DN1982

I actually have a Creed at my feet, uh, nose. With summer fragrances - who even decides such nonsense? A Quorum or M7 can also be fun in summer - I just don't have it that way. I don't mind overwhelming my fellow humans with spices and woods even at temperatures beyond 35 degrees - I am quite the egoist.
But this one, I like. Herb-citrusy, with a bit of zest, the spirit starts when you let it out of the bottle. Not quite as vetiver as the name suggests, but it does mix in a certain herbaceous, light sharpness right away. Citrus plus pepper equals ginger. No, not quite, but similar and, interestingly, slightly powdery in the background. And there's something else, but I can't quite recall the name at the moment. I'll add it when I figure it out. The less pleasant aspect, a subtly emerging touch that bears a certain resemblance to Cool Water, quickly disappears. But the original vetiver also vanishes quickly; discussing the base notes isn't worth it. Here we have a nice summer fragrance, and then it has a half-life of finely atomized gasoline in the combustion chamber of a running Otto engine. Is there an octane booster for that? Then I look at the price of this little water and don't know whether to laugh, cry, or just feel completely fooled.

There are fragrances that are well-rounded. There are fragrances that create tension arcs and are still well-rounded. And then there is Raco Rabanne's pure little extra. And it can do neither of the two.
I don't know if this is just a silly coincidence here on Parfumo: the younger the fragrance (referring to its market launch), the less differentiation there is regarding the individual notes, meaning there is no longer any classification into top, heart, and base notes. This is also the case here. What is the reason for this, please? Is the Black Gustav with the manufacturers, since anything remotely natural is no longer available in the low to mid-price segment (and they are also stingy to the max with that!), what is there to differentiate about which component shines in which area of the fragrance progression?
What also annoys me are such "unequivocal" statements like liqueur. Liqueur can either be plain sugary firewater or, depending on the composition, offer a very wide range of fruit notes up to the most exotic herbs. Or plant juice. That can be anything or nothing! But what is there to hide? Plain water, perhaps? Or the explanation that one is dealing with a synthetic that stands there as if it were intended but not accomplished? Or is it the unpleasant component in the fragrance that wants to sell you the Douglette as a super-modern ingredient when you wrinkle your nose at the scent? I don't know.
Even the opening is not particularly harmonious. It is vanilla sweet, yet the sweetness clashes with the ginger. Additional unrest is introduced by the thyme. I will leave the plant juice and the liqueur aside; that can be anything or nothing - or as I call it: customer deception.
But moving on. I mean, it is the myrrh that tries to act as the moderator, but it doesn't succeed at all, rather contributing to the unrest. This means that we find a basic structure in this fragrance from the mid to down into the base that could definitely have the potential to make a statement if a line were recognizable. At times, we have the scent of brightly printed glossy magazines in it, and in the next moment, this technical smell simply seems old-fashioned and musty. Another technical scent is a burnt, plastic-like note, which is the hallmark of Terre d'Hermes. I can't shake the impression that an attempt was made here to copy that classic in a far less sparkling, but much sweeter variant. Even if these technically appearing notes are balanced towards the base thanks to the leather, Paco's pure little extra has simply gone into the oven. I could also say Terre d'Hermes in XL-bad.
A nice bottle is not everything. At least it is not as late-teenager-like as that of Invictus. But the content is just as arbitrary. You usually know such things from Banana-Bruno. It's a shame, really, because good approaches are undoubtedly present. But unfortunately, they are just approaches. Or the worse of two prototypes that should have been scrapped but, for some reason, went into production instead of the good sample.

It was several years ago when I was out and about in a very busy place. It was summer, very hot, and suddenly I got hit by a gust of wind, olfactorily speaking, like a Klitschko punch to the face, reminiscent of the intensity of a fragrance from the 80s and the first half of the 90s. A kind of gingerbread spice, but not as dark as the well-known ones, rather higher, lighter in tone, very cinnamon-heavy and skillfully refined with vanilla - real vanilla, freshly scraped from the pod with a knife, flanked at the corners with cardamom, allspice, and clove. Super quality, top-notch - I want it!!! I try to catch a whiff to find out who the bearer of this divine scent is. Hopefully, I can find him and he is kind enough to give me information. "Watch out!" "Can I just get by for a second?" "Excuse me, can you tell me..." It was a terrible hustle and bustle at the corner of the shopping area. Joggers, cyclists, heavily laden people just wanting to get home quickly. There, from that direction, someone seems to be trailing the scent behind them. The wind picks up, and now the scent seems to be coming from another direction. Or maybe not? Before I can catch the scent again, someone passes by me with some over-the-top aquatic crap, drowning everything - scent gone, the trail lost.

All these years I never forgot it, to be honest, aside from a few trivial conversations, I never got around to investigating further. I don't have any owner-operated perfumeries with professionals around here, and no amount of horses could drag me to the overpriced department stores! But one thing was unmistakable: this scent... it’s a powerhouse, possibly an EdP, it has quality like nothing else and it would, if I ever find it one day, cost a hell of a lot, because it was definitely not mainstream!

The other day, by a silly coincidence, I came across a sample that was handed to me with the words: "Hey, I think this could be what you told me about a few years ago. The 'Summer Gingerbread'! Do you remember?"
Well, usually I’m the one who has the knack for details and an elephant's memory, which I proved by responding with, "Oh yes, I remember the Summer Gingerbread very well. I'm not such a big fan of sweet things. But that, you should have smelled, combined with gingerbread spices, I've rarely smelled something so great."
Cap off, sniffed at the spray head. "Oh, unused, you can't smell anything." So I pressed down. "Damn, this is tough, it’s really sticking," I think. Then it clicks, and the juice from two sprays settles on my wrist. I swing my arm a few times in front of me to let the alcohol evaporate faster. After ten times, my wrist still feels damp. It became clear to me that this is not an EdT; there’s much more oil in it. At the same time, the first hint of the scent moved towards my nostrils. Yes, this is going in the right direction. I swung my arm further to speed up the drying. Oh, screw it! Slowly moved my wrist towards my nose, and in the next moment, it was as if I had punched myself in the face. This is it! This is, for heaven's sake, it! The spice-vanilla combination as described above. The tobacco here is anything but harsh, rather quiet in the background and has a somewhat sweet aroma; perhaps the tonka is playing tricks on me. No, the tobacco doesn’t want to come forward, rather it’s the cocoa that provides the hint of bitterness. One could also attribute the dried fruits to the bitterness; everything is very intricately woven together, hard to break down into individual parts. However, I can't figure out what the tree sap is supposed to be. Tree sap is simply too vague. Every plant, every tree has a typical smell when you cut into it. From mild scents that are hardly noticeable and very similar in many plants - the mainstreams of botany - there are also very distinctive characters that you can undoubtedly sniff out among 100 others. Here, however, it’s difficult, to be precise, impossible for me to say anything more specific. Except that I have rediscovered a gem and now know what it’s called!

That's the question that came to my mind first when I decided to give this guy a test. Yes, the typical "summer note" upon spraying. Squeaky freshness, underscored here with a slightly harsh spiciness that is coherent in itself. Nothing clashes in the development; nutmeg and cedar push Sun Men in a rather rugged direction, and in the middle, a slightly musty undertone emerges, but it settles down again. Is that a good thing? Well, certainly - but then a sweetness comes into play, not too overpowering, but still present, making me immediately think of the vanilla-tonka bore. But that's not in this stuff - so what is playing the sweet trick here? I'm at a loss.

Where I am not at a loss, however, is the fact that this is yet another one of those fragrances that I have sniffed countless times and that now not only bore me to death but are slowly starting to seem repulsive. Is this happening again?
Sun Men fits seamlessly into fragrances like Fan di Fendi, RDLC by Lee Cooper, O Boticario's Men Only, and Montblanc's Presence: one is a bit sweeter, another a bit more apple-fruity, the next leather-heavy (the order does not correspond with the mentioned similarities). If you like this style and are looking for an alternative to the mentioned fragrances, you could give this a try, although it hardly makes sense. It doesn't come close to classics like Jil Sander's Meisterstück Background.

What am I reading here? Blindbuy Superstar, a true delight, an extraordinary fragrance that you don't come across every day.
Yes, folks, when I first get a whiff of such a scent, it truly is exceptional. But I want to write a bit about it. Ginger and bergamot are not the number 1 in the top notes; the ginger is more noticeable of the two, while the cinnamon - logically - is prominent and lingers down to the base, but fades towards the end. The apple, which firmly establishes itself in the middle, actually plays its role in the top notes. In the further drydown, as Presence approaches its end, which unfortunately comes a bit too soon, a slight restlessness emerges that tries to break the sweetness or take away its one-dimensionality. At this point, I find it hard to say whether it’s due to the sage or the bone-dry teak wood; I would tend to lean towards the teak wood.

For the price, it’s certainly something nice. But it’s not that extraordinary, as I have at least 2 fragrances in my repertoire that shoot in the same direction as Presence. The former would be RDLC from the British label Lee Cooper. Both fragrances are quite similar; however, the more successful variant is Presence, especially since RDLC has a musty, piercing note of dry willow and lime wood that perhaps a woodcarver might appreciate, but no true fragrance lover would seriously enjoy.
Another fragrance that goes in this direction was O Boticario Onix, which I loved very much. However, here the Brazilian has the upper hand, as this one is based on the crisp, tart green apple and is overall more multifaceted and spicier.
And even a classic and true nose-pleaser like Boss Soul is not entirely dissimilar to Presence, although it cannot be called a scent twin of Presence.

So, I’ve somewhat torpedoed the uniqueness of Presence, but that doesn’t mean that Presence is bad. I wouldn’t equate it with Spice Bomb, as happened in one of the comments; that’s a different ballpark.

Despite being "discontinued," Presence has a decisive advantage: unlike RDLC, Onix, and Soul, this one is easily obtainable and at moderate prices!