Golden Saffron

First impression: if you're new the Bortnikoff and want a nice introduction to the house then check this one out. If you're already familiar with the house then this one might disappoint you. There's something familiar about this cologne, especially at the dry down that reminds me of designer cologne for the evening. This is not a bad thing. Quality is really good, but not compared to the other offerings from the house. This is cologne is for evenings during spring, fall, and winter. Performs well on me.

Let me start off by saying I'm a big fan of Bortnikoff... At first I didn't care for this with 3-4 sprays, found it too overwhelming... then tried it with 1 spray and sort of liked it.... kind of slightly reminded me a bit of Vintage by John Varvatos which I used to wear a lot and loved but became a skin scent in about an hour.... Vintage was fresher and much less tobacco... so I tried this a few more times 1-2 spays and my general conclusion is there's something in this that's either synthetic or too mainstream, sort of like a Xerjoff with too much base heavy notes that just linger for too long. The top and mid is wonderful but the drydown is just awful for me. Too much tobacco and maybe the amber is ambroxan? I have no idea... I can see why this is targeted to "entry level" because I think the quality of the ingredients were made in such a way to make more affordable and mainstream. I could see this being very popular for smelling on people but I don't want to personally smell these base notes all day. Lasts about 8-10 hours on me. Out of the 4 "entry level" ... this was my least favorite.

Golden Saffron opens incredibly clean, effervescent, and saffron-forward. It's a sweet, somewhat spicy, blast of saffron. You definitely pick up on some of the other notes (mainly the citruses, lavender, and vanilla), but this is unmistakably a saffron fragrance. Performance and longevity are ok, but nothing crazy. As it dries, the fragrance transitions into more of a light gourmand. This is when more of the tobacco, patchouli, and deeper notes come out. This fragrance comes off as very out of left field for Bortnikoff, definitely doesn't smell even remotely close to any of his other work. Overall a very enjoyable, mass-appealing fragrance, but I expected something edgier/more unique from Bortnikoff. Temper your expectations going into this one. 8/10

Born2drv, thank you for your review. I was not sure how much of an entry level this fragrance would be. A pass for me.