Flintlock

Flintlock is a very versatile Masculine fragrance that isn't challenging, but is just darn good. The tobacco note does get lost in the already smoky leather and green pine. The leather is not an animalic funky leather, but rather is a clean leather reminiscent of wallet or car leather. Normally when I see Virginia cedar in a note listing, I expect a very dry pencil shaving wood. The cedar in Flintlock is not that type of cedar, and it might be because of it mixing with the Pine which gives freshness and dewiness to the scent. I don't really get any spicy peppery notes in this on my skin, and the bayberry does come off almost a little juniper-esque in its cooling effect. Everything however works in tandem and serves that strong pine note, which manages to smell photorealistic and avoid the Pine-Sol profile a lot of pine notes bring. Overall solid scent that could easily be a masc signature. I personally will probably not be getting this because I think Pineward has some more interesting perfumes based around pine, but this is smoother and won't as easily stain your clothes so i can easily see someone preferring this over a Pineward offering.

(This review is for the oil perfume version) I tried this scent knowing it would be somewhat out of my comfort zone, due to the smoky note. Indeed, the smoke teams up with the black pepper note upon application and early in drydown and is not to my liking, but that’s okay - it’s good to gain more experience of what notes do not work well with my personal chemistry. That being said, the smoke mellows throughout the rest of the scent journey. For the first hour or so of this one, I found it to be a morpher. It goes from sweet bayberry with woods and evergreens, to a softer bayberry with some sweet leather and still a touch of the forest, then to soft sandalwood with cedar, then the evergreen and bayberry come out a little more again. For the rest of the time this was on my skin, it was mostly a pleasant bayberry with woods and a touch of smoke and a hint of black pepper, if you sniff close to the skin for the last note. I consider this a unisex-leaning-masculine scent. Very pleasant, not overwhelming but it will stay close to you with fair tenacity. I have been outside in cold, windy weather more than once while wearing it and I can still smell it on me just fine. Duration seems to be at least 5-6 hours, though of course it softens more as time goes on.