Wanted Tonic
Azzaro (2020)

Wanted Tonic doesn't smell bad. In fact, it's very pleasant. However, I've smelled many better options in the same genre.

It's sweet but nowhere near the sweetness of the original Wanted. I really don't even get much of the Wanted DNA. The one oddity is I get a coconut smell from this, similar to something like Joop Homme Wild. I prefer the Joop though, it's a better, more distinctive smell and better performer.

Speaking of performance, that was the biggest disappointment. Light projection even right after spraying for me. Also, it doesn't last all that long, maybe 4 hours.

It seems like everyone in the designer segment has really sped up their race to the bottom with flanker releases in 2020, including a new wave of completely unnecessary aquatics, making yet another generation of forgettable fragrances destined for the discounter bin. What really astounds me is the way nobody seems to realize that this is what makes more and more people willing to spend good money on perfume turn to higher-priced niche alternatives or brand-centric boutiques like Lush, L'Occitane, and Art of Shaving, while everyone else just buys the same legacy brands they've used for decades from Walmart if not body sprays like Axe/Lynx. Maybe its the intent to eventually drive out the standard lines and only sell exclusive/prestige lines at a $200+ entry point, or maybe designers know everyone waits until their crap shows up at Ross or perfumes-for-less-dot-com, so they just make them super-cheap on purpose so they can profit even at 75% off, catching only the impatient suckers at full price. In either case, Azzaro Wanted Tonic (2020) perfectly exemplifies this minimum effort/maximum margin thinking that is slowly spreading like a cancer through the designer perfume segment, and is one of the laziest aquatic flankers I have seen since all the "Aqua" flankers of the late 2000's.

For starters, Azzaro only provides three notes for the pyramid in their market copy, but there is definitely more going on here in Fabrice Pellegrin's phoned-in composition than that. The opening is a salty aquatic mishmash similar to Bvlgari Aqva (2005), which is really nothing special. A nice lime note enters the picture for the first thirty minutes or so which elevates this slightly above most rote aquatics, but once the signature ginger from the original Azzaro Wanted (2016) kicks in, that all goes to Hell fast. The ginger here is like a dialed-down version of what's in the original Wanted and is the only barely-recognizable linkage to the pillar entry, and isn't as sweet, but is just sweet enough to make Wanted Tonic unpleasantly sweet for an aquatic. This "Wanted Lite" ginger is followed by some form of denatured patchouli base note laziness that has no camphor, no body, no soul, and just has that nondescript "thickness" I hate in fruitchoulis that do this too. I also get some kind of fuzzy ambrox/norlimbanol combo fresh/woody note here that also makes me think of the Bvlgari Aqva line, but with that thinned-out ginger note dancing all over it in linear fashion. Wear time is five hours max, which puts this below average even for an aquatic, and projection dies after that first lime-boosted 30 minutes. If I was able to just have a fragrance out of that opening, I'd probably be a lot nicer to this.

I'm going to skip suggesting where you should wear this because I don't think Azzaro Wanted Tonic really serves well anywhere. This is a throwaway flanker similar to Calvin Klein Eternity for Men Aqua (2010) in that it could be used in a pinch in lieu of nothing at all, but would need to be over-applied just to serve adequately and isn't something anyone would want people they care about smelling on them, meaning at best this is a gym bag kind of fragrance or something to give a teenage relative. The best part of this fragrance is that first thirty minutes of lime due to not many modern masculines doing lime any justice, but like a Human transforming into a werewolf, you want to run away once the rest of the fragrance catches up and replaces that opening. I don't really know what else to say, but someone I talk to on Basenotes mentioned the "hollowing out" of standard designer offerings as compared to even ten years ago, and Azzaro Wanted Tonic is proof positive of that. This isn't some $20 Parfums de Coeuer scent or even a cheapie from a drugstore brand, but a designer sold at $100 after taxes, and that's unacceptable. Granted, I wasn't a huge fan of Azzaro Wanted by Night (2018) either, but I liked it for what it was and the quality it brought to the table. This one isn't even trying. Thumbs down.