Cedarwood Tea

Surprised myself by how much I love this one. At first I thought meh, lemon tea in a cedar box, but I found myself unexpectedly returning to it again and again, and now I can't get enough. Opens with a punch of lemony black tea and dries down to a dusty cedar box of fragrant loose tea leaves, infused with dried citrus peel. In my mind I see a delicious glass of lemon iced tea on a wooden porch in the woods. The porch and trees are sundrenched and emit a resinous glow that mingles with the tea as I raise the glass to my lips. Borders on a gourmand for me because of how vivid I can see that glass of lemon tea, but it's definitely a woody fragrance. I don't really pick up any incense, which is a relief because incense is a tricky one for me. There are no citrus notes listed so I'm wondering if the lemon scent I get is coming straight from the cedar, but it's definitely there. Not a freshie, but I love this one for summer, probably because of the iced tea and sun warmed woods imagery it evokes for me. Can imagine it carrying through to autumn and even winter really well too. Completely agree with TeaAndRoses that this is a unisex, not specifically masculine, scent. I love it on me and I'm a gal. I'd recommend it to anyone who likes unique woody/tea fragrances, regardless of gender. If you like your frags to fill an elevator this will disappoint, but I will say that on the whole, the absolutes from this house perform much better than the water perfumes. With the absolute I get about 4 hours of close but divinely scented skin. Eternal on clothes.

Lovely concept and execution but sadly, CB I Hate Perfume, I personally hate (or at least cavil at) water perfume - as the miserably cold & dreary UK climate doesn't allow this format to shine. Absolutely BEAUTIFUL tea note in this one, which is so hard to do well; and it's allowed to flourish properly because the cedarwood end is very restrained and mellow - no hard conifer pokiness here, just a gentle sawdusty tinge of sweetness and a tiny tinge of resin. Though not listed, I get quite a bit of something citric - lemon? citron? - up at the top - not overly dominant but definitely there, brightening up the whole picture and adding interest. The Achilles heel is in the extreme (IMHO excessive) discretion of its tiny scent bubble (only detectable inches from the skin, with unacceptably infrequent wafts carrying a little further if you consciously sniff 'em out) and iffy longevity - only 2-3h from the first application, although building up a second coat of it may eke it out tthe next veneer a little longer, maybe 4-5h. For all that, genuinely honest and even beautiful, natural-esque, classy and utterly unisex. I should absolutely LOVE it but its slightly weak-sauce presence ends up exasperating instead of enchanting me. Unless you're in the US/Canada, it's also a much much pricier and less accessible version of Berdoues Assam of India, which shares much of the same charm and exactly the same flaws but is easier to source. So I'll pass for now, but for tea and cedar lovers this one is absolutely worth a test run and may well hit exactly the right spot for some.

On my clothes, this is a really nice, strong black tea with smoky, woody incense. On my skin it smells a little less smoky, and there's something sweet-tart, like kumquats that joins with the cedar wood and tea. I can faintly smell the tart note on the fabric, but it really stands out on my skin. The general consensus seems to be that Cedarwood Tea is fairly masculine, and while I agree this would be fine on a man, I also really like it on my own (lady) skin. I think it's correctly labeled as a unisex fragrance. I just have a sample of the water perfume, which sadly lasts only about an hour and has minimal sillage.

This is probably the most masculine CB scent I have ever sampled. It's exactly as advertised - the smell of cedar and tea, pure and simple. This is the way I'd expect a Maine mountain man to smell after a shower and a shave - piney, chill and macho. The tea note is mostly overpowered by the woodsy notes. I'd love for a boyfriend to wear this stuff - but at $90 a bottle, I find it unlikely that any guy I know will invest! It lasted a long time on my skin, though!

Dry and a bit spicy with a robust tea scent- not a lot of wood, but still very lovely. No village and lasts only an hour or two on the skin.