Midnight Journey

Similar to Joop Homme Absolute - it shares the pepper and smooth woods (similar wood accord as CdG Wonderoud, too) and cool green feel, but this has less of the creamy/smoothness of Joop Absolute, here being more spiced with a dry and almost cool/minty green thyme and smooth earthy ginger. I get a hint of cumin and there's a good and rich, natural vanillic base. The lavender and especially the rose is primarily here just to smooth things out - the rose does take center stage briefly in the mid dry down, especially if your skin heats up. Thisnrose accord smells like a baby wipe, and that's not a bad thing to my nose. Over the cool green woody aromatic base it pulls the fragrance towards fougere category. Mostly the rose functions like the rose in Memoir Man, a glue to bond and smooth the notes together. It smells a bit like Memoir too, even sharing a bit of cool green minty wormwood effect, but it doesn't have the liquorice notes. It stays greener, simpler, and again leaning more classically fougere. Other points of reference are Andrea Mack Coven (share some greenness, though no clove here and less earthy overall), and the aforementioned Joop Homme Absolute and Wonderoud. They all share black pepper and some smooth, velvety wood synthetic (pashminol?). Whatever that chemical is I absolutely love it. I'd recommend just going with the Joop for most, it's far less expensive and has more of a creaminess in its florals that probably makes it more mass appealing. This is drier but more elegant - it doesn't try as hard to please as Joop and thus registers as more mature. One last point of reference is Guichards very own Bleu Turquoise for Armani. The way Guichard combined the incense, black pepper and vanilla into the core accord of that scent is identifiable here, too. The rest of the drapings are completely different so the scents don't really smell alike, but that smooth and sweet peppery richness is here too, this time in shades of purple and green. Bleu Turquoise? No, this time it's Mysterious Alexandrite.

#987 in my "Tour de Fragrance" First off, this smells nothing like Bvlgari "Orom." It resembles Joop "Absolute" insofar as myrrh comes across like an incense note. But there's really nothing out there that I've run into in my explorations that really matches up with this, and for me uniqueness counts a lot. The myrrh is really strong in this, and I love myrrh. But the Burberry Signatures Collection you have to order directly from Burberry and it's not cheap. $295. If you're a man, before dropping that kind of green, you should first get Amouage "Boundless." You can find it for $170. The overall note combination is more masculine, and it combines myrrh and incense. So for this kind of scent I think it's a better overall choice for the guys. That said, this scent performs, no doubt about it. And it definitely get's noticed. Can't imagine anyone being disappointed with longevity and sillage. It's not office wear. Dates maybe, formal occasions definitely. I like it enough and it's unique enough that I would order a bottle for my collection if I thought I'd have occasion to wear it. But I'm no longer seeing the classical pianist for whom I got a symphony series subscription, and that was the only formal event I attended regularly. And I have a couple hundred other acquisitions on my list. So this can wait.

It has a relaxing, peacful magic, like a night walk on a tropical island with no one around.

I've bought this perfume as a present for my hubby. He loves its comfortingly autumnal vibe: warm, spicy, smokey and earthy; it feels to me like you're sitting on big black tyres by the campfire on a chilly night in the pine forest with a dram of whisky shared with your best friend. Reflective memories.... The scent reminds me of the iconic Black Bvlgari unisex perfume, but in my opinion both of them rather suit for men indeed. I like them too.