Complex
Boadicea the Victorious (2009)

No mistaking this for anything but a leather fragrance...chill and dry...smoky , earthy and green...a very strong animalic prescense...i have to echo 2 things that I read in some other reviews : that this would be how Pinhead from Hellraiser would smell or that it should be the Hells Angels signature scent...the touch of dark asphalty violet gives me a little of the same note as in Narcisco Rodriguez for Men along with that wet concrete vibe...if I close my eyes the smell brings an image of a leather bound couple having hot steamy sex on the ground by a fetid swamp...even get a hint of ganja...at various phases this brings to mind Cuir d'Arabie , Kinski , Rien , Portos and Arrogance...i love leather...i love animalic...I love sex and ganja...i love this...

Dry, sage and violet.

Opening, it is bone dry, and the immediate hit is violet, cold and aloof. Sage, I also find to have a cold nature. In terms of smoked burning smells, it is the coldest, and among the driest. But it is very clean. The musk here is crystal clear, without a hint of dirt. Its like they took the most sanitized note from each category and then built a fragrance from it. The effect is something of a refined, ultra clean and posh. Maybe a wealthy old woman who feels like she's better than you.

A solid like for me. I'm not great at picking out notes, but at first I smell a strong, assertive incense/wood combo that probably has major projection. It settles down into a nice soft warm fuzziness that I'm guessing are the resins. My husband said the drydown smells "like a dryer sheet." Although I don't agree, I think it is an apt metaphor: pretty and pleasant enough of a scent, but not something to love and cherish.

Deep dark resins (galbanum, labdanum, balsams).

Hidden gem.

This is the intense version of Pioneer.

Genre: Leather/Chypre

Complex emerges from its bottle as a fully-blown green leather chypre with animalic overtones and an intensely bitter edge. Birch tar runs rampant here, and your reaction to this fragrance will depend largely upon how you respond to that ingredient's smoky olfactory profile. Me, I love the stuff, so Complex is right up my alley. The opening is vaguely reminiscent of Bandit EdP, but whereas Bandit reveals floral elements after its spiky herbaceous launch, Complex is resolutely linear in course, and never veers far from its initial subject matter. After several hours of solid projection and conspicuous sillage, Complex settles into a warm, animalic labdanum drydown. As a composition Complex is bold and uncompromising, and I admire how it keeps true to its materials.

Indeed, I have only one major problem with Complex. Its name? Aramis 900.

Stop laughing.

Right now.

I won't claim that the two scents are identical – they aren't. But there are parallels, especially in their opening and closing movements. The Aramis too starts out as a brashly bitter, herbaceous, green leather chypre, though admittedly a bit softer in texture and less smoky than the Boadicea The Victorious scent. Ironically enough, Aramis 900 is more, well, complex than Complex in its development. While Complex is staunchly linear, Aramis 900 builds a floral/balsamic accord alongside is leather chypre block, thereby establishing a compelling structural tension. Both scents ultimately arrive at the same labdanum-rich destination, even if the Aramis does take a more circuitous route.

So while they do differ, I believe that Aramis 900 and Complex could easily play the same role in a moderate-sized fragrance wardrobe. The question for any potential purchaser is whether Complex's relative toughness and monolithic structure appeal enough to merit spending five times(!) Aramis 900's price. I will tell you in no uncertain terms that the discrepancy in pricing does not reflect any difference in quality. Aramis 900 may be inexpensive and in good supply, but it is a superb Bernard Chant formula and parent company Estée Lauder has treated it with great care. The bottom line: Complex is a good scent, but I'd try both Aramis 900 and Bandit before spending upwards of $250 US on it!

A super dry contemporary leather scent which opens with a rubbery note of safraleine and quinolines, with lemon drops, a hint of salt, and a – frankly: horrible - aftertaste halfway between roasted tires, burnt muffins and pencil rubber. Aldehydes, vanillin, a woody aromatic round note which softens and restraines the roasted leather accord. All completely synthetic with no particular efforts to disguise it. To be really honest, not to act as "the tough one", but I do not get the "harsh" and the "challenging" here. It's a nice, plain, a bit clumsy and awkward rendition of leather, where the materials which are usually used to create that note are basically just thrown-in "as-they-are". But the result is nothing raw or harsh, it's rather a pale nondescript rubbery scent with an indefinite "roasted" vibe which I guess should be the leather heart, which lasts for ages. I thought of Portos by Balenciaga and its Clint Eastwood super dry leather drydown – that's an adult and challenging leather to wear. Complex stands to "great leather scents" like a child with fake moustache and a plastic sword stands to Zorro. Jokes aside, in my opinion it's a boring scent even itself – not bad, but dull.

5,5-6/10