Wall Street
Bond No. 9 (2004)

No. No, no, no. Ain't for me.

Wall Street is such a weird name for a fragrance that has seemingly nothing to do with the place. But as for the scent? The stringent orange, lemon, and cucumber in the opening might've had me if not for that horrendous "salty wet dog" note in the middle.

Imo, there are far better summer/beach offerings. Virgin Island Water for when you want to feel like you're having fun at the beach with a coconut and lime driven rum. Or if you want a fragrance that feels more "down to earth," or at least smells more pleasant, like you're taking a drive down a road that traces a beach, go for Sel Marin by Heeley. Wall Street just seems like it can't decide whether it wants to have fun or keep it real and ultimately does neither.

Received a sample of Bond No 9 Wall Street, I my takeaway: Wall Street is fresh with interesting marine like greenery, not forestry green; In the initial spray, Wall Street brings a great deal of citrus without being over the top or too heavy. Additionally, this fragrance is aquatic with a sea water vibe, but not pungent with a nice, reserved feel to it. Wall Street packs a delightful punch that will have the wearer in ultra delight and those around in gleeful bliss. Someone mentioned a bit of a Creed Milliseme Imperial or Erolfa feel...bullseye!

Bond No 9 fragrances are well constructed with great longevity, great silage, and master performance.
An overall nice scent that I really enjoy-enough to go grab a bottle...hmmmmm?

As previously mentioned, this does have that Milliseme Imperial or Erolfa vibe. That was the first thing that came to mind when I sampled WS. I think many are turned off by that sea water note in there. I actually think that's a plus for Wall Street. The longevity on WS is above average on my skin. 7/10

I'm not hugely into marine fougeres, but I do think this may be the best I've ever tried. It's built on that indescribable mix of lemon, melon, and aquatic synthetics popularized by CK Eternity and CK One. This style of scent almost never actually smells like an ocean - the cucumber and "seaweed" notes almost always just smell like artificial greens. But somehow (I'm guessing it's an overload of ambrox and a willingness to splurge on ingredients), Wall Street actually smells like a waterfront. Salty sea air, wood and concrete caked in seaweed, that brackish smell of old shells and hints of fish. All mixed with that lemony melon smell.

As such, even though this isn't what I usually enjoy, I have to give Wall Street an enthusiastic thumbs up for being the best in class for what it is.

Wall Street by Bond No. 9 (2004) has absolutely nothing to do with the securities sector whatsoever smell-wise, and really just smells like a very typical mid-2000's freshie. The brand itself states this is an androgynous perfume, and at least in that they are correct; but so were many salty-sweet aquatics born from the loins of Millésime Impérial by Creed (1995) or Ralph Lauren Polo Blue (2002), regardless of what gender they claimed to serve. Once you make it past the usual hubris and marketing shtick with this brand, you get an overpowered fresh synthetic fragrance stuffed into the signature bizarro Bond No. 9 star bottle, this one black and adorned with NYC transit logos like the original Eau de New York (2004) since it is from the house launch line-up. Rather than Vera Venore, industry magnate and Bond founder Laurice Rahmé conjured up David Apel to produce this scent, a guy who knows his way around aquatics, salty fruity notes, and can deliver on any budget. I guess you can say this was a sound decision, because Wall Street indeed delivers on all those fronts, and if that is what Rahmé had in mind for an androgynous fragrance to be worn by money-changers in the Godless house of Wall Street, then also mission accomplished. For me, this doesn't smell like a $400 fragrance simply because the most-popular entries in this style are lower-tier price-wise, but it does smell good, if you can separate the smell from the sticker price.

The opening of Wall Street is a salty cucumber and melon melange, created from a blizzard of aromachemicals including the usual ozonic aldehydes, acetates, dihydromyrcenol, fruity ionones, and green notes. There is sage and lavender here, pressed thin against this very 2000's neon freshness backdrop, and you soon see the connections to the aforementioned Creed and Ralph Lauren fragrances that did it first. Bitter orange and caraway seed lead us into the heart that mainly consists of the lavender and sage, offering up bits of metallic geranium too, before a sweaty sort of gym locker deodorant spray musk enters the picture. From here on out, Bond No. 9 is competing with Axe/Lynx, Adidas, Avon, and various other purveyors of cheap deodorizing blue-bottled or black-canned juices that littered the aisles at Walmart or ended up in gift baskets from the neighborhood Avon lady of the day. These kinds of smells represent a lot of my early 20's so I'm totally cool with it, but I can't forget the price. Finally, bits of oakmoss and vetiver reinforce the sour-candy 2000's musk arrangement, with some salty faux-ambergris created with the old timberol trick that Kenneth Cole used in Black (2003) and preceded the proliferation of the then-expensive ambroxan. Wear time is pretty long being this is an eau de parfum, with projection being strong at first, then quieting down after a few hours. I'd use this in summer if I was going to wear it at all, but there are so many cheaper options that do the exact thing this does, and Wall Street doesn't smell any more quality than them.

I guess if you were right there in 2004 and didn't know any better, you could be duped into buying this for the asking price, but many more options were right around the corner. Kenneth Cole Reaction (2004) had a similar cucumber fresh aquatic vibe and released the same year, Apel himself would compose Unforgiveable by Sean John (2005) for next-year's release, while Paris Hilton for Men (2005) also hit the market. Polo Black by Ralph Lauren (2005) would come out alongside another Kenneth Cole freshie in Signature (2005), then we'd see Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce Cologne (2006) and Nautica Voyage (2006). Before you know it, the market was absolutely awash in fragrances just like Wall Street, and I'm not even including the cheapies like Avon or Yves Rocher. Point is, all of these smell just about of the same quality, with different tones and timbres to their delivery; some of these read more aquatic, some read more ozonic, but all of them are rooty-tooty fresh and fruity like Wall Street by Bond No. 9, and they are all much cheaper. Nowadays, everything except the Bond fragrance floats between $20-$30 save maybe the Polo entries or the A&F, but that's still a whole lotta 2000's freshness for a fraction of the Bond and little qualitative difference unless you really nitpick. This is why, for as much as I like Wall Street, the best I can muster is an indifferent rating. If you're a Bond fan and can get a deal, maybe go for it, maybe not. Neutral

From a bottle purchased on release. I like it alot, though finding it in the cabinet in Minnesota in February isn't ideal.

For me, more of a warm weather scent. As for the Creed comparisons:

SMW - yeah, maybe in the background, but top notes are completely different. You really have to dig to find the similarities, at least in the first hour of wear.

MI - an earlier reviewer said "substitute Bond cucumber for Creed melon, and they're the same". Understand the concept, but actually SMW is closer if we're shedding topnotes from the comparison.

Erolfa - in some ways, I thought this should be closest. Marine, salt, etc. - sure, they have that in common. After that, two very different frags, and at least for me it's probably the furthest separated. WS is a much brighter beach, whereas Erolfa strikes me as a deeper, darker, sexier version of the genre.

I really like WS. But, over 15 years, I've refilled SMW, MI and Erolfa. And I'm still on my original bottle of WS. So I guess that sums it up.