Smoke Akro 2018

My first sampling from the house of Akro is Smoke, which frankly nails the concept better than I possible could’ve expected in terms of accuracy, smelling of an ensemble of different smoke smells, including cigarette, cigar, and charcoal/barbecue, coming off somehow both appetizing and evocative of an upcoming meal but also a lot of people smoking in my vicinity, which can be a bit off-putting. It’s certainly smoky, but also spicy and woody. It’s fairly dense and makes a very strong impression but there’s enough space and air in the fragrance to appreciate some of its nuance; it’s not strictly a cloud of smoke but more of very strong wafts of smoke. Other notable contributors are cade, a favorite type of juniper, the use of which in Imaginary Authors A City on Fire adds to its spicy side, and a mix of tonka and benzoin that do slightly round things out with a bit of sweetness.

As a first impression of the house, even though I’m not in love with the fragrance, Smoke hopefully provides a good idea of the audacity and artistry of its founder, Olivier Cresp, and the concepts within it, as I’m looking forward to trying other Akro entries, especially Awake.

Smoke performs very well, with very loud projection in the opening hours and strong longevity thereafter. Akro’s fragrances seem to be sold exclusively in the US via Luckyscent, with each fragrance in their collection being sold for $160 for 100ml, very reasonable pricing.

7 out of 10

Opens with a blast of smoke with a sweet tobacco background. The smoke slowly weakens and what stays is the ambery vanillic tobacco. It's absolutely stunning. There is a similarity to Tobacco vanille, but TV is more mass market and sweeter. On the other hand, smoke is heavier, edgier, less sweet and has a ton more character. It can be a little suffocating though and the overdose of smoke in the opening is definitely not for everyone. After a while though, it's just perfetly balanced, interesting but nice enough to appeal to most people around you.

Personally, I haven't been so obsessed with a fragrance in a long time. It's just great. Not blind buy safe at all though

One of my perfume obsessions as of late is Akro Fragrances Smoke. It was a love at second sniff recently at Luckyscent ScentBar DTLA when I was there a few weeks back and I've just been wearing it plenty. Today on the channel I have a full review of Smoke by Akro plus an overview of the Akro brand and Oliver Cresp the perfumer behind the Akro Fragrances. So if you like tobacco perfumes and Smoke shines in the heat btw, and want to learn about a new niche perfume house, Akro and their 6 perfumes inspired by 6 different addictions please watch my video on YouTube.

Basically it smells exactly how its named. If you love incense resinous scents, Smoke is great for you. ⁣
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It’s a rich and opulent tobacco and benzoin bomb that laches onto your skin. It would make you smell like if you spent a night in a really sophisticated jazz bar where people were smoking some high quality cigars. ⁣
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The smoke in this scent is very raw and ashy (in a good way) and its reminiscent of a campfire smoke which when mixed by tonka bean really makes the scent wearable and cozy ????⁣
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Smoke is a powerhouse. Its the note of Smoke beautifully blended with tobacco, cade oil & the sweetness of Tonka. ⁣
If you are into smokey/ incense scents, this won't disappoint you!

Smoke went through 4 stages of evolution that made for an interesting experience. Upon application you get - guess what - smoke. It's a very strong smoky scent similar to the scent of burning pine wood. The second stage had the scent turn into more of a charred wood smell instead of pure smoke. Next, the charred wood became a coniferous woody scent without smoke or a charred smell. At this point, additional sweetness appeared. Finally, the woody scent gave way to a mild, sweet tobacco scent. Overall, a very interesting transition that took a little over an hour. Given all that, the resulting tobacco scent, while nice, didn't impress. To be honest, I prefer Vanille Havane Eau de Parfum and The One for Men Parfum when it comes to tobacco fragrances.

Performance was very good. Longevity was super - I had a still noticeable skin scent over 24 hours later. Projection was also quite strong for at least 4 hours.