Emperor’s Elixir

As has been praised, so similar to Van Cleef & Arpel’s Tsar... weakly. Very weakly. EDP might as well have been EDC or weaker. Maceration tricks work no magic. Skip it.

Dua is super hit or miss. Their clones of Moss Breches, Rive Gauche and Erolfa for example are about as good as you could hope for. But on the flipside their clones of Invasion Babare, Polo green and Fille en Augilles are kinda hot garbage. This one is good. Id venture to say very good. And im comparing to an original formula splash bottle. Its extremely close, but theres something that keeps this from being as smooth as real Tsar. But also this is very strong, maybe even much stronger than the original Tsar, so that concentration may play a factor in it being less smooth. If you like tsar but cant afford it (i cant anymore either, i basically just smell my cap once in a while and never use it 😅) then dont hesitate to check this out. P.s. i was reading the review before mine and thought i should maybe add that i bought my e.e. 3-4 years ago, so dua might have watered it down. My e.e. is absurdly strong and real tsar isnt exactly a beast to begin with of course. The polo green clone i got recently is very strong too but just smells nothing like polo green at all lol. So i dunno maybe dua wasnt selling enough tsar clone so they diluted what they had left. Also i havent decanted any in forever but if i remember correctly my tsar is actually lightly green colored juice (though you cant see through the bottle) however the dua is mostly just clear/slightly yellow

I've never smelled Tsar by Van Cleef & Arpels, but this is very good. A bit like Bon Monsieur by Rogue, but with a leather undertone.