Bulgari pour Homme Soir
Bulgari (2006)

I’m getting some spicy, maybe bitter herbal green citrus with the tea and papyrus in the opening. It’s all very clean and subtle but still masculine. This should be perfect for the office, similar to TF Grey Vetiver, but they don't smell alike. Just saying they fit into the same occasion-appropriate genre.

Projection is light and it only seems to last 4-5 hours.

I am not of the school that believes that if more people can smell me for longer in the day, that’s indicative of the quality of my scent. In fact that’s what makes a scent seem trashy and undesirable to me, except in very few cases, where it enhances my skin and my smell. I was just about to buy a full bottle of BR540 after wearing it for 2 years from a decant - the exact day I was about to pull the trigger and order it online I walked into the lobby at work and smelled no less than 6 people wearing it as we walked in that morning. Purchase canceled forever - not just because of how common it became but how shocked I was to smell it in the air on someone else and how different it seemed on them vs on my skin.

BPH Soir’s skeleton note profile is simple. Vegetal, earthy, green, airy, close to the skin. All these words have been used to describe it already.

Yesterday I was driving in the afternoon wearing a few sprays of this and my skin was heated by the afternoon sun. It felt like it was getting baked into my skin and developing a golden, woody resonance. To me the BPH and BPHE seem like the unnecessary flankers and this seems like the original. Everything has been stripped away except what is essential. What remains is a scent of rare dimensional presence, that dries down to an extraordinary radiance. More of an acquired taste than many supposedly “difficult” scents, and more rewarding. BPH Soir smells like easy access to uncountable funds, a semi untucked Oxford shirt, a loosened tie, old money without aspiration or concern.

Masculine and subtle.
Starts of fresh spicy unique, tea flower and wood with a hint of sweetness and settles down to a more subtle wearable version of the already excellent Michaelef Gaiac Wood lasting for hours with subtle but noticeable projection.
How many times have I used the word 'subtle' ? That is all true power and taste needs in order to be outstanding.
Anytime anywhere signature fragrance.
FBW and I did.

Fragrance: 8/10
Projection: 7/10
Longevity: 8/10

There's nothing wrong with simplicity when it's done well, and Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir is simplicity done so well it achieves a kind of sublimity. (The Japanese have a word for this: shibumi.) I'm not sure there's a better treatment of this sort of green-tinged tea note out there, niche or otherwise.

The others in this line fade into the sea of somewhat anonymous, albeit sturdy, green, citrusy masculines (see also the Guerlain Homme line, which has a similar overarching aesthetic to the Bvlgari pour Homme releases), but Soir's singular dedication to its gorgeous, vegetal tea note distinguishes it from the pack and gives it an almost niche-y air that prefigures the rise of niche freshies built to showcase one or two notes.

Perhaps because this was formulated before the wholesale synthetic takeover of the designer segment, Soir's composition feels rich and deep, even if it is minimalist, and offers sufficient fascination to survive its lifespan (which is surprisingly long for such a delicate, green scent). It's comfortable and effortless, wearing like a light, refreshing cloud: the perfect scent for when you need a little bit of uplift.

Bvlgari pour Homme Soir (2006) would be the last hurrah of this style for the house on the men's side of their perfume fence, taking one more stab at the tea and musk/aromatics combo that set Bvlgari apart from the crowd. Bvlgari Pour Homme (1995) was the debut masculine outing for the house of Bvlgari, and featured the what was once considered the house note of darjeeling tea, carried over from Eau Parfumée au Thé Vert (1993), and composed into a soft, transparent, complex white musk for men. Bvlgari Black (1998) was the culmination of their tea theme, so experimentation followed. Bvlgari Pour Homme Extrême (1999) saw a drier, sharper, and more masculine take on the theme with woods and spice as the main focus over the musk of the predecessor, and that version sat better with the "meat and potatoes" segment of the masculine fragrance community, plus let Bvlgari step out of its usual lane of restrained tea fragrances at the time. A change in a the guard was occuring, and has Bvlgari became more successful, they started to really branch out with their composition styles, moving away from tea and into standard categories starting with Blv (2000) and Blv Pour Homme (2001) respectively. Women started receiving more standardized feminine fare while men got Bvlgari Aqva (2005), which was as big a mission statement as any that Bvlgari had joined the rest of Designerland with their creations. Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir feels like a final goodbye to the 90's era of Bvlgari for this reason, at least so far as masculine perfumes go, and returns the original men's pillar line to its soft musk roots.

Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir is very similar to the original in tone, but cuts out many of the superfluous notes that barely registered in that original scent's gray structure, and building up from the core of what is left. In essence, this makes Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir like a "light" version of the original, and a touch more focused on the tea, as little gets in the way of it. The musk of Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir still provides the background for this tea like the original, but with less amber or spice to muddle it up. The tea note opens Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir crystal clear, dark, and a tad more romantic. A woodsy balmy papyrus note wafts in with some dry bergamot, but without the sweet orange blossom or white florals of the original. The tea shines almost by itself like an iteration of Bvlgari Black stripped of it's thick rubbery essence, but retaining a touch of vetiver to keep Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir a tad earthy. White musk and a dialed-back amber finish off the relatively simple scent, and the whole thing feels like its name implies: a relaxed evening version of Bvlgari Pour Homme. Wear time is about on par with the original, but sillage is a bit more slight, even if the scent itself wears darker and more aromatic. Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir can be seen as something of a compromise between the sharp aromatics of Bvlgari pour Homme Extrême and the rounded pillowy plushness of Bvlgari Pour Homme, since it borrows the dryness of the former and the richness of the latter to make a scent that layers well with either. Bvlgari Pour Homme Soir feels particularly more romantic to my nose than the other two, so that's where I would use it.

Fans of Bvlgari pour Homme Extrême won't like the direction this flanker takes the series on its final ride, and users of the original might even find Bvlgari pour Homme Soir a tiny bit redundant in their collection, so I feel the real target for this scent was for folks who didn't own either because there were bits about them they didn't like. Bvlgari pour Homme Soir really gets down to the core of the accord made by perfumer Jacques Cavallier, and although no perfumer is signed onto this (meaning nobody knows if he returned for this or if it's somebody else's work), I feel like all attempts were made to tie Bvlgari pour Homme Soir into the legacy established by the previous entries. You don't hear much talk of this anymore in men's circles, and the soft musk is unisex enough for women or people generally preferring feminine musky fragrances to take a stab at it, making Bvlgari pour Homme Soir feel most like a good flanking choice for owners of Calvin Klein cK One (1994) than anything, since that too has a tea note buried in its mix. I give Bvlgari pour Homme Soir a thumbs up, but the simplicity of the scent also translates to linearity, and I find it has less character in spite of itself when compared to the original Bvlgari pour Homme, but is at least for a sniff for fans of the style. After this, there would be no going back for Bvlgari, who would commit to their aquatics and synthetic woods masculines going forward, leaving what many consider their best era of perfume behind to be more like competitors Dolce & Gabbana or Versace. You can still sometimes find Bvlgari pour Homme Soir in a mall store or as unsold stock in a department store like Dillard's, but outside of that, you'll have to get it on them interwebz.

TAKE IT FROM ME:

I like the cologne but it does smell like D&G Light Blue for Men.