Systemshock

I'd always been interested in good-smelling things, but this resurged for me during the pandemic. Was it the extra downtime? The GLP-1 prescription that made me less of a foodie but more of an aromatherapy guy? Not really sure, but what I did know is I love a good routine, and I'd surely find a *signature* fragrance and be done with it. One bottle on the shelf, one thing to spray each morning. It became two when I was a bit concerned about noseblindness. And then it was more: enough bottles to have my own little display rafters on the shelf. Puny by collector standards, but wild for me: I'm no collector. I've been choosy about what I purchased after decanting or sampling: each had to have a different function, a different texture, meet a different mood, evoke a different color. At some point, I'd largely be *fine* with what I've got.

For about a half-year now, I've been mostly there. My collection's feeling *good*, full. Except for a bright-white scent; a clean scent; a white musk scent that I can actually pull off. I blame Chanel - 1957 Eau de Parfum was 95% of the way there being my last "grail" before I stopped chasing stuff down. They made the case for white musk, aldehydes, soap, and iris *too* well, but somewhere deep within was a little bit of orange blossom and jasmine, and it didn't work for me. What to do? Gentleman Classic held the line this year formidably, and while it succeeded on musks, it didn't succeed on that aldehydic shine. It's more warm - it'll be really nice in the winter.

The few folks who have said anything about that sole Yardley I liked mentioned The Dreamer Eau de Toilette . Far be it from me to not be thorough about what I love, but Versace wasn't interested in putting this on shelves at retail. I'd have to buy an expensive decant of a relatively inexpensive bottle, so this was a weird volume-based and service-based scenario. But it was a priority: I'd already revisited my old Infusion d'Homme Eau de Toilette flame through Infusion d'Iris Cèdre and found it identical - huzzah! - but not for me. I'd grown. This thing was, again, too orangey, likely neroli being the culprit. I was ready to negotiate with 1957 Eau de Parfum: maybe I'll give it a couple hours before anyone else can smell it and the Queen Victoria-ness hiding in the middle will fade out. It's only Firstborn Child Dollars per bottle... anyway, with my wallet at stake, I had to try this "One that got away" for good measure.

Upon first spray of the decant, I wasn't convinced. There was something sharp and acrid on the front end, but not citrus... this thing wasn't pleasant on its own. I thought I'd once again, like the many iris and white musk failures in my search for a 1957-similar, or a 1957-for-dudes, had another dud on my hands. A classic that may have been great, but wound up reformulated along the way, perhaps. But around the fifteen-minute mark, something else emerged: bright, shining light in scent form. Sweetness, but not too sweet, not modern Sung Homme Eau de Toilette death-sweet. Iris, sharp, among that soft, soapy musk. That acrid bitterness on the initial spray wasn't *gone* but it merged: sitting on top of a more prominent drydown, mitigating the musk, ensuring me that we were still on solid ground. A sparkle to it, but not a glittery, frou-frou sparkle. More like I was enveloped in sunlight.

And then, for hours and hours, the promise of 1957 Eau de Parfum shone, made manifest without the girl-pandering notes in the background. I think Versace has done something very clever with what likely relied on a couple of animal or possible-allergen ingredients earlier: by intentionally sacrificing an accessible initial spray, they've done some chemistry work to make the dry Dreamer possible without those now-banned ingredients. Yes, they're using a sweet and soapy musk (and my guess is Muscenone, a common ingredient in my favorite scents, which would bring iris alongside the musk), but this kind of artemisia isolate or EO (bitter, but not too bitter, which might explain the listed tarragon note since it's a less bitter species of the artemisia genus) and juniper note step in to mitigate the sweetness with a sharp, bitter, acidic sheen. Aldehydes - likely of the stereotypical Chanel variety - make it sing in that old-school makeup / linens and fabrics and soaps kind of way.

This all adds up to a methodology much like how I cook a good Indian meal - bitter seeds and leaves justify the existence of jaggery and sweeter vegetables, while the right amount of salt balances that sweetness, while the right amount of oil smooths out the salt and bitters. It's decidedly *not* like a lot of my other favorites, which are studies on one note - Guilty Absolute pour Homme for leather, Much Ado About the Duke for rose - it's a heck of a well-done blend. Yes, even with the weird opening, even with this modernized formula. And then suddenly that opening wasn’t weird at all: a week in and it became *the thing* I love in sharpness: my nose suddenly loved this botanicals-focused top end.

Okay, about performance, let's be clear: I don't go clubbing. I don't live in a big city. I work in a smaller, less densely-populated office area. I don't want to stick out among a large crowd. All I want is a scent that I love, and something that gets my wife's interest when she's close up. That's all. Projection and/or sillage aren't that big of a deal for me, and you're not going to get Baccarat Rouge 540 Eau de Parfum or Followed projection out of The Dreamer. However, longevity's pretty decent, holding up its best attributes after several hours of wear, and even enduring a shower. Don't be shy with it: this isn't expensive, spray to taste.

So yeah, here I was contemplating a very expensive and compromised functional purchase to basically complete this collection, and The Dreamer was right there, staring at me, affordable and exactly what I was seeking out. (Heaven help my wallet when someone makes an extrait-strength contender in this field, though.)

I’m *kinda* generally synesthetic. Not that direct “This sound is orange” kind, but innately I feel it when chord progressions are a color palette, visual shapes and textures have sound, and yeah, scents have color and texture. It’s like every sense is moderately linked instead of one sense being fused with another.

So with that in mind, it’s been tough trying to find a white scent for a guy. What’s white? I don’t exactly know. I know it’s 1957 Eau de Parfum. I know it isn’t You Eau de Parfum . But a white scent, to me, is the comfort of waking up in a precise, maintained, expensive but buttoned-up hotel among linens you’d rather not part with. It’s smelling like you’re out of a shower from the center of the sun. It’s not enough to say “laundry” or “soapy.” That much is clear: Blanche Eau de Parfum is laundry and it irks my soul with some harsh, scratchy, floral detergent when it’s on my skin. N°5 Eau Première is straight-up bar soap to me, but not what I want. It goes too pink and sparkly later on.

So without a firstborn child to swap for a large bottle of 1957 Eau de Parfum to use solely as a comfort object, not as a projection of anything or as a marker of luxury, I was up the creek on this. I analyzed formulas when they were available: was it Iris? Was it something resembling it, or the absolute? Why were so many irises failing then? Or musk? Why did so many “your skin but better” scents come off to me as either angry laundry detergent or teenage girl pandering? Was it Muscenone Delta in particular? Should I just get *that?*

All of this is to say that there’s no blind-buying with me. Perfumes promise one thing and deliver another entirely. I need to be able to try it out, and paying ridiculous shipping costs on a sample isn’t a good alternative. I need a store. I need testers. And lo and behold, Yardley increased its footage and staffing at Epcot, over in the England section where I got my beloved Much Ado About the Duke, came back for Endymion Concentré , and ordered The Tragedy of Lord George Eau de Parfum. And for most of the Yardley scents marketed toward men as I tried them out, Penhaligon's they weren't. This was Your Average Guy Stuff - one was citrus and iso e super. Another had something smoky resembling oud. Another was sweet amber and vanilla. And it’s Yardley, so you know this stuff won’t last long either - not worth it given how many Generic Dude Colognes will last a while.

But Gentleman Classic made me stop, made me double-check with my wife about what I was picking up. Here we had clean musk that wasn’t overly sweet. Sharpness that wasn’t overly citrus or fruity. Herbs, including cardamom, that didn’t scream “I just learned about India from Great Uncle Lou in the Shriners.” And when it dries off, you’ve got soap, a little cocoa-butter sweetness, and some oakmoss. Echoes of light and concrete like my old brutalist college haunts. A largely white scent, with just a little tiny glimmer of green off to the side. Is this… a soapy comfort scent, But For Dudes? One I can wear? Egad! And it lasts - as a skin scent, sure, but that counts when you just wanna feel comfortable and luxurious. And at that price (it's already pretty cheap at retail, but you can do even better online), I can just re-spray it, no big deal.

Keep in mind that the reformulations of old-school scents- your Sung Homme Eau de Toilettes, for example- those made me sick. That kind of white musk just Musked Too Much. An overdose of holodeck soap. Some rogue musk chemical that runs off the Soap Cliff and falls into Rotting Death. But I loved the idea: if only one of these executed in a way I could tolerate. And here we are. That’s Gentleman Classic. Old-school white musk, leaning traditionally-masculine, well-executed and affordable.

Alright, so what about my perceptions of The New versus what’s, in my mind, the competition?

First up it’s 1957 versus this: 1957 has more projection out the gate and there’s a shiny kick to it that I’d guess has to do with those Chanel signature aldehydes. But if I’m sniffing this in depth, somewhere at the core are some blatant “This is for women” jasmine and orange blossom combo. Your Queen Whoever It Was combo. Not enough for me to not love this, but enough to make me think “I, in particular, can’t really pull this vibe off.” In contrast, Gentleman Classic is sweeter. Still soapy, but I get where that cardamom is when I’m comparing. But four hours later, 1957 leaves a dry down of what I actually want: soap, luxurious soap. Winner: It’s a draw. Which is good for Yardley because it’s magnitudes cheaper.

Second, it’s Versace’s The Dreamer, often compared to this on the site and elsewhere.

Let me first throw some shade on Versace: you’re telling me you have a zillion Eros Eau de Toilette flankers and you can’t make an EDP of this and have some shelf space for people like me to try it out? What the heck, man. Had to order a decant.

Okay, on initial spray, The Dreamer Eau de Toilette is exactly what I expected and feared: too much citrus. But it’s promising. If this dries down and gets rid of the lemon-ish tendencies, this might be good.

On drydown: *Systemshock’s eyes have bugged out. His mind’s eye emerges from a shower in the center of the sun. He is wordless. He will have a review of The Dreamer up once he claws instinctively at a bottle of this.*

People my age in the United States know what patchouli is. They might not know the name, the origin, the extraction method, but they know it. Why? Because one of every ten kids to 1960’s parents smelled like it. Their house smelled like it. They also listened to music that was 500% cooler than your parents’ music. They had the Dead Head on the back windshield. They knew how good the pianist for Phish was. Their kid had an innate Plus 7 Bonus to the Bass Player Skill and likely repped Primus in high school. They smoked weed is what I’m saying here, but it’s a particular kind of smoking weed: a post-hippie way of life. It wasn’t loved by non-hippies; that smell could cost you a job interview around here.

After years of exploring interesting fragrances, one thing to me was clear: avoid patchouli. I work in an office, and the context alone was contentious enough that you couldn’t go to work with it, but I didn’t like that smell either. I was on board with the metallic green edge of it, but the earthiness, unlike the earthy smokiness of vetiver, was just too much. It carried an internal connotation of BO and skunk joints. So when I learned about Sauvage EDP (not the EDT) in my post-Covid renewed search for scents, I steered clear. Obviously, this was The Bro Scent. I saw that commercial. Johnny Depp and an CG coyote did not make this look any better. And on top of all that, the official description shouted from the rooftops that it had god-darned patchouli. No thanks. But I couldn’t have been more wrong! The first sign was Guilty Absolute pour Homme: on its head, a leather-and-latex comfort zone with a little minerality, but in the background, a familiar sharp, green edge around the side of it.

I’ve formed a bit of an internal scale to measure scents. Not male to female, not designer to niche, but more a spectrum ranging from a Pure Blend to a Soliflore. A Pure Blend makes absolutely no notes stick out: the scent is its own thing, or it’s abstractly a scene. Your Clive Christians with a zillion notes. Bvlgari Man In Black with its sweet sophisticated black-tie accord. On the extreme opposite side, a soliflore is one simple note. Near the blends are your mostly blended things featuring a couple notes. Near the soliflores are the note expressions, the studies (or etudes if you’re musical) on one ingredient (or one supposed ingredient’s accord). That’s a Hibiscus Mahajád, a Guilty Absolute pour Homme with its leather accord front and-center.

Sauvage Eau de Toilette (the EDT) is on the blend side: a bit of a kaleidoscopic citrus edge to it. But Sauvage Eau de Parfum (the EDP) is more on the accord/note expression side of things, an etude in the clearness of fractioned patchouli. My stubborn nose stayed away from it due to the patchouli-note marketing long enough that I’d tested a zillion designer and niche scents and came back to it when I had nothing to do in an Ulta, returning some face thing my wife got. She thought this Messi Elixir was nice, and my impression of it was “it’s a little bit of patchouli with blue, but it’s weak and I bet it’s a bit like that Sauvage over there.” In confirming my suspicions I found myself knocked back, doing a triple take: this wasn’t what I’d expected at all. It had nothing to do with the many scents I’d see retroactively called a “Sauvage Clone” once I tried it. This was a ambrox-boosted reframing of patchouli for me, removing everything I couldn’t stand about it and loving everything I liked about it.

And so, I checked myself. Discussed some things I liked that shared the feeling I had with Sauvage EDP. And yeah, I was wrong: I never should have *supposedly* avoided patchouli, and I’d actually been enjoying it for years without knowing. I was so used to bad patchouli with bad other stuff in it: earthiness, hippie funk, the head-shop attempt at covering up a weed smell. The oily, round, buttery pungency I associated with patchouli oil is nowhere to be found here; instead, a little citrus sharpens patchouli’s often fuzzy lines. Pepper raises up the edge. Ambroxan (wrongfully maligned for something it isn’t) mediates and sweetens the deal just enough. Spices bolster the middle.

[Update 7/26: Bergamot - and I mean the peels, the Earl Grey Bergamot, has shown itself here in the past month. It’s an enjoyable thing - it reminds me of a good bar of bergamot-scented soap far more than tea or a dessert.]

And wait… then it hit me: what I had known as an old-school sandalwood accord had always been bolstered by this thing they had in common with Sauvage EDP: fractioned patchouli. My pursuit of every Santal 33 Eau de Parfum chaser in hopes of finding that old Sandalwood Cologne charm came up short, but here it was: in a thing that doesn’t really have sandalwood. That’s why I’m getting barbershop, dad juice, but this one just freaking works so well for me. Now I have a whole new genre to explore with patchouli. Look out, Patchouli Magnetik, I’m headed your way.

So I took that on my arm home with me. Checked it every hour. Checked it with my wife. Loved it. Wife loved it. Christ, had I really just smelled everything at a Neiman Marcus and went with friggin’ Sauvage; in a bottle so worn out that Ulta wrote “Sauvage Eau de Parfum” on white paper and taped it to the bottle; that’s what I opted for? Well look, competitively you can get the Big Bottle for less than those other ones so… well dang.

The drydown on me is comfortable, cooling and a little sweet and a little herbal. It’s on the shaving cream side, but not the shower gel side, if you get what I mean. The vanilla and ambrox plus the herbal cooling-ness of it almost evokes Sung Homme Eau de Toilette (modern version) which notoriously didn’t work on my skin as the sweetness ramped itself up to eleven and became a Sugar Coated Corpse on me. Here the blend just works on this skin.

Look, I love this. And maybe I just have terrible taste! It’s altogether possible. Don’t take the ramblings of an autistic reviewer as gospel. But because I’m not located in a big city or a high school or whatever, I hadn’t been over-exposed to this. By approaching Sauvage EDP as a been there, done that scent-seeker, I came to it with a blank slate and found an absolutely ingenious exploration of a note- so well-done that I’m on board with patchouli now. Put that String Cheese Incident album away, we’re wearing suits and ties tonight.

UPDATE 1: Apparently now something reminds my wife of Polo Green, which her dad wore. That checks out. I love Polo Green. Also, that’s a little weird. Oh well, her dad had three bottles: original Kouros, Polo Green, and Polo Blue. He had good taste!

Art. The heck is art, right? It's an argument older than the word itself. You'll know it when you see it, or hear it, or smell it maybe? Who determines what *isn't* art? Defining the word is enough to give you a Baccarat Rouge-sized headache. Maybe you could assume it's all art and then focus on "good art," but then you run the risk of generalizing your own preferences. For example, it's no coincidence that Heinrich Schenker, upon trying to unify all of the great works of music in one theory, wound up with a list of great works that were decidedly German and Austrian in origin. Is it about the purpose of the work? Some of the best things out there were created thanks to the monetary support of an all-powerful church, an aristocrat, a monarch. That's just business, whether it's resources, power, or both. Bach's Musical Offering would be "a product and not an artwork" in this scenario.

So what am I to do when I say that this bottle of smelly chemicals, created for a worldwide fashion brand who then selected Jared Leto of all people to be its spokesmodel, is a great work of art? Are the "noses," the perfumers, really that involved, or is this mostly Givaudan or IFF going "Look at our new chemical!" and then they do something with it? No no, Guilty Absolute is a great work of art. I feel it. I can't tell you why. I'll try, though:

Maybe I start with Reddit, hilariously enough. Alberto Morillas had an AMA thanks to - wait for it - a worldwide fashion brand, but this time it was Carolina Herrera. Morillas is old; he's not much of a social media user and he doesn't speak a zillion languages, so Herrera served as both translator and digital-stuff-assistant for him. And AMA's can be exploited: a company might just *speak for* some celebrity instead of actually sharing any genuine thoughts. But not here: Morillas made this and Dark Lord - Ex Tenebris Lux , so I had to ask about one of my favorite things, leather. I asked about the future of replicating leather through aromachemicals, mentioning that it's because he was responsible for Guilty Absolute and Dark Lord. He posted not only a detailed and thoughtful response, but a challenging one, describing his approach not as replication, but as expression. My question, at its foundation, wasn't enough. He gave credence to a little feeling in the back of my head that scents do have texture. He mentioned an almost spiritual dimension to leather that's more mineralic and abstract. He wanted to expand the "olfactory language" of leather. I came away from that reply not necessarily asserting that Morillas really knew his stuff (because what do *I* know?), but that his brain and mine were on the same wavelength about how wonderful a fragrance could be. He talks about putting together a scent the way I used to talk about practicing a musical instrument. Technical, intellectual, calculating, and all because of something emotional at its core.

And here we are with Guilty Absolute - a woody, luxurious cypress overlay atop a mineralic, alchemical, almost latex-like expression of leather. Something that fought nearly every trend of its time - dry, sharp, ancient, abstract, animalic in a world of sweet, rounded, pop-art and photorealistic baked-goods-and-fruits aromas selling big-time. I love just spraying this on my wrist and enjoying it throughout the day as it phases from the woods to smoke to hospital chairs and band-aids. It makes you think. It feels like someone's actual idea made manifest in a mass-produced good.

Guilty Absolute is definitely one person's aesthetic take - a person who knows the craft inside and out - and one that was so well-executed that I could feel the expressivity of it. A great work of art, I guess. Morillas isn't messing around; there are perfumers out there who really do spend their lives thinking, feeling, researching, exploring scents. Must be nice, but if anyone deserves it, I think Morillas does.

But also, for all the “band-aid” and “old hospital” outcry, this is such a comfort for me. A leathery, animalic cozy scent. My skin but better: but actually for me. My happy place, you know? When I have this on my arm and lie down at night, I’m at ease. What a thing. Expressive, unique, and cozy. But surely, hey wait a minute-

UPDATE 5/2026:

-oh! Well before I mentioned this might be inaccessible. But here’s a wonderful twist. I got the 150ml bottle of this thinking “This is leather and latex, my wife will hate it. Surely this will be one I enjoy on my own at work and such.”

Not so. My wife actually loved it. Thing is, she loves green scents, and I think the subtle cypress-ization on the top end wins out for her. Well, heck! She didn’t like Cuir Infrarouge but she likes this? Huh! Morillas nailed it more than I’d expected.

Endymion Concentré and its soft, understated, disappearing a bit soon suede got me earlier this year. It convinced me of two things: one, I really love leather. Two, leather is hideously underrepresented in modern fragrance. Can’t swing my arm without hitting a tonka bomb or an apple pie wannabe. Every stronger scent dries down to fake oud now. But leather? Can’t find it. Ombré Leather (2018) Eau de Parfum? All Ombré, no leather. Vibrant Leather (2018) Eau de Parfum? I mean, it’s vibrant, sure, but that’s it. Where’s the Leather Bomb, the Leather Punch In The Nose?

Perhaps it’s the bans. I’m, well, mostly vegetarian, so I like that I can wear a fragrance and know nothing died for it to happen, but the old classics that used to exude leather just aren’t it anymore. They’ve lost their charm, their potency. And the modern takes using Suederal and the like haven’t impressed me, except that the bold Guilty Absolute pour Homme was discontinued too soon, a hell of a work of art! And Vintage, similarly medicinal, fades too fast. The Boss Bottled flankers with a leather aromachemical - the one that’s used in Bad Boy Elixir, for sure - treats it with way too much pungent, hippie-adjacent incense for me.

But here, in the least likely of places, right on the shelf next to Bad Boy Cobalt Elixir, the apple pie sugar bomb monstrosity- we have a winner.

Leather is the focus here - you’ve seen this suede before. If not in the stuff I mentioned, then maybe on the backend of the bewildering "Paradigme | Prada". But as you do in perfumery, you take one note and you do stuff to the edges. With Endymion Concentré, you soften leather with warm spices and liven it up with lavender. Here, it’s a bolder move - the dry chemical iris out of Dior Homme Parfum (2024) kicks it off, but underneath is a rounded, almost salty suede. Chocolate, but more like the savory cocoa in a molé, mediates the leather. And then the iris subsides into a support role at the top with some herbs and you’ve got a leather that I can actually wear for once. Bold, yes, but not overly smoky, or sweet, or bolstered with fake oud. Just a good leather. And that’ll jump off my skin for a few hours before drying down to a calmer, sweeter skin scent. But those first hours? There’s something phenolic, Laphroaig-esque about it. Love that.

Let’s get something out of the way: the bottle is ridiculous. It’s the Nickelback of bottles, the Fred Durst, the Papa Roach of bottles! A big lightning bolt. Heck, the name of this line is awful! Worst thing this side of This Is Him! Undressed. But this punches far above its personality: a good strong leather, finally.