Aramis Devin

Woody Earthy Chypre Aramis Devin--straight out I like this very much! It is winter now and it works great on my skin in cold temperatures. It is very comforting and even cuddly to my nose, but I live for woody perfumes. Also, I am a woman, but tend to gravitate to woody, chypre, unsweetened perfumes. So what is going on in Devin? First, it does open up with a lot of pine, with maybe a hint of citruses & bergamot around the edges, the way that fresh pine needles can have an orangey citrus undertone to them. The pine is strongest in the topnotes, and then it does a slow fade throughout the wear of the perfume. I think the galbanum takes up where the pine leaves off. The leather is also there, and I have to warn everyone, the leather is kind of sweaty. Yes, there is a sweat note in Devin. Very clean sweat, not skanky in the least, but the sweat note is evident for at least an hour. The heart is my favorite part. Devin is really spicy, but earthy spicy, not kitchen spicy. It reminds me somewhat of a transition zone, where the desert meets the mountains. I can smell a dry sage/herbal note, along with cinnamon and nutmeg, and fresh soil, mossy & woody, the caraway and artemesia working together, all sun warmed and alpine, these are not dank northern forests, but captures the way I imagine New Mexico would smell, a hint of conifers in the air. I really can't smell any carnation, but there is a strong floral note, jasmine, it's more sweet and less white/indolic. At this point the floral notes are stronger than the green/pine notes, and the dry leather note is still hanging on in the background. As it dries Devin becomes more and more woody, the floral notes fall away, and the leather comes out again (but not the sweat lol.) There is a LOT of oakmoss, vetiver and cedar in here. If you love oakmoss take note, I bought my bottle last year, it is made in the UK, and Evernia Prunastri is listed halfway down the ingredients list! Yay! Devin is still a REAL CHYPRE. Really I don't smell that much patchouli in here, the drydown doesn't disintegrate into laundry musk, it's a real wood drydown. Devin has moderate silage with 3 or 4 sprays, and lasts 6+ hours on me. _____ Review is over, but here are the rest of my thoughts. Again fragrance has no gender, I do get that this is a perfectly masculine perfume, but I think that if you are a woman who likes older style fragrances, woody perfumes, and Aromatics Elixir, you should try this. If you're an oakmoss huffer like myself you should also try it--100 mls can be had for $30 or less. If you're a man and want a woody perfume, instead of an ozonic/calonic type thing check this out, there are no aquatic notes in here at all. Devin DOES smell like Aliage, but it smells like the reformulated Aliage, not the original kind. It is primarily woody and then green (old Aliage is primarily green and then woody.) So--who orchestrated the reformulated Aliage? Bernard Chant is sometimes credited with creating Aliage, sometimes not, but I believe that it was reformulated after he died. So where does this all fit in? I also have no idea what Devin originally smelled like, so it's weird that both perfumes have been formulated to smell alike. But then again they are both owned by Estee Lauder so maybe that's the explanation. Perfume mysteries...

I am outdoorsman, a naturalist, a conservationist. I am the type that when walking in the woods I really like to drink it all in. I see a log with moss and lichen, mushrooms covering it, I get in close, examine it, am in awe of its splendor. I am in love with everything from the haunting calls of the whippoorwills and loons to the morbid, mysterious beauty of carrion beetles carrying out their work. I admire the whole picture, the good, the beautiful, the bad, the ugly, and how all the tints and hues come together to spell out "home" to me. This is why Devin is so beautiful to me. The genius of Bernard Chant is that in his works, he tapped into all of these qualities, thereby making his work smell so natural that the average Joe may be taken aback: "this doesn't smell clean, this isn't safe and antiseptic. This isn't right. I am a city man, what do you take me for?" This will certainly not appeal to the 'blue' fragrance lovers of today (at least not until their noses acquire a taste for more complexity and artistry in scent); we currently live in a time where nuance and dynamism is shunned in favor of Disney versions of the natural realm. Devin was through much of its existence presented as a 'country' eau de cologne, almost as a disclaimer. This has since been removed from the labeling of newer formulations, but the fragrance remains primarily intact. I have an older bottle that just sings the praises of all that is agrestic, raw, rugged (tall pines, herbs, weeds, and grasses, and animalic leather/labdanum), yet vulnerable and tender under the surface (florals, jasmine, lavender, an understated sweetness). The pine note is the real stand-out for me: it is not a hackneyed Isobornyl Acetate heavy accord but rather a more dynamic pine of needles, resins, sap, bark, wood. We do know that pine and artemisia were often paired together in men's chypres of the day (Quorum and the like), but here, they really somehow stand out as Technicolor, albeit with many muted and tawny shades thrown in. The galbanum brings out the truly green and sappy qualities of pine needles and broken leaves. The cinnamon is far from candied and rough; it really brings out the woodier qualities of pine. If you have graduated from simpler and hopelessly accessible scents and want to explore something simultaneously thought-provoking and a source of primal pleasure, then Devin is a logical progression in your fragrance journey. Applied with a light hand, this will likely be appreciated by others around you, too. The word "classic" has been mentioned 33 other times so far in the review, and it comes as no surprise. Devin is one of the most beautiful men's fragrances I've smelled, simple as that. It brings a whole new meaning to "taking the rough with the smooth." 10/10

I've tried several from the Aramis Gentleman's range, all of which I've enjoyed. However, this stands out for me as something unique. To my nose, there are two elements to this fragrance. Firstly, it's damp, autumnal foliage, country lanes and woodland walks. Secondly, it smells like horses: steaming horse bodies, leather saddles, dung and all. It's both fresh and dirty, and most definitely outdoorsy. Many on here have said it's masculine, but personally I find it to be perfectly unisex. As a man in my mid-30s, I'd enjoy wearing this for days out in the country, but I'd also find it extremely sexy on a woman. The horsey facets conjure jodhpur and Barbour jacket-wearing country girls who stink of horse. Longevity varies, and to be honest I wish it was a little better in this area, but yesterday I could still smell it on the back of my wrist 8 hours after applying, which included a sweaty 3-mile bicycle commute. But, as it's available online for around £20 for 100ml, it's cheap enough to reapply once or twice in a day. EDIT: Got myself a full bottle from Notino, and sadly I suspect it may have suffered from a reformulation. I'm hoping it's just the cold weather affecting performance, but the dirty, vegetal and animalic aromas that were so juicy and fresh when I wrote the above review seem to have been dumbed down. Something appears to be missing or greatly reduced, perhaps oak moss due to EU regulations. It's a shame. Devin, and its sister scent Alliage, have the potential to be the King and Queen of green masterpieces, but sadly it's looking like they will be reformulated out of existence and confined to history by government interference. EDIT 2: I conducted some further research by testing the juice from sampler bottles at Debenhams and House of Fraser, and they were both deliciously vibrant, natural-smelling and multidimensional. My recent purchase from Notino, on the other hand, is a shockingly flat, lifeless and synthetic version of this former masterwork. I'm truly gutted that I have discovered this scent during its demise and have been duped with a pale imitation of the wonderful original. It's like ordering fresh tomatoes on the vine and being given tinned tomatoes.

I've had this for somewhere around three or four years. I don't wear it very often; it favours the cooler months and anyway I'm aware that not everyone I meet is going to like it (whether or not my reaction to that knowledge is to presume I'm superior to them, make them smell it anyway, get arrested for calling them sissies and punching them, etc.--the usual fraghead sociopathy). All the same, I think that either this stuff is improving with age, from what was already a good baseline (perhaps becoming more integrated, rounded and so on, while not losing any impact but conceivably even gaining a little cred by virtue of smelling less--thin or something), or I just increasingly appreciate it. I live in the city but come from a tiny village, and this stuff appeals to the country side of me, even though I can't say that I've ever smelt anything exactly like it in the country. Also I was recently complimented on my "drover style"--full-length cowboy-friendly coat, distressed leather fedora, etc.--and this stuff fits very well with that. This is in no way hobo or shabby chic to me but I do think it works well on a guy (perhaps especially a guy) with an outdoor spirit, with the outdoors in question probably being somewhere temperate, well west and north of--I don't know--Jordan, maybe. I like Lalique's Equus as well and the two fragrances appeal to the country side of me in slightly different ways. Equus is kind of hay-like and a little zesty. Devin has more of a kind of fresh, green smell to my nose and has a whole bunch of meadowy notes judiciously included for good measure. Devin is perhaps more an English or Irish field in cool weather, while Equus wouldn't seem out of place on The Horse Whisperer. P.S. @Snifflord Sex Panther? Seriously? You're getting that from Devin? You should probably steer well clear of anything that actually smells animalic then. That should be a few decades' worth of fragrances neatly ruled out for you. Congratulations if you do get to miss out on this and all Bernard Chant's other supremely rich, evocative creations.

This was my main fragrance in my early 80's teen years, a dear girlfriend bought it me and I've adored it since. I'm lucky, I still have 2 unopened bottles of the original formulation Country EDC and the Light Sporting EDC. A while ago I found a bottle of the reformulated EDC from the Gentleman's collection at a reasonable price, and I will compare them directly. Firstly this is a Bernard Chant classic and a unique fragrance, the comparison to Aliage and Yatagan are off, yes you can see some similar elements within them, but as a complete fragrance they are not close at all and someone trying them as a replacement for Devin may well be disappointed. Now the comparison: When I first sprayed the reformulated Devin I was pleasantly surprised, it has that initial powerful burst of piney, lemon, orange and wonderful aldehydes. The dry-down progresses into the leathery amber, cedar and patchouli notes nicely, but it is the deeper woody musky and oakmoss notes where the reformulation struggles, it just never reaches the depth and tenacity of the original formulation and that is reflected in it's lack of longevity. The initial 2.5 hours are where the reformulation is very close to the original after that it fades rapidly with little of the residual woody leather notes this fragrance is known for. In short it lacks the depth and tenacity of the original and has questionable longevity and sillage outside of that first 2.5 hours in my experience. In many respects this reminds me of the original Light Sporting EDC. Not as good as the heavyweight original formulation? I think that depends on your expectations and how much longevity is important to you. I'd still recommend getting it to experience the genius of Bernard Chant and a unique fragrance that really is a masterpiece even though that title often misused on here IMO.