Perfume Reviews by AppleNerd

Ameer Al Oudh Intense Oud by Lattafa

This is a reinterpretation rather than a dupe of BtF, but don't disregard this fragrance just yet. BtF is like $85/bottle and has pretty poor longevity and projection, this bottle is $20 and had great longevity and projection. It has oud, but compared to any other oud fragrance it's so tame it has a spice vibe.

As with any fragrance, the first few sprays should go down the drain because they are just noxious. There are a lot of rich notes here that you'll find off-putting if you dive right into your skin, but give the bottle and your senses some time and you'll like it a lot. I don't love this bottle, in fact I don't know if there's much I love on this planet besides push-up bras and 19...

You get a much harder vanilla marshmallow smell than BtF and marshmallow fireside. BtF is a lot simpler note breakdown and MF by bath and body works is way smoother. I admit that I actually really love these marshmallow smokey fragrances, I think they do something really interesting without being too unusual to wear.

I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but SWY Intensely has a hint of this smokey sweetness that's since become so popular. I'm wearing some of that right now in the Doha airport and it's giving me the same vibe.

Fakhar Black by Lattafa

All the negative reviews around this fragrance are written by people who seem to have forgotten the point of this fragrance is *just* to copy YSL's reformulated (and for the better!) smoother and less sickly sweet Y EDP. Your feelings towards Y EDP will transfer exactly to Fakhar Black. Fakhar Black has a smoother but cheaper smelling dry down whereas Y EDP's drydown is harsh and pungent.

L'Homme by Yves Saint Laurent

The fragrance sold in stores now and what I first sprayed on in a local mall in 2006 as an excited kid are completely different. Year by year, notes were removed until we got the current formulation - an abysmal and boring tonka powder fragrance that feels more like a drugstore clone of Givenchy Pi. I even recall spraying this on in college in Sephora and thinking "hmm I remember this having more notes" but it as still like 70% the same. I have so many memories rushing through my head of how beautiful that original scent profile was whenever I see my 2x 200mL bottles in my cabinet I excitedly bought last year on Black Friday from YSL direct when I finally got some spending money to blow on smelly alcohol spray. I need to spray myself like 15 times to even smell it, and then it still doesn't even last 2 hours. I hope a designer house like mont blanc picks up a vintage bottle, does some GC/MS, and rereleases the original L'Homme for $35 for a 100mL bottle.

Do you know when it was first released, people were complaining it was too powerful and made their noses itch and skin red because they were spraying it on the front part of their neck? So, if you know someone who sprays the front of their neck or complains fragrances are too strong, please educate them on how to apply fragrances lest we lose another great formula to consumers being idiots.

Y L'Elixir by Yves Saint Laurent

I left work early to go to Macy's to try this on, ready to hate it and tell you all that the Y line is trash and YSL should stick to l'homme. While the latter may be true... I actually like this.

Maybe because it smells exactly like BDC EDP. Or maybe I mean the Parfum, I forget which is which nowadays.

Anyways, this is well blended but not so blended you can't pick out notes. The woody citrusy top is on a base of rich masculine floral and a whisper of frankincense that ties this up like a bow. Really excellent work, but then again this is a Chanel that YSL unbelievably repackaged and resold for more. I don't know whether it's worse to pay Chanel prices or buy a shameless designer clone that's double the price of the original.

Gucci Guilty Elixir de Parfum Pour Homme by Gucci

The most absolutely disgusting fragrance I have experienced.

This is the fragrance women AND men smell and say aloud "eeeew what iiisss thatttt?"

Absolu Aventus by Creed

It is an overall worse interpretation of Aventus that adds Sauvage Elixir's spices to the mid and drydown. It also smells very low quality - worse than CDNIM EDP for over 10x the cost. It does NOT smell like Sauvage Elixir, it just steals some of the drydown. This honestly smells like some mall shop "twist" fragrance.

Considering the fragrance and ignoring the price gouge, this is a solid neutral. But if my rating is answering "should you buy this" it's two thumbs down.

Le Gemme : Tygar by Bulgari

Bleu de Chanel EDT loses the ashtray note and picks up some additional ambroxan from Sauvage EDT and then it's been reworked to smell expensive. The grapefruit sticks around for quite a while, but I can't shake that it's like 90% BDC EDT but older smelling.

I'm frankly shocked this isn't a Dior offering. It is so so similar to Dior Homme Sport which I *adore* but this leans more into the grapefruit. It's also very similar to Dior Sauvage EDT but the Ambroxan has a silky almost soapy smoothness whereas Dior's offering is frankly irritating for me to smell after wearing for a while.

Somehow, 2 baby sprays from the free sampler I got lasts 8 hours on just normal skin. My girlfriend and her mom adored this fragrance despite disliking just about everything else I own, even Eau Givree, Sauvage EDT, and DHS 2022 which are all so similar in terms of what they're going for. It projected so strongly they were able to smell it walking by me, whereas normally I have to ask them to smell my arm to smell this.

I'm not sure what's going on with this fragrance but I'm going to give it a happy neutral almost thumbs up. It's a 3 note wonder but definitely has that expensive smoothness like some Aventus bottles I've tried on in Nordstrom. I'd buy a clone to replace one of my aforementioned frags but definitely wouldn't pay retail for this.

Cedrat Boise by Mancera

Review of Cedrat Essence, a clone 26 June 24:
A much improved interpretation of Cedrat Boise. The leather is fresh and clean instead of musty and old. The cigarette ash tray note is gone. The sour vibe is gone. I tried this on in Chennai airport and was blown away by how much I loved this after I hated cedrat Boise so much I had to return it to Costco. The cashier processing my return of Cedrat Boise smelled it and she said "blach we sell this??" I love Light Blue but would take this bottle over that any day. I know this was a hype beast a year or two ago and I definitely see why.


Original review:
I wanted to add something mass appealing that wasn't BDC, ADG Profondo, or Sauvage. Lately I've been getting my fill from Dior Homme Sport 2021 and CDNIM EDP, but I figured this would be a good hype pickup since it was on sale at Costco. Unfortunately, this is surprised me in an overwhelming negative way.

The first sprays came out without needing to prime the bottle, and it reeked of drug store cheap cologne mixed with cigarettes. Another review said the cigarette smell would be reduced by spraying it only just-moisturized skin, and that seemed to help. I wore it a few more times and my most recent wearing was overly sweetened fruits with a heavy vanilla and that leather belt smell you get from the menswear section in a department store. It also left me with an incessantly runny nose and stuffy feeling while wearing it indoors.

I'm wearing Greenley as I write this review, which I personally consider a 10/10. Cedrat Boise? Unfortunately, this is going to be two thumbs down and a bleh face.

Dior Homme Sport (2022) by Christian Dior

Full disclosure, I only tried this because it was $70 for the 125mL bottle on Amazon. I figured it would be a lame citrus bomb that was gone in an hour and I am so excited to say that was completely wrong. I was on the lookout for a DH2020 deal but kept going back and forth because of the smell in the far drydown, and Joe T put it perfectly "Woman love [DH2020]. I'm guessing its the light smell of rose mixed with the cedarwood. The only knock on it is when you wake up the next day you smell like old lady perfume but never during the day while wearing it. Kinda weird but worth the compliments lol".

There are too many fresh fragrances out there and in my opinion most of them are done very poorly, either way too musky, too hotel-soapy, too sickly-sweet, or they barely last an hour (Hawas...). This fragrance is basically Dior Homme 2020 but even more mass appealing. It's one of the few fragrances I spray not just for myself - anyone who knocks this must've had a knock to the head to not love it.

The One for Men Eau de Parfum by Dolce & Gabbana

This is a really good fragrance for going out on a date. The sprayer is absolutely terrible, so don't feel bad about using 2-3 sprays to get as much juice as another sprayer might give you in just 1 spray. I will say it's not as good as it's competition YSL LNDL and Azzaro TMWP, but this regularly goes on sale for $50 or less for the 150mL, more than you will ever use. You could use any of the three almost interchangeably but this is definitely the cheapest option and still smells great, just not as good as the other two I mentioned.

Update 20 Feb 2024: this fragrance has gotten way smoother as it macerated and will go from the back of my cabinet to my daily rotation this fall. I especially enjoy the orange candy off the top that now seems to somehow linger to the end of the day. I have to shake this hard before spraying and I give myself 4 or more good sprays on the neck as a light wearing.

Hero Eau de Parfum by Burberry

Oh my God, it's got that heavy stinky incense ash note combined with sickly sweet amber. It's as if the design brief was "the stinkiest, cheapest, longest lasting mess you can make and put in a dark brown bottle". They want $180 and sell this in a 5oz bottle? Macy's keeps sending me samples of this and sales associates literally shout for me to come and try it, so the commissions must be as insane as the nose behind this. This was a scrubber and I trashed the sample. *cat barf gif*

Club de Nuit Milestone by Armaf

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.

Erolfa by Creed

Salt and lime peel. MI is Erolfa minus the lime and add melon. There is some floral musk when smelling up close, but overall this smells like some kind of floor cleaner that I swear they used in my high school. If you'll excuse the pun, this is definitely a scrubber.

Swiss Army Classic by Victorinox

It actually irks me to say I can't help but feel I've outgrown this. The current formulation is so powdery and the violet is overbearing with that shaving cream smell that I just can't shake the feeling a tween would wear this to foolishly try and feel older. It's trying to say "I just shaved" while giving off the vibe that it's not yet old enough to know how to hold a razor. I recall the older formulations being much more green and woody, but maybe thats my merciless nostalgia talking. I didn't even get any of the yuzu I was looking forward to.

This is the exactly what you'd expect for something that was a best seller at Kohl's and Walgreens. Check out more modern releases.

Swiss Army by Swiss Army

It actually irks me to say I can't help but feel I've outgrown this. The current formulation is so powdery and the violet is overbearing with that shaving cream smell that I just can't shake the feeling a tween would wear this to foolishly try and feel older. It's trying to say "I just shaved" while giving off the vibe that it's not yet old enough to know how to hold a razor. I recall the older formulations being much more green and woody, but maybe thats my merciless nostalgia talking. I didn't even get any of the yuzu I was looking forward to.

This is the exactly what you'd expect for something that was a best seller at Kohl's and Walgreens. Check out more modern releases.

Acqua di Giò pour Homme by Giorgio Armani

Reviewing from a free sample, this is more of a fragrance to spray on after a shower to enhance that fresh and clean feeling if you're staying home rather than a fragrance with the longevity and projection to wear out. I personally think people should resist the urge to see this as an "overlooked old gem turned cheapie". Even if it is cheap, the value is still terrible.

It's nice for the whole hour it's around for.

Layton by Parfums de Marly

So you know how Sauvage Elixir took the Sauvage EDT and made it way stronger than anyone asked for and ruined it with the weird licorice note? Layton takes Burberry London and adds a slight slight hint of nutmeg (which improves it) and spoils it with a bunch of menthol and costs 10x the price for a fragrance that's maybe twice as good? But London is already really great aside from it's longevity, so buy a 50mL to keep in your Burberry coat and reapply every 2 hours or so.

Factoring in the price, Layton is not worth it when you can get London that's 85% of this fragrance for $20/100mL. I hate always being so contrarian on this site, but this is definitely worth spraying on in December in the mall from a tester but it most certainly does not merit a spot in your collection. Looking at retailers, London is now up to $40 presumably because of the Layton hype or a youtuber pushing it as the hype scent of the month, so the clone Detour Noir at $30 is probably the way to go over even Burberry London.

I personally can't get behind this DNA except on Christmas and Eve even if I do think this is decent perfumery. This comparison is probably sacrilegious, but if you want a young men's version of this check out CH bad boy EDP intense in the black/gold bottle. I had way more fun wearing that fragrance. I personally use Code Absolu and Most Wanted Parfum instead of this, both of which are way more versatile, more fun, and much cheaper.

Hawas for Men by Rasasi

Final update: I returned my bottle to intense oud. They must be having serious problems with this recent batch as they dropped the price from $58 to $41 to get rid of it! There are many posts on social media about the recent 2023 batches not lasting even 30 minute so I'm not alone. In my opinion this fragrance's life is over and it's time to look elsewhere.

Update 3 June 2023: After macerating for a month, it's clear that Rasasi is pumping out too much of this fragrance to care to let it macerate before bottling and selling. The aquatic and fruity aspects have become more forward, and the drydown has a pleasant clean watery note. The big problem with this fragrance is the strong dirtiness throughout. I can't come up with a better way to describe the clash than someone chewing a fruity gum and spitting it in potting soil. Maybe they just overdid it with the patchouli? For $55/bottle and 30 minutes of longevity, this is a double thumbs down. I got a legit bottle from Intense Oud. I wanted to love this so badly with all the hype but this is a massive failure when sauvage and the aventus DNA are dominating the warm weather market.

Original Review: After about 30 minutes of strong dryer sheet type smell, it turns into a barely detectable skin scent. Is this why people are comparing it to Individuel? I'm giving this a lukewarm neutral because the scent is good but longevity and projection are below average, even if the middle eastern type aquatic drydown is nice. There is some screechy topnote that irritated my eyes and throat. I gave it some hard shaking for a few minutes and tossed it in the cabinet to let the organic reactions happen.

Terre d'Hermès by Hermès

"Terre" literally means earth, yes earth as in dirt. Terre is a blast of damp soil and bitter orange peel. I give kudos to the perfumer for making these two work together, but nowadays.... Maybe COVID ruined my nose for something in this forever.

I used to spray this fragrance on proudly every day for 4 years as my signature scent, but I don't love it anymore. I don't hate it, but when I have pleasant scents to reach for and now that I'm at the age where it's time to put in a modest amount of effort on myself for any hopes at attracting a woman. How do I say this... I don't have time to "tolerate" fragrances anymore - it has to be good all the way though, and this is giving me rich old european man vibes. A perfumery student on youtube said she used to smell this everywhere in Paris when it was new and hot, but then it suddenly disappeared and never came back.

Since I bought this bottle in November 2017 after love at first sniff in Sephora, my bottle has macerated quite a bit and my tastes may have changed, but not by much. Terre has been a massive hypebeast in times gone by in fragcomm. I think it's time to retire this fragrance for a decade or two. Eau Givree is a modern reincarnation and actually restored my love for this DNA, but alas the Terre line sits at the bottom of the shelves in Sephora in the far corner in EVERY store - clearly bottles people have bough or received as gifts only to be returned.

Nostalgia compels me to at least give this a neutral.

Pi by Givenchy

After disappearing from department store shelves for what feels like a decade, Givenchy Pi made its return debut at my local mall. There it was, right next to Reserve Privee, staring me in the face for the first time since I was in high school and dismissed this as a vanilla candle scent better sold as a room fragrance. Born in the age gourmands of A*Men (basically a manly chocolate and spice cake fragrance) and Rochas Man (creamy vanilla and sweet cream coffee), Pi now stands beside fragrances like Code Absolu (well, I guess not anymore since it was discontinued a few months ago) and maybe some of the more recent JPG flankers of Le Male, which I admit I am not very familiar with.

Where Code Absolu takes vanilla and combined it with leather, tonka, and light citrus to keep it masculine and fresh, Pi goes more down the, well, the sweet candle route. Again, this is my impression smelling it off a card. I need to try it on skin still, but it would be interesting to note how the trail scent compares to Code Absolu.

$50/100mL for such an old fragrance and an EdT at that is probably too high of an ask. While Pi gets a lukewarm thumbs up from me as a boring cool weather scent, I haven't changed my opinion in the last decade in thinking think you can get a more impressive sniff for a little more money.

Allure Homme Sport by Chanel

Not creaming yourself for the creamy citrus and musks in AHS is probably a bannable offense in fragcomm. Nonetheless, I have to admit I find this a snoozer and the suggestion that this is worth $125/100mL laughable.

Regardless, this sits with light blue eau intense as one that many men dislike or find average while women seem to go wild for.

Silver Mountain Water by Creed

Tea and currants sound like an amazing combination, but the tea is acidic and overpowering and the currants are sour and off-putting. I saw a review for the Armaf clone of this saying it was an "overhyped bottle of wtf". The negative reviews of Sillage soberly describe my experience with this fragrance.

This is one of Creed's most acclaimed scents and Armaf's second biggest cloned fragrance. I can't understand how this is so popular as I cannot begin to understand the appeal this has beyond the bottle.

Green Irish Tweed by Creed

This may be the bee's knees for the urbanite, but for someone who grew up in the countryside this just smells like a hot and humid summer morning in the South. Reminds me of all the smells when my dad would mow our 5 acres of grass, weeds, and fallen branches.

Greenley by Parfums de Marly

Maybe it's the sinus infection skewing my perception, but this is exactly the same as JVAP without the neroli note. Check out my review on that for more details, but tl:dr JVAP has beautiful green herbal notes along with neroli orange - a beautiful note that women unceremoniously relate to baby diapers and baby wipes.

Okay, further into the drydown I think I know what happened here. Someone saw the success of apple in Y EDP but knew it was way too sweet, but also realized JVAP was a masterpiece of green herbs but the neroli had to go. They put their own apple into JVAP and added quite a bit of oakmoss in the drydown to make it more appealing for older guys and smell more expensive. If you like this, buy a clone. I prefer just wearing CDNIM EDP and sauvage EDT in spring and not playing the niche pricing game, so pass for me.