Mitchcraft

Another dive in to the Parfums De Marly discovery kit today and i am testing Greenley.

So far this will be my fourth test between the discovery kit and 2 free samples I got with it of which I have tested, Pegasus, Layton, Pegasus Exclusif and Sedley.

Sedley has my attention for spring and summer next year and I bought a bottle of Pegasus Exclusif in time for us getting in to Autumn.

Will Greenley be a full purchase also?

The opening is very light and fresh, but not weak. I get all the notes mentioned and after a few minutes it settles in to a strong projecting apple which after wearing YSL Y EDP yesterday was an excellent nice welcome, as even though people are reporting that they feel this is synthetic, it can’t be any more synthetic than the apple in Y. So, I have to say I am happy with the apple in this.

I have seen people say that PDM is a designer house labelled as niche but when you go from wearing YSL Y EDP to Greenley the next day you can tell the difference in quality right away. Does it warrant the price of some of their products? Absolutely not. I think they should be knocking off about £80 from this fragrances.

Having said that I must say that I was put off of green fragrances after I got HUGO BOSS Just Different, if any fragrance deserves the title of Greenley that’s the one right there to give it to. On a good day when I can fully smell all the notes Just Different is actually not too bad but it’s just not tuned to my personal taste. Greenly on the other hand may have just swayed that opinion on green fragrances, or has it? Keep reading to find out why there could be a question of why this may not change my thoughts about green fragrances after all.

I feel like with the two fresh fragrances I have sampled so far where in Sedley, the spearmint note is the star of the show, here in Greenley the apple is the star and both fragrances feel exceptionally refreshing and would be great to wear on extremely hot days bringing a feeling of fresh, cooling, relief which I experienced with Sedley just last week.

So, now on to the question of, shall Greenley make the list of full bottle purchases along with Pegasus Exclusif which I bought instantly after wearing it, or be placed in the next best thing, the wish list along side Sedley?

It’s the middle of August now and for me here in Scotland where don’t get me wrong, we maybe are known for rainy weather, however when we get hot days in the Summer it can get very hot, but usually we are leaving that kind of heat behind by the time we get in to September so sadly Sedley and Greenley are on the wish list for now unless I come across some amazing deals over Winter because I must say I find the best time to buy Summer fragrances is in fact during Winter when the deals on them seem to be better presumably because they know it is out of season.

Back to the topic of how it smells. Since I started writing this I am starting to feel the apple note is not the solo act up on the stage all on its own anymore with the spotlight on it and it alone. Now I feel the warmth of the Amber wood and this has now become a duet as both share the stage equally with neither outshining the other. It’s nice, I like this! Projection is still good but not as strong as when the apple was the solo star. The cedar wood is also making an appearance but I am not getting any of the violet so far. I am going to take a tea break to allow this to develop further before writing any more.

And I am back, oh sorry i didn’t offer you any tea, how rude of me lol.

While I took my tea break i began to slightly notice that violet note which is a nice accompaniment making the fragrance slightly more interesting imo. Violet when done right is a note I enjoy very much in the likes of Dylan Blue which leads me to my next thought. I have to agree with another reviewer’s opinion that this is maybe a Blueley dressed up in a Greenley looking bottle, but that doesn’t put me off in the slightest. I love “Blue” fragrances and I could honestly see me buying a full 125ml of this for sure now and replacing my YSL Y for next summer. This is why I said at the start this won’t be the fragrance that changes my mind on green fragrances

Sadly, at the 3 hour mark this becomes slightly smoky on my skin, I wasn’t sure at first if my mind was playing tricks on me as it is sitting very close to the skin, but I am indeed getting smoke with little whiffs of apple. I am now very bored as I feel like I am wearing Aventus but with apple instead of pineapple. Honestly this kind of scent bores me to death. I am fed up with these kind of scents and it is only because of the first three hours that I rate the scent so highly.

So, from going from thinking this would be my least liked PDM fragrance it had ended up one of my most anticipated purchases for spring next year possibly pushing Sedley aside, no not off the wish list but down a step on priority at least, or so i thought before that three hour point where everything I was enjoying turned in to one of my least liked kind of scents, yes even lower than green scents like Just Different. Like we needed another two note smoke scent. They could have done so much more interesting things than turning in to this, I am shaking my head and shrugging at what to say as I edit this I information in. I went from feeling joy and thinking I had found something I would buy next year to, oh great, one of these again…..

I think many people would enjoy this fragrance as it is very easy to wear though and many people like Aventus and the scent we got prior to this smoke and fruit done to death stage is very pleasant.

Projection is not as strong anymore but I did notice a huge difference in performance with the full bottle of Pegasus Exclusif compared to the sample. It seems to vary a lot. Just as you think it is becoming a skin scent suddenly ten minutes later you have a strong projection once again.

Well, once again I have been taught not to judge a bottle by its cover.or in this case colour lol. The title and colour is clearly all about that apple note but it does indeed come across as a blue fragrance, but a very good one with good quality.

Scent: 8/10 then 3/10 after the 3rd hour.

Projection for the first hour 8.5/10
Afterwords closer to a 7.5/10 ,BUT i have noticed that the apple note will push itself to centre stage here and there and when doing so earns it bringing projection back up to an 8.5/10. So it varies.

Price: As much as I am enjoying this I find it very pricey but maybe check out the discounters and if you see a good deal for roughly £150 I would pay that for a 125ml it’s not a £230 fragrance IMO.

Longevity is something that i hate rating off of a sample vial because you are not getting the same experience with a full bottle.

Recommendation on if you should buy it. If you like fresh apple scents, yes but definitely not at full price especially with the drastic change in low projection only after an hour of spraying.

Enjoy

I am going through a Parfums De Marly kit at the moment and after starting off with Layton which smelled nice but just didn’t project for me at all I was surprised to see that Sedley has a lower sillage score than Layton but there will have been votes before and after the changes in concentration so maybe that’s why. Personally speaking I am getting crazy projection in Sedley compared to Layton.

When I first sprayed this I got that same association with Aaron Terence Hughes again that I had with Layton. I am positive they get their ingredients from the same source because it’s not that their fragrances smell like one is copying one or the other, but rather that you smell notes that come off very differently from when you smell them from other house’s products. Like most designer notes when you read them will all smell similar to each other, however with Parfums De Marly and Aaron Terence Hughes they both share those high quality ingredients that I am yet to smell anywhere else. This is why I think we see the two being compared in my opinion.


I am going to warn you now and it’s kind of crazy to have to put this in a fragrance review,but with the experience I am having I feel like if you are reading this without having worn Sedley for yourself that I am spoiling what could be a wonderful experience for yourself, so if that is the case you may wish to skip the next paragraph, you have been warned. This is like telling someone the ending of The Sixth Sense but instead it is about the sense of smell and in this case also taste.

SPOILER STARTS HERE
This is a fresh summer fragrance with something very strong in it that leaves a bit of a funny sensation that I find hard to describe. I feel like I can reference The Sixth Sense twice in this review because that’s kind of what I am getting with this experience which is hard to describe. Let me try. It’s like whatever it is, is sat on a very fine edge between your sense of smell and your sense of taste, and while it smells really good it has a weird taste accompanying it, which you hope to yourself that it’s going to be temporary, and luckily it does wind down as suddenly this spearmint starts to take over and leave a lovely sweet minty taste in your mouth and smell replacing whatever it was that was bothering me a minute ago. I love this spearmint note, it’s like you have had something you didn’t like to eat and went and ate something like a Polo spearmint sweet with the blue speckles through them. It’s crazy in a good way like the fragrance knew exactly what was needed and came along and delivered it on a velvet pillow but you had your eyes blindfolded as it was introduced to you both in your mouth and your nose. This is an amazing experience wearing this for the first time when none of this is expected. This is the kind of experience in fragrances that make you keep looking for your next big thrill and Sedley delivers 100%.
SPOILERS OVER.

I recognise other blue fragrances in the background of this, something close to a Sauvage/Luna Rosa Carbon kind of smell or actually speaking of Aaron Terence Hughes it reminds of his Legend 2023 with some spearmint on top. I am actually surprised there is no apple in the notes because i feel like I get a real sense of a juicy sweet green apple blended in with that spearmint. If I recall correctly I think I have seen people also compare this with EROS but I think this is a much fresher fragrance that can be worn easily in higher heats than what EROS EDT could be worn in at least. I can’t speak for the EDP or Parfum but I do have EROS FLAME and I would say they both have their uses. EROS FLAME can be worn in high heat but it is a different fragrance from Sedley and you don’t get that amazing experience I talk about in the spoiler section. I love that I can even say that about a fragrance.

Sedley to me is a more natural mint fragrance than EROS and with what I have experienced so far I have to say that I was recently talking about when I run out of EROS EDT I would buy the stronger concentration but they are said to be a fresher experience without the heavy thick vanilla which is what divides the EDT and FLAME for me but so far on my testing of Parfum De Marly Sedley is definitely one that I will be buying and is in top place over Layton due to the poor performance I had with it. So I would buy this first over any more EROS to be honest.

This is my first time experiencing a nice sweet mint anywhere other than EROS and it is definitely something that I enjoy. It gives a very fresh, clean sweet, vibe with wonderful projection. I used to be a big lover of winter fragrances because they were deep, rich and usually very strong but this summer I have been swayed by many good freshies and Sedley keeps me swinging over to the light side. It’s great when you find a fresh fragrance that thrives in the heat and today it is a beautiful day here in Scotland. I had to pop to the shop which was full of people and as I walked through them all as I was leaving after being served I could feel the fragrance giving out this wave of scent that I know everyone had to be smelling from me. As i opened the door to exit with my shorts, trainers with no socks on, pair of shorts and the sun just beaming down with the slightest of cool breeze that is so refreshing even though the sun is that of a perfect temperature with no humidity in the air leaving you soaking at all, and as I felt the smell of Sedley coming off of me it was like this perfect moment that brought all those elements in to the perfect moment as I felt so much joy to myself. You know when you walk past someone who is dressed well, they are wearing the perfect clothing for summer weather, their hair is done and they are smiling as they just stride and flow in the warm weather and you wonder what is it that is making that person look so happy and just glowing. That is how I felt today as I walked out of that shop door. Like I was that person instead of me looking on wondering, I for once was the one in that moment and for that alone, this is an absolute buy for me. I truly wish i got this at the start of summer, but I will gladly buy this for the last month or so that we have left. If I am going to feel like that when I wear this? Oh yes it is going to be worth every minute of it. There are days when I think to myself that I have more than enough fragrance in my collection and that I don’t need any more until you get a discovery kit and something like a Sedley comes along and has you going, nah I ain’t finished buying more, not when I experience what I have in just a few short hours of wearing the Sixth Sense of fragrances. If you haven’t experienced it yet then I suggest you do before you see a spoiler.

LONGEVITY
Well this is saddening, what started with such enthusiasm and an amazing experience had to fall short only 3 and a half hours later I am already back to talk about longevity. This could be a batch issue as looking at the longevity ratings it seems about 2-4 months ago others were rating it low, but before and after it has higher ratings,but I have to go with my experience. Probably the batch.

SCORES
Scent 10/10
Projection 8.5/10

Longevity sadly Sedley gets a lowly 3/10 for the terrible 3 and a half hours that this starts to vanish after. I don’t know what to say. Read my longevity paragraph.
Value for what I experienced at first was a 10/10 but after the longevity issue it’s a 5/10 = 7.5

Recently I have been going on a discovery kit tour with some regular full bottle purchases along the way. I almost bought this as a full bottle going off the hype I have heard from everywhere I look but it was that intense reading that made me stop when I read the dreaded words a collector of fragrances late to the game dreads the most. “Reformulated “ and the often even worse accompanied words like “lower concentration” and “weaker”. Sometimes you are hopeful when you see the word reformulated that it will follow with words like “stronger” or “upscaled” which I was lucky to come across from a house I recently found which has quite a few reviews of their products that say they reminded them of some of Parfum De Marly fragrances and Layton being one of them. I hate to have to bring it up again in fear that people are going to begin to wonder if I am Aaron in disguise or a shill working for him,but when you see someone who upscaled their fragrances to Extrait concentration and using better ingredients to make their products last longer and project better you don’t have a large list of sources to draw from that do those kind of things. So here I am again name dropping Aaron Terence Hughes.

I was about to order his discovery kit but realised that sometimes going too strong can also be a bad thing because I realised I was going nose blind by wearing his extremely strong fragrances on a daily basis and even found my signature scent which is so annoying because they smell so good! I am just going to have to rotate my fragrances though if I wish to continue to enjoy them.

Since I had heard some of Parfum De Marly products being mentioned as a comparison to Aaron’s fragrances I thought it was time I finally get my nose on some of their products and that they may be a good choice to use in rotation with Aaron’s, but after spending a fortune in only just over a year on full bottles, I have learned it was time to take advantage of the discovery kits, especially after coming across those dreaded words I spoke of. Not only that though, I was getting a set of 7 in the kit with a further 2 of my choice making a total of 9 samples for £35 , and with the collection I own I can make samples last a long time by rotating unless I find something very special and order a bottle instantly.

After only a few days of placing the order the kit arrived ahead of my full bottle order I placed a few days prior to it this morning so of course the first choice had to be the highly praised Layton.

As soon as I smelled it I was in the detective mode as I realised there was something I recognised in it , and as you sniff like a dog who has found a new toy left by another dog before claiming it for themselves with that lots of short quick sniffs that they do, then a long deep one I couldn’t help notice that while recognising a smell that I had smelled somewhere else in Layton, I also recognised my behaviour was that of something I had saw somewhere else too, it was that of my uncle’s dog I had been looking after recently lol.

What is funny is one of Aaron’s
fragrances is said to make dogs become very amorous with one another and trust me I have worn said fragrance and watched my uncle’s 11 year old dog suddenly begin acting like he was a young pup once again. Clearly in humans it makes us act like dogs instead LOL!

I finally realised the source of what brought on this dog like behaviour and it was of course a note that Aaron uses in a lot of his fragrances and understood instantly what people were talking about when comparing his fragrances with Parfum De Marly products. I don’t think that either are attempts at cloning but rather that I wouldn’t be surprised if I learned that some of the expensive notes they use are sourced from the same companies and are rare to find in other fragrances, and that being the reason why people make a connection with the two companies.



Now on to the scent which there is not much more I can add to what has been said, lovely sweet apple pie kind of smell. It’s not overly sweet and for the first 30 mins you get that smell that reminds me of Aaron’s work in something like his Maverick 2023 but then it begins to move in to the apple pie scent onwards. Once you get to the 4-5hr dry down it becomes this beautiful sweet vanilla dry cake kind of smell, kind of like a birthday cake. The smell of this really is top class and I think I it would be hard to find a lot of people who would not like the smell of it, however on to the next subject.

Performance, the one thing that stopped me buying a full bottle. I have to say for the first 3 hours I was not impressed at all it was basically a skin scent on my skin but just as I made a statement saying so did I start to be able to smell something without bringing my wrist up to my face every few minutes and while yes it is an improvement than the first 3 hours it’s nothing mind blowing. I think this would make a great date night fragrance but other than that this is not going to be filling rooms or anything like that and for some fragrances that’s fine, but for me personally I like fragrances with power to them and with the horses on their logo it left me asking where is the horsepower in this? At least I know one thing. It won’t leave me going nose blind.

Sadly as I am writing this that stage I got to where I finally thought I was getting some oomph to the projection is already fading. I am definitely in to hours 4+ and I just can’t justify the price that is asked for this product when it doesn’t perform the way I like fragrances to. If you like fragrances that don’t fill a room then that’s fine and sometimes I like to wear fragrances like those too to help give my nose a break to help prevent from going nose blind but this is really on the low side for me. Maybe it’s just my skin chemistry but when I remember the reason I bought the discovery kit and the words of unhappy people who owned it both prior and after the reduction in concentration being upset about the changes that their favourite fragrances are not performing as they once did I have to put it out there that there is a high chance it goes further than just my skin chemistry or there would be no point in writing this review to let others know what I am experiencing.

I would have loved to have got my hands on a sample of Layton Exclusif but it wasn’t up for choice with the 2 extra samples you could pick with the discovery kit and is not included in it. Maybe that is the way to go after the the changes but sadly I can’t be the one to help you with that.

I thought the P was for the Pear and passion fruit, A for Amber and the X for unisex but no, after wearing this again i realized it stands for something else, Pure Amazing XTC (ecstasy) , because that is what this fragrance invokes in me! No i am not saying this has MDMA in it just like neither does any of Aaron Terence Hughes fragrances, but they have MDMA as a note and i believe it is not only because one of the chemicals in those fragrances can be turned in to it, but rather that the fragrance invokes that energetic feeling without the use or need of narcotics.

So this has been compared to Erba Pura which i don't have but i do have another it is compared to which is Don't Ask Me Permission and i love the smell of both. How i would separate the 2 is that this is truly a unisex fragrance with a slight lean more to a masculine side, while Don't Ask Me Permission leans way more feminine especially because of the peach note. One more i could compare to is Pacific Park but again that is more feminine.

When i smelled Don't Ask Me Permission i fell in love with that scent, but i don't have a girlfriend that i could give it to, to wear. If i did i would without a doubt, because i would love to smell that on a girl, i really would. When i found PAX not that long after testing Don't Ask Me Permission with it's leather and wood notes in the base and no peach note, i thought this may be a more masculine version that i could pull off, the wait for this to arrive from Italy took ages and i was so excited and wondering if this would be the magic unisex or masculine version of Don't Ask Me Permision i had just fell in love with but had nobody that i could give it to smell it on them so when PAX arrived and i was correct, of course i was just over the moon! This is one of these white musk, fruity kind of fragrances that i can wear with ease and the thing i also love about it is that it is very long lasting and projects really well. This is something i always look for in a fragrance. It would be good especially for summer temperatures where most others would struggle in the high heat, while PAX absolutely thrives!

From what i have read this is a much better performing Erba Pura, and it comes in Extrait De Parfum concentration so that will be why.

If you have tried Lorenzo's latest summer fragrance which was the highly hyped Summer Hammer then when you go through all the stages and get to the last stage that sticks with you for the rest of its longevity then that is close to what you are going to get with PAX, they are not exactly the same but close enough that you can layer PAX on top of Summer Hammer when it gets to that stage.

Summer Hammer has more stages than PAX but its projection power wavers between the different stages and by the time you get to the stage that relates to PAX it becomes pretty much a skin scent and is the perfect time to then spray PAX on for the rest of the day boosting all the lovely, sweet juicy notes. You only need a few sprays of this and if I smelled this on someone else and didn't know what it was i would have to ask them what it is and where to get it and in the UK people are not as forward coming as in other countries so when people compliment you or feel the need to ask something like that then you know you have something special.

Honestly, when i smell this i just get this immense feeling of joy and almost on the verge of ecstasy.

Like an other reviewer said, this fragrance just has this sweet juicy energetic feel to it that will definitely have you in a good mood ready to go out and enjoy the summer weather. If you like fruity fragrances like i do i can promise you this will be the one that gives you that oomph feeling and you won't feel like you do with some fragrances where you can feel like something is missing to give it that spark. This is complete and ready to go. I wish i wrote this earlier in the summer but hey, people in the lower hemisphere will be coming in to summer soon so maybe this is one you should be picking up in preparation for your summer parties and night outs. Not only that i couldn't find the words to describe it in all honesty until i wore it again today and i just had to try let other people know just how great this fragrance really is.

SCORES
Scent 10/10 Just gorgeous!

Longevity 10/10 Eternal - This will last all day long in the heat with no loss in projection.

Projection 10/10 Everyone is going to be smelling this on you!

Bottle 7/10 This is its only downfall imo, the atomizer is plastic, and the bottle is a bit boring imo. (It's the juice that counts though, right?)

Price OK, this is roughly £130 per 50ml but you are getting an Eternal, long lasting, high projecting amazing scent that doesn't need many sprays, and it is Extrait concentration so to me this gets the rating of Good Value! 9/10

So this was the trend setter of all the blues, or at least it is the DNA of the line which started it all coming from the EDT.

When I sprayed this i instantly recognised something in my other blue fragrances and that they had borrowed from this DNA to make their own blue fragrances, especially "Versace pour Homme Dylan Blue (Eau de Toilette) | Versace" came to mind at first.

There seems to be a lot of discussion on which has best performance and which smells the best so I went for the one in the middle.

I think it must depend on skin chemistry whether you get good performance from this fragrance. Also the conditions of its storage and delivery could have an affect on it. It also could simply be a batch that is not as great as others. Let me get to it, I am not saying I have this issue here.

I have learned this through a few different fragrances where other people have great projection and longevity with the likes of Y EDP where I get low longevity but great projection. Even after taking a break from fragrances for over a week to reset any chance of nose blindness being the problem I still had that problem.

Bleu De Chanel EDP on the other hand, which I have seen people with the same problems I have with Y EDP is the complete opposite for me. I get great performance from this! Even after a week of wearing strong Extrait concentration fragrances that do cause me nose blindness I can come back to this and it performs better than some of my Extrait fragrances.

I am glad I got it at the price I did also. Be wary, some of the discounters are selling this for £70 more than well respected retailers such as
John Lewis where I got 150ml for a wonderful £130 with no sale or special deals applied. So when buying things that are being sold for £200 else where always check out the places you would normally avoid. You may just find a better price there after all.When I first bought this a few week’s ago I wrote a few posts about that issue on the forums and on blogs here and there and yesterday I noticed that the discounters that I spoke of in them have now dropped the prices considerably, still not as low as John Lewis though. So it’s still worth keeping an eye out.

Lovely fresh and versatile fragrance with a touch of elegance to it. At the price I paid this could easily be a signature fragrance for some.

I have to wonder with the kind of price drop at retail stores whether Chanel have a new line in store for us on the way. Their next trend setter maybe? Wouldn’t that be exciting!