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.

I find Patrick to be a true relative of the venerable Paco Rabanne PH, but with added freshness, toned-down sweetness (no honey) and a vague smokyness lurking in the background. They share that soapy drydown-DNA, but Patrick is cleaner. While Paco sailed off to the big country to search for extravagance and self-fulfillment, Patrick stayed in the poverty and purity of the green island. Peat-smoke instead of cigarettes, spring-fresh winds instead of big apple sweetness. And that sinful honey-note on Paco's brown suit jacket could only be dreamt of. I will always respect Paco - as you honour someone who has worked his way from poverty to a decent life. At the same time there is an air of bitterness over him. Maybe it's the hardships of status hunt and market competition paired with traffic jams and missed promotions? Honestly, I prefer Patrick, for his younger, more vigorous and clean appearance. He is comparatively unspoiled - still a dreamer. Patrick is surprisingly natural and settles very well as your everyday companion, wether at the office or working the bogs. If you love Paco Rabanne but find him too dull sometimes, then reach for Patrick. He is not widely available outside his green island, but as the price/quality ratio is excellent shipping might be well worth.

You have to buy this scent. I cannot stress this enough. If you’re looking for an Aromatic Fougere, YOU HAVE TO BUY THIS. I owned Bond No.9 Great Jones, I ran out a long time ago and was looking for few new barbershop fragrances. After buying a small handful of expensive ones I realized I just missed this cologne. However, the resellers are trying to get $300-$500 and we are in no danger of me spending that kind of money on a cologne I bought years ago for about $150. I like it, but I don’t like it that much. Then this site turned me on to Patrick Of Ireland. For $25? If I don’t like it, I’ll just give it away. It’s $25. I’ll be a hero to someone (until they google the price). I set the bar very low, but the second I sprayed it on me I realized that Bond No.9 copied THESE GUYS! This fragrance has been out longer and they did it better! I have no guilt wearing this all the time because it’s 1/20 of the price of Creed, Tom Ford, or any other niche fragrance I own. This fragrance is RIDICULOUS. Spend the $20. Then you respond to my review and tell me I’m wrong. I will wait right here. If you owned and loved Great Jones and you don’t want to spend $400 on another bottle of questionable upbringing, you buy this cologne and you thank me

Happy St. Patrick's Day! ☘️ Irish Spring soap was a staple in my household, and it is one of my fondest childhood scent memories: "springtime in a bar." There was one bar for my Dad and one for me. I even remember the videos featuring a lad with a brogue as he takes a blade to carve into the soap and show the green stripes and white stripes that were the two deodorants: "clean as a whistle." This "manly deodorant soap" as printed on its whistling box was my earliest introduction to a fougère and any and all in this category trace back in my mind to this initial imprint. Patrick from Fragrances of Ireland, doesn't merely smell similar to Irish Spring, it animates it, renders it in 3D, and is even more vibrant, verdant, and vernal. There are also hints of what makes the opening and heart notes of Givenchy Gentleman and Paco Rabanne Pour Homme so invigorating. It's wonderfully expressive, as cozy as an Aran sweater on a crisp early Spring day, and has a pleasing verticality that makes it feel effortlessly classy. While it may paint a more romanticized picture of Irish terroir, Patrick is a fougère that smells both natural and magical.

A Client hired me and my wife to go with them to the Emerald Isles 3 Years ago and in a small shop in Adare Ireland just south of Shannon I picked this up. When I was staying at Adare Manor I was amazed how everything had a mossy green bouquet every where I went. The Fall weather was light rain, foggy, misty and always a breeze. A real magical place you really get the true meaning of the color green. Anyway once I got home and started to use this fragrance it always brought back memories of what this place smelled like! I truly think that this small fragrance company from across the pond really hit it on the mark! I can't see how anyone would not like this Cologne... I found it to be my favorite clean out of the shower scent! I really love it! It does have a light Irish Spring undertone with fresh salty wet grass feel. The dry down is still green with a hints of pete moss and just a little spice. A very versatile fragrance. I wore it year round. I am on my third bottle. I can't say enough about this product! If you want to know what IRELAND smells like this is it! 10/10

Patrick is an exquisite soapy floral green fougère fragrance. The quality of fragrance oils used in this cologne is truly unmatched, representing the best of the best. In its opening, you can immediately sense the essence of a mossy pine forest filled with bracing ferns, reminiscent of Irish Spring soap. As it develops, the notes of carnation, rose, vetiver, and oakmoss come alive, creating a captivating journey through the highlands of Ireland. The use of very high-quality locally sourced oils adds to the exceptional nature of Patrick, surpassing even Creed fragrances in terms of quality. While it may not be the most unique or unconventional fougère scent, Patrick's exceptional performance and beautifully evocative portrayal of a damp, ancient forest filled with Irish moss and bog wood, accompanied by the refreshing breeze of Gaelic coastlines, make it truly timeless. This fragrance is perfectly suited for the sophisticated, mature gentleman or anyone who appreciates classic, soapy fougeres.

I put this on this morning because I was in a spring mood due to the weather. My boyfriend said I smell like an old man (I’m a woman), and I said “thank you!!!”. I love cozy smells that remind me of my grandpa, Pop, who used Irish Spring soap and Old Spice, was a bit stern, drove a sports car, bandaged up my scraped knee and cracked corny jokes. I blind bought this on my hunt for an Irish Spring soap scent and this is the one. Nothing else I’ve sampled or bought comes closer than Patrick to that wonderful, zesty fresh out of the shower scent, You can get this lovely gem in Irish import stores for a song and a jig (about $40-50). One thing that is so nice about this as opposed to many other barbershop style fougeres is that there is no powdery element, which I really don’t care for. After the initial dry-down, it is light and airy and zesty and not overly powerful or synthetic cologne-y. It smells natural, actually. Which is surprising for a cheapie.

Makes me think of my *other* grandpa who was so Irish and so grumpy and always smoking and smelled a bit like a car ashtray but he also always wore blazers and a tweed walking hat with a feather on it and his cheeks smelled like Brut or something. So he was a grumpy stubbed-out cig of a man but you accepted also that he was classy or at least had his mind set about what to do with himself. Actually this is way nicer than that and I think it's the living essence of "fougere" and it just smells exactly like Ireland looks to me -- blue-but-cloudy sky, fresh gusty wind blowing the smell of wet stones and grasses, misty, dewy green and mud puddles. More helpfully, it smells like the fougere heart-accord of Paco Rabanne, Kouros, Havana, Tuscany, Drakkar, Brut et al. write large and all on its own, walking down a rained-on country lane. Really, really, really beautiful. But surprisingly dank and ciggy sometimes.

Absolute heaven. At the base of a traditional fougére is oakmoss, which has been so severely restricted in recent decades by IFRA that many perfumers have given up altogether on using it; this has oakmoss in absolute spades, and has blended it beautifully with vetiver and patchouli (which are now often used in place of oakmoss in fougéres and chypres). It also has the traditional other elements of a fougére (lavender, geranium, and coumarin) in perfect proportion to rose and some citruses. This produces an intoxicating accord that smells like a fern-covered grotto, and makes me think of the Irish outdoors. This has instantly shot up to be one of my favorite men's fougéres. Just a single whiff made me happy. This is hard to find outside of Ireland, but if you see it, snatch it up, since it's not expensive and is absolutely wonderful. It's my ideal of what a fougére should be.

Thought I would try this for the craic, was a bit worried that this might have been just a generic fragrance marketed to tourists to the Emerald Isle,, I couldn't have been more wrong. Patrick is a beautiful, mossy, green scent, it really does conjure up impressions of nature and greenness (perhaps standing over a glen during a rainshower), I wish I had this when I lived away, probably would've helped me from feeling as homesick! lol As someone who grew up in Northern Ireland in a semi-rural area this fragrance just nails it, to say i'm impressed would be an understatement. It is also something of a rarity in this day and age, Oakmoss and fern tend not to be featured as heavily these days as it is here, unapologetically masculine, I really like that. Two thumbs up! Very well done!

I am wondering if I accidentally topped up my pocket spritz bottle of this with Guerlain L'Homme Ideal Cologne (discontinued). It's a happy accident if I did. A sweetish but sometimes elusive almond suggests that's what happened here; combined with a gently aromatic, smooth, Spring citrus. Maybe I'm mistaking the rose and carnation for almond. It's beautifully balanced. The citrus gradually recedes, but not entirely, leaving an inoffensively sweet, mildly earthy, aromatic, rose and carnation. I'm really thinking there's Homme Ideal Cologne in it at this stage, which is also giving a superb minty undertone at this point. Whatever happened, there's been development, where I expected something linear from this. What's the point of this confusing review then? I'm not sure tbh

Now here's a weird thing. I bought this without testing around 18 months ago. I sprayed it and disliked it. It had a rotten peat-bog type of stench to it. Yuk! I put it away and forgot about it. Every now and then I'd read some very positive reviews and feel baffled as to how anyone could like this. Well, tonight I was clearing out a drawer and came across the bottle. I thought I might as well give it a spray and I was amazed this was not at all how I remembered it. Very soapy and earthy smelling as others have said. Quite different. I don't know if it was the maturing time it had, or if I'd sprayed some stale stuff from the nozzle the first time which had now cleared, or what, but this is really nice. I like it and will be spraying this one in the spring.

I was on a hunt for many many years looking for this fragrance profile which is mossy - soapy clean - and fresh. I've tried all the classics from yesteryear and own a lot of them, but none of them do it as good as Patrick by FOI. Paco Rabanne Pour homme 'which often gets mentioned' is nowhere near as good, not even in the same league! I think if you was to do a blind test with somebody who was into barbershop style fragrances, they would think that Patrick would be some obscure deep vintage costing hundreds of pounds, and i would guess nearly everybody would choose it as the winner. Givenchy Xeryus, Hermes Equipage, PR Pour Homme, Worth Pour Homme, Quorum etc are all fantastic in their own way, but Patrick does it to perfection. 10/10

"Manly , yes, but I like it too." If you are familiar with that line, then you are officially an "old fart." Can you really beat the scent of Irish Spring soap. Never. I'm going to put this down as a winter scent because when you are getting to that point of depression because you are sick and tired of clouds , rain , snow, and cold, you just spray this on and you are transformed to July. Yes, it's a wonderful summer scent , but I would wear it for all seasons because it is a happy uplifting fragrance for me. I'm not concerned with longevity or projection since it's so inexpensive you might as well re spray it or over spray. One of my favorites for sure.

I blind bought Patrick about a month ago after receiving recommendations on Facebook, Redolessence Reviews, and reading up on it. I love it. All of the adjectives used to describe it are what I like in most fragrances. Longevity and sillage are very good. Patrick is now one of my favorites and is a Top 10 for me, along with Paco Rabanne Pour Homme, Quorum, Eucris, and Fahrenheit. [Lest you think I'm only about oak moss, I'm also a big fan of MM's At the Barber, Creed's Royal Mayfair, and Lacoste Booster.]

I picked up the fragrance at a Celtic festival, and have loved it from first sniff. Very green, fresh fragrance, but to me it’s not in a soapy way. It is strong, so a warning to not over spray. One of my favorite memories was when my then 9 year old daughter and I were on a father-daughter trip and went on a hayride. I was wearing Patrick and she loved it so much, she kept pulling my wrist to her nose to smell the fragrance. She did it no less than 10 times. Great memory and Great fragrance.