Press Club

I love this fragrance. It feels like a fresh take on a vintage style. I like spicy amber fragrances quite a lot but I think they sometimes go too far into the realm of Axe Body Spray/Christmas (like V&R Spicebomb). This does not do that. Press Club is somewhere between spicy amber and barber shop chypre, in my opinion. It has a very clean balsamic, herbal opening. I don't feel that the bergamot is very strong but it's there. For a bit, clove is the star of the show but the blend is refined enough that it never drifts into gourmand territory. It's just a light, warm spicy element. Finally, the dry down is a dry amber that I find a bit powdery. I was surprised to not see orris or one of the other powdery notes listed because it really does seem to have one of the molecules used to create a powder base. It's not overbearing but it's there. This projects well enough but I wouldn't say it fills a room. I could see it being acceptable in an office. It's a great every day fragrance that seems unlikely to upset anybody. It does last a very long time. I tend to reapply it halfway through the day because I like the opening and middle notes so much, but that dry amber phase at the end lingers for many hours. Overall, I think this is extremely classy and you will like it if you're into old timey scents. I think of it as an elevated grandpa fragrance. Try this if you like Stetson Original cologne but you want something a little more refined.

It does open more masculine, but the drydown is a very unisex warm, green herbal scent. Nice performance. Soft green lawn scent with a radiating amber note. I love it! I won't purchase because I would rather smell this on a man, even though I could wear it. Very classy. A great perfume. Blocki rarely lets me down. I have loved everything that comes from this house. As an avid collector, that says a lot.

Press club is a wonderful masculine dry spicy amber perfume. My husband is wearing this right now. I didn't really want to test it on myself because I knew going in that it was a masculine fragrance. To my nose it smells like a masculine counterpart to Estee Lauders Youth Dew. Press Club starts off w/ a bite from wormwood and a crisp bergamot but as it goes a long it develops into a nice and very traditional dry spicy fragrance w/ a dry amber base. There is a slight coke a cola vibe here from the cloves and vanilla (that I am sure it is in the amber) combination. But this sensation is very slight. Everything is nicely balanced w/ this perfume as all Blocki perfumes are. None of the elements overpower the others. Press club is a dry and arid perfume but not overly so, in other words it doesn't burn your nostril like a hot wind blowing on sand dunes. It is slightly aromatic, but the rosemary never smells like an herb garden, it is there to keep the composition slightly aromatic and zesty. Press Club is a well-balanced and well proportioned. This company knows what they are doing. I have not smelled a bad fragrance from this house, if all companies would take this type of care w/ all of their releases it would be a perfect perfume world. This is the only house that all of its fragrances have pleased me, the only other house that comes close is Jean Patou (they have had many, many more releases of course) If you are looking for "Niche" quality w/ a very classic old school vibe but w/ a postmodern lightness and ease I highly recommend getting a sample kit of this fabulous American Brand. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Something about this smelled so familiar when I first got a whiff of it at the Blocki table at the ScentXplore Fumes & Tunes earlier this month, but I couldn't put my nose on it (so many exhibitors in one relatively small event space). On paper, what got me was the wormwood opening. I love a solid wormwood note in a perfume and the first thing out the gate is the mystical element of the green dragon itself! Alright - you've got my attention. What next? Clove and resin, creating this sweet and spicy musk incense effect. On paper, it ended there. Thankfully, the gift bag came with a sample...and I just sprayed it again - this time, on myself. Immediately, once that lime-green wormwood top note evaporated like something about of a Mucha illustration, I felt like I was a gentleman in a suit on a train in a black & white film. And as it dried down...again, I smelled something familiar: a less floral and more modern dry down of Montana Parfum d'Homme. This leans more male, but only just. I feel like anyone could get away with wearing this in the evening. Classy stuff, this. Once the sample is gone, I might just have to pick up a full bottle...and step back in time!

In my quest to review each of the perfume samples in my collection, Press Club poses a unique challenge: I don't have strong feelings either way about this perfume! On paper it checks all of my boxes (bergamot, cloves, amber) for a sophisticated, sexy nighttime scent but in practice it seems to be missing the wow factor that would tie it all together. Compared to Blocki's Kosciuszko, which fits into a similar niche and sells the full fantasy for me, I can see myself only rarely picking Press Club.

Very high quality, just like the other Blocki’s I’ve tried. I love the amber/olibanum accord in the base but the wormwood is a little too aromatic for me. Maybe I’ll revisit again in fall/winter, but for now it’s not for me. If anyone knows another fragrance with a base like this, let me know!

very strong and woody, headache inducing to spray on my neck but good on the wrists and elbows. opens harsh and masculine, dries down spicier and more unisex

A sample of Press Club came along with my Fielder's Green purchase. I felt a flicker of hope at reading the name. It conjured up an image of leather chairs worn by elbows and decades, the smell of ink-stained fingers, pipe smoke curling under yellow lights, and the faint sharpness of fresh newsprint. I thought maybe, just maybe, someone had bottled that world. But when I sprayed it on, my heart sank a little. It wasn’t bad. It opened clean and smooth. There was a touch of wood, a hint of suede perhaps, but it lacked the grit, the weight I was expecting. I wanted tobacco, ink, aged whiskey from a 1940s or 50s film. Instead, it felt like someone had taken a memory of my own father from the 1980s and filtered it through too many layers of polish. Literally with pine sol polish. It was quiet where I wanted depth, controlled where I wanted something a little reckless. I kept waiting for it to evolve, to shift into something boulder. But it never did. It stayed pleasant, modern, safe. And that, I think, is what dissappointed me most. There’s nothing wrong with Press Club, I’ll admit. It’s well-made. But it doesn’t speak to me as a 50 year old man. It doesn’t feel like the place I imagined in my mind's eye. PS. Came back to say I tested the sample during the evening hours and my husband asked me to wash it off once we were in bed. He found it too synthetic and annoying. I was unable to scrub off the oils, so I disguised it under a quick squirt of Amouage Search with that lime kissed by fire first note.

This does two different things on paper vs skin for me. On skin it turns into a clove-heavy dry amber. It's a tad aromatic and overall the warm spiciness feels almost like licorice, but I think that's the wormwood coming through. In fact it must be the wormwood coming through haha- it's very herbal but in a dense, almost spiced-syrup kind of way. On paper it takes a while to get to dry-amber territory, and instead floats around as a woody aromatic fresh fragrance for a while. I get the herbs and the bergamot and cypress and it feels very smooth and balanced. The clove still comes through but it's more tamed and lends an earthy spice to the resinous woody aspects of the olibanum. The saffron, which is hard to miss usually, wafts in the background for a slightly modern feel that I feel indifferent to. Overall progression on paper is lovely but I'm not a fan of the wormwood-licorice-clove thing happening on skin. Kosciuszko is my favorite from what I've tried as it leans into bitter orange and gunpowder which feels more classically fresh and rugged.