The Secret Temptation Banderas 2017

As I am currently in a phase of olfactory acquisition, I was tempted to make a blind purchase of this low-end fragrance, which an enthusiast raved about in an Anglophone fragrance forum, claiming it was basically a clone of Guerlain's L'Instant Extrême. This just shows how difficult it is for our culture, which is not deeply connected to scent, to articulate fragrances intersubjectively - for the people of Ongee, whose sensory regime and cosmology are dominated by olfaction, it would be much easier. I smell neither a secret nor a seduction here, but rather a conventional, almost modular assembly of cheap aroma chemicals in a budget-friendly dosage - which actually benefits the fragrance, as what would otherwise be a scent C-weapon attack comes across as tolerably thin - but unfortunately not really good. The perfume software (one should not imagine that such formulas are still designed by humans, as Mark Buxton already shared a few years ago at the Einstein Forum about scent) has mixed in sweet maltol notes, ambrox, and diffusion-contributing Iso-E-Super, so that there is not even a hint of classic Guerlain to be felt, but rather the olfactory average of the male share of a public transport ride during rush hour. The fragrance pyramid is almost touching in its simplicity. The consolation remains that there are also significantly more expensive fragrances that smell no more sophisticated or precious, and sometimes even fall behind the temporary secret in terms of construction. At least here, the coherence of price (about € 20), quality (drugstore mid-range), and ambition (wearable scent without luxury or individuality) is somewhat maintained. But of course, no one who truly loves perfume needs something like this.