06/15/2015

Drseid
819 Reviews

Drseid
Helpful Review
2
Eat This Tom Ford...
Mister opens with a slightly bitter vermouth-like wormwood. As the composition quickly moves to its early heart, a moderately sweet tonka bean infused soft, deep pipe-tobacco-like patchouli takes the fore as star with a controlled vague synthetic woody undertone. During the late dry-down, the pipe tobacco-like patchouli nearly vacates, as an amber-like soft musk takes over as primary star with underlying natural smelling vague dry woods as co-star through the finish. Projection is slightly above average and longevity average at 8-9 hours on skin.
What a pleasant surprise Mister is. The composition was released in 2007, but after sniffing it I would have sworn it was out of the late 80s or perhaps early 90s. It is extremely rare for a designer release from relative present day to feature patchouli in such a prominent starring role, but that is exactly what Mister does. Equally impressive is the extremely deft use of norlimbanol by the perfumer to approximate a vague woody undertone as support for the deep pipe tobacco-like tonka bean sweetened patchouli. I know I have derided the ingredient's use in my last couple reviews and many times previously, but in Mister it just works. It takes some serious skill to tamp down the woody synthetics to get just the right balance with the patchouli, and in Mister the unfortunately undisclosed perfumer wholly succeeds where so many others have miserably failed. Also successful is the perfect level of tonka bean derived sweetness that infuses the soft, pipe tobacco-like aromatic patchouli. Up through this point there are a lot of similarities to the much later released Patchouli Absolu by Tom Ford for his exclusive Private Blend line, but Mister smells superior to my nose. Unfortunately, the late dry-down is not as interesting as the open and mid-section, turning into a somewhat mundane though highly competent dry natural woody affair with an amber-like soft musk facet. It was probably too much to ask for the late dry-down to be as good as the first two thirds of the composition's development, but at the end of the day, praising Mister is quite easy, as the perfumer generally has brought the end of the great 80's to the next millennium in fine fashion. The bottom line is the discontinued $99 per 100ml bottle on the aftermarket Mister is a fine, risky example of a relatively recent mainstream designer release with heart, created by a perfumer with serious skill, earning an "excellent" 4 stars out of 5 rating and a very strong recommendation to both soft patchouli composition lovers and/or folks who enjoyed Tom Ford's Patchouli Absolu but balked at its price or found its synthetic woods a bit too much.
What a pleasant surprise Mister is. The composition was released in 2007, but after sniffing it I would have sworn it was out of the late 80s or perhaps early 90s. It is extremely rare for a designer release from relative present day to feature patchouli in such a prominent starring role, but that is exactly what Mister does. Equally impressive is the extremely deft use of norlimbanol by the perfumer to approximate a vague woody undertone as support for the deep pipe tobacco-like tonka bean sweetened patchouli. I know I have derided the ingredient's use in my last couple reviews and many times previously, but in Mister it just works. It takes some serious skill to tamp down the woody synthetics to get just the right balance with the patchouli, and in Mister the unfortunately undisclosed perfumer wholly succeeds where so many others have miserably failed. Also successful is the perfect level of tonka bean derived sweetness that infuses the soft, pipe tobacco-like aromatic patchouli. Up through this point there are a lot of similarities to the much later released Patchouli Absolu by Tom Ford for his exclusive Private Blend line, but Mister smells superior to my nose. Unfortunately, the late dry-down is not as interesting as the open and mid-section, turning into a somewhat mundane though highly competent dry natural woody affair with an amber-like soft musk facet. It was probably too much to ask for the late dry-down to be as good as the first two thirds of the composition's development, but at the end of the day, praising Mister is quite easy, as the perfumer generally has brought the end of the great 80's to the next millennium in fine fashion. The bottom line is the discontinued $99 per 100ml bottle on the aftermarket Mister is a fine, risky example of a relatively recent mainstream designer release with heart, created by a perfumer with serious skill, earning an "excellent" 4 stars out of 5 rating and a very strong recommendation to both soft patchouli composition lovers and/or folks who enjoyed Tom Ford's Patchouli Absolu but balked at its price or found its synthetic woods a bit too much.