Boss Bottled Absolu Hugo Boss 2024

This is the very first time that I look at the "Smell Similar" list and I think it is 100% correct... it turns out that people are not always affected by olfactory hallucinations!

I currently own Layton, Red Tobacco and I used to have Bottled Elixir too (but I found out that I don't love patchouli bombs)... and I agree on the listed similarities.
Bottled Absolu is essentially a combination of Layton with Red Tobacco's dominant note.

I've tried it recently, and I would say that if you don't own any of the 3 frags I listed above, you could easily purchase Bottled Absolu (for a reasonable price) and make the other 3 redundant.
As I already have Layton and Red Tobacco, Bottled Absolu is not for me but it is definitely full bottle worthy.

Performance wise, I would agree with what most of the people are saying here, noting at least 3+ hours of decent arm's length projection. Given its notes, this is more of an autumn/winter fragrance which would be best used in the evening.
Usually, I steer away from blunt seasonal categorisations, but the tobacco note used here would make it suicidal if used during hotter months.

WOW, this is really good. Hugo Boss has a real winner here. Funny thing is, I tested Bottled Elixir around the same time I tested Sauvage Elixir. Liked the Sauvage better and bought it. Boss Absolu is so much better than the Boss Elixir, I definitely want it too.

Very nice, smooth almost creamy well blended combo of notes. Incense is there, but not overpowering. If you don't like strong incense, still test Absolu since the incense only makes up part of the whole. Very masculine fragrance. Performance is nuclear. I woke up the next day to whiffs and during my morning cardio it started to project again. This was about 20 hours after the initial sprays. I'm getting a full bottle of this baby. Test, don't blind buy.

Right upon the first spray, this fragrance takes me on a journey. Straight back to my childhood.

Back when life was easy.
You could eat vanilla icecream without caring about your weight, or your cowmilk allergies.

When you rode a bike and the chain fell off, you’d put it back with your bare hands without caring about the grease all over your hands and clothes.

Talking about grease, I loved John Travolta and his leather jacket in that movie Grease. Boy do I love the smell of leather.. not too much.. just a whiff of that coolness.

Sorry where was I? Ah yes this new Boss Bottled. Phew it’s quite something.

Seeing all the hype and all the comments saying that this is Hugo Boss' best fragrance yet made it clear that I had to get my nose on it as soon as possible. But when I finally got to smell it, I wasn't as surprised as I expected to be. I left the hype give me way too big expectations for it.

That doesn't mean that I don't like it. On the contrary, I'm seriously thinking on acquiring a full bottle. The opening comes off as quite spicy, with the warm leather and the smoky frankincense accords being indeed the most prominent. Soon enough, the patchouli gets through, and so does the myrrh which turns Boss Bottled Absolu into a delightful blend of spiciness, leather, incense, and sweetness, none really being too overpowering. There's a resinous undertone too, which adds depth to the composition. It's a beautiful blend which instantly reminded me of Boss Bottled Elixir, which also shares the patchouli and frankincense notes. Not only those, but cedarwood is also shared by the two perfumes, which pushes through once the perfume/s settles down with a dry woodiness. At this point, you can still feel the leather and frankincense, but it's all made a little bit more herbal and warm with the help of the davana note, while the cedarwood compliments it nicely by adding a certain dryness and slight woody feel (but not too strong, though). The smokiness is also slowly overpowered by the sweetness, yet it never truly leaves, maintaining a dark, sophisticated aura. For whatever reason, Boss Bottled Absolu smells slightly familiar to me, even though I haven't previously owned any Hugo Boss fragrances (apart from a few samples). And that made it a bit less unique to my nose, even though I still find it to be a very soothing and sophisticated scent, perfect for dressed-up events.

Then comes the performance, which was pretty good. After about 5-6 hours, the fragrance settled down quite close to my skin; still detectable, though. For the first two-three hours, the fragrance had very good projection; 2-3 feet. It then started to calm down substantially, tricking me that it had already become a skin scent. But after I asked some friends if they could still smell it, they said they did, and from about a feet and a half away. So I suppose I was just going nose-blind to it. So I'm very pleased with the overall performance here. 3-5 sprays seems the sweet spot.

So in summary, yes, this is one of Hugo Boss' best fragrances ever. It's warm, leathery, smoky, sophisticated, mature... the perfect wearing experience for a wedding or a professional/work event. It's borderline niche-smelling stuff, kept at bay and slightly more mass-appealing thanks to the sweetness. So after all, would I buy Boss Bottled Absolu? Maybe. This is a fragrance well-worth your time and interest, especially if you like aromatic-first fragrances with a nice dose of leather towards the ending. But do try it first; blind buying is not really an option with these kind of fragrances.

Overall Rating: 7.4/10

I'm usually not a fan of Boss fragrances—I generally find them to be somewhere between bland+basic and drugstore trash. But this one is the first that I actually like! Woody-balsamic, sweet, and leathery—wow! When I first sprayed it, it felt oddly familiar, and after reading other opinions, I realized: Shaghaf Oud Azraq Eau de Parfum !

Comparison:

- ShOA offers a wonderfully realistic honeyed sweetness, while BBA has a honey-like, balsamic-amber sweetness—I’d guess it’s fir balsam, complemented by a good dose of ethyl maltol.
- ShOA has a dry oud accord, while BBA rests on a balsamic-woody base, with a substantial dose of some superamber (Amber Xtreme?).
- The light cinnamon note in ShOA seems to have been replaced with incense in BBA.
- Leathery notes and patchouli are about equally strong in both fragrances.
- BBA has a noticeably more intense scent; however, I find that ShOA has significantly better sillage, even though the scent itself isn’t as strong. In terms of longevity, ShOA also clearly outperforms BBA.

For me, ShOA is the niche version of BBA, or rather, BBA is the designer version of ShOA. ShOA remains a 9.5/10 for me, but for a Boss fragrance, I still find BBA really good!

BBA also has a certain harsh fruity note that reminds me of Layton, especially on the Drydown.