10 Corso Como Uomo
10 Corso Como (2010)

It looks like I'm the only person here who actually likes 10 Corso Como Uomo, and I think I like it for all the reasons everyone else hates it.

There are two main themes running in parallel here.

First, a very 00's-style iso e super/pepper/clary sage mix that's enough of a cliche that I can see why it turns reviewers away. I personally like the addition of the ginger, and the way what I'm guessing is a pinch of violet leaf adds a silvery sense of gloom to the otherwise camping-in-a-forest notes.

Second, there's a chalky greyness, sort of like ash or clay, but also like cement dust. This is the most realistic petrichor smell I've encountered in perfume, like fresh rain on a cement sidewalk where someone had burned a campfire the night before.

It's this interplay of the forest campfire and extremely urban rainy cement that I enjoy. That dry-but-wet smoky-but-waterlogged forest-but-city duality forms a perfect perfume yin/yang. That said, this isn't an easy wear - Uomo proudly shouts its weirdness, and not everyone wants to walk around smelling like smoky cement, but this is what I always reach for when I'm heading out to the MOMA or to see some weird performance art.

First thing I notice is the pepper, quickly joined by ginger, cedar and vanilla. It is a dry fragrance that quickly becomes dominated by the cedar. It has sharp corners, but it's enjoyable to wear when you want something a bit rough on the edges.

Yes, this is a pretty predictable scent. It's a woody oriental with a mix of ginger and pepper. I find that there is a striking similarity to Gucci Pour Homme (2003), but lighter, without the graphite pencil note. It's easier to wear in the warmer months.

I find value is an important qualification to a fragrance. This is one of those fragrances that you pick up if you find a bargain. I wouldn't pay more than the going rate for a bottle of Guerlain Homme.

Genre: Woods
Notes: Bergamot, mandarin, ginger, black pepper, ylang-ylang, jasmine, cedar, vanilla, musk, amber.


10 Corso Como Uomo makes all the contemporary gestures. Black pepper? Check. Ginger? Check. Dry cedar base note? Check.

The result is mild and polite to the point of being bland, which is quite an accomplishment with spices like black pepper and ginger. How is done? A featureless pale gray cedar note blurs out any trace of olfactory color, sweet powdery amber and vanilla hide any sharp contours, and strictly limited sillage and projection dull any potentially disturbing impact. I feel as if I've smelled this before, and so many times that I can't readily point a finger at what it smells like. Indeed, 10 Corso Como Uomo smells like a dilute mixture of every dry, transparent spicy-woody scent that Kenzo, Comme des Garçons, and Hermès, have made over the past two decades.

The best part by far are the mandarin, pepper, and ginger top notes, which for a moment conjure up a mysterious, medicinal accord suggestive of oudh and frankincense. After that, it's all generic post-Elléna hand waving, signifying nothing without even the entertainment of sound and fury.

Gorgeously smoked black pepper opening that morphs into frankincense and wood. Uncomplicated, direct and well-executed, the heavenly smokiness elevates it from the ranks of the ordinary and proclaims difference. The drydown, though still pretty smooth, doesn't manage to hang on to the smoke, and it becomes a fairly commonplace peppery-cedar accord. Easy to wear.

I've nothing to add to Off-Scenter's review except that I suspect that I have even less admiration for this scent than he does, and I would like to say that I particularly enjoy the appropriateness of his Macbeth reference. My quick summary: Linear, uninspired, generic, cliché-ish to the extreme… not anywhere near the quality or beauty of their first fragrance.