Red Carpet Paragon

Bitter-sweet, a little medicinal, saffrony BR540 touch. If you ever tried PdM's Kalan and wondered, if you could get it any cheaper, well here it is. But as with many dupes, depth and projection cannot compete with the OG.

Just got this. Right now, it's a bit sharp and meh. Going to wait for maceration process to take effect. Hopefully will get better. So far, all I get is tonka and woods.

Smells like a tin of cinnamon altoids sitting on a bed of moss in the sun. The opening definitely has a burst of black pepper and muted orange. The dry down is sweet from a cinnamon type, generic "red" sweetness. Balanced by some sharpness from the moss. I wanted to like this. But I just can't get the altoids tin likeness out of my head. Too sweet and too weird. Ultimately, I gave this away.

العطر عبارة عن روائح بهارات هندية وليست بهارات دافئة او جذابة، رائحتك كانك اكل. اما البرتقال باهت جدا ابرز رائحة هي البهارات الهندية وبالاضافة لهذه النقطة، فالعطر رائحته باهته بدون عمق تقريبا، فقط بهارات هندية مع رائحة برتقال باهته ومسطحة جدا ٢/١٠ - I understand why the original fragrance received negative ratings from most people. It is very bad. Do not be misled by some positive reviews or by expectations based on the listed notes. The fragrance is basically Indian spices, no t warm or appealing spices. It smells like food, as if you have eaten. The orange note is very faint, and the most prominent smell is the Indian spices. In addition to that, the fragrance smells flat and almost lacks any depth. It is basically just Indian spices with a very faint and extremely flat orange note. 2/10

I have not smelled PdM Kalan so this review can't reflect how close Paragon is to that fragrance. But I saw it only has 2 reviews on fragrantica so I'll add my thoughts anyway. Opening and early drydown is spicy, woody and sweet. It is hard for me to discern specific notes in the blend as there are so many spices. It smell vaguely "red" but there is not an overload of medicinal chemicals like in BR540 if you are worried about that. I think I smell saffron there. It reminds me a bit of Boss The Scent Elixir. Drydown is surprisingly fresher than the opening. The spices largely fade into the background. It is also less sweet. It smells woody, refined and warm at this stage. Overall it smells very nice, a good balance between sweetness, depth and freshness. It doesn't smell harsh or synthetic at all, which is a nice surprise for a fragrance I see for less than 20 bucks online.