cesardiosXO

Maxaroma had a large restock of Aaron's fragrances some weeks back and I finally scored a bottle of Censored Elixir (fka Hard Candy Elixir). I previously owned a 10 ml bottle from before the name change, but now that I have a recent bottle I can't help but feel the scent is a bit different.

Despite the large note breakdown, Censored Elixir has honestly always come across to me as a smooth and creamy vanilla ice cream scent. If I were to really squint my eyes I could say I also get a slight nondescript fruitiness and some mint, but for the most part the vanilla and tonka bean are the most noticeable notes. I do personally think this is a JPG Le Male/Ultra Male DNA adjacent fragrance, although the largest differences lie in the quality of the raw materials (Aaron's fragrances are admittedly quite synthetic but none of the ones I've tried have ever been as screechy as the Le Male line to my nose, especially Ultra Male) and performance, which is well known to be excellent across Aaron's entire lineup.

The difference I'm noticing with my new bottle compared to the 10 ml I used to own is that Censored Elixir now has a very prominent sugary amber smell in the dry down. It's worth noting I sold my 10 ml months ago so I'm going off of my memory of the scent, so for all I know I could be wrong but perhaps people with far more experience with the fragrance, especially batches across several years, could corroborate if my suspicions about a change are true or not. I remember the scent staying as the bright and creamy vanilla scent from the opening, not really changing at all as it dried. I remember Aaron explicitly saying the formulation stayed the same, that it would only be changing names, but it's not unreasonable to think it could have naturally received very mild "reformulations" as a result of raw material unavailability or a change in suppliers.

That being said I still enjoy Censored Elixir and I think it's Aaron's best fragrance, tied with Tabac Extreme, although to be fair I haven't tried that many fragrances of his so far. I'm still curious to try the original Censored, as well as Slut and Slut Elixir, which most people say are very similar to one another. Perhaps one of these might have what I'm looking for in terms of the fragrance's opening but without the ambery smell from the dry down, which I don't like too much.

Russian Coriander is the second discontinued Clive Christian from the Noble collection that I buy for my curated mini collection (you're next Cedar Leaf) and, although I paid basically double what I paid for Papyrus, I think this is a really nice fragrance. I haven't smelled 1872 in a while but this does remind me of it, although 1872 had a noticeable spiciness that reminded me of the original Absolu Aventus.

Russian Coriander opens with a sharp and almost pungent coriander (color me surprised) over mossy citruses, particularly grapefruit. It's a bit overwhelming and the early opening does come across very green and vegetal, yet also bright and juicy, but thankfully the coriander doesn't stick around so pungently for long, after around 15 minutes or so it greatly decreases to let the grapefruit shine a bit more, as well as the oakmoss and some clary sage. After some time I detect something like what I call "petrol leather" up close on skin, but dosed low enough that it isn't distasteful or unbalanced, but at the same time it doesn't really smell like leather to me at all either. Overall it's a really nice fragrance but probably not worth how much I paid for it ($360 approximately).

In terms of performance this is considerably better than 1872 so it kind of lets me justify the price. Projection is moderate to strong and this projects for several hours instead of drying down to a skin scent in about 2 hours. Sillage is also more dense and persistent, I've been able to smell myself all day without much issue but also not too strongly. Longevity is really good too as this does go for a good 8 hours. It probably won't last as long as Papyrus but it's still a great longevity for a freshie.

My latest obsession revolves around curating a small collection with one fragrance of each "chapter" of Clive Christian's Noble collection, and I decided to take a gamble with an Ebay seller (highticketitems) that seems to specialize on Clive Christians and Liquides Imaginaires. Thankfully the bottle is authentic and the price I bought it for was an absolute steal considering this is a discontinued fragrance and being in the midst of CC's peak popularity, being only $170 (it's been since upped to $200 as of the time I'm writing this).

On to the fragrance itself, Papyrus is a fougère and a really good one at that. The opening is lead by bright and sharp notes of galbanum and basil, which are quite uplifting and contrast extremely well with the dark base of the fragrance. The lavender and tonka bean you'd expect in any fougère are also quite present, but they have a more "dense" and "compact" texture compared to other fougères, such as Beau de Jour (for example, which was a fougère I used to own and know quite well). Papyrus, as you might imagine from the name, has papyrus, which gives the scent a herbaceous and dry greenness, and it alongside the woods in the base give off a distinctly dark and dry vibe to me.

Don't get me wrong, this is still a relatively bright and fresh fragrance, but this is so much denser and darker compared to other fougères, which are so bright and refreshing that they're invigorating and feel like an ice cold drink during a summer day, or more appropriately like the refreshing feel of walking out of a barbershop with a clean haircut and shave. I do think Papyrus leans a bit "old school", I'm perfectly aware a scent like this would be far more suitable for a successful middle aged man who has his priorities straight instead of a 23 year old like me, but nonetheless I think this does have a certain timelessness to it like many other Clive Christians. It's in this sense I think you'll appreciate Papyrus more if you have a nose for classic perfumery, as well as obviously Clive Christian's fragrances and fougères in general.

Performance was a big surprise, especially in terms of longevity. Projection seems to be strong at first, as when I tried this yesterday with a single test spray on my arm my mom told me she could smell it from across the living room from me. Sillage is on the denser side as I could smell that same spray very noticeably and consistently for a few hours after spraying it on. It seems I'm unfortunately anosmic to something that's used in this fragrance, as I gave it a full wear today and it was considerably "weaker" than the test spray from yesterday, but I most likely did accustom my nose to the scent given how dense it was and the fact it was quite hot today. Longevity goes upwards of 12 hours, as I could still smell the test spray on my arm the next day, despite the inevitable rubbing I must have done during my sleep.

UPDATE - Two months later

I gave Prince of Persia v2 another go and I could definitely appreciate it more this time, however I'm still not a big fan of it. Right after spraying this on the dominating scent was that of extremely overripe, practically rotten fruits, going slightly into an acetic acid-like smell. It thankfully doesn't last for more than a few minutes before going away and allowing for the oud and florals to come through. Up close, the oud still has that distinctly chocolatey and musky aspect to it which greatly reminds me of Maksim's Oud Indochine, although unfortunately it only lasts for a brief few minutes during the opening. I find this specific element of the oud to be the best thing about PoP v2, I find it quite intoxicating.

My initial gripe with PoP v2 was that this smelled mostly like oud to me, but I think letting it sit for over two months allowed the fragrance to "age" a bit more and let the florals come out more, because this time I do notice the rose distinctly in the fragrance's sillage. It's neither a red nor a green rose to my nose, rather it is being enveloped by the oud's fermented nature and some slight green undertones, probably from something like the listed cypress notes, which makes the rose come off "brown", like looking at an extremely old photo of a bouquet of roses. Smelling PoP v2 up close it is very dry and resinous, not to mention very different from how it smells in the sillage where you can detect the floral notes. I still can't shake the association I made with PoP v2 smelling like tequila but it's less obvious than it seemed to be the first time I tried this. As a result I'll improve the scent's score from a 4 to a 6.

Performance is something that also surprised me, as this turned out to be a rather strong fragrance. I only sprayed my arm twice and that was enough to fill up my living room. It isn't so strong that you'll end up gassing your house like with some of Amouage's Extraits but you will fill up a room or two with this, and it'll be especially noticeable if you walk out of the room for a while and go back in. This also never fully became a skin scent on me, I've been catching whiffs of this constantly since I sprayed it on last night. Longevity is excellent at an easy 12+ hours but it makes sense given the type of scent that it is.

ORIGINAL REVIEW

Bought a 15 ml bottle of the new Prince of Persia v2 and I genuinely wish I could go back in time and buy a sample first. While the raw material quality is undeniably there, the price is extremely steep for such a linear scent, being $365 for a 15 ml.

The scent itself is a very oudy oud with touches of oud. Despite it having a laundry list of notes quite similar to the v1 here, the full gram of kinam oud oil is so incredibly pervasive I would have thought this was purely an oud fragrance if I didn't see the notes beforehand. "Georgian Royal Rose otto", "white rose otto", "orris", "blue lotus", "bulgarian rose", to name a few, are among the listed notes of the fragrance, but this is not floral in the slightest, although I could see this coming off like a dried and shriveled up nondescript floral bouquet, what you'd imagine as part of the decoration of a haunted house. I was expecting to smell a beautiful floral, maybe slightly green oud but unfortunately it's not much else but oud, I probably should have opted for Fiber v2 as that is indeed a pure oud fragrance (for the most part, as it also has "black meat sandalwood") (although I shouldn't have bought any Lost Tribe in the first place and instead bought Ambre de Coco as I originally intended).

The oud itself is at its most interesting in the opening seconds, showing a deep richness you could only find in fragrances that use the real deal. The oud comes off chocolatey and musky, it greatly reminded me of Maksim Bortnikoff's Oud Indochine, although nowhere near as potent and missing the fecal aspect.

I was expecting PoP v2 to be animalic in a restrained way, more animalic than the entry level ouds obviously but not as much as the aforementioned Oud Indochine or something like Royal Barn, but it isn't really animalic at all, in fact, after the initial blast sadly disappears, this comes off very tequila/cooked agave-like to my nose. Being a chemical engineer hailing from Jalisco, Mexico I've visited multiple tequila factories and have a great knowledge of how agave smells and tastes when it's cooked, and this oddly smells a lot like that after a few minutes. The scent retains a strong woody profile and I do notice a pepperiness consistent with the listed pepper note, while also having a somewhat resinous and almost dusty character. Once PoP v2 reaches this stage there's nothing else to it, and while it's not bad per se it is incredibly disappointing for such a mind-bogglingly expensive fragrance per ml.

After my first impressions on paper yesterday, I made Harrow my scent of the day today and it was quite enjoyable.

The scent itself is very well blended and the notes seemed to blur with one another even more on my skin compared to on paper where I could single them out a bit easily, so I'll try my best to describe what I smelled. Harrow seems to be mostly a vanilla-iris fragrance with touches of tobacco, clove, cacao and smoke, in that order from most to least noticeable. It's a sweet scent but not in a saccharine way and it definitely isn't cloying, sticky or syrupy at all, so people who are mindful of the sweetness of their fragrances shouldn't worry.

Harrow is a bit linear but there are two elements I found noteworthy about the scent. During the opening half an hour or so there's a light boozy edge to the fragrance, a bit whiskey-like, which I personally find very appealing. The second element shows after a few hours into the dry down, where the skin scent develops a metallic, almost mentholated greenish smell that, while I'm not sure what's causing it, I find it likeable and it doesn't "intrude" or make the skin scent come across weird at all. Other than these two things I don't think the scent really changes at all. Even though I like Harrow I don't really see myself keeping it, it doesn't have that X factor that makes me want to wear it repeatedly.

Performance is pretty good overall. Projection is strong but with a rather light sillage. I felt this wasn't projecting much since this didn't feel that dense in the air around me, so earlier today I asked my mom if she could smell me being a few feet away from me in the living room and she said yes, but not that strongly. I was quite surprised by this as I thought it would be the type of fragrance that makes an intimate bubble around you but it does push outward a fair bit, just not too densely. Despite sillage being light I have been catching whiffs of this all afternoon long. Longevity is a good 8+ hours but it's not that strong on my skin anymore.
UPDATE: This lasts absolutely forever on clothes. The sleeve of my pijama caught some of this from a spray I did several days ago and when I sniff the sleeve I can still smell it, not very strongly but quite noticeable. Same with the shirt I wore the day I gave this a full wear, the collar still smells a lot like Harrow and it's been weeks.