Community

Excellent freshie! This kind of sporty citrus has long been the basic b*tch of the perfume categories but this one helps me remember why it’s so popular. This is my third time wearing and this morning I really got that WOW factor from it. Bracing, energizing and never chemical-smelling or thin. It has excellent moments up close and from far away, a true sign of quality and perfumer know-how. It’ll take a few wears to get over your prejudice if you have any towards this kind of thing. But in the end, it succeeds where so many others fail and feels great to wear.

I am so bummed. I love this fragrance, and I just learned from The Zoo website that it has been discontinued because the EU banned Lilial. Isn’t it ironic? A fragrance made to envision an ideal EU “community” was banned by the EU! Reality, once again, rears its ugly head.

Nice idea to pay fragrant homage to the peace project of once hostile states, the EU. If only this rubbery aquatic scent didn't surround the beautiful herbaceous, spicy and discreetly mossy fragrance like the sea does the borders of Europe. Not bad, but not mine.

Wearing Community is an unexpectedly nostalgic experience for me, because its first 3 hours smells very reminiscent of a cucumber facial wash cream that I used during my teenage years. It's probably the kind of dewy, aqueous, almost crystalline aspect of melon minus its juicy sweetness, combined with a subtle, ivory soap-like silky creamy undertone, that creates this association to me. As this "cucumber facial wash" vibe gradually fades, a slightly spicy grassy note emerges, which is quite similar to how I perceive cis-3-hexenol, the main fragrant component of freshly cut grass. I, like many people, find the smell of freshly mown lawn invigorating when I catch whiffs of it by the wind. But it often appears quite harsh and overpowering to me in a perfume, because I'm more or less trapped in its range for hours, which is unfortunately the case with Community too. Luckily, a tender, slightly melon-y but mostly abstract fruity sweetness soothes the brash grassy note with time. And softly resinous and grassy labdanum also peeks out from time to time in the dry down to anchor the fragrance without weighing it down. I also occasionally catch a faint whiff of a bitter and salty herbalness, but it's not concrete or strong enough to evoke any particular note to me. The sillage is mostly moderate during its 7 hours wear on me. Because of its "cucumber facial wash" nostalgic factor, I was quite amused when sampling Community. The subtle warming labdanum in its far dry down is also a wonderful touch to anchor a fresh grassy perfume instead of the more cliché route of mainly relying on soapy white musk. However, it still doesn't overcome the harsh feeling of many grassy perfumes that rely on cis-3-Hexenol or similar components in my opinion. Overall, I'd say Community does its job as a conventional fresh perfumes in the Niche market, as long as one is not too sensitive to those grass-imitating aromachemicals.

Pleasant smelling green citrus scent. Without looking at the ''reminds me of'' section, I thought it smelled like a modernized Acqua di Gio. There is some bitterness here and some synthetics which aren't the best part of this scent. Smells astringent at times. The dry down is more mossy with faint woods, though still remaining quite fresh. For a fresh scent, it has excellent performance. An enjoyable fresh scent, but to me, smelled a bit harsh sometimes whereby the blending perhaps could be a tad better. Unisex, leaning masculine. 6.5/10