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Great Classic Fragrances

Owen Bawn

Garden party cupcake scented
Did you ever notice that if a review thread on Fragrantica or on Basenotes goes on long enough someone will post that the fragrance in question smells like Mugler Cologne? It's uncanny. It doesn't matter the fragrance. Eventually, someone will claim it reminds them of Mugler Cologne. Apparently everything smells like Mugler Cologne!
 
Did you ever notice that if a review thread on Fragrantica or on Basenotes goes on long enough someone will post that the fragrance in question smells like Mugler Cologne? It's uncanny. It doesn't matter the fragrance. Eventually, someone will claim it reminds them of Mugler Cologne. Apparently everything smells like Mugler Cologne!
It does seem to come up a lot, now you mention it. I also noticed a similar thing with Guerlain Jicky in reviews of all kinds of scents. Maybe it’s an in joke. Or maybe it’s that some of these people have collected hundreds of fragrances and their sense of smell is so blinded that everything smells the same to them.
 

Owen Bawn

Garden party cupcake scented
It does seem to come up a lot, now you mention it. I also noticed a similar thing with Guerlain Jicky in reviews of all kinds of scents. Maybe it’s an in joke. Or maybe it’s that some of these people have collected hundreds of fragrances and their sense of smell is so blinded that everything smells the same to them.
I was joking originally,, but perhaps there's something to it.. it seems Eau Sauvage is another apparently universal scent.
 
How would you describe the scent of Pour un Homme? Is it powdery?
Not powdery at all. It’s really just lavender and vanilla, clear, high quality, and straightforward. Quite a distinctive combination - but with this particular and very natural lavender it makes a unique and memorable scent that works well. It’s genuinely a scent I find interesting to wear and it’s quite intelligent and sophisticated in a way - but a quiet, pastoral sort of sophistication, rather than the businesslike, urban kind. Makes me imagine it’s something a 45 year old professor or writer might wear in his peaceful, country house, wearing a crisp, white shirt, tweed jacket, and definitely no tie. Maybe he keeps bees in his garden and he enjoys a walk in the countryside.

No idea if any of that helps. Smells are impossible to describe and the impressions it evokes for me may be entirely unique to me.

If it intrigues you even slightly then you should try it. It is not particularly expensive but it is certainly high quality and I do not think it is the kind of perfume that anyone could find offensive or objectionable. And I am certain you do not have a scent that is much like it.

Edit: I do not find Caron Pour Un Homme to be in any way similar to Mugler cologne or Guerlain Jicky. Or Eau Sauvage. Do not listen to anyone who suggests anything of this sort.
 
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She is very perceptive when it comes to fragrances. Her madness was in her decision to hitch her life's wagon to my careening star.
That last bit goes without saying.

I did spray some Caron on to answer Dominic’s question and I’m thinking the Caron is a touch more lavender-forward than Play Doh, from what I recall. Probably something the Play Doh people should think about.

Incidentally, my wife (who equally madly threw her life away and married me) enjoys shaving me sometimes because she says it is like playing with the Play Doh barber’s shop set.
 
Lot of good suggestions here.

At least for me, the thing I’ve noticed is very few reformulations have held up. 10/10 times it’s never going to be better and most of the time it’s worse and watered down. That said there are a couple of gems and fortunately for you … AdP is one of them. The newer ownership from a few years back has done what it takes to keep the quality up. A few others on the list I’m aware of that have held up reasonably well are the aforementioned Azzaro, Zino, Givenchy Gentleman, Houbigant’s Fougére Royale and Eau Sauvage. Guerlain has done reasonably well too, but it seems to be dropping more and more to my nose.

BTW, with Azzaro under L’Oreal now … it might be on the clock. I’d jump on it before it’s too late.
 
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To balance out Prince Charles it helps to remember that Green Irish Tweed was also a favourite of Carey Grant's. Now that's class.
 
To balance out Prince Charles it helps to remember that Green Irish Tweed was also a favourite of Carey Grant's. Now that's class.
Cary Grant was an Acqua di Parma man. And Creed launched Green Irish Tweed when Grant was 81 - just a year before his death. It may be possible that someone once sprayed it on him in his deathbed - and maybe that’s what killed him - but that’s about all the association he could have had with it.

Creed has a well known tendency to fabricate stories about its provenance as a perfumier, and has failed to provide any evidence at all that it had ever made a single perfume before the 1970s. The claims that Olivier Creed is the originator of any Creed perfume are also entirely false.
 
Cary Grant was an Acqua di Parma man. And Creed launched Green Irish Tweed when Grant was 81 - just a year before his death. It may be possible that someone once sprayed it on him in his deathbed - and maybe that’s what killed him - but that’s about all the association he could have had with it.

Creed has a well known tendency to fabricate stories about its provenance as a perfumier, and has failed to provide any evidence at all that it had ever made a single perfume before the 1970s. The claims that Olivier Creed is the originator of any Creed perfume are also entirely false.
From my understanding the "old" House of Creed were tailors. They must pay some big estate money for all their Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart ads. But GIT is a great scent (I'm wearing it right now) and I also really like their Bois Du Portugal.
 
From my understanding the "old" House of Creed were tailors. They must pay some big estate money for all their Frank Sinatra and Humphrey Bogart ads. But GIT is a great scent (I'm wearing it right now) and I also really like their Bois Du Portugal.
The tailor part was true of Domenico Caraceni, and there are on-line sources that refer to Creed as a perfumer and tailor going back to 1760, as well as references to Creed scents that supposedly go back that far. But I do not find anything that indicates Creed was exclusively a tailoring shop going back. But the points are well-taken. I am not sure I would trust anything published about Creed's background. That said, and I hate to say this in many ways, some of Creed's scents are among my favorite all time scents, including GIT, Bois de Portugal, Mayfair, the original Bois de Sandal or whatever Creed called it, the original Virgin Island Water, Cuir de Russie, the vintage (not the current) Tabarome.

I have no idea of the basis for Creed's claim that GIT was a Cary Grant fav, but it is possible it was a bespoke frag for him long before it came out commercially. One blockbuster of a frag, I have to admit, so props, although a lot like Cool Water, if I remember.
 
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Lordy, how could I forget this???? @luvmysuper will be along shortly to chastise me, I'm sure. But you simply must try

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Perhaps the single most controversial scent on the planet. But nobody can argue it is not a classic that has withstood the test of time. Phil is the historian, but I believe it was created in the 1880's or thereabouts? And a bottle was in John Wayne's dopp kit when he died. True story.

Love it, hate it, it's a "classic scent", no argument there. I love it. Perhaps you, too, are chosen??
I finally bought a bottle of Pinaud Lilac Vegetal. I say ‘bottle’ but of course it comes in a comedy plastic container which probably stretches the definition of bottle too far and tells you a lot about how worthy Pinaud think their product is. Anyway, it costs about 2 cents for 4 gallons - much, much cheaper than tap water - so nothing to lose by trying it.

I decanted it into glass bottles straight away, to give it a chance of shaking off any odours that come from the reaction with the plastic container. So far this hasn’t made a difference but maybe with time it will.

As of now, I can say that this is truly a nasty fragrance. It is oversweetened lilac with an acrid undertone of cat urine. I don’t know if I would describe cat urine as ‘vegetal’ but I can only assume this is Pinaud’s meaning. Somehow the cloying sweetness has the effect of making the cat urine note seem more sinister than regular cat urine. It is like there is something wrong with the urine Pinaud uses. Overall, I think if I smelled this on somebody I would conclude they must be disturbed in some manner, and possibly a serial killer. I think it would also be a mistake to use this to cover up bad smells - e.g. if you were a sewage worker - as the Lilac Vegetal is a good deal more offensive than anything you might be covering up. Raw turds, for example, would be a relief to smell in place of this.

If an old lady had a vase of plastic, fake lilacs in her unpleasant, outdated home, then this is something she could spray on them to complete the effect and keep visitors from staying too long. And maybe this sort of old lady has so many cats that she is nose-blind to the urine odour anyway, and the Lilac Vegetal will complement the odour of her carpet and soft furnishings.

I still like it better than Green Irish Tweed, though. Thanks for the recommendation, John. It was an experience.
 
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