Kumkat Wood

Mancera Kumkat Wood opens with a moderate projection of sweet, citrus, and fresh woody accords. The opening is bright, sharp, natural, sour, and very pleasant. The bergamot and grapefruit create the opening citrus note and both are equally noticeable. The cedar is the prominent woody note, fresh wood, slightly bitter and green foliage-like, blending well with the citrus notes. The spices and floral notes are a soft aromatic touch but not prominent; similarly, the patchouli is a light green touch. The amber if there, does not seem to have any significant participation other than a touch of sweetness. As the fragrance commences to dry-down, the vetiver surfaces to join the patchouli, it is noticeable but not as strong as the cedar. The sandalwood is a soft sweet touch, finally, the white musk comes up as a projecting accord without making its tone noticeable. The most important opening to the dry-down change in this fragrance is the sharp, vibrant, and intense citrus and cedar opening, which smooths out under the more aromatic amber, white musk, and sandalwood. The opening is more about the citrus and cedar, whereas the dry-down is more about the cedar and the green notes, vetiver and some patchouli; finally, the initial moderate projection changes to moderate to low.. Once Mancera Mumkat Wood has reached its full dry-down, it can be summarized as a moderate to low projection, slightly sweet, cedar, and vetiver fragrance with some spicy soft citrus and floral accords. The fragrance feels casual, delicate, diurnal, earthy, elegant, energizing, fine, formal, fresh, grassy, green, high-quality, inviting, mild, modern, natural, nicely-blended, playful, refreshing, slightly sour, slightly sweet, unisex, versatile, woody, and very pleasant. BATCH REVIEWED: 2020 (#190079A). WOW RATING: 8/10. A very pleasant, high-quality, and impressive, mostly cedar and vetiver fragrance. DISLIKE RATING: 1/10. The cedar and vetiver are prominent but very pleasant. UNIQUENESS: 9/10. The combination of notes and the resulting scent is unique. MASS APPEAL: 8/10. Most people will enjoy this fragrance. PROJECTION: 2/10. Low, about 2 feet around the wearer, unusual for a Mancera fragrance. SILLAGE: 2/10. Low, about 2 feet behind the wearer. APPLICATION: 4 or more atomizations. LONGEVITY: 4/10. About 4 hours, it projects for about 2 hours. SEASONS: Spring, summer, fall, and climate-controlled environments. OCCASIONS: Formal events, outdoor gatherings, office, business, casual, holidays, romantic, dating. This is an office-friendly fragrance. VERSATILITY: 7/10. Very good, this fragrance can be worn most of the year. GENDER: Advertised as unisex, the cedar and vetiver tilt the fragrance to the masculine side. AGES: 30 and above. The vetiver is a note better suited for mature wearers. RECOMMENDATION: Mancera Kumkat Wood is a very pleasant woody and green fragrance that can be found discounted for about $70. Its performance is disappointing for a Mancera fragrance, but the quality of the notes and resulting scent are impressive. This is a great buy. BLIND-BUY: Yes but only if you are familiar with its main notes, cedar, and vetiver. SIMILAR: These are fragrances in the same genre with cedar noticeable accords. Acqua di Parma Blue Mediterraneo Men Cedro di Taormina is a low projection cedar and spicy fragrance; Armaf El Cielo Men EDP is a low projection, delicious, sweet, woody and fruity fragrance; Bentley Infinity Rush is a great sweet orange, vetiver, spicy, woody and soft musky fragrance; Cartier Declaration EDP is leather, very bitter orange, neroli, vetiver, cardamom, woody, and spicy fragrance; Chanel Egoiste Platinum EDT is a great cedar, vetiver, and oakmoss fragrance; Dior Homme Sport EDT is great sweet citrus, woody, vetiver, and ginger fragrance; Dior Sauvage EDT is great sharp citrus, spicy, amber, woody, and musky fragrance; Emor London Oud No 2 is a rare and good cedar and green fragrance; English Laundry Riviera features woody, fruity, and spicy accords but lacks performance; Ferrari Cedar Essence Men EDP is citrus, pine green, and woody, but lacks performance; Ferrari Essence Musk Men is a good clean musky, aquatic, woody, and citrusy fragrance; Ferrari Scuderia Forte Men EDP is a great and versatile fruity, cinnamon, and woody fragrance; Jacques Bogart Story Green is an affordable green and woody fragrance; Kilian Straight To Heaven White Cristal Men EDP is an impressive cedar fragrance; Mancera Kumkat Wood is a great and fine cedar and vetiver fragrance but lacks performance; Montale Red Vetiver is a great vetiver and cedar fragrance; Mr. Burberry EDP is a spicy and woody fragrance, pleasant but very weak; Pasha de Cartier Edition Noire is an elegant and versatile, slightly sweet, ambery, aquatic, and woody fragrance; Ralph Lauren Polo Sport Men EDT is a great aldehyde, mint, ginger, lavender, and woody. SUMMARY: A moderate to low projection, slightly sweet, cedar, and vetiver fragrance with some spicy soft citrus and floral accords. The fragrance feels casual, delicate, diurnal, earthy, elegant, energizing, fine, formal, fresh, grassy, green, high-quality, inviting, mild, modern, natural, nicely-blended, playful, refreshing, slightly sour, slightly sweet, unisex, versatile, woody, and very pleasant.

I am surprised by the "reminds me" section of this fragrance. To my nose, this smells much less like Ormonde Jayne's Ormonde Man, but rather very much like Ormonde Elixir! Elixir basically takes the DNA of Ormonde Woman (which is olfactively very similar to Ormonde Man) and adds a very promininent Cambodian oud note to increase is potency. Unlike Ormonde Man which has a nice synthetic assimilation of oud in the drydown, Ormonde Elixir has real oud that is pungent, medicinal, and lasts the entire life of the perfume. That is what I am getting here with Kumkat Wood. I almost can't believe there isn't real oud in this. There almost certainly isn't, the price is just too low to suggest that, but the way Pierre Montale had constructed this oud accord is so well done it has me pinching myself. I know oud is not listed in the notes, but I really get a very nice Laotian or Cambodian oud feel in this fragrance (the kind that is very clean, pungent, medicinal) just like the one in Ormonde Elixir. The only difference between them is that in Ormonde Elixir, the oud stands out very prominently from the rest of the formulation. In Kumkat Wood, the oud is in much closer concentration to the other accords, dare I say slightly more well blended. The rest of this smells extremely close to Ormonde Woman/Elixir and by proxy Ormonde Man as well. So, if you like Ormonde Elixir, or if you like Ormonde Man OR Ormonde Woman and would like to experience the DNA with the addition of oud, you should try this. It performs well (not as great as other Manceras, but still very good) and the price is amazing in my opinion. If anyone has any info on this perfume's formulation I would be interested to learn about it. Edit: After a full day of testing both side by side, here's some observations. They are most dissimilar in the opening, Ormonde Elixir seems oddly more linear, but the oud stands out throughout the whole drydown. Kumkat wood opens very sharply with grapefruit and bergamot, extremely bright citrus with a medicinal edge. As it dries down the citrusy notes flatten to create the very nice medicinal accord that gives the feel of oud (definitely no real oud, but still smells great). Generally, Kumkat Wood is brighter, drier, and less resinous/ambery. It is not an outright clone, however the further into the drydown, the more similar they get, and they do get very similar. Elixir is longer lasting and has slightly more projection, but Kumkat Wood has longer lasting projection and slightly better sillage. Overall my initial impression and recommendation still stands. Fantastic fragrance!

I tried Kumkat Wood when it was first released back in 2013 and recall being a bit disappointing since it marked the first time I was less-than-thrilled with the quality of a Mancera fragrance. It was early into my fragrance journey and, even though I owned several Mancera fragrances and sampled several others at the time, I was heavy into Oud and Vetiver fragrances and dismissed many fragrances way too soon. Although this fragrance had some of my favorite notes (cedar, sandalwood, vetiver, amber and spices) along with a cheesy porn-flick label (i.e., Kumkat Wood) so I was fully expecting to be sporting good wood while wearing this one. Unfortunately, this fragrance was basically a linear light-cedar scent that stayed pretty close to my skin and then went limp. Okay, it was a pleasant scent but nothing to write home about. Overall, I though this was a mediocre effort by Mancera. Fast-forward a few yaers and I have recently added Kumkat to my infamous Scent Armory (14th Mancera bottle) after having found two Kumkat Wood samples in my one of my many shoeboxes filled with scented sample delights. Imagine my shock and awe when I smelled it and immediately sported a Kumkat Woody! Moreover, imagine my surprise with how much this fragrance reminded me of Ormande Jayne Man. No, it's not identical but it is, in fact, a very fine gentleman's scent on its own. Kumkat Wood is the much better value coming in a half-price at full retail, but it can be found on the discount market for significantly less. But Ormande Jayne Man has the step-up in quality; Ormonde Jayne Man is just a smoother, more polished gentleman's scent whereas Kumkat Woods is a less formal and down to earth. I recently layered Mandera Lemon Line with Kumkat Wood and the bright citrus and pleasant woods made for one very fine scent indeed. Performance is okay in that it lasts 6-8 hours and projects moderately on my skin, which is actually very good for this kind of professional office fragrance. Overall, there are better fragrances in this genre, but this is worth evaluating if you can find it priced right.

I don't know if this fragrance has wildly different batches or just hits noses very differently, but the reviews seem to totally disagree. I'd classify this as a musky wood fragrance, despite the name. You get vague citrus in the opening, which fades within 30min. The next 6-8hrs it's a quite masculine cedar woodiness with a hint of earthiness (vetiver?), warmth (amber/spices?), and slight softness/fuzziness (florals?). As you can tell by the description of characteristics instead of notes, it's so well blended that no notes beyond the cedar and white musk stick out to me. Despite the claims, the opening isn't grapefruit dominant, nor is it floral dominant, nor is it pepper spray. All those notes are very very subdued and smoothed out. So, is it like TdH? It's in the same genre, in that it's an earthy wood scent. I find this to be better than TdH, because it's less dirty and less peppery. The earthiness here is balanced with sweet amber. This makes it more universal useful and likeable. Do I love it? No, it's not interesting enough for that. But I could confidently wear it to work every day and offend no one. (Which is actually an issue with Mancera, as their fragrances are frequently too strong. I know people who've been given headaches by colleagues wearing Red Tobacco or Cedrat Boise). Is it like Chanel Allure Homme? Eh, not really. But there is some relation: the musk and sandalwood in this achieve a similar smoothness that's creamy and lotion like. The difference is that CAHEB is a citrusy lotion, while this is a woody lotion. What this does do is last 2 or 3 hours more than CAHEB, which I won't buy as I won't spend Chanel prices for 4hr fragrance. If you're looking for an safe, different office fragrance that'll last the workday at good price, grab a sample of this one. But don't blind buy it, as it seems to hit people way too differently.

I first got a decant of this, totally loved it, and ordered a bottle about a year ago. When I received it, I discovered it was a 2013 bottle. It smelled different to the decant, which I assume is from a more recent batch. It's woodier with sharper vetiver and cedar, probably due to longer maceration and/or a different formulation. I was disappointed at first because it is different to the decant, which is sweeter. But as time went by, I love the older bottle more and more as I appreciate less sweetness in my fragrances now. Regardless of batches, Kumkat Wood has this "classic cologne" feel about it, something nostalgic that's comforting. It borrows elements from the Ormonde Jayne DNA, L'Artisan Parfumeur's Timbuktu, and Allure Homme Edition Blanche to my nose, while still having its own character. It's versatile and year round, with great performance. Criminally underrated and definitely a top 5 from the house for me!