ScottMcArron

ScottMcArron

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ScottMcArron 8 days ago 4
8
Bottle
8
Sillage
7
Longevity
9
Scent
An Ellena painting in watercolors
Dusty oranges lie amongst pale golden straw sprouting between broken grey flint rock. Ellena paints this picture in swaths of colors, broad strokes across the canvas. His signature style. Simple, elegant, and in balanced juxtaposition.

More “niche” than most niche fragrances these days, and better executed, if I may say so.

Against the popular LV freshies and Tygar-like iterations, this came out standing proud above them all, like a triumphant Roman gladiator. Not the gilded and royally trained, but risen from the lowest ranks of poverty (i.e. I paid 65 bucks for my 100ml bottle, Imagination cost me 300 and I think TDH is the better…). An underrated masterpiece.

Leans mature but easily “I’m in college and serious about my studies” all the way up to “I’m CEO of a multibillion dollar international company” and anywhere in between. It looks you in the eye and firmly shakes your hand at any age. Not a vibe I get from any LV freshies which tend toward playfulness and insincerity. You will know which is right for you.

I’ve actually owned this for years but my collection was so comically large I virtually never wore it or gave it much of a chance. I’m glad to have downsized to a minimalist collection. It’s been great to rediscover how much of a gem this is. A modern gentleman’s fragrance that doesn’t invoke any kind of grandpa fougere vibes. Really special.
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ScottMcArron 4 months ago 1
6
Bottle
8
Sillage
8
Longevity
7.5
Scent
Nostalgic Feel Good Fragrance
This was the first fragrance as a teenager in the 90’s that caught my attention as I hung out at the local mall chatting up girls. In my eyes, it was fresh, upscale, crowd-pleasing, and what I thought girls at the time would think is sexy. What more could a young guy want?

After more than 2 decades later, and an extensive fragrance journey in between (from vintage legends to top rated niche to pure olfactory art, indie, and the finest real musk and oud ingredients), I purchased it again on a whim.

It takes me back to simpler times when I was young, had hopes and dreams, and the veil of harsh reality had not yet been pulled from my eyes. It puts a smile on my face and a tear in my eye.

Pure nostalgia, and also just a happy little fragrance that brings to mind watching Bob Ross painting happy little trees on my family’s tube tv.

I find myself reaching for it a lot the last weeks for those reasons. And after my last Great Consolidation selling off more than 250 perfumes, I think this may have found a place in my remaining “minimalist” 20, at least for the time being.

The Practical:

It is soft, fresh, fruity, floral, and aquatic. No revelations there. Totally non-offensive except maybe the first hour if over-sprayed. A nice departure from the sharper freshies I tend to like.

For those who care, I get great projection for the first 1-2 hours, enough where I’m worried I’m choking people out, it settles to moderate for a few more, and remains as a skin scent up to a solid 8+ hours. I have no problems with performance whatsoever.

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ScottMcArron 6 months ago 2
10
Bottle
8
Sillage
8
Longevity
10
Scent
Northern misty pine forest
The best pine scent.
The best real musk scent.
The best transportive forest scent.

It conjures images of walking through a northern pine forest shrouded in mist with animals and critters skittering about. If that’s what you’re looking for, nothing comes close. It’s a legend in its genre. Every time I wear it I’m more impressed than the last time. Simply gorgeous. Perfectly balanced. The work of genius. I’ll leave it at that.

Suggestion: wear this while watching Robert Eggers’ “The Northman”. You’ll feel like part of the movie.
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ScottMcArron 1 year ago 5
10
Bottle
9
Sillage
9
Longevity
9
Scent
One for the oud lovers
A deceptively simple fragrance of only 3 main notes. However, the ingredients are of incredible quality, one being a big 30% shot of fermented Indian oud. That’s a massive amount, if you didn’t already know.

The oud starts off with petrol fumes that hit straight to the back of the throat. A bit cheesy and medicinal. After about an hour the petrol vibe fades and the big hit of oud mellows out nicely.

The cocoa mixes well with the oud almost like it’s an extension of it. Very well blended as if the oud was distilled along with the cocoa powder. I wouldn’t be surprised . An interesting choice though to pair that with rose as I wouldn’t think cocoa and rose would be a great combination, and indeed it’s not my favorite but damn it works somehow and sets it apart from a standard oud rose.

The rose is of the red variety, luscious, wet, and glistening. It wafts up to your nose and makes you feel like you just stepped through a dewy rose garden after a morning rain. Lovely.

Tonight, I’m wearing it for the second time this week and sampling it next to two other legendary oud roses: Ottoman Empire IV (my favorite to appreciate at home) and FM’s The Night (my favorite to wear out). And these other two I do admit I like better, they are masterpieces, but B&tB is also incredible in its own right while being much simpler and straightforward. Still a contender and well worth the price. And I’d be very comfortable wearing it out on the town after the initial dry down when the petrol fades rather than just appreciating it home. A big winner for me!

The bottle is also beautiful and the sprayer best in class.

Thank you, Russian Adam, for your passion and love you pour into your perfumes! Eagerly awaiting what comes next!
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ScottMcArron 1 year ago 5
7
Bottle
7
Sillage
8
Longevity
7
Scent
Lackluster run-of-the-mill synthetic rose oud
Another “luxury” house putting out overpriced mostly crap perfumes. I’d even take Xerjoff and Boadicea the Overpriced over this because even they have a few decent perfumes worthy of a FB, if not overly priced FBs.

Of the brand’s lineup, of which I’ve sampled 21 (from their discovery set + now 2 samples of this one), this and two others stood out as the “best” to me. But let’s keep this in context of mediocrity.

Given the note listing, I was hoping for a decent oud/rose/frankincense to help me milk my bottle of FM’s The Night a few years longer. I did not find that here. It’s not a terrible scent but it’s far from great or worthy of wasting any money. Long story short, if a bottle were gifted to me I might wear it once a year or so, or maybe re-gift it to a friend who is not very much into perfumes and doesn’t know better.

I don’t want to waste too much more time here as I already have by sampling this house so I’ll cut to the chase. It’s mostly synthetic. They claim to use real oud so they probably use some. It’s not a lot. They’ve clearly bolstered it with some synthetic compounds to come across like there’s more. And the oud dies away anyway after about 2 hours leaving just an ambery rose mess.

These are the last words I’ll write about the house and the last thoughts I’ll give it.

Cheers!
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