Giles

I am a big fan of Pierre Montale. Whether you choose Mancera or Montale you can find some great fragrances with great performance and longevity at an affordable price.
I adore leather fragrances and when I stumbled upon this at Harrods I had to give it a try. I do find it funny that whenever a perfumer creates a fragrance for London or Harrods they predominantly design leather fragrances. Perfumers must think that Londoner's are all into leather fetish or perhaps they picture us sitting in a leather Churchill armchair, supping malt whisky while smoking a big fat Churchill Cuban cigar at our club in Pall Mall lol. Perhaps both are true but for me London smells of damp, musky cardboard with a hint of grass (not the medicinal kind).
At the time Rendez-vous Chez Harrods was selling for £127 for 100ml which is a good price, but that all depends on the performance and the scent in my opinion.
I tried this on skin because you can't get a good idea of a fragrance on paper. Sprayed around 4 sprays and walked around the shop for an hour. This was ample time for me to get a good idea of how this fragrance developed, or didn't in this case.
I'm not one for comparing fragrances but this reminded me of many. Ombre Leather, C: Woody Leather to name a couple. But in no way as projecting or enveloping as those two. Chez Harrods smells of sweet, smooth leather with a very slight hint of floral. The rose is almost non existent. It's not overly sweet which is nice. You get a slight woody nuance but the rose I can't detect at all. Perhaps it was my nose playing up but it is very much a skin scent, which is not normal for a Montale fragrance. My girlfriend could smell it being up close but all she could smell was a faint sweet leather. The fruity notes we couldn't smell either. I know that it can be difficult to smell a perfume in a perfume department due to all the other fragrances bombarding your nose at once. Hence that's why we walked around the shop.
We went back for another spritz before having lunch but it still remained the same. Unfortunately, this will not be added to my collection.

I just received a 7.5ml freebie from Molton Brown being a Platinum member. I usually only buy their shower gels and travel accessories. I have had 2 of their EDP's before, Neon Amber and Dark Leather which I very much enjoy.

Perhaps I expected a Fruity Floral but this is a creamy woody floral EDP. It is a creamy floral which is not unisex in my opinion. I love a good floral but this smells too old school floral for my liking. I can't detect any of the fruity notes. All I can smell is Tuberose and very faint woods. It is a very personal scent (skin scent) with no projection. It does remind me of a weak TF Soleil Blanc without the coconut.

It's a shame because I was looking forward to trying something new for the spring. This you can wear all year round but lacks any wow factor. I see the perfumer was born in the Alps and having lived in Sweden with very similar flora and fauna, I can see what she is aiming at. I remember picking wild strawberries in Sweden which are very potent and full of flavour. Unfortunately, the perfumer has not captured the wild strawberries.

Just received my samples from Xerjoff Universe. I ordered 2 sample kits that contained 4 x 2ml samples (the max you can buy under one account). So 16ml of perfume for £40 is not bad. Cheaper than buying from a decanter online and no worries of it being fake. The samples only took 3 days to arrive via DHL. Well done Xerjoff.

Wow this perfume is great. Part of the Mixing Experience and recommended to layer with rose gold. Although I didn't choose Rose Gold, I have plenty of great Rose perfumes that would layer nicely with Amber Gold. The colour of the perfume is a deep ambery colour. A bit of information for you just in case you order a sample online and it arrives colourless. I have had that numerous times.

It is a smooth amber with a lovely sweet almond going through it. Immediately reminded me of Christmas Cake and the marzipan layer around it. It projects very well for the first few hours and the sillage is great too. I'm constantly getting wafts of it around me. Longevity is great and is one of my favourite Xerjoff's so far (in my top 20 shelf). Amber Star is up next and it will be interesting to see the differences amongst the mixing experience collection.

Decided to layer with Amouage Rose Incense. Smells amazing.

I was excited to try this. Especially looking at the notes and reading some of the reviews on here. I bought a 5ml sample from a reputable trader in the UK, who I have been using for years.

It is sweet in the opening with a slight woody background. The leather is very weak, I like a leather fragrance to smell of leather. I don't find it ambery at all.

I was looking for something new to add to my luxury wardrobe, unfortunately this will not be it.

I bought a 10ml bottle of this direct from ATH's website for a very reasonable price. I like that ATH makes his high quality perfumes available to all budgets.

I have his previous releases Haze Blue and Haze Black for the summer and I guess this is ATH's intention for Blue Fever and Midnight Fever which I have bought both.

It is not really the right time of the year to try this perfume, but I have dowsed myself for a couple of days now and find this very pleasant. Long lasting as with all of his fragrances. I never have been a massive fan of marine notes but this is well done and not dominant. It's very smooth with the amber and slightly aromatic.

I'm not a perfumer, so I am not very good at detecting individual notes but this is delicious. At the price I bought it. Well worth every penny.