Chnokfir

There are moments when I just want to vanish into thin air: for example, when the Floating Peach Blossom takes me lingerie shopping - as if SHE didn't already have enough to choose from in that respect - and I'm not allowed to go to the nearest café because I could get lost in the middle of South Tyrol. So I'm standing with HER in the middle of a lingerie store, waiting for a changing room to become free for HER and feeling a little out of place as a best-ager in the midst of numerous young women, all of whom could be my daughters, as a drive-driven mixture of sugar daddy and peeping Tom. So where to look when your partner has disappeared into a changing room after all. God be praised, Victoria's Secret also sells perfumes among the thongs and bikinis. "Mander, it's time!" ... if not here, then where?

Due to the low price, Victoria's Secret does without an outer box; the bottle has to speak for itself. A beautiful large cylinder with an appealing color gradient from pink to orange, topped with a golden cap. Yes, it's OK, nice and heavy, I really like that. The atomizer develops a rich mist, which I think is worth mentioning in this price range.

The entire fruit salad mentioned in the pyramid immediately envelops you. The guava has something watery about it, the pineapple contributes fresh acidity, the mango and passion fruit provide tropical vibes and an unmissable sweetness. It becomes a little sticky, but not too much. Fruit, acidity and sugar are well balanced. The fruit flavors inevitably remind you of some well-known gummy bears, ice cream and yogurts, so they must have drawn from the same supplier shelf. Admittedly, it smells a little synthetic, but not too much and I never find it annoying or inappropriate. After a while, the fruity force weakens a little, dry light woods round off the fragrance quietly at the bottom, combined with a slightly mineral sea breeze.

The cloud of fruit clearly recedes after about an hour, but I am quite amazed that I can still detect a slight fruity shimmer on my skin even after 7-8 hours in the sweaty summer heat.

Since the fruits are not accompanied by the usual flowers as a counterpoint and it is not overly sweet overall, the fragrance never comes across as purely feminine. A good summer and vacation fragrance, also suitable for men. You can do it. For the budget price called for in any case.

Why the fragrance ultimately didn't make it into my collection is easy to explain: I got distracted, was then allowed to help choose the new swimwear and some bras and then, as is so often the case, already had both hands full again before leaving the store.

For a few years now, I've afforded myself the luxury of a small monthly gambling budget. Some people put this money into their Bitcoin casket, some invest it in wine or cigars, while I spend it on all sorts of nonsense that promise me a little amusement on an ad hoc basis, depending on my mood. Sometimes I'm right on the money, other times it backfires big time. Mind you, this play money still exists alongside my regular perfume budget. And so it happened that during my morning stalking through a few online outlet stores (digital leftover ramps), in addition to sporty shoes for me and sensual lingerie for my floating peach blossom, I got stuck on heavily discounted perfumes. I'd never heard of the fragrances before, but the bottles magically attract my attention like a massive pile-up on the highway. Armaf and Lataffa are not the very bottom of the drawer, so you can buy half a liter of perfume for a low double-digit amount - including shipping, of course.

What the hell! These were my first thoughts when unpacking. A green box, the hinted jungle foliage in a harmonious olive color. Hunter and Jungle on one side, the word Bullet next to stylized bullet holes on the other. The fragrance must be a big seller among the foreign legionnaires in French Guiana. Inside is a solid glass bottle in a beautiful poison green. I also like beautiful drinking glasses in all sorts of bright colors, so I'm promptly thrilled. However, I'll have to consult the specialist literature again to find out what they're trying to tell us in terms of design with these different cylindrical shapes. However, the association with the safety lever of my assault rifle from my military service days comes to mind. The bottle is partially wrapped in a rubberized artificial canvas in poison green, on which a plastic 9mm cartridge dangles from a leather cord. Unfortunately, dangling is too much of a promise, as the cartridge is glued into a canvas flap, so you can't even hang the cartridge around your neck as a decoration. However, this whole canvas-leather-cartridge-grit should be removed immediately after unpacking, thanks to rivets and eyelets this is very easy, because otherwise you can't really get the greenish shimmering light metal button off the atomizer. In day-to-day use, this decorative accessory is a real pain in the ass, and is likely to quickly fall off, so get rid of it. Unfortunately, the atomizer offers an uneven and asymmetrical spray pattern, not ideal for the ambitious hunter or soldier. However, you have a good grip on the bottle to compensate for these inaccuracies with a steady hand. I would love to share this beauty with you in a few pictures, but the race organizers have stopped accepting photos from me some time ago. Sorry.

The fragrance initially takes your breath away in a similar way to the bottle. First impression: artificial. But is it really? It's initially a tart green with a few sweet facets. I have no idea what I'm smelling. But in the jungle, even with good camouflage, you don't always recognize what you're looking at. It quickly becomes powdery, bright and violet flowers play a cheerful ringlet with finely ground spices. It becomes earthier, but also more leathery and woody, yet always relatively light and sweet, never dark, sinister or serious. All in all, the overall impression always remains clearly masculine, even if the boundaries between male and female become drastically blurred after a week of bivouacking with the Panzergrenadiers in the forest.

The artificial fragrance impression gives way after a while, although the fragrance is far from feigning the appearance of natural ingredients. It is a solid fragrance that you will find on the designer shelf for a significantly higher price with a much more melodious name. The radiance is clear at first, but then becomes more comfortable relatively quickly. The durability gets you well and safely through everyday office life, and the self-experiment in summer will show whether it scares away not only mosquitoes and flies but also fallow deer.

I still find myself picking up the bottle again and again. It is pleasant to hold and has a really appealing color. However, Hunter Jungle doesn't give me the urge to spray it on. I think I'll fondle the bottle for a while and then let it go for a little money. A small trophy for another perfumist.

Not all cherries are the same! Anyone who was able to forage through an old orchard with dozens of old cherry varieties as a child knows this. A school friend used to take me to his grandparents' farm in the southern Holledau (for Saupreissn: Hallertau), where they even had several varieties of white and yellow cherries. A dream! Today there is a new development area with terraced houses. The dream is over.

Somewhat crouched and lost, it stands there among all the other bottles in the perfumery. A small square with golden liquid and a solid gold plaque and an even more solid gold metal button. Not too big, but still self-confident for the second-born. I like that kind of thing. Bright red on a golden badge. Just like the bright red box with bold, golden print, which is barely bigger than the bottle itself and not, as is now the case everywhere, the size of a shoe box for winter boots. Please, Kai, stick to this size.

I like cherries. Whether it's in schnapps, jam, sorbet, chewing gum or crumble cake. It tastes different everywhere. What's more, I spent a few years in the USA when I was a child and was exposed to all kinds of sweet stuff with flavorings that are now certainly banned. I've been looking for those lost childhood memories ever since, but I never really find them.

I have a flashback with "Cherry X". A damn tasty cherry. Not really natural, but not completely synthetic either. Not the kind of thing you tend to avoid today, like Cherry Coke or Dr. Pepper Cherry or the old Hubba Bubba cherry. Not even natural black cherries, sour cherries, sour cherries, morello cherries, red May hearts, black cherries, late Amarelle or Maraska. Rather oversweet like an Italian Amarena on ice cream or American Maraschino in a cocktail. Nothing quite hits the spot for me, but it could be a wonderful blend of several. I am in love! The full-fruity cherries are soon joined by an equally sweet almond. If you walk through a Christmas market with your eyes wide open, you might spot a small stall selling homemade marzipan: leave pistachio and walnut marzipan behind and try cherry marzipan! What a dream! In this fragrance, almond and cherry form a wonderful accord that is complemented by a not-too-strict boozy note. There are probably a few more spices in addition to pepper, but unfortunately they can't compete with the rose, which pushes powerfully. Unfortunately, the cherry takes a bit of a back seat, while tonka/vanilla and many other soft and sweet notes also come to the fore. There's a lot going on, but I can't really get much more out of the pyramid before it becomes resinous and smoky for me. Always sweetly aromatic and blended. Unfortunately, the last hints of cherry disappear after just under three hours. I would have liked more. And the rest is unfortunately not quite what I am primarily looking for in a fragrance.

"Cherry X" is a very multi-layered cherry fragrance, a delicious affair in which you can always discover new exciting facets depending on the day, weather, mood, etc. Even though I have often written about sweet and sugary scents, this fragrance has more masculine connotations for me. On my wife, "Cherry X" came across as much sweeter, more floral, more vanilla, but less fruity. It also easily lasted over 12 hours on her, whereas on me it almost completely seeped into my skin after just under 8 hours.

If you are looking for a cherry fragrance, you should try it out without prejudice! A very well-made and multi-layered fragrance that doesn't need to hide from any big names. On the contrary, "Cherry X" is likely to shake up the top ten cherry fragrances at the moment.

I don't wear fragrances to please other people. No, you can't say that. I wear fragrances for myself because I like them and because I like them on me. If someone else also likes them on me, then fine. If not, then no. But I also wear fragrances to drive other people crazy. Primarily when I have to sit in an office or a meeting with some colleagues: Then I wear a selected fragrance to very subtly play up my dominance to my counterpart. He/she can't smell me anyway, and then I also hit him/her with a slightly overdosed, highly unpleasant fragrance and ruin his/her day. With most molecular fragrances, it's the other way around: I hardly smell anything on myself and those around me subtly perceive something not unpleasant. No, I really don't need something like that, it's not worth anything.

C₁₆H₂₆O comes without a box. That is perhaps a little sad. On the other hand, in times when perfumes from trendy brands seem to be sold only in shoe boxes, nothing here takes up unnecessary space and what costs nothing cannot drive up the price of the perfume pointlessly. The bottle is a simple standard square from the wholesale shelf. Dark back wall, minimally designed simple sticker and a plain tinplate stopper that weighs nothing. The generously cheap atomizer does not distribute mist, but a rather annoying drizzle.

For the life of me, I can't say what I smell in the perfume. But it's definitely not "Nothing!", as some other perfumistas attest. It is something sweet and musty. A very watery, light fruit spritzer that was perhaps forgotten for a few days in summer. A synthetic impact of an already well-gassed solvent, as we know it from cheap small pieces of furniture that we are allowed to cobble together with the help of instructions in Uzbek, Arabic or Albanian. But maybe it's also slightly yellowed moving boxes that are already slightly crumbling and I wouldn't bet another penny on their stability.

Molecular fragrances are supposed to be perceived more strongly by the social environment than by the wearer themselves. Far from it: my floating peach blossom neither fell around my neck beaming with joy (2%), nor did it send me to the bathroom with a friendly hint for all-encompassing body care (97%). For the sake of completeness, it should be said that about 1% of the time she would like to hose me down with a C-jet in the garden in front of her neighbors (head cinema: Pulp Fiction). At this scent, she only slightly wrinkled her nose and turned away, bored. After all.

I don't like to rate fragrances with a single star, but this fragrance is pretty insubstantial for me and what little there is doesn't even come close to being "nice."

If you have the choice, then you'd better invest two minutes in front of any drugstore shelf and choose the least bad deodorant spray for 2.99. You and the environment get more out of it. Much more, in fact.

When I go to a perfumery for advice, and I now enjoy being advised, I am usually quite open-minded with one small restriction. I never leave anyone in any doubt that I prefer lighter fragrances and know next to nothing about oriental notes. And so it came to pass that in one week in two old Bavarian towns in three perfumeries, this fragrance was recommended to me in the warmest of words and with the utmost insistence. So what else can I do but lead my nose to the test strip. (Actually the other way around, but that reads funny.)

There it is, a small square with golden liquid and a solid gold plaque and an even more solid gold metal button. Not too big and yet self-confident for a first. I like that. Just like the black box with bold, golden print, which is barely bigger than the bottle and not, as is now often the case, the size of a shoe box.

The fragrance is just as the name promises. Oud envelops you from the very first sniff and gives you the certain promise that it won't let you go any time soon. Even if I'm not a great specialist in oud, I now know that there are domesticated, soft, light, light oud and a few less tame cousins that are a little darker, darker, drier, heavier, more animalic. And it is precisely this animalic oud that is used here in all its glory. I can't help but think of the Augean stables here and secretly hope that I don't have to channel two rivers through my nostrils to get this smell out again. But that's how it is in the end. This rather dark and animalic oud is soon joined by a sweet and very aromatic (Bulgarian?) rose in somewhat larger quantities - in other words, nothing that could have been described in a container size such as a dozen or a bouquet, but rather as a bed, garden or field. You might guess that I'm not a particularly big fan of expressive roses either. So my enjoyment of this fragrance is just increasing. It's possible that I can also smell some lavender from afar, but I don't want to swear to it. In any case, this impression was not strong. If you look at the fragrance pyramid, fresh and green notes are also said to be present alongside other ingredients. Unfortunately, I am unable to perceive these, my nose is too overloaded and overwhelmed with oud and rose. Nor can I speak of a fragrance progression: Oud and its best friend, the rose, came and stayed until the bitter end.

I carried the fragrance strip, which had two sprays on it, in the breast pocket of my shirt for some time, maybe two or three hours, then unfortunately it became too much for me. Three days later, the shirt still smelled distinctly of "Oud 31". My skin took on the scent through the shirt and I still smelled subtly but clearly recognizable "Oud 31" the next morning. So you get your money's worth here. You should try to apply this fragrance in homeopathic doses, otherwise vehement unfortunately quickly becomes penetrating.

I'm trying to imagine where men and women - I'll call the fragrance 50/50 unisex - can wear such an expressive, potent scent. In the theater, on the train or in the office, I imagine it tends to be difficult. That leaves the private environment, the shisha bar, a club or a large Turkish/Arabic wedding in a large hall, if not a hall. Yes, that's where I imagine this fragrance would be in good hands, even though I've only attended two large Turkish weddings myself.

... and so it came to pass that, once again, these latest perfume tastings did not result in a friendship for life between me and oud. Maybe, if it didn't have the thorny rose in tow again!