Stratilates

I've been in the perfume game for about three years now, and even though Aventus first hit the market in 2010, you inevitably stumble upon this name sooner or later. You just can't escape it, and why would you want to, especially with all the hype surrounding it? It must smell good, right?
So how does this Aventus, which everyone talks about, actually smell? I was very excited when I saw it for the first time at the perfume store and asked the lady if she could spray it on me; knowing that Aventus has supposedly survived many reformulations (or maybe it didn't survive after all~). The lady handed me the cloth (very fancy), and I was curious until… well, it smelled like toilet stones with piercing pineapple… very disappointing, and I didn't have the patience to hunt down certain batches with good versions, so my Aventus chapter was closed.

A year later, I was sitting in a chemistry lab at university next to a dude who, fortunately, I can now call one of my closest colleagues, and I smelled something very nice in the air: vanilla. It was such high-quality vanilla that I thought it couldn't possibly be a designer scent (small checkered thoughts)! Back then, I only really knew Layton from the niche world, and this vanilla reminded me of it. You have to imagine, I was smelling this vanilla for a certain period until I finally realized, okay, it's the dude next to me, with whom I hadn't really interacted much, except for cracking a few jokes in the chemistry lab. So I asked him: "Yo Bro, sorry for a quick question, but are you wearing a perfume right now?" "Yeah, why?" "Is it by any chance Layton? Because it smells incredible!" "Unfortunately not, it's from Electimuss and it's called Imperium - it's an Aventus with vanilla!" And that's how we got onto the topic of perfumes, which continuously provided plenty of conversation material whenever we weren't complaining about the THM :D. He also mentioned that he first heard about the scent on Parfumo, and that's how I discovered this great site.

Since then, Imperium has been on my mind, but unfortunately, I never got around to testing this wonderful scent. A year later (last year), my friends and I went out to celebrate after a ten-hour study session to "wind down" the evening, and that night, the aforementioned friend was wearing Imperium again, and once again, the sillage of the scent blew me away! Interestingly, the friend said he didn't perceive it as strongly himself (important for later). At that time, I thought I MUST test it on my skin - but again, I didn't, until…
BF 2023, I got it at a very good price, luckily, because when I saw the offer and it was in my cart, I thought "maybe not" and closed the tab on my phone. I hesitated, and five minutes later, I ultimately bought it. Maybe I hesitated because it was supposedly close to Aventus, and I never warmed up to that one, or maybe because my colleague really liked it; I did inform him about the offer, but he didn't want to get it. I made a quick decision and bought it myself.

When the package arrived, I unwrapped the purple box with joy but also uncertainty, wondering if I should take it out completely naked, as that would be akin to a blind buy, and I usually don't do blind buys. Still - something compelled me, and when I sprayed it on my arm and my girlfriend's eyes widened, I knew I would regret NOTHING.

Imperium opens with a very nice pineapple, embedded in even more beautiful bourbon vanilla. The pineapple has a slightly piercing quality, but not as extreme as the current batches of its predecessor. Personally, I find that pineapple generally has a somewhat piercing quality in citrus scents, which I don't mind. However, no fragrance has managed to create such a perfect symbiosis between Aventus (pineapple) and vanilla. Or should I just say Ani instead of vanilla? Because yes, that's how it is: Imperium is a (deliberate!) child of Aventus and Ani! Like the basketball player Yao Ming, whose parents were both giants, and Yao Ming ended up being taller than his own parents, Imperium is also greater than its two parents, and I'm not just talking about the beautiful, noble, and ton-heavy bottle, but also about the scent itself. It's somehow an all-rounder: citrusy, sweet, spicy, slightly smoky even in the dry down, but all without losing its class. It's a scent that you could theoretically wear for any occasion, during the day, in the evening, and regardless of the season, but personally, I think you shouldn't be too underdressed for it.
In terms of scent, I personally can't make much of the fragrance pyramid; sure, bergamot and neroli help the (not listed!?) pineapple achieve this beautiful citrus, and in the mid-drydown, you can smell a bit of the white flowers, but overall: pineapple + vanilla (+ musk). After a few hours, a certain smokiness also comes through, which the original version of Aventus supposedly has (which I unfortunately never tested). This smoky note fits perfectly into the overall picture and gives it a nice twist in the end. And the best part I haven't even mentioned yet: You always want more of Imperium, just like Julius Caesar.
Unfortunately, you don't get much more than that, because:
Longevity and sillage are a disaster. After two hours, I hardly notice anything anymore, but that might also be due to nose blindness, as it was the case with my colleague too. It really performed well only when I was very meticulous about not letting anything touch my neck and when it was warm (in the car). Maybe it’s stronger in summer? I hope so, because it would be a shame to have to settle for a 6 for longevity and sillage. I can hardly wait to wear it in spring/summer!

The bottle is a real beauty; I don't like the box too much, but the bottle makes up for it :D. Massive and of high quality, the cap is also heavy and sits firmly on the bottle. The sprayer is upper mid-range, so very solid.

Price-to-quality ratio is also solid at full price, as long as you like Aventus or Ani.

In conclusion, I want to thank Sofia for this scent and of course my colleague @Lr510!

Maybe some of the readers see my 10/10 rating for this fragrance and think, "What has he taken?" but another rating just felt wrong for ME - and that's the crux of the matter: It's MY 10/10! And here’s the explanation why:

The first perfume that gave me a serious "wow! I MUST AND WILL HAVE THIS!" moment was none other than Kenzo Homme Night.
Admittedly, now after 2 years in the game, I find it relatively boring, but back then it just blew me away. And I'm the kind of person, when I like something from a brand, I want to try the other products too, and by chance I found out that my father used to wear Kenzo pour Homme Eau de Toilette when he was younger! So I gifted him one, and just like that, we had two Kenzo fragrances in our (my) collection.
Over time, I tested more and more from Kenzo, and one thing you have to give the brand: nothing smells like something you've already smelled. Even if it might be a designer brand, I find all the Kenzos beautiful and especially very suitable for spring/summer.
I was therefore very excited last year when I found out that Kenzo was releasing a new fragrance: Kenzo Homme Eau de Toilette Intense, but when I read that it was just another concentration of an already existing fragrance, my excitement waned and brought me back to reality. It became problematic when I watched a YouTube video about the fragrance from a YouTuber I really like, and he dismissed the fragrance as repulsive and labeled it as pickle water. What can I say, I didn't dare to test it for months because I didn't want to be disappointed (I know, silly, right?).
Eventually, curiosity got the better of me, and I sprayed it on a test strip in the blue D. That was the moment I regretted ignoring it for so long. Of course, you can tell it's a blue fragrance, but Kenzo Homme Eau de Toilette Intense had something more mature about it. A fresh/salty-sour all-rounder that really shines in summer.
The similarity to Kenzo pour Homme Eau de Toilette is definitely there, but it's not a dull and boring almost identical flanker, but really different. If the pour Homme had been released today (or in 2021), it would smell like the Intense version.

It starts with a very fresh but also peppery note. It smells like washed-up seaweed with driftwood, but in a nice way (if seaweed can smell nice at all, or smell like anything :D)
To be clear: It is absolutely not a complex fragrance and remains rather linear, changing very little, but sometimes you need exactly such a fragrance: just spray it on and you're ready to go.
And that's exactly how it is with Kenzo Homme Eau de Toilette Intense - you spray it on and feel fresh immediately. I can also understand the parallel to pickle water; there is always a present sourness noticeable, but combined with the woody notes and the fresh, earthy vetiver, it is simply very nicely rounded.
In winter, I actually don't wear it that much, but that's mainly because I have other fragrances that are more suitable for winter and I also use them. But in summer! Oh, summer goes hand in hand with this fragrance! Summer fragrances are usually designed (in general) not to last long and not to leave a thick and heavy scent cloud behind, otherwise: headaches.
However, with Kenzo Homme Eau de Toilette Intense, you have extremely strong longevity and sillage with fresh-aquatic notes, meaning: it doesn't lead to headaches or nausea; not even at 35 degrees. I just love it in summer!

Around summer, I wore it so often that I convinced two of my friends to get this perfume as well. Moreover, I've actually received the most compliments with it, and even my friend's little sister came into the room and sprayed it on :D.

As for the season, I don't think I need to say much: summer, spring, but mainly summer!

Time of day: I see it more as a daytime fragrance because:

H/S: Longevity and sillage are fantastic: On my skin, it lasts 10 hours even though I sweat like a horse in summer, and the sillage is also very impressive: for me, 4 hours continuously, then it just pulls back a little, but it remains present the whole time. The longevity on clothes is in a whole different league: I could still smell it on my vest weeks later...
That's also why I think it's more suitable for daytime. In the evening, I don't want to wear such a loud and fresh fragrance that could even bring the dead back to life.

As for the target audience: I personally think it's a men's fragrance, but younger people can wear it well too.

The bottle is beautiful, like a bamboo stalk cut by a katana, blue, and even the sprayer is the same color as the whole bottle! The sprayer releases a lot of juice, so 3 sprays are more than enough, but I still like to apply more ;)
Kenzo itself says that the bottle consists of a certain percentage of recycled glass, which is nice. The cap is made of plastic, and as often as I've used this fragrance, it doesn't hold up very well anymore :D.

Price-performance ratio is also top: you can get 110 ml for €53 and sometimes even less. Of course, you don't need that much, although I've almost used up my 60ml in half a year :D.

These are all the reasons why this fragrance gets a 10/10 from me; it does everything right in its league, so why not give it the best rating?

Honestly, I don't even know where to start; this might be the first and only time that I just start writing aimlessly about a fragrance that I can happily say: I have found it.
I pondered for a long time whether and how I should describe/review this scent, but primarily I just want to write about this fragrance because I like it SO much that I can only warmly recommend to everyone out there: try this scent, smell it directly on your skin, and above all, give it multiple chances, because:

The opening is loud. VERY loud. It is so incredibly loud that my delicate nose was completely overwhelmed at first. I could now list all four top notes and say "Yes, this note is decisive for that, and that for this, etc.", but as I see (or smell) it, a combination of all four notes creates this aggressive, spicy, and above all piercing start. The Balkan Geranium is responsible for the spicy-aromatic mood, and believe me, it is very spicy! However, this spiciness shocked me so much because I only know or rather like sweet partners of spicy notes. The Geranium is spicy-bitter, and its partner is not sweet but piercing and masculine: the Rum.
And wow, what a Rum it is! Imagine you walk into a rum distillery at 40°C and hold your nose over a rum barrel (at least that's how I imagine it). The Rum thus takes on the piercing quality and is accompanied by a very light citrus note of bergamot. After a few minutes, the passion fruit also makes an appearance and rounds off the piercing initial experience together with the cinnamon.
In summary, I can say in retrospect that the opening of Xerjoff Tony Iommi really surprised me; the first time I sprayed it, I was even disappointed. However, I can only advise everyone not to leave the fragrance aside if the opening disappoints. I would describe this perfume like a person you can't stand at first, but then you get to know them better and a very nice friendship develops.

Alongside the cinnamon, which counters the piercing, spicy beginning so well, leather and patchouli now come into play, and there is a back and forth: The (?) patchouli brings back a bit of bitterness but at the same time something very sweet, reminiscent of bittersweet chocolate.

"I never actually intended to make a blind buy in my perfume journey, especially not for scents that have few opinions. It's simply not worth buying a fragrance just to find out you don't like it. It's better to go to a perfume store and smell the scent yourself or buy a small decant/sample."
- Quote: Me, always

But as they say: Exceptions confirm the rule.

Unfortunately, you can't test every fragrance beforehand, either because the scent is simply no longer available or because it's an exclusive blah blah variant of a perfume. In our case here, the second example applies. I found Luminous Night very interesting the first time I saw it; the bottle looks so flawless and clean, and when I saw the fragrance pyramid, I was all fired up. I love sweet-spicy scents, and I love dates; in fact, there was a not-so-short period a few years ago when my daily sugar was dates, so I would say I know how dates should smell and taste. And since Luminous Night is basically known for its date note, my thought was: "I have to smell this! But how?"
Because it turned out to be relatively difficult to test this fragrance, and buying a plane ticket just to test a scent at an airport shop seemed a bit silly to me (though it would be a fun action…). So I thought further: "Just buy it; if I don't like it, I can sell it."
You can imagine I was very curious about how it would smell.
The problem is, the more expectations and excitement you have, the more likely you are to be disappointed, at least that's my reality, but oh how I was amazed when I opened the packaging, took out the bottle (which, by the way, feels like it weighs half a ton), and just smelled the spray head! Wow! I thought: "If it smells like this, then it's a 10/10!"
And then I sprayed it on my hand.
And then I fell in love.

The One Luminous Night starts off as sweet as chewing gum; I haven't smelled anything sweeter in a long time. But you can definitely smell something spicy as well. You should thank the basil and especially the black pepper, and of course the star: the date. I was shocked at how real the date smells here, and I still spray it on my hand just for fun after two months, just to smell that sweet date!
Over time, the geranium comes on stage as a supporting actor, but so unobtrusively that you almost don't notice it; you just realize that the sweet date chewing gum is slowly becoming smoother. The spiciness fades a bit, but that's not a problem at all, because now new actors are coming on stage: amber and frankincense. I'm generally not a fan of frankincense; if I want to smell it, I go to church, but here I found it not disturbing at all! In combination with the smooth amber, the whole scent now has a sweet, slightly spicy-smoky quality, but the smokiness is definitely not off-putting. Everything is just smooth and well-composed. From start to finish, it's absolutely not a complex fragrance, but the quality of the notes is simply wow! Let's not forget we're theoretically talking about a designer scent, but this one has niche quality. A colleague of mine, who knows even more and better about fragrances than I do, even said he would have believed me if I told him it costs three times the actual price.
Every note in this fragrance is just authentic and not out of place at all. Nothing is too weak or too overpowering, which is why I'm so convinced by Luminous Night.

The longevity is really good, nothing earth-shattering; you spray it on in the morning around 9 and can still perceive it a bit after 10 hours, but as I said, nothing earth-shattering. The sillage is very good! You get 2-3 hours of pure action, but after that time, it fades a bit, which is perfectly fine.
However, it should be noted that this is a fragrance you should really test multiple times. If you spray it "wrong," it can and will blind the nose with its sweetness.

The bottle is really beautiful, a very dark blue with golden writing and a massive golden cap. Honestly, the whole thing weighs as much as a brick.
The sprayer releases just the right amount of substance; you can't complain about that.

I would recommend this fragrance more for men and younger people.

In summary, I can only say that this was my first blind buy, and it was completely worth it! A total success.

So I thought to myself, since Layton was my first niche fragrance that I smelled (and also purchased), I would write my first review about this beautiful scent; so please be lenient with me :D
About 2 years ago, I discovered my new hobby: perfumes. It might seem strange for a young student, but fragrances fascinated me instantly, although I never wanted (and hoped) to drift into niche fragrances (because they are expensive).
Well, true to my word, half a year later, my girlfriend and I naively walked into a perfumery in Frankfurt to at least smell how good these oh-so-great niche fragrances are. Of course, we first sprayed the well-known scents on the strips, and all the ones we tested were quite convincing; my young and inexperienced nose would not have thought so. However, Layton surprised me from the very first second.
I took all 4 scent strips (I know, not much) home and laid them on my desk. And then the magic began: 2 meters away from the strip, days (yes, plural: days) later, I would still occasionally catch a distinct beautiful scent: Layton, the Beautiful. I felt like I was smelling the strip every 10 minutes, and it became clear to me: damn niche fragrances…

Shortly after, I bought the 75ml bottle and absolutely do not regret this somewhat more expensive purchase (compared to designer scents) at all. The bottle looks absolutely powerful (the 125ml version looks even more powerful) and is really heavy and of high quality. You could literally knock someone out with the cap; that thing weighs a ton.

But now, let's get to the main thing, the juice.
Layton opens the dance with green apple, and personally, I also smell something almost minty, perhaps the freshness comes from the lavender or the apple, I don't know, but what I do know is that the opening is simply a mood maker.
Later, I actually smell the geranium most distinctly; the freshness from the opening fades, but that's not a problem at all, because Layton kicks in the vanilla as if there were no tomorrow. This interplay of apple and vanilla is simply unbeatable! Besides the vanilla, which is of course most prominent in the base phase, I also pick up a bit of cardamom and even less sandalwood, but the focus is clearly on the already mentioned vanilla. All in all, one could say Layton starts (at least for me) fresher than expected, but quickly and smoothly transitions into a warm and delicious apple-vanilla cake that you would just want to lie in...

But for whom is the scent most suitable? In short: for everyone, but I see it much more for men; I can't even explain why, perhaps because I wear it myself as a man and can't imagine (or want) it on my girlfriend. Due to its "fresh" introduction, I also wear it, for example, in summer, but rather in the evenings and not too much. However, Layton performs best now in autumn and winter, when it cuts through the cold winter air with its delicious sweetness.
The longevity is also good, although there are strangely sometimes harder deviations for me: sometimes it lasts 14 hours, and sometimes I can't smell anything after just 6 hours (but that's rather rare, probably due to the newer batches).

In summary, Layton can be described in one word for me: Beautiful. This word "beautiful" is often belittled or not given much attention nowadays, but Layton shows that the word carries a significant weight. The scent is not too intrusive, not too weak, not too boring, not too complex, but simply beautiful and has (unfortunately or fortunately?) opened the doors for me into the world of niche fragrances…