Creed Spice and Wood

Creed Spice and Wood is a very good, natural scent. It is light, modern and highly ephemeral. If all fragrances are ephemeral, in that the last only so long, most Creeds, except Windsor and Royal Leather, are very short lived. This is the case with this one as well. There are a lot of mens' fragrances out there that are woody/spicy not many cost over $500. I am not sure that this one is worth it. It may be, I am just not sure, and would not, myself, spend that much.

I've read some reviews of S&W that make it out to be pretty lousy. One person considers its birch note "nothing out of this world", while another says "dunno who approved this." Other reviewers are a little more charitable: words like "impressive", "old-school", and "masterpiece" are used.

So what do I think of S&W? I think it's really good. I'm just not so sure it's worth $550 for 8 ounces of the stuff. But let me talk about the scent first.

Initial application brings an incredibly realistic and not overly-ambitious array of notes to the forefront, namely astringent lemons and bergamot, underpinned by a very sheer red apple accord that gives the fruit some definite sweetness. This is coupled with a striking birch wood note. The birch is given an effect of its own, and although there seems to be pepper and cedar involved, it really isolates itself to my nose as a very dry, austere wood. In these moments of its evolution, the scent is certainly a triumph. I had no doubt that Creed could manage spices (if Proctor & Gamble can, so can anyone), but woods are a different story. I'm dead tired of the world's fragrance forests being limited to synthetic pine and cedar. It may not seem like much, but the clarity of the birch in S&W kicks the scent into a whole new stratosphere. It persists for a solid hour on my skin and clothes, which is nice, especially since the apple on the top never disappears, but rather gains in potency through the drydown.

The sugared apple drydown is peculiar. There is definite oakmoss, but it is enmeshed in a buttery iris note, along with something that smells like pink pepper, amber, and white musk. It's at this point that I feel the scent becomes a bit too sweet for my taste. It never becomes unpleasant, and is always ephemeral and modern-smelling, despite the rickety concept at play here. But it's as though the fragrance stalls more than dries down. At about five hours in, evolution is no longer really happening, and a resolutely linear combo of apple, cedar, pepper, and musk carries on until it fades away.

Perhaps if the saccharine apple and spices played second fiddle to the intriguing woods of S&W, I would be more inclined to consider buying into a split of this stuff. As it is, I think it's a fine fragrance, and avoids the standard masculine cliches of clove overkill and faux cedar sapling woods. It certainly smells good - maybe a little too good. Like most Creeds I've tried, there is no sense of danger, no controversy. The Creed boys could stand to dry out the citrus a bit more, and maybe amp up the oakmoss, like André Fromentin did with Grey Flannel. Or perhaps introduce something blatantly animalic, like a touch of civet to wet the woods, Kouros-style. I approach Creed hoping that one day they'll make me crinkle my nose. I've only tried 5 of their fragrances so far. It's early days yet. But in this regard, it's no dice.

That said, this is worthy of checking out of course. It's very likable, suitably masculine, persistent for a Creed, and definitely has sex appeal. It's stately and modern, but built on a tried-and-true foundation of what works.







...