Black Knight

Armaf Checkmate Black Knight is awesome, but calling it a straight clone feels lazy. It is new but also familiar scent. This thing is not wearing one fake moustache pretending to be Creed. It is more like it broke into the Creed laboratory, stole a few half-finished ideas, sprayed itself with confidence, and walked out like nothing happened. There is some rumor floating around that this is inspired by an unreleased Creed work-in-progress, possibly with some ex-Creed perfumer revenge energy behind it. No idea if that is true, but the story fits the smell. To my nose, it smells like someone threw Afnan Supremacy Collector’s Edition, CDNIM, Absolu Aventus / Sauvage and a touch of Imperium into one bottle. It opens very fresh and sharp, and that freshness actually hangs around for a good while. Then it starts moving into a smoky, aromatic, woody, very slightly sweet zone where Aventus-style DNA meets a modern Sauvage type twist. It feels familiar, but not boring. The vanilla is there, but it is not doing the usual heavy winter-dessert routine. It just adds a small touch of sweetness in the background, enough to round the scent off without turning it into another cold-weather vanilla bomb. Performance is strong. Long lasting, loud, and projecting like old CDNIM or aventus before reformulations started attending sensitivity training. This is not a shy perfume but I see it as possible signature scent that can be used for every situation. Overall: not a direct clone, more like a greatest-hits remix of fresh smoky masculine DNA with very good performance. Black Knight smells like Aventus, Sauvage, Imperium, and CDNIM got into an argument, and what remained after the fight got purred into a bottle by Armaf.

I finally got mine in after a month of waiting from Jomashop. It’s definitely in the space of Electimuss imperium. Not 1/1 but more like 80/90%. It’s a little bit closer to Imperium than Bravanzo Imperial from Dumont. So far the performance is above average. Lasts around 9 hours for me but not super loud Sillage. I wouldn’t call it beast mode but it’s definitely not weak. I feel like the notes are a little misleading because most of what you will pick up is Citrus, white florals, some ambroxan woods, and a lot of vanilla. If you like Cedrat Boise, Imperium, Ani or Aventus you will enjoy this. For $40 it’s very good quality. Really nice presentation minus the atomizer. I hope Armaf can improve their atomizers sometime because that’s one of the only things they lack against competitors.

I'm loving this right now. This is very niche smelling to me and I love the uniqueness. The description of Absolu Aventus and Nishane Ani mashed up is pretty accurate. This is a dark smokey fruit citrus like Absolu Aventus with a strong addition of vanilla. Not blind buy safe, however. When smelled right up close it definitely has some harsh synthetic-ness to it but in the air... man it is fantastic and nothing else smells like it! Unless you expect people to literally stick their nose on your skin, I think it is going to be a compliment monster. I should also note this review is straight out of the box so it could smooth out over time.

Love this scent. It is similar to Imperium just replacing some aspects of the regular Aventus with Absolu Aventus with a creamy vanillic drydown. not a beast in terms of projection but longevity i solid on this right around 7-8 hrs.

i was hopeful this would be somewhat a mix of Aventus and Imperium, or atleast Imperium primarily. But it was not quite either to my nose. It ended up being harsher and darker. Some may like it, but I did not care for it as it did not seem to have the Imperium aspects i was hoping for.