11/28/2015

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM
Helpful Review
4
"You-can-do-it!"
It didn’t take much effort to accomplish that, but finally here’s the first decent offering from Baldessarini since their early Baldessarini Eau de Cologne. Ultimate doesn’t really scream quality, but it’s very (thus, surprisingly) nice, surely more than enough for the brand and the market positioning, no snobbery intended. It’s modern, almost slightly “avantgarde”, and could very easily fit in contemporary fashion lines like Comme des Garçons. Actually it smells like something they could have made, and that would have even been better than some of their offerings.
Anyway basically Ultimate is a sharp, quite fresh, intentionally (I guess) heavily synthetic sort of metallic-crisp woody-peppery fragrance with some nondescript yet fairly pleasant “juicy-floral” feel and some peculiar, sharp herbal-metallic nuances. It’s like a mix of Comme des Garçons 2 Man, Rochas Aquaman or Lanvin Oxygene, and any fresh citrus fragrance. It’s a contemporary “ transparent woody-peppery” scent with fresh herbal-citrus and slightly fruity tones. And some sort of watery-aquatic feel – not ozonic, I really mean “watery”. It then evolves on basically the same path, just becoming a bit warmer with amber, olibanum (Iso E Super, basically) and leather (sort of, an unperceivable thin whiff of suede) unfolding their velvet touch over the initial tangy pepper-green head notes. And so remains for some hours, aseptically warm yet breezy and pleasantly classy, quite “youthful” and even sort of hipster-ish despite the marketing claim you read on the box (“Separates the men from the boys” – seriously?).
So, that’s it. A totally decent, even interestingly multifaceted modern designer with a “niche-avantgarde” feel (so again, basically something à la Comme des Garçons). Which is a very positive sign from Baldessarini – they could have kept going on with that Del Mar and Private Affairs cheap garbage, while they decided to do this. It isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s still on a whole different level if compared to any other offering by this brand, except as I said, the first Baldessarini cologne. It has some sense, it has a definite personality, and the quality seems very respectable. Nothing you can’t skip safely, but it’s very fine. Surely worthy a sniff for me.
6,5-7/10
Anyway basically Ultimate is a sharp, quite fresh, intentionally (I guess) heavily synthetic sort of metallic-crisp woody-peppery fragrance with some nondescript yet fairly pleasant “juicy-floral” feel and some peculiar, sharp herbal-metallic nuances. It’s like a mix of Comme des Garçons 2 Man, Rochas Aquaman or Lanvin Oxygene, and any fresh citrus fragrance. It’s a contemporary “ transparent woody-peppery” scent with fresh herbal-citrus and slightly fruity tones. And some sort of watery-aquatic feel – not ozonic, I really mean “watery”. It then evolves on basically the same path, just becoming a bit warmer with amber, olibanum (Iso E Super, basically) and leather (sort of, an unperceivable thin whiff of suede) unfolding their velvet touch over the initial tangy pepper-green head notes. And so remains for some hours, aseptically warm yet breezy and pleasantly classy, quite “youthful” and even sort of hipster-ish despite the marketing claim you read on the box (“Separates the men from the boys” – seriously?).
So, that’s it. A totally decent, even interestingly multifaceted modern designer with a “niche-avantgarde” feel (so again, basically something à la Comme des Garçons). Which is a very positive sign from Baldessarini – they could have kept going on with that Del Mar and Private Affairs cheap garbage, while they decided to do this. It isn’t a masterpiece, but it’s still on a whole different level if compared to any other offering by this brand, except as I said, the first Baldessarini cologne. It has some sense, it has a definite personality, and the quality seems very respectable. Nothing you can’t skip safely, but it’s very fine. Surely worthy a sniff for me.
6,5-7/10