Bay Rum Aftershave No. 28

On Barberry Coast's website, they sell this aftershave, an EDP concentration of Bay Rum, and an Extrait version of the Bay Rum. This is a review for the Extrait version, of which I bought a 10ml sample vial. First off, I absolutely love bay rum. It's my favorite traditional scent profile. Barberry Coast's Bay Rum Extrait Reserve absolutely knocks it out of the park. Easily the strongest and longest lasting of any bay rum fragrance that I've tried. The Extrait opens immediately with warm spices (allspice, clove, cinnamon), west indies bay leaf(smells like cloves), and a muted orange note. The orange is soft enough to not overpower the spices and trails off rather quickly. The drydown is where this fragrance shines. The review below me describes it perfectly, it almost smells like a masculine, sexy Christmas cookie due to the added notes of vanilla and tonka bean. While this isn't a traditional bay rum due to the vanilla/tonka bean sweetness, I find that their addition only lends to the beauty of this fragrance. I'm blown away. This is the best version of the bay rum profile that I've tried, and only has added value because it lasts for hours and hours. I HIGHLY recommend the Bay Rum Extrait.

This is literally an aftershave, meaning it is in no way designed to be an actual fragrance; its job is to heal and sooth your skin after you shave your face and neck. For that purpose, as an alcohol based aftershave, it is easily one of, if not the, best out there. I am on my third bottle now. I pair it with their shaving cream of the same name/scent. I love how I can start, or end, my day with a splash of what smells like a fresh, masculine, gingersnap cookie. And it fades out pretty fast so I never feel like it gets in the way of my daily fragrance, as all thats really left is a skin tight dry-down of vanilla and clove. Love that the ingredients are so natural, love that it leaves a slight spicy sting upon application, and love that it has done such a fantastic job of clearing up any acne and/or other symptoms of razor-burn. Unlike other unnatural aftershaves and shaving creams, it doesn't irritate the skin and really feels healing.

Normally, I've been using Pinaud as an aftershave but decided that I'd like to try something new. Barberry Coast advertises this product to be all natural extracts and essential oils and essentially, it's a niche aftershave. After browsing Amazon and reading through their reviews, I decided on this. The vast majority of the reviews rated the product very high and many reported that they got a lot of compliments and women seemed to love it. A couple of people said things like "the ladies think I'm hiding cookies" or "my girlfriend says that I can't wear this without her around". The review I agreed with most is "I smell like a cinnamon stick". My expectations were some sort of a sweet, somewhat masculine, cinnamon-vanilla concoction but honestly, all I smell is a fragrance dominated with a slightly sugary cinnamon. If I were to illustrate a comparison, I'd compare it to what cinnamon toast smells like, except that when you're making it, you've added far too much cinnamon but not enough sugar. In truth, based on the scent, I'd call this a gourmand, unisex fragrance. As far as sillage and longevity, I'd rate sillage as soft and very close to the skin, which shouldn't be surprising, considering that it's an aftershave. Longevity is moderate at 4+ hours.

This is surprisingly complex... sort of in a playful way. On my skin, it starts off yeasty then gradually settling into a molasses/clove/bay leaf and eventually smells like clean, spicy gingerbread. A little hard to explain, but I enjoy wearing it. They've blended this well... a lot better than Pinaud Bay Rum. Nothing at all offensive.

It's a THUMBS UP from me. This is a traditional Bay Rum mix that uses natural oils and fragrances. It has a great feel on the skin after shaving. The cloves and spices are very strong but fade to a pleasant shaving balm experience. It has a pourer top so drizzle it into your hand and slap it on your face. Mmmm. Recommended for shaving.

I've been trying to find a good bay rum fragrance for years. My first encounter with the genre was C.O. Bigelow's take on it, and while it was a passable fragrance, the longevity was atrocious. I was very tempted by St. John's Bay Rum, which seems like one of the oldest and best options. Everywhere I turned, however, reviewers were reporting performance issues. Finally, I decided to try Barberry Coast Bay Rum EdP (which, as greenghost below notes, does not yet have its own entry on Fragrantica). To be honest, I'm a bit disappointed. The website promises "8x the essential oils" as the aftershave on which it is based, and that very well may be true, but the blend is still a bit weak to my nose. I get mostly an overwhelming clove in the opening with a dash of other spices, as well as the bay leaf and a bit of pungent orange. All of it fades very quickly, leaving you with the ghost of barbershop clove, barely a skinscent. And I would have actually like it to smell, well, a bit more rummy. On the whole, though, this is a pleasant cologne. I fear that it may simply be the essences of its core notes that are responsible for such short life; these types of spice and citrus extracts tend to be very volatile and evaporate quickly with body heat. Maybe someday somebody will crack the code to a truly beastly bay rum fragrance...

MEN: This is the best scent on a man!!! As a woman, I can safely say this is the perfect masculine scent. Barberry Coast makes a Cologne version of this now, so go to their website or their Amazon store to buy. If you're looking for female attention, nay! if you're looking for wife material, THIS IS what will draw her in. I'm not kidding. It's a little pricey... i do wish it was in the $50-80 range instead of $200 .. but we invest in this once a year at Christmas because it smells SO. Good. When my husband wears this to work, he gets compliments from both women AND men. 😄 They tell him he smells like a yummy Christmas cookie in the colder seasons, and he gets stopped in public by people who say he smells comforting and cozy, like something baking, but also like a lumberjack in the woods. I think it smells like a comforting hug. There's a clove-y, almost cinnamon-y grounding scent, with a comforting orange and bay leaf to keep it bright, and a gently sweet oatmeal cookie vibe, without the raisins. I'm drooling just thinking about it. 😍🤤 This is a CLASSIC. You cannot go wrong with this manly fragrance. As a female of the human species, trust me, this will be the ladies' FAVORITE. *sigh* 😍

Wonderful. Very nicely balanced. An appropriately diluted/proportioned version the absolutely perfect Barberry Coast Bay Rum EDP (conspicuously absent on fragrantica.com). This is an excellent aftershave fragrance--though, being alcohol-based, it's too drying on the skin for actual aftershave use for me, but makes an excellent freshening-up, midday "toner."