Manhattan

This is for the newly released Manhattan EDP. As with all Roja’s it’s blended really well, but I was surprised that it jumped straight to the base notes for me. I didn’t get any of the listed notes from the top or mid. Due to it being largely a tobacco and vanilla fragrance I was immediately reminded of Tobacco Vanille, but whereas the latter is quite sharp and obnoxious, I find that this is mor refined, well blended, and slightly powdery. I recently sold my Tobacco Vanille and so I will put this on my list of fragrances I’d like to purchase, but if you have a full bottle of Tobacco Vanille I would suggest holding tight as there are similarities. I also find that for a Roja fragrance it’s one of the cheaper options, considering his other 100ml fragrances retail for £595 here in the UK. I know that this is an EDP and the others are Parfums, but as with Roja fragrances you do get the experience of the presentation and quality (I know some disagree and find it a cash grab, but each to their own). Edit: So my above review was for the first couple of minutes that it sat on the back of my hand. The tobacco and vanilla are prominent throughout, but in the opening it’s lighter and slightly powdery, probably from the bergamot in the opening and florals in the mid. When it dries down it gets denser. It becomes more spicy due to the cinnamon, clove and ginger. It also becomes woodier and I can pick up on the vetiver. In all honesty, I prefer the opening. The dry down smelled more masculine and kind of reminded me of a vintage fragrance due to its density. It’s all personal preference, some may prefer the dry down, but for me I preferred its opening. 6/7 hours longevity and I could smell wafts of it every time I moved.

What an absolute treat of a fragrance! For the past few years, Manhattan Parfum from Roja Parfums has a been a grail of mine. Why would I get this when an EDP version is on the market and is much less expensive? Manhattan Parfum brings the joy, elegance, and mysteriousness of Manhattan nights to life. A sophisticated identity is created by tobacco, vanilla, and cinnamon. This is the opposite of an overly heavy tobacco scent as a light, airy green quality surrounds the tobacco note, adding some versatility. So what’s different to the EDP? Having tested this next to the EDP some time ago, it’s obviously the same DNA and almost the same smell. However, the Parfum is more mysterious. The vanilla and lavender aren’t as heavy as I find in the EDP. While a lot of sweetness is present in the Parfum, there is a dry cocoa effect in the background that draws me in with every smell. What puts the Parfum head and shoulders over the EDP is the depth and how smooth the blend is from top to bottom. Not only this, the Parfum lasts a lot longer on my skin. Fragrance is an experience that should make you feel confident. The power of scent can place you in a specific setting. For me, Manhattan evokes the image of sipping on a premium whiskey while smoking a cigar, elegantly dressed, in the most luxurious Manhattan lounge, as the holiday season approaches.

Fragrance lovers...this is an excellent scent! It may not be for some but the man who decides to procure this will love it after a few wears; I've received unsolicited compliments in business meetings about this fragrance. It may be my body chemistry, but I was told I smelled like a CEO...and to be frank, I am a CEO...Lol. Trust me, this is a steal---price is debatable, I get it...remember, you are paying for the presentation as well as the scent! I never wear fragrances for compliments...I wear fragrances because they enhance my mood and it adds to my overall demeanor and personality---a gentlemen! Sample this and let me know what you think...I think this is a stunner! My wife loves this on me and she rarely compliments me on most of my fragrances! To be honest, I believe most women will not like this on some men because they are use to the sweeter scents that are produced in this era. However, women who work in the office or business environment will love this type scent on a man...it smells like success and a man who is well-groomed and know who is is in life! For me it's a great mood enhancer. Smell great fragrance lovers...do you "market research" before purchase, please! Q-Scents!

Manhattan Parfum is by no means unique in the context of 21st century fragrance releases, but in my opinion, it is the best executed creation in its category. Since release, it has garnered fair attention for being similar to the likes of vanilla + tobacco favourites such as Tobacco Vanille, Arabesque and Herod. It opens boozy, with restrained lashings of sweet cinnamon, chunky pipe tobacco and dark woody notes, while an undercurrent of sweet, fluffy creaminess peers through and introduces itself. Over the course of the next few hours, the dry-down becomes sweeter, more custardy and even chocolatey, while retaining some of the woodier notes and the slightest sense of an aromatic freshness. Absolutely delicious. It is an interesting wearing experience also, as for the first hour or two, it sits very close to skin. However, as the day goes on, the scent bubble grows and the fragrance becomes quite noticeable within in arms-length. As tested over multiple wearings, the scent consistently lasted for slightly over 12 hours on skin.

I am in actual shock, I owned the EDP for a short while and now I finally could buy the parfum. This version is much deeper, it has a rum and cocoa vibe to it which I do not pick up with the EDP. Inevitably the same dna, just much more refined also. I am not trying to make an attempt at justifying a obsurd price for this version, especially with the exclusivity of it, but as a collector and enthusiast, it is certainly an upgrade and I do not regret purchasing it.

This is very very nice perfume. Smoky sweet tobacco mixed with pine and flower undertones. Extremely well blended. Very posh and elegant. Perfect for evening wear. Performance on this one is great. Sillage is where it shines. Roja did a masterpiece again and the best part that it is limited to only 100 bottles like Love. This is 10/10

This is a business. They’re not suppose to hold your hand like a child. People complaining maybe paid double the retail price second hand? Who’s fault is that? I don’t really for this release. Seems like another sweet tobacco scent. I’m sure plenty of other people wanna try or buy this, but can’t now because of some selfish people.

This is a really nice scent, it's a semi sweet spicy tobacco. Yes I can see the comparison to tobacco vanille but I think this is more mass appealing, and easier to wear. Top notch and one of the best in the house imo.

Tobacco masterpiece! Sweet warm green tobacco mixed with floral undertones. Vanilla coconut tobacco in drydown. Very posh and elegant. Good performance and sillage. Excellent release! Limited to 100 bottles!

The good news is this is an absolutely GORGEOUS tobacco/vanilla/spice fragrance. The really bad news is that, to my nose, it smells almost exactly like Aramis Tobacco Reserve which I bought for about 4%-5% of the price of this. I also get a strong resemblance to Lothair in the dry-down. Quality is apparent and more refined, but the the scent structure itself feels redundant at this point. I like this a lot, but you shouldn't feel the need to hunt down a full bottle unless you are a collector of ROJA Parfums.

Definitely a TobaccoVanile vibe. A perfect gift for someone who loves this category! I mean the bottle is just stunning and the juice is sophisticated enough to please everyone

You could wear it anytime anywhere its sweet, floral, tobacco fragrance its linear doesn't change after some time. Its not complex and doesn't deserve the price.

Skipped the bottle purchase for this one as I find the brand to be extremely underwhelming nowadays but got a small decant to give it a go. The review below is sorta true - Tobacolor similarities with some synthetic florals and green accords. The brand has been doing this quite a lot, a mixture of some of their other releases marketed as something dynamic. Rather dull and innovative... The base is the booziness from Enigma. Enigma is entry niche, who wants to shell out $1,000 at release for an Enigma base? Some are already selling for a $200-$300 premium on top. Performance from Roja varies a lot, you may get anywhere from 2 hours to 10 hours. To me this is a 3-4 hour fragrance, again not worth the cost if you value projection and longevity over scent profile. And this has been a minute review... More to come if I have any edits later on. And sorry to say, the ingredients here are nothing spectacular. Or at least nothing that merits the tag. It is what it is. The words gem, masterpiece and banger are thrown around way too much by “frag bros” from Facebook. Always best to get some and try it yourself. Don’t buy their buffoonery for expertise. Personally, this is an easy pass, especially at the hefty and undeserved price.

This is a decent, sweet, vanillic tobacco confection in the spirit of Tobacco Vanille, but it's really not something that knocks my socks off. This is a rather common trope, and as expected from Dove, its a rather prosaic contribution to the genre. It will certainly please and it would be an effortless wear, but expect no panache, and surely nothing that warrants its unjustified price tag.

At first whiff, this was a dark wood spice cabinet filled with clove, cinnamon and vanilla etc A couple of minutes later that cabinet is now a medicine cabinet filled with Old Spice, pomades, Vicks and a plethora of expensive Barbería type beard and hair tonics. This is pure masculine; a classic rich OLDER man. But I don’t want my man smelling like this!

I want to try this one so bad! *edit*: Managed to secure a couple ml, it definitely lives up to the hype.

PLEASE message me if you’re selling this!

Not my jam. The opening was just okay to me, very warm and spicy, but with this richness and honeyed quality that doesn’t appeal to me, like cinnamon warmed in honey. It’s a bit cloying on the drydown and starts to smell baby powdery, which I really don’t like. I think it might be the coconut mixing with that warm spiciness that gives it that feel. I might be wrong but in my memory the drydown smells a lot like Oajan, which I also really didn’t like. I was hoping to detect the tobacco, but I don’t.

"Limited to 100 bottles" no more.. Money hungry British greed is so desperate for a measly couple of thousand pounds that they broke the "exclusivity" and released it again 6 months later. Either Roger is the main charlatan himself behind the show or he's just a clueless old man, so out of the loop, that has no idea how his corporate is hurting his so-called brand. They try their best they can to look like a high end luxury brand (like Henry Jacques) but the ghetto stench is so strong that no matter how much of his 35,000gbp/oz rose de Mai extract he uses, it can't be hidden. Where should I start... This Manhattan release was a fiasco.. Limited to 100 bottles from day one. Bergdorf Goodman exclusive, like Love.. But no honey, why would Roger share the profits by wholesaling 100 bottles to Bergdorf? He cut it in half, sent them 50, put 100 on his own website for milking that FULL RETAIL PROFITS... Then we found out is actually 166 and it included all the numbered, non numbered and testers EVER MADE said Roja Dove on his Instagram. Don't look for any other meanings, he said. Don't think of anything deceiving, this is perfumery, he said. Crock of lies. Here again we have it on the website ready to purchase, God knows how many for how long. With all this limited, numbered lies.. Do you really believe they sell only 50 bottles of each semi bespoke every year? Do you really believe when you spend 15,000gbp and buy a "legacy" collection which makes you the sole owner of that fragrance, you'll really be the sole owner? What if you drop 75,000gbp and ask him to make you a full bespoke perfume.. Do you really believe you'll be the only person to have it? All smoking mirrors my friends... Actions speak louder than words. Be careful spending your hard earned money. Their new release Turandot... You can buy it from his parfumerie. But if you're a loyal customer that has been buying his perfumes for years and accumulated a couple of points to redeem a 50gbp discount, no way. How dare you.. You must pay full pop. One loyal customer ordered and used his points. Their website let it go thru. But he wakes up to an email saying his order has been canceled and he's been refunded BECAUSE THEY DECIDED ON THE SPOT THAT HE CAN'T USE POINTS ON THIS NEW PRODUCT. God damn man. Let the guy get it even if you messed up. Tell him your web guy slipped and it wasn't supposed to be accepting points BUT DON'T WORRY, YOU'RE ONE OF OUR LOYAL CUSTOMERS AND WE'RE HAPPY TO MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR YOU.... That's how you win hearts. Not by canceling the guys order who just spent 500gbp for one perfume. Jesus. Don't even try to write anything on their Facebook groups or Instagram. All posts are admin approval so if you're criticizing them or you have a real customer service issue, it won't be approved. Nobody will see it. They won't answer you. If you insist, you'll be banned from their pages. Only the praising posts and pictures of how shiny your cap is and how great of a perfumer Roger is. That's what you're limited to as far as posting things on their web.. I would say the guy makes great perfumes at least but now the rumors have been he's not even the perfumer, everything is contracted to Robertet group with an agreement that as long as he buys the ingredients fun them and they make the perfumes, they'll let him call himself "the perfumer"... I don't know anymore. I thought xerjoff was shill. Roja is indeed next level. Enjoy your unlimited Manhattan.

Manhattan was available at Bergdorf Goodman on the release date, Monday, September 26th. Bergdorf received 50 bottles total, which were already pre-sold weeks before. A Roja Facebook group called Purple Cap Family organized a group buy for the members and I was able to get a bottle on Monday in person, being in NYC. There's about 10 people who posted photos of their bottles in the Facebook group already, so people have it in hand. How does it smell.. Best way to describe it is take enigma homme, mix with dior tobacolor and add some green notes (pine). Tobacolor is thick and boozy. This is fresher. I can see few people smelling the tobacco note and finding it generic but it's really high quality ingredients. To an elevated nose, it's an easy home run. There's nothing in the lineup like it. Not even pdv, sb... I don't think he ever did tobacco before. Scent profile wise, I like to talk about how dense a fragrance is. Like.. If PDLN series, Fetish, Majestic aoud is thick and boozy, full body.... And if rdhp15, pdv16, goodnight kiss are considered thin and watery.. This would fall into "medium body" along with diaghilev, enigma, fm perfume... Not scent wise but thickness / darkness / booziness wise.. Performance is like diaghilev on me. Pine note makes it project sharp like diaghilev. Base is tobacco with enigma vibe. I'm only using diaghilev and enigma as an example of density / performance. It does NOT smell like Diaghilev.. Hope this helps

Amazing fragrance. Limited to 100 bottles only - I was able to grab one on the release date thanks to the biggest Roja community on Facebook; Purple Cap Family.

I received a sample of the newly launched EDP from Luckyscent and wore it all last week I do like it, don’t misunderstand, but in no way shape or form is this worth $400 or whatever insane price they’re charging I’m not necessarily opposed to paying that much for fragrance, but if I do, I don’t want the same games that are being played by others with the “limited” editions, formula changes (without telling anyone or any transparency at all) and launching three different versions of the same scent each with a different concentration and maybe minor formula tweaks...I mean come on already If I wanted to get that kind of treatment I could literally go anywhere else, and spend a lot less! To sum it up, I prefer so many other Tobacco based scents to this one it’s not even funny I would go for Herod *any day* over this, and I don’t even really like Herod all that much The comparison with Speakeasy is weird...I own Speakeasy (I rarely wear it) and I definitely do get it, but this one is way darker and warmer, much more spice and cinnamon, and overall way more complex, I suppose The comparison to Angel’s share is a little bit more valid, at least for some of the top notes This scent has a lot more in common with Creation-E IMO, and at the end of the day I see it as a slightly better version of Creation-E It still feels dated, much like Creation-E does! All of this guys scents have that “1980s smelly guy in a suit at the bar” vibe to them for some reason

I wouldn't say that this composition is retro style, to the contrary its a rather modern frag. Start of this fragrance is really good. it is strong, very crisp mix of fresh flowers, and almost a kinam style smoke with a purple tint to it. it is both cool, purple and smoky. if anything is related to Manhattan, it surely would be the start of it - a sophisticated man dressed up in dark clothes, and yes, joining a high end lounge or a VIP zone in a restaurant. First stage lasts for about an hour or so, after which things turn into a different direction. Warm, powdery brown tones come through which i would say are the cinnamon, vetiver, cedar and vanilla that are smoothed out by coconut. this stage is more boring and regular. Coconut here works as a smoothing agent, rather than a note of its own. 2nd stage lasts good 7 hours on me. Overall, if i could capture first stage and extend it to 7 hours - this could have been the fragrance of a century. since 2nd stage is the main player, its not that amazing but definitely better than alot of other stuff on the market.

This one is very nice. I have tried both versions of this fragrance via decants from a fragrance group of which I am a member. The main difference being that the Parfum is stronger, (though neither of them are what I would consider to be powerful performance wise) and I prefer the bottle design. They basically smell more or less identical, the edp just has a slightly lighter and fresher feel (think Enigma Parfum and it's Parfum Cologne version). The Vanilla, Tobacco, Heliotrope and Coconut and a boozy accord seem to be the main players to my nose, there also seems to be a light "menthol" note in there (maybe the pine?). The comparison with Aramis Tobacco Reserve does warrant some merit, I can fleetingly see the connection, but Manhattan is far superior. Rather expensive for the Parfum (if you can even obtain it) but perfect for winter and the holiday season. The edp is a great alternative if you missed out on the Parfum. 9/10

I picked up a bottle but I plan on selling it off because it honestly reminds me too much of Enigma's booze, Qatar's bubble gum/fruit accord, and Bahrain & Oman's piney/resin quality all blended together. If you have those three, then you're not really missing out on much. I was hoping this would be something original like LOVE when it was released, but it wasn't. I ordered Manhattan online so it was a no-numbered card. Only those who purchased it at the Bergdorf Goodman store will have a special number card.

I am quite new to perfume, in the sense of collecting do my knowledge of the notes that make up the fragrance is limited at this moment in time. What I can say is that to me Manhattan is a wonderful fragrance and not sure why it has such a low rating.

I have a bottle of this for sale about 85/100ml left and bottle #98/100. The numbered and signed card is included with full presentation. DM me for photos. EU only.

Who has tried both versions of this? Is it true that this black version is more tobacco forward than the white bottle?

Received my sample today and my first thought was.. Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille, but with more prominent tobacco note.