Upcycled Mandarin

A bit spicy at beggining, then settle down in a beautiful fruity and sharp fresh scent

Upcycled Mandarin. Oh, the name gives potential.... The first note upon spraying, for 5 seconds, delicious mandarin/orange. Then....what’s that? Macaroon? Ick. This smells more like Pistachio than Mandarin. Very almond cookie, no lingering citrus at all. Very sweet dry down. Why, oh why would you mix almond with citrus? This is the most disappointing acquisition I can think of in quite some time. I tried all of this line one day and ordered Upcycled Mandarin thinking it was “the citrus one”. If you like amaretto or pistachio fragrances, this is your perfume, if you’re looking for mandarin or citrus, even though the name would lead you to believe this is it, it’s not. Really disappointing. Note: all of the scents in this line that have a citrus name are basically gourmands, except Bergamot Brother (which is fabulous and by far the best of this new line). Just why even give the citrus names? Just call them gourmands.

I received a free sample and the name alone made me curious. The fragrance opens promisingly with a juicy mandarin, and for a moment it’s actually quite nice, but then the woody herbal notes appear, probably cedar and immortelle. I do like herby woody combos but here these don’t blend very nicely. In the base, all I can smell is anise, even though it’s not listed in the note pyramid. On my skin, this frag smells exactly like Bassetts liquorice sweets when you open the packet. The scent sits very close to the skin, and the longevity is poor as well, after an hour, I couldn’t smell it at all. Out of curiosity I checked the price, and in my opinion it’s absolutely not worth it.

I smell all the notes in the opening it's got a tonne of patchouli too though... opening starts off a bit like sauvage edp with a liquorice smell and similar patchouli vibe to ajmal mystery but then dries down until a disgusting spicy peppery mess similar to the dry down of PDM galloway like a burning chemical/burnt hair smell. The original xerjoff torino was a spicy citrus with similar bad dry down

Something in this composition just doesn't work with my skin and results in an absolute mess of a perfume, maybe it's the immortelle? Smells cheap and somewhat powdery.