Sung Homme

Alfred Sung Pour Homme (1989) Top notes: Bergamot, Juniper Berries, Sage, Pepper, Artemesia, Caraway, Lemon, Basil Galbanum, Petigrain, Bayleaf Middle Notes: Pine Tree Needles, Aldehydes, Carnation, Geranium, Caraway, Spicy Notes, Rose, Jasmine Base Notes: Fir, Oakmoss, Leather, Musk, Cedar, Sandalwood, Vetiver, Patchouli . Wow, Wow, Wow--lotta notes. A complex beautiful woman, a deeply emotional poet and devastating warrior. Put on your outfit. Gee, I wish I did stuff like that. I bought this on a whim. Thank you Sebastion of Smelling Great for correcting the market by reviewing it and stating it does NOT smell like Irish Spring and it is worth a try. It does not really smell like Irish Spring, but roughly there is similarity. It is really not that close. These comparisons can be ruinous. I just don't like it when people mention similar scents. I know they are just trying to be helpful, but in comes the pre-conceptions from the 'similar scents'. Ever been out on a date where the person spends all the time talking about their 'X'? I like a fresh start, and this is no ordinary scent. This scent --really-- is pretty darn unique and I would be reckless to compare. Sorry, I am not sorry. You're gonna have to go in a virgin on this one. Well. . . I just love it and it is so different. Upon open, there is kind of like carbonation bubbles for about twelve seconds. It almost tickles the nose. Aldehydes? Don't Know. What I perceived as cinnamon is likely Bayleaf. I do get the Pine Tree Needles and the 'twangy green' --later identified by the note list as probably Geranium or perhaps Petigrain. Every once in awhile a deaf, dumb and blind dog finds a bone. I only picked up a fraction of the notes and have much to learn. Since I love classic British(Dunhill, Miller Harris, Hugh Parsons etc.), I was tickled that one could detect Oakmoss on the rapid drydown. Also, Juniper Berries are in there which is one of my all-time favorites and present in may British scents. I think the note 'Spicy' does remain after ninety seconds, and it is not overly traditional or predictable. This Spicy has some industrial secrets. It ain't donuts, christmas cookies, spice cookies or dank, outdated sachet--It is delightful. I just adore a good spice like Tabac. Things can be simple and wonderful. It aint the standard abomination that is spice. It aint the standard canned dog food that is fed to men as 'skewing male'. A real man thinks for himself. This is it--kind sir. Again, this scent-- Alfred Sung Pour Homme-- is really neat and special. This spice is totally unique and seems like maybe a marine scent is dancing in there. Ocean--not Sargent. (Almost got my ass kicked.) Also present ,with a careful sniff, is the Sage and Black Pepper which is like my beloved Dunhill fragrances. Drydown is fast and projection is about four inches from the flat of the arm. All in about five minutes. But you are left with a true collage of genius that will last max two hours close to the skin. You can boost it anytime, as the price is so affordable it is down right--EXCITING, FUN-- with money left for coffee and blueberry muffins. Yay!!!! Let's talk straight, can we say straight anymore? This fragrance has a scent suggestion in a way. Alfred Sung uses a prism to blend. Alfred Sung's scent approach is light in a way. The product is so advanced. Words are hard. The word soap has connotation. Well. . . . this scent has an honest to goodness plain ol' Dove scent soap with a J&J Baby powder kind of watercolor going--a shadow. Alfred Sung possesses a gentle, clean and soapy quality; but done just right for me. I'm not a real 'soapy' lover. If you hate soapy, this might be gentle enough to get you into it. Strange, this scent has a metallic scent. Not in the notes list. It has a kind of wet sandpaper rubbing on a piece of aluminum smell. I have done this work alot in my days. I really love this because if is subtle and SO different. On final drydown there is the genius spice note, accompanied by maybe vetiver, very little soapiness, metallic in the very back (so neat)-- and none of it gets too candy sweet because it is offset by the leather. Aside: Again, my insistence that leather/animalic hint can neatly offset 'candiness' in a magical way. It is the case right here. Hot, Hot Looks!!! This juice is not entirely blue--it has a small hint of purple. It is like a Siberian Amethyst. You can look it up to get a real close approximation. This color had me staring in morning light and sunset near a window. For you watercolor artists and photographers and people that dig New Mexico; this color is mind-bogglingly gorgeous!!!! This bottle is a cool tribute to Art Deco. It is tall and slender with facets that remind me of the old automotive buildings in Detroit or New York; the square shoulders that 'step-down' in scale to other square shoulders. Bottle is not too deep so how does it stand up so well. It is heavy as heck, that's how. The cap is total innovation. The cap has a very wide,large front and rear tab that slides over the shoulders of the bottle itself. I don't throw this around loosely. I am not one of those people that say 'brilliant' all the time. Here goes: I really think Alfred Sung is a stark-raving genius. Usage of Bottle: Atomizer is superb--spray pattern can be changed by how hard/abrupt you press down. Slow press down is a squirt gun just like most. Normal operation is a spray pattern almost identical to Dunhill and I think they are the very best. Not over atomized and wafty. Just right. OK, enough said. Now I'll say more. Buy this if you are adventurous, don't like clean and soapys but love bath soap and collect them. Buy this because it is not just a scent, it is dramatic reach beyond the edge, an integrated sculpture full of jewel-like fluid. A statement of color, scent, grace that is just---beyond; an ultra-sophisticated personal accessory. Alfred Sung Pour Homme is a fragrance, sculpture, collage, a real treasure and quite affordable.

2017 Batch, Manufactured in NY, Deep purple juice. What an obscure, odd, and misunderstood gem of a fragrance. I love the scent of Irish Spring soap and had been using it for a while, but it started to dry out my skin so I started looking for a scent which was similar and came across this. It achieves essentially the same humid, soapy effect, but there's quite a bit more going on here under the hood. First, a bit of classification, the controversial part. Fellas, this is in no way shape or form an aromatic fougere. No standout lavender note (despite the purple color), no grassy coumarin, nada. This is a fresh-woody chypre in a very pure state, loaded to the brim with synthetic oakmoss, labdanum, eugenol, and aldehydes. This can be further confirmed simply by checking Symrise's H&R Geneology chart, where it sits squarely in the woody-leathery chypre genre (appeal to authority fallacy blah blah blah... do you think you know more about fragrances than chemists and fragrance historians?) That's just a heads up to those of you who are expecting a barbershoppy style fragrance like Paco Rabanne PH or something. This ain't it. Now that that's out of the way... Sung Homme opens up super sharp and aldehydic. Aldehydes, eugenol, citrus, and some sort of caraway note combine to form a vivid and slightly disturbing industrial soap accord. I'll just come out and say it, it literally smells like a urinal cake here. If you think Kouros smells like a urinal cake, try Sung Homme. It's very mild in Kouros compared to this. Within this strange accord, the eugenol bursts and gushes, adding an even more disturbing sensation of being injected with novocaine at a dentist's office. Combined with the sweaty caraway, this is a very jarring opening that would never be present in any fragrance released nowadays. The disturbing opening fades away and the eugenol starts to shift into a more legible bay laurel/cinnamon note, which meets with pine/fir, juniper, labdanum, and some floral carnation. This is where it really starts to smell like Irish Spring, and its quite fresh and pleasant, almost "mass appealing" in this stage. You thought you were safe from that obscure 80's weirdness? Think again. As it settles more on skin, the synthetic oakmoss comes out, and there's a lot of it. It smells vividly of stale tobacco, like somebody who has smoked at least a pack a day for years. It's jarring, but not unpleasant, and charming for it's complete disregard for modern "safe-spaces" and quiet rooms where aggressive scents are not allowed. Speaking of which, this is indeed "beast-mode" juice. Two sprays will last you the entire work day and then some, it might even last you through a shower and into the next day. Overall, I have to rate this very highly. Priced at $14, this is not only a bargain, but a window into a different time period which is long gone but easily experienced with just a spray. And it's not a fougere.

I've already written about Sung Homme at length, but after not wearing it much at all in 2020 and recently picking it up again in the beginning of the spring, it's become one of my all time favorites and I've got a few more points about it: -The perfumer is James Bell, who has criminally received no credit for this. He's also the nose behind Elizabeth Taylor Passion which coincidentally also has purple juice and features a smoky chypre backdrop. -This perfume is mislabeled by almost everybody as an "aromatic fougere," (hilariously, Fragrantica now labels Dior Fahrenheit as an "aromatic fougere" as well...) most likely because it is very soapy. In the minds of these people, anything from the 80s that is "soapy" must automatically mean it's "barbershop" style and thus it's a fougere. It's not the case here. It's a main point that I've written about before but there is no lavender anywhere in the composition, and definitely no sweet powdery coumarin. What I do get is a refreshing citric bite in the top colored in by a nuclear eugenol bomb, with a resinous woody-ambery labdanum and pine mid (colored by yet even more eugenol) and a heavy oakmoss base. These three components make up the chypre, so a chypre it is, albeit a very clean, fresh, virile "soapy" chypre. -This is a eugenol bomb and a case study in the ingredient. Eugenol is the secret ingredient which is responsible for the infamous pink "urinal cake" smell which Kouros is maligned for, and it's distilled to it's very essence in Sung Homme, where it's used in varying ways throughout the life of the perfume to represent the notes of bay leaf, cloves, carnation. It has narcotic effects and is what the dentist rubs on your gums to slightly numb them before injecting you with novocaine. This aspect of Sung Homme could make it a bit challenging for some. This narcotic, medicinal aspect of Sung Homme is for sure amplified by spices like cinnamon and caraway. I've got to say that this thing is a bonafide masterpiece and that's not even considering it's price point. Despite the challenging aspects I've discussed, Sung Homme is easy to wear and always comes across as clean, even garnering positive comments. It easily lasts the entire day and the vivid bright soap is lifted out of the resinous woods and spices when your body heats up, even 8 hours after applying. It also represents the "synthwave/vaporwave" retro aesthetic better than any other fragrance I've come across, so if you are looking for a sleazed out anachronistic neon powerhouse with a melancholic-nostalgic chypre drydown to match those vibes this stuff destroys the likes of Drakkar Noir in my humble opinion. 10/10 masterpiece.

Let me start off by saying that this is a hell of a fragrance. It's strong, yet soft; it lasts, but it's not overwhelming; it's bold, yet understated; it's linear, but complex. A lot of reviewers have described about the first 3 hours of this frag, but a fragrance that lasts as long as this does, I think, deserves a bit more description. Sung Homme is unique, but it's hard to review without comparing it to other fragrances that parts of it resemble. It opens up with a slightly bitter citrus and lavender blast with a touch of wood, which lasts about 10-20 minutes; it turns fresh soapy and woody with an occasional touch of floral and fir/spruce for the next 3-4 hours; it then remains a slightly sweet floral with soapy musk/oak moss and a slightly nondescript conifer note (pine/fir/spruce) which develops an incense-y note for the next 5-8+ hours. There's something familiar and comparable about it throughout its whole scent life, while it is unique at the same time; it has some of the greatest parts of some of the greatest fragrances: It opens with some lavender-y/citrus-y similarities to Cool Water/Aspen; equally fresh, while being wholly different than both. It maintains some "Irish Spring-like" musk-y/moss-y floral soapiness throughout, while not entirely conjuring a facsimile of Irish Spring. It has some parallels to Quorum by Puig; without the darkness, dirtiness, and maturity of Quorum's leather, tobacco, and Quorum's heavy floral-y musk that turn an über-macho fragrance into Eau De nursing home. Sung Homme is floral without going full old lady. Finally, some notes can be compared to Old School Mediterranean conifer fragrances like Pino/Agua Brava/A.D. Selva, but without the abysmal lasting power; not on the whole, but parts of it like the conifer and old-school new leather scent. It's a great fragrance with several notes that take turns and play well with each other. It's going for a great price, even for a blind-buy. You can't go wrong, and even if you don't like it you could do a whole lot worse. **UPDATE** I've gotten several compliments, albeit mostly from older women, but still compliments. My wife, who is incredibly fickle about fragrances, has had zero complaints; and it made my father in-law sneeze about 4 hours after applying, although he didn't say anything about cologne.

I have had this one in my collection for a couple of years now... I sprayed it on the other day, and then, *WHAM*, it hit me all at once; this is a lot like my #1 personal favorite perfume that has been discontinued for quite some time now, Lagerfeld Photo. I am happy to pop onto this page and see that I am not the only one that has noticed the similarity! While Sung Homme is not an exact clone, they are quite similar in their DNA and overall presentation. Maybe even a Body Kouros kind of air to it with that Eucalyptus it has in it I believe. This is definitely an aromatic fougere, and the complexity, yet general tone these notes set is just fantastic. Nothing is too overbearing, everything mingles quite well, and nothing screams offensively amongst the crowd. It has "green", herbaceous and spicy notes, slight soapiness, with the main players to *MY* nose being the Pine/Fir, "Spices" (I want to say a "sweet" cinnamon, a la Halston Z14), and the Aldehydes. Yes, the florals are present within the ensemble, but they are not the main players! It lasts for the better part of a day on skin, and a good bit longer still if you put it on clothes. It will project and have a huge sillage for a good couple of hours, and then the projection dies down a bit with the sillage still intact. A solid performer, especially for the price! I would say this is a good morning/afternoon wear, or something smooth and fresh after working out at the gym, but I would say it would be a rare grab for me if it was something to spray on for the evening. Overall, I would say snag this one up even as a blind buy as it is priced so very competitively that you could just pass it on to a friend as a gift if you are not a fan. But there are not MANY fragrances I have smelled within this DNA thus far, so it would definitely be a more unique option to have in the collection. Personally, I was devastated when I found out a couple of years too late that my absolute favorite perfume, Lagerfeld Photo, was discontinued and I could not find it anywhere to buy.. Only to stumble upon this gem, while a little more sweet, but missing the Lavender and Citrus Top that was my long lost Photo. At least it is close, thank you, Alfred Sung!