Creed Green Irish Tweed....

First, let me address the prospect of fakes. Before buying a bottle I researched quite a bit online and did indeed find a lot of complaints about fakes. Because of that I purchased mine directly from the Creed Boutique when visiting NYC. So here is my review of the cologne, knowing that it is the real deal and not a copycat.

GIT is my go to cologne. It is perhaps the best "signature" cologne I have ever smelled. My sniffer does not get tired of it, which it does with almost any other scent. Also, the projection, staying power, and atomizer are as good as any frag I have ever purchased.

I am not great at explaining scents, so I will lean on the terms everyone else uses like grassy, earthy, with a touch of pepper. However, let me say there is an air of refinement and subtlety when compared to the average bottle of cologne you would pick up at your local apothecary. There is just something...more to it. It rests well on the skin. It hits your nose at the right moments. The dry down is exceptional. It is always a treat. Confidence in a bottle.

So let me get to the meat of the matter and explain why this is my signature cologne. It is versatile, it can be worn in an office setting or out to dinner with friends. It is unassuming yet confident. With all due respect it is not CoolWater, it is much more refined. Comparing this cologne to Coolwater is like comparing a Honda to a Bentley. There is no real comparison in what you are getting. Are the scents vaguely the same? Yes. Does a well tailored Italian suit look vaguely the same as suits from The Men's Wearhouse? Yes. There however is a big difference.

One final note. Many talk about how this is such a common fragrance. Well, maybe among the elite it is, or the urbanites of Manhattan, but among common folk around the Midwest, where I live, it is not. Acqua Di Gio is a common scent, most people haven't even heard of GIT. I am quite happy with it in general, and it will be the cologne I wear most for quite a while.

Some general questions and answers:
Is it overpriced? Yes.
Does the quality justify being charged a king's ransom: Yes
Is all the marketing hype about all the stars who have worn this real? Probably not.
Does it matter in the scheme of things? Nope
Will you be happy with this cologne: Only you can answer that

I'm not a scent guy and I had never even heard of Creed until about a year ago, but I love this scent. I bought samples of most of the Creeds and many less expensive brands to compare. I found most of the popular expensive scents to be very nice, but too "unisex" and powdery for me. GIT has a fresh sweet scent, but I can't imagine a woman wearing it. Initially I thought I would just purchase Cool Water because it actually smells better to me when it's first applied, but after wearing GIT a few times I realized it's so much better as it dries down. Luckily it seems to last quite awhile on me and it's nice to catch a whiff later in the day. The only other Creed I like is Aventus which is very unique and a much less safe scent to me.

I have read the other posts and it seems I am the odd man out!!

I just cannot warm up to this stuff. It smells one dimensional and the staying power is short on me. I guess its poor chemistry between me and the fragrance. I'll pass!

One of the best! A landmark scent that opened the door to all of the "aquatic" scents that now crowd the market. Expensive, but actually worth the money if you truly want to enjoy the way you smell (unless you are satisfied with Davidoff's Cool Water, a much less expensive copy crafted by the same fragrance designer). Fresh, clean, spearmint with a nice presence that is not overpowering (unless you want to over do it).

Recently grabbed a 1 oz bottle of this stuff for $70. I love getting things for half price!

Sniffing GIT for the first time ever was quite an experience. At first, I thought I'd been duped with a fake. The top was a bit jarring, explosive, almost alcoholic green (saved by hints of lemon and verbena). Not what I expected. Certainly can understand the infamous Cool Water comparison regarding that top. Of course, in the top and brief stages of the middle, this likeness rapidly fades, and is replaced with a stunningly smooth blend of violet leaf and sandalwood in the base.

The number on my bottle indicates it's from '01, so it's a tad old and there are some tiny flecks of sediment in the fluid. Perhaps the top is a tiny bit degraded and therefore extra "green". But then I drove to a separate merchant - who I knew for a fact had real GIT - and asked if I could do a spray comparison test. The scents matched. And as time goes by, I'm loving this more and more.

Bottom line is, I don't like the top nearly as much as the base. The sparkly green and yellow opening is a bit craggy to my nose, especially for something at this price point. But the dry down is truly divine. It's unmistakable quality, and entirely Creed.

One thing: I find with this comparisons to two fragrances, actually. Cool Water and Grey Flannel. The top is somewhat similar to Cool Water (but much greener - maybe closer to Bowling Green), while GIT's drydown is very similar to the base of Grey Flannel, which I am test-stripping as I write this. Again, GIT is smoother than the Beene offering, but for a tenth of the price, I would go with the Flannel instead. The quality is also there in equal spades, and although it isn't as smoothly blended, the overall effect creates a difference that is negligible.

As with all Creeds, quality of ingredients, complexity, and atomizer rate well, although this actually isn't the most complex Creed out there. I'm surprised by how straightforward the evolution of greens to violet leaves and wood is. No dancing spices, no shimmering citrus beyond what lurks in the opening. I bought mine to take with me to Dublin in December for a brief trip. Should be fun!





..

Top Notes: French verbena, Florentine iris
Middle Notes: Violet leaves
Base Notes: Sandalwood from Mysore, ambergris

It starts off like a lemon COOL WATER except more subtle with a slight flowery note. Then it changes from the COOL WATER note to a violet smell. The violet keeps it fresh and an improvement over cool water. The violet then mixes with the Sandalwood/Ambergris and we are off to the races. This is my favorite. I got rid of my Cool Water stash.

To my pedestrian nose, this scent and Cool Water do have a lot in common. Where GIT shows its superiority is at the base - when CW falls apart, GIT has reached my favorite aspect of its evolution. GIT has decent staying power on me and I enjoy its base notes very much.

That said, is GIT seven or eight times better than CW, as its price would indicate? Not to me. Cool Water is just fine when I want a marine-type scent.

This is not only the most counterfeited men's frag on the market, it's also the most overrated.

If you must have a Creed, I would urge you to check out Vintage Tabarome or Bois du Portugal - two scents that are absolutely sublime and worth the backbreaking price the House demands.

Oh yeah - I had a wardrobe sampler of Pecksniffs that I ended up selling to a WTB poster on the BST - I'm not sure I thought the Foguere was superior, though I liked it. I prefer Pecksniffs Orientals.

I've used GIT for years. I've tried a few of the Creeds, and this one works best on me. Good longevity.

I always get annoyed when I see it referenced as smelling a lot like Cool Water since Cool Water was clearly a ripoff of this superior scent.

The Basenoters always rank it very highly for good reason. Very interesting, always evolving very masculine scent.

My personal pet peeve is the opaque black bottle. I hate not seeing how much cologne I have left.

They also make a bar soap. It's pricey and hard to find but fantastic.

Don't get me started on the GIT aftershave balm. It too is outrageously priced, but oh man oh man- what a creamy decadent delightful end to a shave.

If you use GIT and are a B&B kinda guy, pop at least once for the aftershave balm. It's heaven.

I've also noted it's a heavily counterfeited frag due to high cost and there are many people who think the counterfeiters simply create fake packaging and fill it with Cool Water. I've seen fakes in a few of the mom 'n pop beauty supply stores I frequent. Make sure you get it from a reputable source.

Creed is certainly the king of fragrances in the traditional sense (not of course including niche houses).

Price: one of the most expensive, but not the most expensive. A one ounce decant should be affordable to most people.

Quality: Creed uses top notch ingredients such as ambergris

Scent: GIT begins like Cool Water but progresses to a much more complex drydown with musk and ambergis that is almost entirely different than it starts.

Complexity: scent changes over time and settles well

Staying power: I can smell it after a full day of work

Atomizer: Unknown

I ordered some from Fragrancenet.com it arrived today and I love it.

It just works so well with my skin chemistry and I think it is a unique and complex scent.

I also love it because no-one else has it where I live!

Green Irish Tweed...Classic. It's a genuine delight to wear, always puts me in a good mood. The opening thrill of citrus, drying down to what smells like controlled nature. Quite green, the violet and iris are subtle enough not to dominate. It is delicately constructed on a millesime base which solidly stands as a good foundation. Whenever I don't know what to wear, I always reach for this one, and I'm never disappointed.

This is the fragrance I use in small doses at pulse points to counter balance drier, spicier fragrances. It's an excellent top layer to an EDT like Opus 1870 or BB.

While essentially on the pricey side.....I scored it okay on price because when used in this manner even the smallest bottle should last a year or more.

Excellent staying power on me, but it helps to hit a bit of shirt cuff or collar around the wrist or neck when applying.

When used as a secondary layer to one of my primary fragrances......again.....Opus and BB though Floris Santal is another good base choice......I find myself thoroughly enjoying it and pleased with the added dimension it brings to the Penhaligon/Floris EDT's.

Has that generic cheap 80's aftershave feel to it but also an unusual green edge. Personally I think this is what it would smell like if you mixed a little Penhaligons English Fern into a bottle of something very low quality. Massively overpriced.

I think I could've went into this experience with high hopes since I had heard so much about GIT over the years. I purchased a large-ish decant (something that would allow many times of use over a month or so).

I noticed the Cool Water similarity right off the bat, and I'm not a huge fan of that scent. I can detect violet in GIT very easily, the problem is that the violet is mixed in with many other "green" scents that smell very synthetic. Comparing it to English Fern (which I'm also not a big fan of, but enjoy more than GIT), English Fern smells like a bath soap. GIT smells like a very strong laundry detergent, almost like Mountain Spring Tide. When combined with the Cool Water bits, it to me smells like a melange of strong department store cologne mixed with an unusual, powdery laundry detergent/fabric softener aroma.

I will say that GIT has slightly above-average longevity, and that's good. It should, considering the triple digit pricetag for even the smallest bottle. The problem is that the drydown is sweet, synthetic, and detergent in quality. There's three levels of progression - first spray is very green, clean, and violet smelling (that's good), quick drydown into weird detergent/non-descript powdery department store fragrance that lasts for a few hours (this part gives me a mild headache), and then faint murmurs of sweet, synthetic muskiness (this part brings on a full blown headache).

It's just not for me. I keep an open mind and I wore it about 10 times, and I did get some compliments on it. I was told I smelled "fresh" and "clean." But I do tend to look for a fragrance that has some type of unusual aspect, either in terms of ingredients, how it dries down, and how it performs. This is unremarkable on all fronts, but that might be because it feels like I've smelled many, many things just like it. Perhaps if I smelled it 20 years ago, I would feel differently. I shouldn't complain about the price since I've plunked down $90 for a big bottle of Penhaligon's before, but then again, I found that fragrance (Castile) to be very enjoyable and unique. This just doesn't warrant purchasing for me. When I used up the decant, I didn't look back.

Wanted to love this legendary frag, after all, it was Cary Grant's favorite! Unfortunately it is a little too sweet and flowery for me. Doesn't seem green or grassy at all. Very subtle - no one can smell it within a foot of me, and the staying power seems to be weak too.

Of the Creeds, my favorite so far is Bois Du Portugal.

This is my first review on B&B, but I have posted a few on Basenotes on the same username. I'm concerned that at least some of the reviews of Green Irish Tweed (or "GIT" as its lovingly referred to on basenotes) are likely based on reviews of counterfeit product, which is unfortunately quite likely if you purchased GIT on eBay in the 4 oz size in the range of $75 or less. This cologne currently retails for about $230 in that size ... there's really no way a legitimate seller can sell it "NIB" for that type of money and turn a profit. So I suggest that anyone who sniffed some GIT of dubious origin try it again.

That being said, GIT was, to me, an acquired taste. To many, its considered to be one of the best, if not the best, expression from Creed's Millesime collection, but you may not be overwhelmed with it if you have never smelled Creeds before. A more easily accessible cologne from Creed, if you have never smelled them (or if you have never smelled a "real" sample) is Himalaya, which shares some of the same notes as GIT, but is a bit warmer in tone, but is just a beautiful, IMO, as GIT. It was only after I wore Himalaya for a while that I really began to appreciate GIT.

Many who have not smelled GIT are familiar with Davidoff's Cool Water, which is similar to GIT in its opening notes and is good in its own right, but is very linear (ie doesn't change a lot) during drydown and starts to smell stale quickly IMO. GIT, on the other hand, has a three stage drydown and continues to deliver wonderfully for many hours after application.

What can I say that hasn't already been said about GIT? It is a lovely scent, and there is a reason why it is a top choice of many perfume connoisseurs. Fresh. Green. Full of vegetal notes. Reminds of of St. Patrick's Day every time I wear it.

It would be a signature scent for me, especially in my youth, being only twenty-three years of age at the time of this review. However, its lack of longevity stays my purchasing hand. It goes on strong for maybe three to four hours for me, and then dries down to a cinder of its once former glory.

But such is the way of all Creed's (especially the millesime line), unfortunately.

I'm glad that I didn't have to pay the price that this is usually seen going for, as I don't think I'd buy it again. As far as higher quality colognes go, this is about middle-of-the-road in terms of quality and with a stupid price tag.

The scent, although I can see why some like it, is entirely too grassy for my liking. I'm glad I didn't pay much for what I did, but for some reason I was expecting a half Sandalwood experience considering that's one of the base notes. That's nowhere near the case. I guess the fact that I'm pretty allergic to freshly cut grass is another reason I'm not a big fan of the scent.

It does have some excellent packaging though. I like the all black bottle. However, this is just from seeing and holding the bottle, I didn't buy it in it's original packaging.

First off, let me disagree with the reviewer who preferred Pecksniff's fougere; I *can't stand* their version, or anything else by them for that matter. Their fragrances remind me of something by CK. They lack the subtlely of their counterparts, IMO.

But enough of that; to the GIT!

Love it! Smells soft, green (not a mossy/mildewey green, though; a 'fresh' green) and lush. Very warm and close, perfect for a brisk autumn's day.

Longevity is - as it seems to be in so many other Creeds (IMO) - somewhat lacking. Only with nose pressed to flesh can you detect the scent several hours after application, but while it lasts it is wonderful and unequaled in quality, except perhaps by Penhaligon's English Fern.