Office for Men Fragrance One 2019

So here it is. Not bad, quite wearable, will please many, won’t disturb anyone... and yet it’s still quite far from what Jeremy’s constant barrage of superlatives led one to expect.

The scent is a kind of mixture of already known fresh crowd-pleasers, with enhanced performance being its only characteristic that really stands out from the crowd. At least in this category, Jeremy really delivered what he promised; it’s rare to encounter such a long-lasting fresh fragrance (8+ hours), and the sillage is quite appropriate for its target location, the office.

Speaking of the office. One thing that has bothered me about Jeremy’s debut from the very beginning is the name. Both the label “Fragrance One” and the specific product name “Office for men” are hardly surpassable in terms of boredom and sound like a newly introduced house brand or product line for Rossmann & Co.
I understand that Jeremy is pursuing a specific concept here: to create the one ideal fragrance for each location (Office, Club…).

But let’s be honest, does his clientele really need the location printed on the bottle and the whole product named after it? Who are Jeremy’s customers? The casual shoppers at Rossmann? No, they are people like us, who have a bit more experience and discernment, and we certainly don’t need a cheap naming concept stamped on a €160 bottle (which is supposedly going to be increased to €450 soon (is that still current?)). A perfume is also about “beauty and elegance,” and this starts with the name. If the label “Fragrance One” already lacks any sound and elegance, then at least the perfume itself should exhibit it; however, it comes across as cheap and boring in both naming components.

Speaking of cheap and boring. It’s understandable that Jeremy couldn’t get much out of the bottle and packaging. As a startup with a manageable customer base, you don’t get much bulk discount in production, you have to carefully consider which components to invest more or less in, and then savings were made on the packaging in favor of the oil concentration (for good performance).
Nevertheless, it could have at least had a cap, and the packaging is just shabby brown cardboard. I’ve never seen a shipping package without any padding material, and the goods apparently slid around quite a bit during transport (was this the case for others too, or did they just forget about me?). But okay, such teething problems can happen with a startup label.

Finally, it remains to evaluate whether Jeremy was able to keep his announcement of creating the best office scent “ever made” “on this planet” (etc…). Um, no, but I didn’t expect that either. In the category of “performance,” it certainly belongs to the best fresh-scented work companions ever made, on this planet. However, the scent character itself is a bit too ordinary and one-dimensional. For me, the (in my opinion) perfectly balanced Prada l’homme is the clearly better representative, even if I can skip refreshing with “Office.” I can also think of numerous other candidates that I prefer for the office, which are much greener and presented more attractively.

I would only recommend purchasing “Office” if the price were to drop significantly. At the moment, it is a (and this is my final conclusion) “overpriced, poorly presented both externally and in name, quite good freshie with very good performance.”