds. But I will confess, this came on like getting splashed in the face with alcohol, and for a brief moment or two I wondered if I'd been sold a fake.

It wasn't very long before the unmistakeable Creed-y base emerged. And the Creed-y base is very, very good by me. Soon this had some beautiful, very masculine notes. I cannot say I was for a moment disappointed.

I did notice a few things, though. I wasn't smelling that much of that velvety, broad, rosy accord that I love so much and commented on in my Viking review. It was a mite bit more citrusy than I remembered, and I dislike citrus in general, but Creed manages to do citrus better than most. And, I wondered what was missing. I thought back to my sample of Himalaya, which struck me as "generic Creed base with nothing on top of it". This had a little more than that, but the reminder was there, and it was strange, I knew I hadn't felt that way with the first sample.

I have to say the longer it dried down, the longer I continued to be perfectly happy with it. The masculine thing. I'm sure the more experienced fragheads on here know what that note is but to me it's just a really excellent, unassuming, manly smell that I would not mind always smelling like. As it dried down I recognized something woody, probably cedar, which I also didn't specifically recall being noticeable in my Viking sample.

It didn't last all that long, a couple hours and it was gone except for maybe a cedar trace. But, Creed, you know? All in all, I did notice some differences, and I'm not intimately familiar with Viking yet, I couldn't picking it out of a lineup, I only tried it twice, loved it, and wrote a review. But nothing about this experience said, "You got something completely different from that thing you absolutely loved trying out once a week or two ago." With all the talking people do about batches and such, I thought, ok, different batch.

Then tonight, I looked at the bottle, and noticed the word "Cologne" specifically on it. I know about Aventus vs Aventus Cologne, so, suddenly, something clicked.

It doesn't change the fact that before I found out it wasn't the same thing, I spent an entire night thinking, "Man, some of the details seem different than last time, but still, this smells soooooooooooooo good."

I wonder what most people would have said in their reviews if, like me, they hadn't gone into it thinking of the "Viking Cologne" positioning. The rude bite of the very opening is undeniable and I think a lot of people would have called that out no matter what. Likewise the citrus note. But, damn, put up with this thing throwing a tantrum for 45 minutes, and it's worth it. It's funny, I have a friend I've been keeping up-to-date with my fragrance adventures, and I'd even imagined telling him, "Here, try this. Just put up with it for the first half hour, maybe 45 minutes. Wait that out and you'll see." Everything comes into balance eventually and it's still got, at absolute minimum, that special something that Creed always manages to bring to the table. It smells really good, if I ever left the house I can imagine it being a complement-getter.

I have no doubt I'll finish using this 10ml sample. For Creed prices I can think of others I'd rather spend the money on for a full bottle, but, if there's actually something more reasonably priced that is genuinely comparable to this, as some reviewers suggest, I'd definitely still consider picking it up. And if it was much cheaper than Viking proper I'd definitely consider it an acceptable substitute for daily wear, and save the real stuff for special occasions, like leaving the house.

After hearing Fahrenheit mentioned about a million times I had to find out, and got a sample. I am highly amused.

This is freshman year of college in a bottle. That's not a putdown, it's actually exceptionally nice, all the good things people say about it are true. Cedar, lavendar, bergamot, and much more, all very nicely blended. It really is an extraordinary composition that deserves its renown. But, damn, it just smells so much like something I would have worn in hopes of impressing girls with real eyebrows and big hair.

Damn, I can't say anything about it that doesn't sound like a putdown, and that's not what I mean. It smells really good. I really like it. I'm on a heavy-duty nostalgia trip, and I like it a lot. At the time I wore Drakkar, but that's only because this wasn't available yet. This is what I wanted.

There's nothing floral here, nothing frou-frou. This is a relic of an age when gourmand scents were happily undreamt of, a last great stand of a previous era of fragrance from the very eve before postmodern irony became a necessary social good.

This doesn't in any way try to evoke tropical shorelines, windswept glaciers, a damp forest, or a Kathmandu marketplace. This evokes one thing, with laser-like focus: a young man. At a club. Who wants ladies to think he smells really good.

And I wouldn't put Drakkar on again nowadays, but this, I would actually wear occasionally, just to rock that "Throwback Thursday" vibe.

In fact, as I've sat and engaged in my customary numerous neurotic revisions of these pearls of prose, as this scent has had time to envelop me, the more I think I might just say, "fuck worrying about being a fat middle-aged man walking around 2022 trying to smell like a college kid from 1988". This could be a fave.

I still like girls with real eyebrows and big hair, too.

Somehow these all combine into something that's very nice at best, totally inoffensive at worst. I neither see how anybody could hate nor fall head-over-heels in love with this scent. It's uniformly very, very good. Nothing synthetic or unbalanced about it, nothing mind-blowing either. I wouldn't pay hundreds of dollars for a bottle of this, but I'd probably wear it occasionally if it was less than that or if it was gifted to me. It's definitely nice, a high-quality if somewhat restrained scent. Wear it on a date to the movies, and your date will probably think you smell good for the whole two hours, and never find it overbearing. I wouldn't wear it to the office, though, it's maybe a little fancy for that, subdued though it is.

Anyway, I wore this cologne for quite some time without incident, although I do suspect it may be in some way responsible for the fact that once or twice since I've started wearing it, Syd Barrett has appeared and stared at me from the control booth.

I had a little 5oz decant that I fell in love with. I got fizzy ginger, ginger, ginger from that, dark and spicy. Like drinking a ginger beer. Citrus comes out later, incense, patchouli, and spice all the way through. One thing I love to do, I don't know how this will fly with some people, but, I like to layer some Creed Green Irish Tweed with something a little more "cologne-y" and let that rich Creed silk work its magic on something contrasting, and a spray or two of this with GIT works really well, keeps the class but adds a little spice.

When I used up that little sample I spring for a new bottle of this. Strangely, the bottle is slightly different. Not enough to complain, but the bottle has a definite "ozone" smell going on in the opening and even into the drydown that I never noticed in my little decant. I don't know if it just needs to oxidize a bit or what. It took maybe 20-30 minutes to notice that familiar fizzy ginger, although, by god, that was yesterday and I can still smell it on me.

Having tried a lot of Creed samples lately, I think there's almost something a little synthetic about this. But it's really entirely tolerable, not bad at all and I don't think someone who hadn't just spent a stretch of days wearing some of the world's best juice would notice.

I think you probably have to watch that you don't overdo it but in the right dose I could see this as a signature scent and a consistent head-turner. Real good stuff. I do hope my new bottle mellows a tiny bit to match the decant and loses that weird ozone note, otherwise I'm going to have to make sure I put it on a little while before I'm planning on being around anybody. The performance seems to be super-long, though, I can't believe I can still catch whiffs of yesterday's application.

I'm really at a loss reading the other reviews. Well, half of them. This stuff must be especially dependent on body chemistry, or something. Or maybe I've gone anosmic. But I can tell I desperately need a shower, so, that's probably not it.

Yes, I get some notes of a dry, deserty, spicy middle-eastern scent. Buried almost imperceptibly under yet another thick, weird, ineffable burned cotton candy or bubblegum accord, an oily sweetness I can't understand why anyone would ever want to smell like. I'm reliving the trauma of my previous A*Men sample experience (aka "Bad Night on the Midway") except, instead of being afraid a clown is sneaking up from behind the cotton candy machines to thwack me with a frying pan, this time it smells like a fortune teller.

But, a small number of reviews clearly mention the sugary smell, so I know I didn't imagine it, yet absolutely nobody else does, when it's all I smell. 5% nice, dry spice (patchouli?) smothered to death under 95% spun sugar. Maybe after a few hours the balance is 30%/70%. It's still mostly sweet.

How this all reads as "very masculine" to anyone is beyond me. Must be a cultural thing that I was never exposed to, or something. Unless your masculine ideal is Bazooka Joe. (Which, ok, I guess that could be a thing.)

Maybe 8 or 10 hours later—ok, impressive under any circumstances—I do catch whiffs off something inoffensively woody when I move. So the fabled longevity is there, and alright, well... But it shouldn't take 8 hours to start to smell inoffensive, or, if it does take that long... let's just say... it ought to come with another keg and a tray of sushi. This ain't that. It's nice enough, but that's all.

And, ack, I just got another whiff of bubblegum. Come on, man, leave me alone.

How it sells for the price it does is an even bigger mystery. I wouldn't buy it, period, because I don't think much of the smell, but I can't believe anybody can't find a better use for that much money than smelling like this. You can buy a decent vintage MIM Standard Stratocaster for the cost of a bottle of this juice, and I'll tell you what, the Stratocaster lasts longer, and does a more effective job of annoying the neighbors.

I wouldn't say it's an entirely unconventional scent, but among scents that aren't likely to raise any eyebrows it doesn't really smell much like anything else. It's sort of an unusual hybrid blue/green/brown scent. Probably a little to dressy for the office, but also probably among the most demure of dressy scents. I don't find it too strong, as some people have apparently reported, and for the entirely reasonable price it would make a fine dumb reach for when you don't want your skin to holler, "I'M WEARING COLOGNE! DON'T I SMELL GREAT?!?" at everyone who passes you on the street, but nonetheless want to smell really nice and make a moderately classy impression when someone is close... which, to me, is most days. I'm a big fan of layering things but I don't know if I'd tamper with this one, the balance is just right.

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.

What I got: a grape soda & bubblegum opening, except, much nicer than you'd think from hearing that. This is the first sweet fragrance I've liked, and the only one so far that I'd describe as restrained. The whole picture is nicely blended and it's tough to pick out individual notes. Eventually, I do get a hint of that acrid tire-fire-in-the-distance smell that seems to haunt every sweet cologne, but in this case, so tamed down that it's actually not objectionable — less a tire fire on the outskirts of town, more the classroom windows being open while fresh asphalt is being laid out the playground.

Underneath it all is a very nice base. Yes, vanilla eventually comes out, some cinnamon. The bit of spice helps keep the wisp of asphalt in check. Nice enough, the base punches above its price range. An impressive few hours later (as measured by a 3 hour nap a few hours after putting it on) it's settled down to extremely mild florals. Someone somewhere said "fabric softener" and that's not that far off the mark, although putting it that way carries cheap and disparaging connotations that this doesn't deserve.

Overall this is very mild from start to finish. Scent is more a suggested than asserted, sillage is pretty intimate, although longevity at very close range is impressive enough.

I'm impressed there's a sweet(ish) fragrance that doesn't read to my nose like an unwearably horrid mess. I probably wouldn't buy this, but only because there are so many fragrances I like more than this out there. If it was gifted to me I'm sure I'd keep it around to wear when the mood strikes. It's on the better side of not bad.

This smells like a tire fire at a carnival... overwhelmingly cloying cotton candy, caramel apples, marshmallows, and burning rubber. I'm afraid a clown is going to attack me. I honestly do not believe a human person could smell like this and their visage remain unaffected. I never imagined a cologne could make me feel afraid to look in the mirror, but, surely I have been transformed into a monster. Or... a clown...

If this turns into anything remotely not revulsive in the drydown I will be very impressed, because I feel like I just bathed in a chemical stew. I would say, if you wanted to capture the experience I am feeling right now, push your nose into a cotton candy machine and put a match out on your tongue.

I cannot imagine for the life of me what kind of masochist would want to walk around smelling like this. I would give this to someone I didn't like as a mean joke.

--UPDATE: After writing the above I decided in the interests to fairness to wait before posting. I am now about 4 hours into this cavity-inducing blast of miasmatic, candy-striped toxicity. Any hoped-for rescue from drydown has not started yet and I'm beginning to doubt it ever will. I still have an acrid taste on my tongue and a sugary cloud tickling my throat, and any change so far to the opening assault of the olfactory equivalent of a tire screech is only one of volume, not character.

--

UPDATE 2: Another hour later. The catastrophe has perhaps simmered down from a firestorm to a minor inferno, and, ok, perhaps a trace of a floral or fruity note has emerged, noticeable now that it's not being completely blared out by an acrid conflagration suggestive of a sugar plantation being buried by volcanic lava, and evoking something more demure, something perhaps along the lines of an industrial accident at the Pez factory.

I'm still afraid there may be a clown lurking behind me... or WITHIN ME......

---

UPDATE 3: Approaching 6 hours and this stuff has finally mellowed. The strange sweet, chemical causticity has mellowed to a skin scent that could best be described as "I just pulled off a bandaid."

The whole thing just seems to me really artless. I tried this because I love the Thierry Mugler Cologne/Come Together, so I thought I'd see what else Mugler had to offer. But this isn't even... I wouldn't even call this the same type of thing as that. It's not apples and oranges, it's, like, apples and tapdancing. Apples and maritime legal code. Just totally unrelated.

--

UPDATE 4: 8 hours and it's gone. Maybe there's a trace of fruity, marshmallowy skin scent left. Maybe I'm just naturally fruity & sweet. I dunno. That could be, actually. Or maybe I really have become the scary clown, doomed now to live out the rest of my life a slightly fruity, sweet-smelling, brightly-colored monster. I guess it's time to screw up my nerve and go look in the mirror.

If you don't see any more reviews from me, you'll know what happened.

I still don't know who would want to smell like this. Not me.

NEW UPDATE, 9/25! Several days later, I gave this a second try. I can't pan a frag this hard and not at least give it as second chance.

BTW, thanks @paulmac1966, often I'm just trying to keep my self amused (along with hopefully contributing something) but I'm glad you enjoyed.

Anyway: same reaction. Considering that I didn't like several of the recent samples I've received, for a few days I went back to some of my favorite standbys to "recalibrate" and check I wasn't anosmic or just being misled by environmental background scents. Nope, everything was as I expected, from the Paco Rabanne up through the Green Irish Tweed, all was in good olfactory order.

Not much to say about this one on the second go round, as I blew all my good jokes about it above. Very much the same impression, it's not something I can even imagine someone wanting to wear.

A couple of reviews here seem to have close enough impressions to mine that I don't think I got the wrong decant, so I'll go with my first thought: maybe there's just something in this particular juice that reacts especially strongly to individual body chemistry. I can definitely smell that there may be something nice under there, but I can't get a solid grip on anything past the immediate and long-lasting burnt sugar cloud.

Ah, well, gave it a shot. Your mileage may vary.

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.

Oh, my god. GRANDMA IS PUTTING TURPENTINE IN THE CHRISTMAS COOKIES. The family is gathered around the hearth, unaware that Grandma is cooking up hot death in the kitchen. Now she brings out the tray of them, still warm and soft from the oven, and deadly. I know I shouldn't eat them. But they smell SO GOOD.

There's something distinctly feminine and powdery underpinning this, yet stereotypically masculine in its boldness. It's the Squeaky Fromme or Aileen Wuornos of the fragrance world. Or maybe, better, the Elizabeth Bathory.

Though it's a very unusual scent, the drydown reveals that it's still built on a base that is unmistakably classy, refined and elegant. If I was taking the witness stand in a court case (likely, I'd say, after the poisoned cookies) and the prosecuting attorney (of either gender) smelled like this does an hour into it, I'd be very afraid. Because this smells like the signature scent of someone who's confident enough to dominate in the courtroom, even after they were out until 6:30 AM helping their clients dispose of bodies in the northern New Jersey woods. And wants you, and the judge, and the jury, and the gallery, and this entire damn courtroom to know it.

This is a cinematic scent, I'll give it that.

After a few Rogue tests, I'm noticing some trends. They all start, to a one, with an opening that's like the gates of heaven opening, or the gates of pandemonium, or the gates of *something*. You get wrapped in a moderately low-sillage but unique-smelling haze for a while. Often, there's very soon a note of violence or discord way in the background, the tiniest little note of something sharp and unsettling. That's not a complaint... alcohol tastes way more unpleasant than anything I'm talking about here, and we all like it anyway. A shot of bitters will sooth your stomach. Many people have been known to take a little taste of poison, it's good for the constitution. But there's something in there that keeps you on your toes for danger.

Then, often pretty soon, both the angelic choirs and hint of destruction simmer down, and the whole thing gets down to its business, which in most cases is smelling pretty good, if slightly less remarkable than the opening had led you to expect it would. I would actually like it better if they were more linear.

The best comparison I can think of: it's like side 1 and side 2 of the album "2112". Not to say the whole thing isn't great, it is, but, we both know which side you were were thinking of when you put the album on the turntable. (And no, obviously I'm not afraid to shamelessly date myself with my references, thanks for asking.) These Rogue frags are definitely about the overture, not the second act.

In this particular case, though, as I continue this laborious screed, I'm somewhere around the beginning of act II—to extend the metaphor, somewhere in the middle of "A Passage To Bangkok"—and it couldn't be more different from how it opened. It's turned quietly warm and wonderful, some sort of asian spice perhaps, and, believe it or not... how can I put this... if Brut was a $300/bottle fragrance, this is what it would smell like. The scary note is folded in so small, blended so perfectly, it doesn't stand out. I'll also say, no more gender dysphoria, this drydown is all male. And pretty great. "A Passage To Bangkok" is an apt metaphor for how this thing starts the second act. It changed direction, but no complaints at all. You could cut the beginning of this cologne off completely, toss the entire Christmas horror spectacular and start from here, and this would be a really solid, classic men's aromatic.

Wow. That changed a lot in an hour. I'd really like it if Rogue fragrances did for four hours what they do in the first hour, then did for an hour or two what they do for the next four. But, then, the fact that they don't saves me a lot of money in cologne purchases.

I do have to say, by the way, the Rogue 12-for-$35 sampler is a STEAL. I think I get two decent tests out of each tiny 1.5ml bottle. And you have to fit an atomizer to them, those little rollerballs suck. But, really, they give you a lot of wild & wonderful fragrance to to try out for $35.

Checking in a few hours later: This basically, and totally unexpectedly, dried down to a very nice men's aromatic fougere in the same family of—pardon my only points of reference—Brut or Paco Rabanne Pour Homme. But I feel like that comparison is a bit of a disservice. Those are the good-hearted blue-collar men of the family. This is the older, much wealthier member of the same family. True to the opening, it does keep a very tiny bit of sugar throughout, but so little it's hardly noticeable. It's really nice, and seems to last quite a long time close to the skin, I keep catching nice whiffs.

It's just not a place I expected to to end up from the opening Christmas Cookie Massacre.

That is the opening of this perfume.

I have never had a scent actually make me feel more confident. What an amazing smell. I feel like I could hunt down a wildebeest. Or close a corporate merger. Either way.

In my short time since I began exploring fragrance, I wondered what a "chypre" was. I suspected from reading that most of my experience had been with fougeres. Outside of the vast variation available there, I couldn't imagine a cologne smelling some "other way".

Now, I remember.

The second I put this on, I recognized it from... somewhere in the past. I might have been rightly turned down for a job that I made it to the second interview round of by someone wearing it. I think the lawyer who once one an unemployment suit for me might have worn something like this, or maybe the judge when I was arrested for criminal trespass 3rd degree when I was 16. Or maybe, just maybe, as a child, reading my favorite Doctor Strange comic books, watching him traverse the Dark Dimension in mystic battle against the Dread Dormammu and Baron Mordo, I imagined he smelled like this.

Yes, I think that last one might be it. This is the scent of a man who can perceive an eldritch threat against this very dimension, and knows what to do about it. A man who saves an entire realm against the threat of the Mindless Ones and hardly breaks a sweat.

At least, provided he can do it within the next 20-30 minutes. Because by that point, the scent already begins to fade.

Two and a half hours later, it's a ghost of a scent, a barely-there nimbus of occasional warm spice.

After three hours, it's not even that. The hairy gentleman's lunch break is long over and he's gone back to his desk in the accounting office, still content from the memory of the wildebeest he caught for lunch but beginning to feel that mid-afternoon drowse. He's still in control but glad meetings are over for the day. Here in the Dark Dimension, the Mindless Ones have broken through the barrier, the Omnipotent Oshtur can't be bothered to heed my summons, and I've accidentally stepped on the Wand of Watoomb and broken it in two. True story.

Here we have another Rogue scent that blooms quickly into something indescribable and wonderful. If experience is any teacher, though, I'll get about a half hour of this and then wonder where the magic went.

But, still, until them, it's another symphonic Rogue opening, this time full of tobacco, old books and somebody cooking something very rich in the back room, as well as, yes, a little bit of monkey. Very dignified but not staid.

Did you ever watch Downton Abbey? One of the things that always impressed me was that Lord Grantham was, in his way, very progressive, at least for his time and station. He was every bit the British Aristocrat, yet would tolerate breeches of decorum, and was easygoing about being open to new ideas and behaviors that the upper class usually reflexively frowned upon. This is the scent he would have worn. (And probably elicited some sort of entertainingly sarcastic remark from the Dowager, too.)

After 20 minutes something fresh comes in, like someone opened the door to let in the spring air.

I don't know what that corn chowder note is, though. Is this a gourmand scent?

Untilllll.....

After a while, we've made a sudden right-angle turn and magically shifted back to the sugar-cookies-and-asphalt smell I've detected in other Rogues.

It's frustrating. These Rogue frangrances all open incredibly, symphonically, and then 90 minutes to 2 hours later, they smell nice, nothing more. They become utterly two-dimensional.

I can appreciate the art in crafting these amazing aromas, but if they don't last, they're just curiosities.

Two hours later, it's fruity and floral and sweet. What a disappointment. No, seriously, this is the third Rogue that's turned to christmas cookies on me, it's getting repetitive.

And then moments later: I finally know what people on Fragrantica mean when they say "Animalic". Wow, something somewhere in there just purred at me and asked if I had any red meat.

By god, it's another orchestral overture from Rogue. Good one, too, this one I really like. Please god, let this be the one that lasts beyond the opening.

Soon, there's scented wood. Pine needles? Or some sort of herbal elixir in there, too, that reminds me of a liqueur I haven't had in a long time, Chartreuse, maybe? Wow, this is complex, yet totally unified and delicious. The sugar and acrid note are gone within minutes, or at least, toned down to be an integrated and indistinguishable part of the symphony.

Seriously, it's been a long time since I thought about hitting the bars, but this is making me feel like it, because any woman who wouldn't like this smell, I don't even care to know. I feel like Indiana Jones.

My hands smell like I've been eating tropical fruit. Not the sharp kind like pineapple, more round and aromatic, like papaya? Persimmon? Mango? Or maybe it's cinnamon and sugar. This scent is a labyrinth.

Once again, within 10 minutes of putting on a Rogue I'm looking online at prices for a full bottle.

By the end of the first hour, this moves closer to the opening ginger-cookies-and-paint-thinner accord of Champ Lunaires, although still smouldering with the dazzling complexity of the opening. I got maybe 2 nice hours of this.

Four hours after spraying, the whole thing was gone, gone, gone. Not a skin scent left, nothing. And thank god, because I might have spent my life savings on this stuff.

I still might.

Finally I managed to fit get a small atomizer to at least spray out of the bottle, and... oh my...

I would like to directly address Manuel Cross:

You, sir, are trouble.

This is the second scent I've tried from my Rogue sample pack, and the second one that had me telling myself after only 10 minutes that I wouldn't mind smelling like this for the rest of my life, and looking immediately for how much a full bottle cost.

It's classy. I do see the comparisons with Green Irish Tweed: no, it doesn't smell that much like it, but there is a definite overlap somewhere deep inside. It has that broad but understated zest, over that satiny, complex base that screams class.

That said, I'm also seeing the same thing I did with the Tuberose & Moss: an hour or two later... it's still special, but suddenly somehow not as seductive, it's gone down a substantial notch, and much too quickly. I suppose given the price, that's a good thing, because it keeps me from wanting to buy enough of this stuff to fill a tub with and bathe in.

Very dressy, though... sort of a classic cologne scent, and very slightly ostentatious, though not in a bad way, just a way that says, wear this to black tie dinners, not every day. This is not a scent that will make anybody say, "Wow, you smell amazing!" but it's could be a perfect part of a very nice ensemble, showing that you've given thought to your presentation, right down to the scent. It's kind of the opposite of a dumb reach.

But, it's strange, too. It's really got a personality. I like it, maybe love it, but I could imagine some people finding it a little objectionable. There's something acidic to it. It's got an odd, slightly tart or astringent note buried in there that makes it pretty unique. It almost reminds me of apricots.

There's some wood in there, too, and some spice. A very familiar spice that I can't put my finger on. It's not cinnamon. But damn, it's familiar. This one is complex.

I have to go with the synesthesia for this one. Most conventional colognes have a muted yellow, tan, or golden base. This has that base, but darker and more brownish perhaps, and the body veers towards smelling brownish-purple, maybe even maroon. I honestly don't think I've ever smelled this color before.

For anyone reading, I suppose this description hasn't been helpful. Imagine this: a classic, mild, classy men's fougere, sitting next to a glass of balsamic vinegar. But, better.

Very, very odd.

It's very nice, for sure. First impression: basically it's exactly what the name says, tobacco and creamy green freshness, although, as with the other Rogues I've tried, it's extremely well blended, and if the name hadn't told me what's in it I might have a hard time picking it out. As it is, I like the scent of tobacco, and I especially like the scent of the tobacco note in this, it's crisp but understated and very nice. I think maybe with this one Manuel Cross was going for his own (glorious, natch) take on a very conventional aftershave scent. If I walked out of the barber shop smelling like this, I'd probably say, "Boy, whatever that barber uses smells fantastic." Is that what I want from an art fragrance? I don't know. But it is very nice.

Just a few minutes in: oh, this thing is blooming on my skin. That Mingus-y orchestral thing is stirring below the surface. Yep, it's a Rogue, after all. Is there a little ginger in there? There's also a hint of that aroma I've occasionally referred to before as "daipery" (perhaps it's the scent they use in Pampers? Or maybe it's just indolic), but in this case it's actually blended in so well it's not as unpleasant as I usually find it.

I had a friend, Chris Hume, a gifted musical prodigy. When I was taking first year counterpoint, after the rest of the class had come up to the board and shown how they tackled the homework problems, Hume was the kid who Prof. Hagen always called on to show everyone how it's really done. I have a feeling Manuel Cross was that kid in the perfumery class, or however it is that they learn these things. He's gotta be some sort of savant.

I feel like I'm floating on a celestial cloud of Barbasol and Clubman. This is so old-school yet so well-executed, I bet today's ironic hipsters could rock it. (Are kids still ironic? Or has that whole thing passed?)

A half hour later: I smell wood. Cedar?

Another half hour: This is the cologne Paco Rabanne Pour Homme wants to be. And I like PRPH. Also, there's no mistaking it, there's definitely a note of cedar in there now.

My uncle Morty left me a vintage Harris Tweed overcoat. I could wear this with that. Besides that? Very nice, but, probably not for me, but only because I myself wouldn't pay niche fragrance prices for even the world's best barbershop scent. It's kind of like the idea of paying boutique prices for a top-quality, artisan-made plain white t-shirt. I'm not going to do that. I don't judge it, but I'm never doing it.

A couple of short hours later, I noticed it was gone without a trace, completely disappeared, as if it never had been. Maybe it was all a dream.

This is my first try of a Rogue frag. Spashed on from a sample bottle with the roller top removed. (I tried to fit an atomizer to the bottle, but didn't have anything on hand that fit.)

I'm going to hazard a guess here. I am going to guess that the use of natural ingredients apparently no longer common is why this is sending me on a head trip back to my grandmother's apartment. I'm pretty sure I've smelt tuberose notes in something before, but this...

This started out nice. That's all. Floral. I liked it. A "reminds me of my grandma" smell I thought at first was the nice soaps she had out.

A few minutes later, it began to have some depth, more like standing out in a beautiful flower garden. Now, I like the smell of flower gardens. I generally don't prefer to smell like one, but I enjoy being in them. And this... this smelled like being in a _good_ one. And so it went, further and further in that direction for a while, then began to dry down, without losing that character. I will say that it sort of peaked, then pulled back, and now has plateaued at a mild level, maybe almost not much more than a skin scent, for a few hours. The longevity at this plateau has been decent but I honest would have loved to have reeked of this at full strength for 6 or more hours.

Who am I kidding? If you could get a tattoo of a smell I'd be tempted to get this one and just smell like this forever.

Let me give you some context: one of my absolute favorite smells in the world is the flowering Victorian Box Tree. We've got a bunch of them near where I live, and in a good year they bloom about 4 times, and I just love it. Functionally, the scent is very much like jasmine, I have good jasmine incense that's close enough to do the trick, let's call it jasmine for practical purposes. Anyway, again, not something I necessarily want to smell like, but something I do reeeeeeally like the smell of.

The thing I like about jasmine-type scents is hard to pin down, but as I've said before, it's shared by chocolate, maybe by roses, although even roses don't do it like victorian box blooms do. It's not even the specific scent, but more the "shape" quality of it — broad, round, warm, full, organic, deep and complex yet unified.

I saw another reviewer compared T&M to Creed Royal Mayfair. I only had a small sample of that and it's been a few weeks but the comparison is apt. I thought that smelled amazing in and of itself, but wasn't the type of scent I could pull off.

Somehow, this, though, despite being heavily floral, and much more towards what I think of as women's perfume than at all what I think of when you say the word "cologne", I think I can work this.

I will say I had to refresh after about 4 hours. It smelled amazing, just slightly less amazing. It reminds me of a three-point-landing comedown from the Jesus acid that was going around when the Dead passed through Seattle back in '95... you're still at cruising altitude, it's still amazing, just suddenly, somehow everything is jumping just a little bit less.

I still smell tuberose lingering on my robes the next day. It's flatter, though still very nice, but could easily just be the smell of good hand cream at this point.

After that, it smells very much like it's named.... first a nice but not so impressive vetiver, then a very clear, nice bloom of flowers. If Rogues often open up like Mingus's "Let My Children Hear Music", this one is like one of Satie's Gymnopedies... quiet, simple, unassuming, pretty, and the kind of thing you turn to when you're not in the mood for a surprise. It's a nice enough smell. That's all.

It's pretty unisex, even leans feminine. If you walked into a child's nursery and it smelled exactly like this, you wouldn't be surprised. I might even recommend wearing it as a leg up to anyone who is interviewing for a nanny position.

I get a slightly sickly cotton candy and an acrid note of burning rubber. And that's it. A few hours in, it's dried down to... still exactly the same.

It reminds me very much of A*Men, which had a similar but even more pronounced tire-fire-near-the-midway attack and not much else, yet which other people seem to incomprehensibly adore. At least this is not as offensively sweet-yet-acrid as that, it's not awful so much as just not my style, which I guess is impressive for a bottle of juice that cost less than I paid for a sandwich for lunch today.

But none of what I see in the note pyramid or in any of these reviews seems similar to what I'm smelling in any way. I just don't get it. Maybe it's my body chemistry or something.

(Update... second wearing, three months later:

Opening not as bad as I remembered. Medicinal, but not necessarily in a bad way. Candy, yes, but not cloying, more herbal, like an herbal lozenge.

20 minutes later: oh, yeah, there’s that burning rubber smell. Why do people make colognes that smell like this?)

Maybe there's something to letting things sit. It goes on tolerably, without as much of the cotton candy miasma that nauseated me so much the first time. It's there, but it's tolerable, it sits better in the mix, as we musicians like to say. In fact, not having worn any scent at all lately, I sort of mildly liked the opening. In an odd way, it reminded me of the completely unassuming "just there"-ness of the misnamed Issey Miyake L'eau d'Issey Intense Pour Homme. It's still a little sweet for my tastes, I think I just don't like gourmands. But it's not bad, I wouldn't be afraid to go out wearing it, and I could see some of my foppier, more velvety brethren being happy with it (Some men are leathery, and some are velvety; I'm more terrycloth). That's about the most positive thing I can say about it. Other than the sweet thing, it's a fairly unremarkaable mix of patchoili, some florals, some citrus. I could probably talcum powder up, spray on some Paco Rabanne, suck on a hard candy to soften it up and then rub that on my neck and wrists, and get about the same effect. As I'm sitting here typing this I'm getting a slight headache, probably due not to the UDV but to the ongoing stress of long term-unemployment and financial worries, but the UDV isn't helping.

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.