ThomC

... yes, if you have grown up from childhood on with mummy's extra load of soft underwear and good German Persil. Yes, then one associates such scents as Prada L'Homme as clean, positive, pink childhood, Saturday evening shower, fresh laundry, German middle class, intact world. Resistance is futile, naggers are spoilsports anyway. But I do like a subtle nagging, like holding up a mirror. According to the motto: Don't make yourself too comfortable in your cuddly comfort zone, because nothing is safe there either. There is no help in the fluffy soft, clean persil fragrances that accompany the receptive souls to their deathbed.
As for the fragrance: for me, there is no fragrance in my portfolio that looks as smooth and edgeless as Prada L'Homme. But this on a high level. And that's exactly what annoys me: with very good perfumery craftsmanship and a lot of highly professional marketing claptrap, people here try to cuddle and pat and color glasses pink with a lack of vision that is second to none. Prada L'Homme offers no surprises whatsoever - (which in turn surprises me), just a lot of chumming up VW Golf consensus, for which many are happy to pay a little more. For the good feeling.
Yes, yes, the fragrance itself: the most beautiful iris with forget-me-not flowers inside and the discreet office scent around it. By the way: it's this kind of discreet office scent that only the pale office man in the lower hierarchy dares to wear, so that it doesn't attract the unpleasant attention of those upstairs ("Mr. Schulze, what are you wearing today?!?") - and possibly ruin the next career round for which he's been waiting for so long. No, then rather the Gulf of Prada - so be on the safe side - because it is reliable, you know what you have and you please everybody. Bingo!
But I have to give this fragrance credit for being incredibly durable, for a subtle "don't want to be noticed" scent, it asserts itself amazingly well between other oud and lapidus breakers, which temporarily emit parallel vapours on my forearms. As already said: technically and contentwise absolutely well done in rather doubtful perfection. But all this goodwill doesn't help me with this fragrance in the end: I have ripped it off. The child has fallen into the well. My learning effect? Priceless! Thanks Prada.

* for noses that also love Dior "Sauvage"
* the music to the fragrance ---> The super hits of the 70s, 80s and 90s

I have been convinced for quite some time that the people at Bogart in Paris are discreetly self-ironic. I mean, to create a perfume that is kitsch-associatively called "Riviera Nights", packed in an unadorned 90s flacon without any conspicuousness - you have to have that much minimal taste first. But less is often more and we all know that Bogart's products always stand for handwriting and certain idiosyncrasies. They haven't really thrown out real flops on the market, according to my perceived truth. But I dare to doubt that "Riviera Nights" must have been a huge success - the company from Paris certainly has quite different market hits in its portfolio than this one. Reason enough to take a close look at it (for this very reason).
To be honest, I wouldn't want to miss it anymore. "Riviera Nights" is a quiet, office fragrance, a light summery perfume without frills. The name does all the associative work. It's a workhorse. But it is anything but a synthetic or even aquatic, because the Riviera Nights has nothing of that. Bogart's typical strong individual scents, all stuck in their place, are well composed, and with an astonishing sense of style that says: don't attract attention - just to attract attention! Dark citrus notes, dried fruit. The spiciness comes from grated nutmeg, and in the drydown a strangely rough earthiness like freshly mixed plaster. I also like his Sillage better than his opening. Only - in contrast to other Bogart traditions - it doesn't last very long on the skin. That may be okay. His field of application should not be.

Scenario for this: Saint-Tropez. Holiday bungalow. Midsummer. He's just coming off the beach in a sweat. She, his secret lover of 25 years, sends him to the nearest Intermarché. Shopping for dinner. Shortly before closing time, he no longer feels like taking a quick shower. Sprays "Rivera Nights" on his white half wet shirt. He smells quite good now. She thinks so. He's leaving. So he can be seen and smelled in the Intermarché. That's what she said to him. Give him a quick one. She's got it all figured out. He thinks so. Riviera Nights.

...he'd be "Lapidus pour Homme Black Extreme" by Ted Lapidus. The old comrade-boss basta chancellor, boxed from the bottom to the top, with balls in his pants, natural brainwax and firm elbows in a Brioni suit. In short: a real wide-legged guy, who today still has no desire for a Bieder-German Jack Wolfskin retirement, but still lets it crack with a certain "lick-me-all" attitude. Gazprom activity, Putin friend and much younger new attractive Asian at his side. He doesn't care! Hats off, I say! Guys like that - extinct as dinosaurs. Lapidus pour Homme Black Extreme" also seems so edgy and chunky and I am sure it would fit the old gas-garden as well as Putin the flawless anti-democrat. For some time I thought about which of the two Ted Lapidus Homme would fit better to Schröder? The old (grey) 1987 version of Ted Lapidus "pour Homme" or the ingeniously modernized black Extreme version of 2012. I decided for the latter, because I wouldn't even trust the former chancellor in his jaunty old-fashionedness to use a nearly 35 year old perfume for that long. But Aventus and various oud scents wouldn't suit him either. Hence my decision to stylistically subordinate the "Lapidus pour Homme Black Extreme" in the thought construct to him. A fragrance that is so striking and animalistic and seems to have fallen out of the current social consensus to such an extent that it would not be acceptable for many of these gender-neutral whiny vegan men today. That's it! If edges remain among themselves, an orderly retreat into the subculture!
I rarely wear it myself, but I like it when I show an inner "fuck you" attitude. I would certainly not have been brushed on consensus on that day.
The Black Extreme is very space demanding. It certainly doesn't want to please the mainstream. A black iceberg, of which only the upper quarter can be seen, and then you basically underestimate it. On the paper strip, it rolls over everything that gets in its way olfactorically and without any trouble. Bam, bam, bam! Juniper, imitation leather, black pepper, Amazing also the often noticed urinal notes. Yep! That's it! I've never smelled like this before with other perfumes - brave to cultivate them in the modernized Back Extreme version, even to expand on them. Those at Ted Lapidus know how to be stubborn. Sympathetic. They probably read the 1300 page Gerhard Schröder biography. Not me, I only got to page 1000. His perfumes were never mentioned anywhere in it, I just wanted to say...

Not a good first impression: the cheap-looking plastic cap falls into three parts when first opened. Whew! I haven't had it yet either. Well, time to have a look at the cap. And once again I realize that one should distinguish between: a) quality plastic or b) cheap plastic. Other manufacturers get other qualities for 25 Euro - Boucheron seems not to succeed. Then the equation that more money would be pumped from the production costs into the perfume, one can hope - this has not always been true for me in the past! My visual statement about flacon design: stuck in the late 80s. It can stand for everything, but it doesn't set any accents that are worth remembering.
The "Jaïpur homme" is a recommendation blind purchase, which I like to do in this price range, and a very strange one at that, because I could not smell it at first. Whoops, what's going on there?! Okay, after all, a boldly loud citrus bergamot scent, a scent I find extremely difficult to deal with, just like my (admittedly rather platitudinous) motto: citrus scents belong in cleaning products for the bathroom, in lollipops and maybe even in fine cocktails (then please in rye sour! Please! Thank you!). But I don't want to smell like that!
But after the head-citrus prelude nothing came. So we went to Parfumo and were astonished what the community from the "Jaïpur homme" could smell. On my skin it's just an indefinable, soft tangle of sweet feminine scents, no twist or other nice twist that captivates me. Nope!
My extremely unprofessional, philistine trick, which I like to do in such cases, is to hold a hair dryer on the skin and thus anticipate a temporal development in time lapse. This made the "Jaïpur homme" blossom a bit: a few Christmas spices were visible, everything was kept discreet, the foamy sugar smell was like white meringue, always quite elegant, hardly any screaming, the citrus notes hardly noticeable. There is no thought of a down-to-earth Jacques Bogart club - the Jaïpur thinks it is better - but in the end it is not, because it lacks that certain spark. His appearance is also a false Fuffziger: he wants to be upper class, but can only deliver a cheap cap that immediately disintegrates. And yet: he is unique and quiet. I like that. I count the "Jaïpur homme" among the few so-called "infrasound fragrances" (© by ThomC), which subconsciously olfactorically waft in front of you. Those that one feels rather than smells and still take up space. Ferrari's grandiose "Amber Essence" for example is one of those, but more about that sometime.
And yet I wonder how and when I should wear the Jaïpur? It seems more feminine than masculine, it is not even unisex by my definition. I'll probably have to learn this fragrance for some time - or forget it again. Difficult in a time when I'm currently celebrating the old warhorses from the 70s.

Music to the fragrance: Ian Pooles "Followed" [1998]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YI8YOnItzdI

First of all: this stuff is brutal! Whoever sprays it on the cardboard strip will be surprised why it still smells recognizably like "Stone for Him" after a week. Much more expensive brews are less persistent in this respect, just so much more.
How do I get the cheap fragrances from Replay of all places, where I never liked their jeans back in the 90s? Well, the point of reference is perfumer Luca Maffei, who already offered "Alyssa Ashley's Oud Pour Lui", a real niche fragrance for a lot of money and which I still consider a small highlight of my collection. All this is now almost a year ago. At that time I immediately bought some other scents from Maffei, because I was interested (as a perfume newcomer) whether a certain signature of his scents could be recognized in other brands. I didn't really like "Stone for Him" at that time - my Aventus ISO-E Super Wave just ebbed away noticeably, there had to be other fragrances than the standard Douglas mush. But "Stone for Him" was too strong, too pungent, even too soapy! At that time soapiness was rather unpleasant to me and I couldn't understand that it was actually a classic stylistic device of masculine scents from the 70s. So the real scent guys with eggs, chest hair and gold chains without that modern touch of male self-doubt and androgyny of today's vegan men.
"Stone for Him" is for me an extremely successful interpretation of this heavy 70s block. No chumming up zeitgeist of interchangeable Sauvage shower fragrances, but the will to stand out. Various kitchen spices, heavy resins, this Maffei-typical incense and clove and a lot of black cardamom! Caution: it's crazy intense - two small sprayers are enough for everything, otherwise you shouldn't have any more space problems in a full tram.
No idea which target group the Italian Replay basically has as a clothing brand - think a rather under thirty-year-old. If that were the case, "Stone for Him" would have been designed to appeal to this age group, because such a blatantly eye-catching perfume is worn by men in their mid-40s - someone who can still feel what the 70s were like, as a child, as an adolescent.
Perfect for the autumn walk, it smells like an autumn campfire, as a pleasure-seeking work colleague blurted out joyfully when I held him "Stone for Him" under my nose. And in the beginning I thought the fragrance was a better and more striking version of "1 Million" - but I moved away from that.
Often you can't wear it, too special. But a value-for-money hammer is always "Stone for Him". It's a pity that no one here has tested it yet.
PS. presumably the people in charge at Replay did not quite trust their concept with "Stone for Him" and as a precaution they threw a mainstream Sauvage clone after it: "Stone Supernova For Him". Now it has nothing to do with Maffei's "Stone for Him" anymore. I have it for interest, but I don't use it and soon I'll give it away to the pubescent offspring.