Rock The Ages Birch & Black Pepper

I am not a huge fan of Jo Malone as Im not interested in layering and a lot of their fragrances (with some notable exceptions) smell incomplete, overly simple, or inoffensive to a fault imo. On the contrary, this stuff is pretty daring. It smells like a new magazine that was dropped into a bucket of cracked pepper and drizzled with some smoky birch tar. The drydown changes quite a bit as the pepper smoothens out and the vanilla becomes more prominent. The birch is identifiable all the way through, giving it a smoldering inkiness that I found myself really enjoying. Performance is so so, the longevity is right around 5 hours and the sillage is comically quiet, although I will note that my girlfriend noticed this on me a few hours after application when I couldnt smell a thing, so olfactory fatigue could be playing a role in that. I could imagine this would have some good layering applications as well if you're into that kind of thing. It could masculinize something thats a little questionable or darken up something thats 'too friendly', I presume.

I love spicy and woody scents, but occasionally even the ones I enjoy can induce a mild headache. With Birch & Black Pepper, I don't experience this issue even with the use of a couple sprays. This is a edgier scent that makes my outfit feel more polished and complete. It's dark and smoky, but not overly so. You can wear it easily both for daytime and nighttime use. Someone mentioned this layers well with Pomegranate Noir which has me thinking of repurchasing Pomegranate Noir just to see how the combo meshes together.

Birch and Black Pepper is my reference birch scent - it is definitely smoky and woody, and often sets a more austere mood. Good on its own or layered with other scents (including beyond Jo Malone's). Longevity and Sillage is better than most Jo Malone's but even then it's still just above average. I wish it will be re-released again and that it will come in 100ml sizes in Cologne Concentree version.

I really wanted to like this. BUT it ends up smelling like an old camp fire that someone cooked hotdogs over. Maybe that's just how it interacted with me.

Remember those old mimeograph machines in school that made copies by forcing ink through a stencil onto the paper . . . you could still smell the ink, and sometimes it would get on your fingers? Or the cartridge pens (whose Peacock Blue ink still resides in my heart)? This scent brings all of that back! There's even a hint of the paper smell. I love it! I would love it even without the scent memories, but with them, it's irresistible. Malone's Rock the Ages collection is meant to depict historic times in British history. This one represents the clash of modern traditional vs. punk culture. Hahaha - they must have had the same copy machines in England! The overall accord is clean and brisk, spicy, woody and aromatic. I think reading the notes is throwing some off, because it's just like that inescapable impulse to bury your head in those copied papers in school and get a whiff of the freshly mimeographed page! The smell is almost hardwired into our brain to be pleasing. This perfume elevates that smell and transforms it into a wearable, probably unintended, tribute. Unisex, leaning towards masculine.