Boadicea month shall go on and here I come again, raining on the fanboys' parade. The premium side of Boadicea's catalogue was off to a very solid start with the first 3 products all scoring between 7.5 and 8.0. As with most things, that streak too had to come to an end.
As typical for me, I go into these tests without looking at the accords and listed notes, esp. for a scent that has this little coverage. Defender opens spicy-sweet and perhaps slightly powdery. Those accords are followed by moderate fruitiness and perhaps some amberwoody touches. From up-close, the first thing I wrote down is that it smelled medicinal, meaning the scent clearly incorporates ambers in some form. At this point, I was thinking this might be a competitor to Clive Christian's hero franchise Jump Up and Kiss Me Hedonistic and with the fruitiness having some bubblegum-like nuances to it, other comps like Mind Games' French Defense didn't feel far off either. However, after those first 30-60 seconds, I already wrote down an issue with Defender, that being the notes feeling very "non-descript". What I meant by that was the scent on-skin blends into a fairly simple amber fragrance with light floral touches, almost like a poor man's version of Clive Christian's other hero franchise, that being XXI: Art Deco - Blonde Amber.
This is the point where I look at the voted notes and accords. As per usual, I strongly disagree with the voted accords with the scent clearly being sweet-spicy first and anything else after. I never get even mild leather here. When I saw the comparisons section include Kilian's Smoking Hot, I did find myself to some extent agreeing with that idea. However, the fruitiness in Defender is noticeably weaker and there's no actual tobacco listed, there's just ambers and florals which is why I feel like this product is somewhere between Smoking Hot and Blonde Amber, even if those fragrances have very little overlap. The thing driving me towards that Blonde Amber comp is the constant presence of a floral touch which I'd argue is about as strong as the voted-for fruity accord across the scent's evolution.
All-in-all, Defender as a product is extremely underwhelming. The primary notes in the dry-down are the labdanum, myrrh, vanilla and mild jasmine; which is why I previously called it a poor man's XXI: Art Deco - Blonde Amber. Performance here is VERY puzzling: I don't understand how this type of a profile could get such little lift relative to the comps. Value is atrocious: you're looking at €600/100ml, relative to the Clive Christian's €550/50ml and even the Kilian does more for me at €260/50ml (for context, I own both of the 2). As somebody who is well-versed in the showstopper market, Defender might just be one of the worst overall packages I've ever seen in the category.
