Top Notes 
Pimento leaf
Rum
Salted caramel
Heart Notes 
Brown sugar
Caramel
Sugar cane
Base Notes 
Tobacco
Cashmere wood
French oak
Bourbon vanilla
12/01/2022
Nativelocal
2 Reviews
Nativelocal
Helpful Review
3
The Navitus/Youtuber complex strikes again...
I will start by saying that this is not a bad fragrance. Quite the opposite, actually. The only problem is that it is 100% a clone of Minuit et Demi from Fragrance du Bois. I can't say I blame Navitus for wanting a scent like that in their lineup because it's wonderful. It just kind of sucks because I was hoping for something more unique rather than a recreation of a fragrance I already own.
As for the fragrance itself, it has a few minor tweaks as far as accords go, but the scent is virtually identical to Minuit et Demi. It even follows the same formula if you look at the notes of each. Spice up top, a sweet gourmand heart, and then a vanilla/booze/woods/cashmere combination in the base. I primarily get the spice in the opening, a caramel-like sweetness, and the French oak in the base. I don't really get tobacco or any booze. But I'm not surprised because I don't get either of those accords from Minuit et Demi either.
I don't mind Navitus as a house and I have two fragrances from them that I really enjoy. However, I'm starting to see an issue with transparency when it comes to reviewers. If we're being honest, Navitus is a brand created by a YouTuber FOR Youtube audiences. Steven (the owner) built his platform up and now has a huge customer base to whom he can market and sell his fragrances. Not to mention, the house only does collaborations with other Youtubers who have sizeable platforms themselves. It's definitely a smart business move on Steven's part because it ensures that bottles will sell because any given Youtuber's audience will be eager to support a creator they enjoy watching. However, I'm starting to see this is leading to reviews that aren't as honest as they could be. And I will make it clear that Navitus isn't the only brand participating in this kind of thing because it's basically an industry standard at this point. It feels like none of these Youtubers have anything negative to say because they're either hoping to be featured somewhere on Steven's platform and gain subscribers from it, or they're hoping to be contacted for a Navitus collaboration at some point in the future. Either way, there is absolutely a huge conflict of interest from that standpoint. It now makes perfect sense why Steven reaches out to other prominent fragrance Youtubers to review his scents. Both parties are participating in a mutually beneficial arrangement where he gets a good review on his product and they get the exposure they're looking for on his channel where he's got a huge audience.
At the end of the day, Raised Spirits is a clone. A very good one with better performance, but still a clone nonetheless. So to see these reviewers lauding Steven as though he has created something new and unique that didn't already exist on the market is silly and untrue. I thought maybe my nose was playing tricks on me so I asked a few friends in a fragrance group and they all agreed that the two are wildly similar. So any reviewer who tells you it smells like nothing else on the market either has never smelled Minuit et Demi, or they're flat out lying to you. I experienced this firsthand with a content creator and was so incredibly turned off. They are a creator on Youtube (who owns Minuit et Demi and has sung its praises on their channel) and I asked them if they smelled any similarity between the two scents. Imagine my surprise when they said the two didn't even smell remotely similar lol. They went on to mention in a different comment to someone else on YouTube that the comparison rumor was started by one person who just started collecting... I'm really hoping they weren't talking about me because they don't know me or when I started collecting. If they did, they'd know it wasn't anytime recently. I was so confused about why they would lie like that, then I remembered that they're very friendly with Steven and there's a possibility they are motivated by the conflicts of interest I mentioned above. Like I said at the beginning of this review, this isn't a bad fragrance by a long shot. But it is absolutely a clone and no amount of gaslighting or manipulation to boost sales is going to get me to stop trusting what I'm smelling with my own nose. As a result, it's redundant for me and most likely anyone else who already owns Minuit et Demi and isn't looking to replace it.
And all of this isn't to say that there aren't good offerings from the house because there absolutely are. I own two of them! I just want people who may be relying solely on a Youtuber's review to be VERY mindful that there could be other motivations at play here to get you to spend your money. And while these reviewers will undoubtedly tell you what they smell, they likely won't compare it to anything else because they'd have to compare it to Minuit et Demi and tell you that they smell incredibly similar. Luckily I was able to source a decant rather than blindly buying the bottle and I'm so grateful.
This isn't the first clone I've smelled from the house, but for some reason it's just really rubbing me the wrong way seeing reviewers being not all the way honest about it. Especially because it's a clone of a fragrance that most (if not all) of them have smelled. Steven knows exactly what he's doing when he fishes for reviews from other Youtubers and it kind of just is what it is. I'm just hoping my review will help others to have ALL the information they need to make a more informed blind purchase if that's what you decide to do.
I would recommend Raised Spirits to anyone who loves Minuit et Demi but never sprang for a bottle because the price was prohibitive, they thought the performance was lacking, or even both of those reasons. With Raised Spirits, you will be getting virtually the same fragrance in a different bottle with better performance and at a much more reasonable price point. I'm a huge proponent of sampling and everyone trying things for themselves, so I don't even want you to just take my word for it. See if you can find a sample and see how you feel about it. But I'm begging you just don't rely solely on Youtubers because I haven't seen a single one of them provide the full picture of this fragrance.
As for the fragrance itself, it has a few minor tweaks as far as accords go, but the scent is virtually identical to Minuit et Demi. It even follows the same formula if you look at the notes of each. Spice up top, a sweet gourmand heart, and then a vanilla/booze/woods/cashmere combination in the base. I primarily get the spice in the opening, a caramel-like sweetness, and the French oak in the base. I don't really get tobacco or any booze. But I'm not surprised because I don't get either of those accords from Minuit et Demi either.
I don't mind Navitus as a house and I have two fragrances from them that I really enjoy. However, I'm starting to see an issue with transparency when it comes to reviewers. If we're being honest, Navitus is a brand created by a YouTuber FOR Youtube audiences. Steven (the owner) built his platform up and now has a huge customer base to whom he can market and sell his fragrances. Not to mention, the house only does collaborations with other Youtubers who have sizeable platforms themselves. It's definitely a smart business move on Steven's part because it ensures that bottles will sell because any given Youtuber's audience will be eager to support a creator they enjoy watching. However, I'm starting to see this is leading to reviews that aren't as honest as they could be. And I will make it clear that Navitus isn't the only brand participating in this kind of thing because it's basically an industry standard at this point. It feels like none of these Youtubers have anything negative to say because they're either hoping to be featured somewhere on Steven's platform and gain subscribers from it, or they're hoping to be contacted for a Navitus collaboration at some point in the future. Either way, there is absolutely a huge conflict of interest from that standpoint. It now makes perfect sense why Steven reaches out to other prominent fragrance Youtubers to review his scents. Both parties are participating in a mutually beneficial arrangement where he gets a good review on his product and they get the exposure they're looking for on his channel where he's got a huge audience.
At the end of the day, Raised Spirits is a clone. A very good one with better performance, but still a clone nonetheless. So to see these reviewers lauding Steven as though he has created something new and unique that didn't already exist on the market is silly and untrue. I thought maybe my nose was playing tricks on me so I asked a few friends in a fragrance group and they all agreed that the two are wildly similar. So any reviewer who tells you it smells like nothing else on the market either has never smelled Minuit et Demi, or they're flat out lying to you. I experienced this firsthand with a content creator and was so incredibly turned off. They are a creator on Youtube (who owns Minuit et Demi and has sung its praises on their channel) and I asked them if they smelled any similarity between the two scents. Imagine my surprise when they said the two didn't even smell remotely similar lol. They went on to mention in a different comment to someone else on YouTube that the comparison rumor was started by one person who just started collecting... I'm really hoping they weren't talking about me because they don't know me or when I started collecting. If they did, they'd know it wasn't anytime recently. I was so confused about why they would lie like that, then I remembered that they're very friendly with Steven and there's a possibility they are motivated by the conflicts of interest I mentioned above. Like I said at the beginning of this review, this isn't a bad fragrance by a long shot. But it is absolutely a clone and no amount of gaslighting or manipulation to boost sales is going to get me to stop trusting what I'm smelling with my own nose. As a result, it's redundant for me and most likely anyone else who already owns Minuit et Demi and isn't looking to replace it.
And all of this isn't to say that there aren't good offerings from the house because there absolutely are. I own two of them! I just want people who may be relying solely on a Youtuber's review to be VERY mindful that there could be other motivations at play here to get you to spend your money. And while these reviewers will undoubtedly tell you what they smell, they likely won't compare it to anything else because they'd have to compare it to Minuit et Demi and tell you that they smell incredibly similar. Luckily I was able to source a decant rather than blindly buying the bottle and I'm so grateful.
This isn't the first clone I've smelled from the house, but for some reason it's just really rubbing me the wrong way seeing reviewers being not all the way honest about it. Especially because it's a clone of a fragrance that most (if not all) of them have smelled. Steven knows exactly what he's doing when he fishes for reviews from other Youtubers and it kind of just is what it is. I'm just hoping my review will help others to have ALL the information they need to make a more informed blind purchase if that's what you decide to do.
I would recommend Raised Spirits to anyone who loves Minuit et Demi but never sprang for a bottle because the price was prohibitive, they thought the performance was lacking, or even both of those reasons. With Raised Spirits, you will be getting virtually the same fragrance in a different bottle with better performance and at a much more reasonable price point. I'm a huge proponent of sampling and everyone trying things for themselves, so I don't even want you to just take my word for it. See if you can find a sample and see how you feel about it. But I'm begging you just don't rely solely on Youtubers because I haven't seen a single one of them provide the full picture of this fragrance.
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