Club de Nuit Milestone
Armaf

Very close to MI and even though Armaf look to copy what Creed create I actually find the longevity and strength to be superior in the Armaf products.
It's salty ozonic and fruity. The ambergris and watermelon is really prominent, perfect summer daytime scent.
Off topic but how do Basenotes give a 3.9 when every review is a thumbs up??

As with CDNIM EDP, I tested the original to make sure I liked the DNA before purchasing. I tried out MI and wasn't impressed, but wanted something to wear to India that didn't have a smoke note that would clash with the already smokey air there so I bought this anyways 40% off on Amazon figuring I can waste $19.

The scent is beautiful and stands with only a few others that made my jaw drop. The salty watermelon is fresh and aquatic and airy without being too much of anything besides a solid performer. I mean, this is probably the best fresh warm weather scent I have ever smelled. It's far better than MI and frankly even Sauvage EDT and more versatile than CDNIM EDP in summer. This fragrance is what you and your girl spray on after a romp behind the trees near the beach.

It is not the most masculine fragrance, but... Wow. Just wow. Two thumbs up.

This fragrance is shockingly similar to the original. I ended up selling my bottle to slim down my collection, but that had nothing to do with it being a bad scent. Viranis Ridari and the previous reviews sum it up perfectly. This fragrance is 90-95% similar to the original. Enthusiasts may be able to spot the differences, but I bet the average person will not be able to tell the difference. I'm excited to see what other fragrances Armaf will clone. Perhaps we will see a clone of Virgin Island Water in the future.

Big Millesime Imperial fan here, my most used scent for the summer and spring and tropical vacations, been wearing it since about 2005. Never had a problem with longevity and sillage until my most recent bottle of Imperial, a 2020 batch in the gold 3.3 oz bottle. Doesnt last and the opening is weaker than ever before (some batches were better than others).

Enter Armaf Milestone, heard about it so I gave it a try and am I glad I did. This stuff smells more like Millesime Imperial than Millesime Imperial does now. Smells identical to my older bottles. Not sure I can ever spend the money on Imperial with this gem around. Highly recommended.

I wanted to get a bottle of Creed MI, but where I live it goes for just under $500 for the 1.7 Oz/50 ml, so I looked at some alternatives and blind bought Armaf's Club de Nuit Milestone.. and I'm really glad I did.

After getting past the opening which can be a bit harsh, the beautiful salted watermelon notes start to appear alongside the sandalwood as things settle and the fragrance starts to flex its muscle.

The drydown – which is the star performer of this fragrance – has this wonderful ocean breeze vibe happening with fruity "watermelon" and base notes of ambroxan, musk and vetiver. I remember getting a few whiffs about 2 hours after applying and thinking to myself, this is devine.

And for me, the performance is immense. A few weeks ago I wore 4 sprays in the morning, and 8 hours later I went downstairs to the ground floor in our building to get the mail (we live a few floors up) and a little later my wife got home and said she could smell me/CDNM downstairs at the mailboxes and in the elevator... 😯 so excellent sillage and longevity for me.

Even with the chaotic opening, it's an easy 5 stars from me.

My guess is that nobody aware of the brand is really surprised at this point with Club de Nuit Milestone by Armaf (2017), as they have targeted Creed with impunity to great success when they released Club de Nuit Intense Man by Armaf (2015), a scent that went after older batches of Creed Aventus (2010) and delivered a comparable experience at a tenth of the cost. Yeah, Club de Nuit Intense smelled every bit like if Aventus was released by Jacques Bogart instead of Creed (with ingredients cost and blending to suit that budget), but that is much of the appeal for me. At least in my case, a rough and ready Aventus that's gadzooks-strong I find much more fun to wear than the real deal, which stinks with it's own faux-refinement and increasingly plasticized feel with each passing year. My only concern with the success of these clones is the much stranger fruit lurking in Armaf's vast catalog may be overlooked by fans dismissing them as strictly a clone operation, when they're closer to being an Arabian Avon. Club de Nuit MIlestone targets Creed Millésime Impérial (1995) from the gold bottle to the alliterative title. something they would do again a few years later with Club de Nuit SIllage (2020), a fragrance that targets Creed Silver Mountain Water (1995). In both cases we have "beautiful losers" a la Bob Seger, composed originally by Pierre Bourdon as formulas competing for briefs from designers, lost to other more-conventional formulas by other perfumers. Also in both cases, Olivier Creed offered to "buy" the wasted formulas for favors and bartered luxury goods, tooled up the ingredients to needlessly-expensive levels, and released as Creeds.

So as with the earlier Club de Nuit Intense Man and later Club de Nuit Sillage, Armaf targeted older "batches" of Creed Millésime Impérial, before too much formula drift caused by deliberate batch variations to create collectable "vintages" occurred, affecting the overall scent profile of what stands today as Millésime Impérial. Obviously, Armaf has gone with ingredients choices closer to what Millésime Impérial might have been if it had been released by whatever designer it had been pitched to back in the 90's, then amped up the performance to blaring subwoofer levels, effectively creating another parallel universe Bogart scenario. For folks crying that Millésime Impérial smells beautiful but has poo-poo performance, you will be happy, if you can endure a bit more of a base-heavy interpretation where that salty ambroxan wallops you over the noggin right out of the gate. The opening is very lush salty watermelon, powered by calone-1951 aka "watermelon ketone", a note Armaf curiously labels as "red fruits" in the official breakdown. Violet ionones, hedione, polysantal, and Iso E Super bring up the heart of dry floral woods, before the ambroxan, vetiver, sage, and 90's-era white musks finish this up. The transparency and bouyant natural citruses of real Millésime Impérial are missing, but that is the price you pay for a low price. s an aside, parts of Club de Nuit MIlestone also reminds me at times of Mario Valentino Ocean Rain (1990). the last fragrance made by Edmond Roudnitska and the only one broadly showcasing watermelon ketone. Performance is insane and longevity is until you wash it off. Like Millésime Impérial, this is perfectly unisex and pleasant to wear in most seasons save freezing cold.

For the pragmatic budget-conscious lover of the Creed style, there really is no reason to look elsewhere than Armaf for your hookup of value-packed alternatives to Aventus, and now both Millésime Impérial plus SIlver Mountain Water too. I really hope they go after some vaulted ones like Creed Green Valley (1999) or Creed Royal Mayfair (2015), but I'd also happily settle for an accurate dupe of Creed Green Irish Tweed (1985) to spare me from using my bottle up, as Armaf Tres Nuit (2015) was less of a direct clone and more of a competing flavor in that genre a la Davidoff Cool Water (1988) or Coty Aspen (1989). An Armaf take on Creed Bois du Portugal (1987) or Creed Royal Water (1997) may never happen either, as those scents aren't popular enough among Creeds, but one can dream. I own those anyway, but having inexpensive Bogart-strong dumb reach versions of them would sure stop me from hemming and hawwing over using my genuine bottles. Roudnitska tried to use calone-1951 when making the original intended version of Fidji by Guy Laroche (1966), which when rejected was kept as a personal perfume for his wife, which ended up being released As Le Parfum de Thérèse by Editions de Parfums Frédéric Malle (2000) upon his death. Mario Valentino Ocean Rain was purportedly also based on this formula in part, as a last hurrah for Roudnitska to somehow some way get his biggest unused ideas out into the world. Perhaps Millésime Impérial was Bourdon's ode to Roudnitska, his former teacher, and thus Armaf Club de Nuit Milestone a mirror into the universe where it reached the mass market without Creed's frivolity as intended? Who knows? I just like the stuff. Thumbs up