Bulgari Man Glacial Essence
Bulgari (2020)

A modern mainstream woody-fougère (basically not so distant from scents a la Gaultier le Beau Male, Byblos Uomo, Carolina Herrera 212 Men, Parfums de Marly Percival or Bond N.9 Wall street) with an icy aromatic added spark. Anyway on my skin this is more a warm fragrance than an icy one. Morillas effectively enriches and crystallizes a basic floral-cedary-musky-boisé accord by implementing a balsamic synth calonic icy-glacial "molecule" (Alaska Essence Clearwood) but the aroma tends finally to smell more restrained and warm on me. Geranium (violet leaves as well?), juniper, musk and woods are dominant under my nose. The juice is cool, frosty-metallic, calonic, finally woody-spicy, vaguely ozonic and dynamic. Dry down is more rounded and soapy but still virile and peppery (and powerful on intense sandalwood).

Feels like a typical, masculine blue freshie. Not much sweetness to it. The freshness is clean and citrusy sharp, which does remind me of the original Bulgari Man. Maybe some nice, clean white florals in the opening and early drydown. Later, it feels a lot like Bulgari Man, which is nice, a fresh, spicy, woody scent that's more versatile than the Glacial opening.

Really good projection during the first hours. Calms down after that but still hangs around most of the day.

Bvlgari Man Glacial Essence (2020) is yet another flanker entry into the growing Bvlgari Man (2010) line. This flanker seems to try being a bit more of an actual flanker in execution, having a bit of DNA from the original Bvlgari Man in the mix, possibly because Alberto Morillas returned to work on it, and he created the original. Outside of that, what you see on the bottle is mostly what you get: a cool "glacial" interpretation of the Bvlgari Man accord with a few neat aromachemical tricks to get you there along the way. I don't think this stuff goes out of its way to be a statement maker or an extroverted compliment beast of a fragrance based on my time spent with it, but sort of instead goes in more of a "cologne" direction by being a lighter, fresher, more casual option to the main fragrance. I have a few arguments with this approach considering the price and product placement of this entry in the line, but more on that a little later. Alberto Morillas has done something fairly unique and creative here, defying expectations of another airy/aquatic sort of fragrance that smells like an expensive clone of a discounted Nautica scent, but is it enough?

The opening of Bvlgari Man Glacial Essence is a sharp cool minty push of geranium, juniper, and some kind of ozonic note which I have no name for (possibly an aldehyde type). This initial blast actually fades quite quickly, and within ten minutes, the geranium is all that survives to merge with an aromatic trace of the original Bvlgari Man, which I'm taking to be the original's lotus accord and white woods. These white woods are sort of reminiscent of what goes on in stuff like Azzaro Visit (2003) and Gucci Rush for Men (2000), but not quite so creamy as that, with soapy clean facets of orris mixing in. Bvlgari states artemisia is present but I get none of that, although the "clearwood" base and musks become the star players into the first hour. Clearwood is a Firmenich captive that is basically another form of synethetic patchouli which has been stripped of all terpenes and is pretty much just the patchoulol left behind. Combined with laundry musks, this makes a vaguely woody amber profile that isn't jarring like most intense "woody amber" molecules but still creates some disassociation in the brain with what it claims to be (which is wood). Wear time is about 6 hours and sillage is pretty average, with projection poofing after thirty minutes. Best use for this is spring and summer mostly, as something you'd go outdoors with or on a day running errands, like so many other minty fresh clean things that also fit this need.

As alluded to before, this is not a "beast mode" fragrance and feels more like a hot weather refresher or after-shower "white t-shirt" sort of scent, which is actually a problem for a designer billed to be an eau de parfum costing $115 at retail. Usually with things pegged as eau de parfum by designers and sold at a slight upcharge from their standard eau de toilette fare, something bolder, smoother, or longer-lasting is expected, since an eau de parfum flanker to an eau de toilette is viewed as a premium option. Here with Bvlgari Man Glacial Essence, they've basically taken something like Yves Saint Laurent Y Eau Fraîche (2020) and billed it like Yves Saint Laurent Y Eau de Parfum (2018) instead, which is unacceptable to me. If this was sold at or below the price of Bvlgari Man, I would be totally on board and this release would make more sense, but at prices which put it up against some really nice options at retail (like stuff from Dior or Chanel), Bvlgari Man Glacial Essence seems to lose the plot very fast. Still, at a discount this might not be a bad alternative to aquatics that have been done to death, but that's still not saying much. Sample first, because even die-hard Bvlgari Man fans might see Glacial Essence as inessential. Neutral.