Patrick

I got my bottle of Patrick from a great seller a while back and decided to keep it in cellophane until today (Saint Patrick's Day)! I am in a cloud of it right now as I write this - it is truly excellent! I am taken back a little - as this is as good as a classic aromatic fougere can be crafted! Love Grottola's review as he touches on key points about 'fougeres'. Excellent! Since everyone wants to compare it to Paco Rabanne Pour Homme, I will say a few words (although I don't see them too similar). It is a bit drier (but also cleaner and fresher) than the rich & deep classic that is Vintage Paco Rabanne Pour Homme, but I am loving this today - and not because I'm wearin' my green. Serious juice with class and taste! There is a nice touch of peaty earth, oakmoss & hay in the base (warm coumarin), which I find to be very nice natural accord. It blends well with the patchouli adding nice, classic earthiness that makes this a truly very outstanding fougere. I am smelling great fresh top notes of the green ghost note of "fern"/damp grass (very nice and natural) that are as green as an irish spring! The middle is smooth and bright, turning slightly to a note of pine/fir blended with light florals and a dash of spices. Nothing is more prevalent than the classic fougere vibe, but the heart is wonderfully-crafted. The very natural earthy accord is fantastic at the base (while also having a touch of fine-milled, artisan soap)...created with that warm, peaty oakmoss, clean & woody vetiver and a touch of green, and slightly herbaceous patchouli. Brilliant! With Patrick, there is a fantastic, slight soapiness I get here that is like a field of wet fern and bright, green grass after a nice rain somewhere in the Irish countryside. It just breathes on my skin and it is so aromatic on my clothes. A couple of shots to my shirt well over 90 minutes ago and it is very much alive and fresh! It is a nice skin scent, but not huge projection - more moderate for me. Longevity on this is very good. I just bought a back-up bottle...to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with this juice. Final score, for this classic aromatic fougere lover...9/10! **Update** - very happy with a nice wearing of this today...the drydown is very nice, indeed. Longevity proved to be very good, even outdoors in cold weather, although it became a quieter, softer scent (which is expected). This will be wonderful in the Spring, Summer, and Fall (truly a year-round scent - as good fougeres are)! Leave Patrick on its own merit (and not compare it to other classic fougeres) - as an exceptional fragrance and wonderfully natural-smelling bottle of 'terroir' from the green Irish countryside. This will definitely be a bottle I reach for when craving a fresh, invigorating and classy Aromatic Fougere. It has great balance, composition, freshness that never feels synthetic. In my humble opinion, it is the best fougere for the price one can buy that is currently in production. Period. Reformulation has really diminished the classics. Cheers.

After wanting this fragrance for so long, I finally got the chance to try and purchase it at an Irish shop today in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Indeed, Patrick is worth the hype. This is a classic, old-fashioned fougère, so much so that it almost transcends "aromatic fougère" and just goes for straight, full-on fougère. Ferns, unlike a lot of other vascular plants of their type, don't really have a smell, so "fougère" as a fragrance genre has always been more of an abstract idea, like a chypres or orientals. Even still, the basic fougère idea is always defined as such: lavender, oakmoss, and coumarin (hay). So, I would say that what puts Patrick on the line between full-blooded and aromatic fougères is the extensive use of coumarin and musk in this fragrance; the coumarin and musk combine to create a rich, brown, caramelized odor that envelops the fragrance with a slight sweetness. Despite the ingredients on the box not listing oakmoss, I definitely smell moss in there, and it doesn't hold back, either. The oakmoss here is like a wet forest, or perhaps like Irish peat moss. Finally, the other distinctive note at play is pine - there's a big pine/green note throughout the fragrance that gives it freshness and pep. And, fortunately, the pine never smells "Christmas tree"-like; it's executed with a subtle presence, as all conifers in perfumery should be. Finally... comparisons. Patrick is sort of in a league of its own, but that doesn't mean nothing else smells like it. It's generic, but in the sense that it defines a genre - it IS a fougère, much like Wild Fern by Trumper or English Fern by Penhaligon's. Compared to Paco Rabanne, Patrick is more conserved, fresher, and less dated. Paco Rabanne is VERY in-your-face, with an explosion of pine, tobacco, and honey. The two share similar DNA, but Patrick is more subtle. Worth Pour Homme is slightly similar, yes, that one shows its age as well. It smells musty and has a much more prominent patchouli accord. Couldn't tell you about Great Jones or Lauder for Men, but I'd say that the closest fragrance to Patrick is probably Sartorial by Penhaligon's, with that lush coumarin accord. Regardless, I have one final question: if a small, independent firm could produce (in 1999, mind you) a superb and natural-smelling fougère with noticable oakmoss, lush greenery, excellent projection, great longevity, and overall quality in smell and raw materials, then why, WHY the hell can't major fragrance companies do the same thing? C'mon, the IFRA can't be THAT bad... Patrick is the best fougère I own. Guys, try this stuff - you'll be glad you did.

This scent is excellent. Truly classy and elegant. I feel biased as I'm Irish and I sort of wanted to love it. But I went into Tom Ford's oud wood wanting to love it because of the profile, the look of the bottle, the overall sophistication of the product. In the end I didn't. But I do love Patrick, the perfumers who made it have pulled off a hell of a classy scent. It's got a very punchy fresh initial smell. It's almost like spanish cologne on the top, sort of like Nenuco, but there's something green and floral in there too. Thankfully the floral scents die down soon, as do the citruses though a little more gradually. What you're left with is something quite musky and incense like. The vetiver certainly comes through. I'd sprayed on Tom Ford Grey vetiver parfum on one wrist and Patrick on the other arm and after an hour they were remarkably similar. However the TF is more pure vetiver on the dry down, the Patrick has spicey notes that linger and accompany the vetiver well. It's not a strong performer unfortunately. I've not yet tested it out fully on clothes and hair. I'm going to see how it goes if I douse a shirt with it and wear it around for a day. However it's not a projector either. It's not a skin scent, Someone sitting beside you in a car will smell you, or standing next to you in an elevator, or dancing with you. But you won't stand out on a nightclub floor with all the designer scents around you and you won't make an impression on the receptionist from across the desk. It's also not seductive. It's mature. Unless the seductee likes the smell of a man who probably has his life in order. Cause that's the vibe it gives off. Some of the images this fragrance brings to mind for me: Church / a priest. A professional in a small town, like the solicitor or accountant in a rural village. Your dad's friend who owns a cool sheep dog as a pet but not for farming sheep. The natural herbs soap your aunty keeps in the bathroom that somehow always smells amazing and makes you want to wash your hands way more than you normally want to. I honestly like this fragrance so much I'm considering visiting the place where they make it to see can I cajole them into making me at least one bottle of EDP concentration to try overcome the performance issue.

Years ago, at least until the Celtic Tiger of the 1990s, Palmolive soap was ubiquitous in Ireland. Every sink and every bathtub had a pale green cake of Palmolive soap (made in Germany). Nearly every man who shaved began the process by rubbing a green stick of Palmolive shaving soap on his face and creating a lather with a wet badger or pig bristle brush. It was everywhere. And to my mind Patrick conjures up memories of Palmolive. Of course, it is much richer and a more sophisticated scent than a cheap soap stick, but the similarities are there. A delightful scent memory for me. Many Americans associate Patrick with Irish Spring soap. Around 1970 Americans apparently became obsessed with not smelling human. Deodorants and anti-perspirants became necessities. "Deodorant" soap was suddenly all the rage. Regular Palmolive soap was taking a major hit from these new deodorant soaps, so Palmolive introduced Irish Spring, which was a slightly spiced up and more highly perfumed version of regular Palmolive soap. With Deodorant right on the label. They probably also figured that 140 million Irish Americans might be drawn to the new allegedly "Irish" soap. This type of fougere scent has long been associated with Ireland. SIR, and Maurer and Wirtz have produced Irisch Moos for decades in a line of male grooming products from soaps to EdT. A drugstore line, it can be found everywhere in much of Europe. Patrick is a much higher quality fragrance than Irisch Moos, but if you've tried them both you'll see the similarities or perhaps more correctly the influence of the German product on Patrick. I agree with much of what others have written about the quality of ingredients. The oakmoss and patchouli in the base create a faint scent of turf being lifted from the bog. Not the smoky scent of turf burning as one finds in whiskys from the western Isles, but rather the green, moist, airy scent of the bog itself. Trust me, an open peat bog smells better than it sounds. I really enjoy Patrick. Backup bottle worthy.

I've been trying to review this for weeks. I've been wearing it for months. I have read the other reviews and admittedly I can't do better, so I'll simply add my opinion that this borders on magical. A solid price point. Good longevity in that I have a fairly active 12 hour a day job and it will project for up to 6 hours, and still linger on the skin the rest of the night. Sillage is moderate for about 4 hours, a little less for the next couple, and skin scent for me until I shower after my work day. The moderate/moderate votes I've found to be accurate. I'd be curious how many sprays others are wearing, but I've been doing 3. Two neck sides and one lower neck upper chest. The sprayer would be the only thing I'd upgrade were I to make the product, otherwise I wouldn't touch a thing. I'd also agree that either an old soul in a young body or older would be the best fit. Also, cool and humid makes the most magic with this scent. It's still wonderful on really dry and hot days but the transition into that odd magical, indescribable scent seems most prominent with slightly cooler temps (85 Fahrenheit and lower) and a higher humidity (25%+ plus). I live in a very arid summer state and have noticed on the higher temp, lower humidity days this is a thing. Really amazing stuff.