Pop

Went out on a limb for this one, blind bought it and due to money conversion, shipping etc payed more than I felt comfortable for a 30ml extract. With the listed notes and the reviews I just couldn't help myself, I really wanted a fragrance that smelt heavy of root beer/Dr. Pepper. After a couple weeks it finally arrived and I was so hyped to try this. First wearing was a horror! What did I do! I have never had a blind buy that didn't work out for me, why did the first mistake have to be a $100+ one? So the opening had about 5 minutes of root beer and then I got Chinese medical oil. You know that green one that heats up as you rub it into sore muscles? Oh boy. Then the drydown was a cloying honey heavy medicinal woods mess. It was like the woods that are in a bottle of mamajuana (Dominican Viagra) minus the wine, but loads of cheap corn syrup being played off as honey. Really bad. It's was only after the 3rd wearing (and after shaking the bottle at random times during the weeks) that this came true. Okay I've never bought from a small batch indie house before. I grabbed this bottle right when it came back in stock. It must be that it needed time to blend properly or whatever. Now the root beer/Dr. Pepper opening lasts for hours. No trace of Chinese medicinal oil. No cloying weird honey note, instead a beautiful woody tobacco drydown that lasts for hours. It definitely delivered for what I was yearning. Great performance. 8/10

The smell of early fall parties with friends during late high school. Sneaking a shot of rum or two into your parent supplied root beer while outside around a fire pit. The smell of the dads hefty cigar they’re all smoking wafts down from the porch to the fire as good times are had by all. A very simple, if not evocative fragrance of simpler times. A realistic and evocative blast of root beer cut by a sweet, yet slightly smoked pipe tobacco & woody backbone. Not much if any beer, more just a very thick, syrupy fragrance. This has been such a joy to wear these past few evenings and I’m really happy to have this in my collection, even if just a 10 mL. James is a really talented nose, and while it’s sad to see him go, this has been one of my favorite gourmand-adjacent scents and I’m excited to wear this more in the future. Very good performance with moderate to strong projection depending on the heat. 9.3/10. Song vibe - Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl) by Looking Glass

I got to meet James, the perfumer today. What an awesome artistic guy with a lot of passion. I tried Pop and fell in love with it! The opening is intense, spicy rootbeer barrels from my childhood. It dries down into the coziest cinnamon, tobacco, and wood. It evokes memories of visiting old time general stores with their creaking dusty wood floors, jars of candies and cinnamon scented pinecones. I usually hate excessively spicy/woody fragrances but this smells so natural and comforting.

This is my favorite parfum. It smells so good. It reminds me of root beer barrels in the opening then dries down to an even more amazing scent. It lasts for over 12 hours on my skin. I get compliments a lot even though we are all wearing mask. I believe that this would smell great on everyone. I like it so much that I not only purchased 2 full bottles but I even got a third. This is my "olfactory find of 2021." Do yourself a favor and get your nose on this, I know you will love it.

It makes me want to eat my arm where I sprayed it. That sounds odd but says it all! Although, Pop is more than a trip back to the root beer float shops of my childhood. It has such deep, almost tobacco-inflected and boozy nuances that it also calms me down as it makes me smile. And the tobacco... is so good. So good. What a difference natural ingredients make! These fragrances’ accords have accords that have accords!

Omg! Smells like Tiger Balm except more friendly and a teeny bit less camphorous. Don’t let this put you off - this is an interesting left field oddity if that’s your thing. Yeah, I also get the Sarsparilla comparison but that’s sweeter than this. Hmm, so do I convert from my Discovery Sample into a big bottle? Dunno yet, this would be worn as a curiosity...

This smells like a combo of root beer, Dr Pepper, and cream soda in the opening. It stays that was for about 2-3 hours. After that it becomes a sweet woody tobacco scent for the remainder of it's life which is in the 10-12 hour range for me. My favorite of the house so far.

Lord have mercy! Spicy SPICY rootbeer up top, which dries down into my favorite "cinnamon" scent ever. Perfectly sweet, too! Prada L'Homme Intense and Armani Code Profumo have NOTHING on this. Wow, James! Great work

This one is gooooood, opens with this semi sweet and fizzy root beer accompanied with some booziness its really great. after a while it finishes off with a smooth tobacco

This is an instant hit. Sasparilla and root beer spices and woods. A very happy smelling fragrance. Not sugary to me like the name might suggest. Two thumbs up 👍👍

This fragrance right here is the most realistic luxurious root beer smell in the world. It is so deep and rich and spicy and sweet, I love it!

opens just like root beer, then woods and smooth tobacco. i love it, its not too sweet but not too plain, very unique and wearable.

Smells like those root beer barrel candies! So good, will draw a ton of compliments.

A very realistic sarsaparila smell.. reminds me of my childhood drinks and candy..

ok i have this as andes mudslide as my profile, but this is a review of actual pop (andes is a 9/10) this one is kind of just disappointing. like it smells like flat soda to me. cool but nah. 6.5/10

Cheap, medicinal alcohol synthesis. Smells something like chocolate liquor. Smells like diet root beer tastes. Very much an acquired taste.

I've been looking for something with an authentic root beer accord that doesn't give me a headache (looking at you, JHAG) and this was almost it. What's really nice about Pop is that it even smells like artisanal root beer, where you can actually detect the spices used in its creation rather it just being a "flavor". Not overly sugary either. Sillage is pretty strong for what it is, too. Unfortunately after a few minutes on my skin, it really started to let me down. I am not sure whether there's an animalic note in the base or the tobacco started coming out, but damn it gets rugged. Frankly, it stinks. And it's really a shame because the root beer coexists alongside it, continually pleasant. Part of me wishes it morphed away, I want to keep smelling it, but there's that skanky funk in the way. Hopefully this is only a me problem as I would love to smell the pleasant parts on someone else. Firmly unisex IMO.

Nice gummy rootbeer. 🤎 Ordering an old fashioned brown bottle of root beer at a cigar bar; people stare. Duke Ellington’s Jeeps Blues is playing in the background. I’m not a smoker because I love my body but I love the smell of sweet tobacco and the vibe so I only pretend, but I am honest about it. (Hey it’s my thing to be an enigma and a walking contradiction so go get your own thing!) I don’t fit in, I never do, all I want is to be ignored, hear music and drink my root beer. My next order is another root beer but this time in a whisky glass and on the rocks; please stop staring at me! Someone asks for a James Blunt “You’re Beautiful” jazz cover and dedicates it to me, “to the beautiful lone girl in the corner.” Everyone stares.🙄 Time to leave.

The very beginning of this is a mix of sarsaparilla and ginger beer. It's not a true accord, however, as there is also a bit of a weird moist-musty note lurking in the background. As the scent develops the citrus element does come out, as others have already mentioned, but for me the dry down is a little bit of a let down as it develops the Bortnikoff house tobacco and just feels like it doesn't match up with the beginning and middle. It's a little jarring for mine. I'm gonna try this out again as I feel I may have missed something, but my first impression was that there was not enough of a connection between the beginning and the end. Don't get me wrong, dynamic, shifting scents are great, it's just that this one moved too much...

I got the sample before the formal releases. I instantly love it. What I love about is that if you can get away from the perception the name gives the fragrances it is more than that. You can get awesomely sweet animal musks which are really something I have come to love more and think are far more superior to the synthetic counterpart. You can also get chocolate and some very lovely fizzy resins. This is a beast in performance and pretty good with projection. Maybe that is my experience because I barely have 1ml to work with.