Zeka

If you've ever been to a Christmas market, this is the smell you can easily recognize. I've read the other reviews here but I couldn't completely agree with any of these. In this fragrance you can small hot mulled (spiced) wine, apple cinnamon pie and vanilla. The most prominent in the opening is the spicy Pimento aroma (i.e. smell that can be described as a mixture of cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon with the accent on cloves). One of the aroma chemicals listed in the ingredients - Eugenol also has this cloves smell. Therefore, the opening resembles spiced wine including relatively small amounts of citrus and grapefruit aroma chemicals. After some time you get more of an "apple pie" feel, where cloves (pimento) are not so prominent now, but cinnamon and vanilla-almond (coumarin-benzyl benzoate). What is left in the base is nice balsamic/woody skin scent. To summarize, this is a very very nice winter spicy/gourmand formulation! Even though I am a big fan of fresh fragrances I have to appreciate a very nice blend. Really good one - winter in a bottle. Cheers!

Cassiopea is definitely a female fragrance. I could not imagine wearing this one, but I find it quite potent and sexy on my wife. As one can anticipate from the notes list, this fragrance is very fruity, sweet and floral. Top notes are relatively fresh, with passion fruit being the most prominent one. Generally I like blackcurrant in perfumes, it is quite an unique note, but I can hardly detect it here. After the initial fruity blast one can smell the sweet-floral heart on a creamy woody-musc base. To me the fragrance smells very natural and well blended. The longevity and sillage are great so be careful on the sprayer. In the same time this could also be a negative thing. My wife actually gave up of wearing this one because it is too strong and "aggressive" even with only a couple of sprays so that she doesn't enjoy wearing it. I would not agree that it smells fresh and clean. For example, if you imagine Chanel Chance eau fraiche being a fresh fragrance, Cassiopea is nowhere near. It is much sweeter and heavier formulation. We should maybe give it a one more chance, but it could be that we are going to get rid of this one. Oh yea, the presentation and the bottle are great, but I think that you really have to love this fragrance to get over the price tag.

I think I've had or tried pretty much the whole Luna Rossa line, and I can not say that this one is either better or worse than the others. It starts with these days quite a "standard" citrus-pink pepper combo and this opening is very similar to the new Davidoff Cool water parfum which I quite like. These two are actually very similar, laying on a woody base with maybe more musc in the LR Ocean. The LR Ocean has some aroma chemicals (or their combo) in the heart which are a bit unpleasant to my nose but I can not identify which note gives this effect. The iris note that you can find in the Fragrance Notes is not prominent, and I can hardly recognize it. Anyway, amounts are nowhere near the Prada L'homme or Dior Homme etc. where the powdery iris (and iris-like aroma chemicals) are quite dominant. I must say that I have a feeling that the Cool Water-parfum is better blended and I can not help myself but to compare these two all the time. I also think that CW has a slightly better performance, especially when taking the price into account CW would definitely be the winner in this duel. These two are also similar and could be an alternative to the new Dior Homme 2020, again citrus-pepper-woody(vetiver)-fresh masculine notes, but I would say Dior (Demachy) has done it way better. Nevertheless, LR Ocean is a nice modern fresh-masculine fragrance but not original or unique in any way.

I've never loved Dior Homme line simply because I've never been able to correlate that sweet, powdery scent with the name "Homme". These scents don't correlate with my point of view of what "masculine" in perfumery means. The first time I smelled DH 2020, I was so surprised and happy that Dior finally made really woody, fresh, masculine scent that is comparable to Terre or some Guerlain male fragrances. DH 2020 is to me waaay more masculine than the original one, and to my taste light years ahead of Sauvage. If Sauvage were 20 years old boy, DH 2020 would be 35 years old gentleman! I love the vetiver note especially when combined with the fresh citrus notes and other woods. It is understandable that many people are "offended" by this reformulation but I think the original Homme line shouldn't have been named "Homme" in the first place. Don't get me wrong, this line is/was unique and maybe one of the best releases in the designer world, but as I said I don't find them particularly masculine. I hope that Dior will keep the old fragrances available for many years to come, but in the same time I love this new direction that started with DH2020. I love the scent! The two recent releases Prada LR Ocean and Davidoff CW parfume have a quite a similar idea behind, but not so well executed. Anyway, if you look for something quite similar but cheaper I would go for these two alternatives.

I've never been a big fan of the Cool water line but for some reason I quite like this one. I respect what I get for quite a low price. The comparison with Invictus and Sauvage is in place, but if I have to choose I would rather go for Cool Water Parfum. CWP doesn't have that synthetic harsh opening of Sauvage edt and my nose simply enjoys the fresh-sweet i.e. lemon-pepper combo with quite a masculine woody base underneath. There is nothing exceptional or original about this fragrance, but it could be worn pretty much anytime-anywhere. It could be a very good choice for younger males without too much money for the expensive fragrances. It smells fresh, clean, woody and masculine. Again, don't expect anything extraordinary, but when taking the price into account, this is a great release in this cheapy category.