Hello you snoopers and welcome to another fragrance comment. I recently tried Hawaii Volcano by Alexandria Fragrances. This is a brand that mostly makes clones or dupes of well-known fragrances (especially creed fragrances), but it's not quite as cheap as you might expect from a dupe brand. Alexandria Fragrances (as well as Dua Fragrances, which as far as I know used to be a company) are criticized by some people because they would make money with the cheapest means, or that their perfumers are not really trained perfumers and would rather analyze and reconstruct everything chemically and so on, but well, I don't know more about them yet, except that I've tried some scents so far.
Hawaii Volcano here is said to smell quite similar to the Virgin Island Water of Creed, which by the way is a very nice summer scent, which is especially great on beach areas when you lie on the beach under the sun and get a tan. And because tanning itself is often quite boring, you start to play little games, like how many bikini babes you see in a minute or something like that... yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, you know me, so don't say anything! :D
Anyway, Virgin Island Water is a nice holiday scent and also the (Dupe or not) scent of Alexandria Fragrances sounds nice from the scents, so let's see how it smells like. However, I don't have the Creed scent 100% in my head anymore, so I can't write a real comparison comment, I think, but try it... :D
The smell:
The beginning really reminds me of Virgin Island Water. There is the nice, slightly creamy citric note that comes across refreshingly. Then there are the coconut notes that add an exotic touch. And there's another, somehow slightly biting synthetic note at the beginning, I don't know if this was also present in the Creed scent. This one goes down a bit soon, but you notice it clearly at the beginning.
It remains citric, slightly creamy and coconut-scented for a while, although the scent is a bit stuffy, although Virgin Island also had a slightly stuffy scent as far as I can remember. I think this stuffy comes from the coconut.
From the middle part on, there is a big difference to the Creed scent, because now the coconut becomes much weaker, so that now the citric (and partly also the flowery scents now already) shine through better. In addition, this scent now seems to be slightly less stuffy.
So it smells for a while, as said before, until a little musk is added to the base, as in the Creed fragrance, giving the fragrance a darker sweetness. Which is nice and everything goes well with the creamy notes.
The base is much more similar to the VIW of Creed, because you can smell the coconut really well. A little bit of stuffy comes back again, but it's not that disturbing now, but the scent doesn't feel fresh anymore, but rather drier. Apart from coconut there are also floral, but not further determinable notes and sweetish scents, which should mostly come from musk.
The Sillage and the durability:
The Sillage is strong, I think it is even stronger than the Creed scent, so it should be even easier to notice here. The scent also lasts quite long, even with not so bad intensity in later hours. I could smell the scent quite well for more than eight hours.
The bottle!
The bottle has been kept rectangular and rather simple, it seems almost functional with its tall, chrome-plated cap, which can be found on many bottles. The label is black and shows name and brand. In any case, the flacon is not pretty.
Conclusion:
Soo,... first of all: Yes, as far as I can remember, this scent resembles the Virgin Island Water of Creed. Like Creed, you can smell citrus, coconut and creamy notes. However, the coconut seems to fade more quickly here, at least in the middle note, and secondly, I noticed a slightly synthetic note, especially at the beginning. On the other hand, the Alexandria is a bit less stuffy than the Creed, I think. And because the coconut is less present here in the middle note, it comes across a little bit fresher due to the better radiating, citric notes. At the base, however, the scents seem to be very similar again.
Which is the better smell now? I don't think you can say that, because of the differences everyone has to decide for himself or herself which scent he or she finds better. I like both fragrances, apart from that the differences are not really big, so I would use both, especially on holiday. But the Creed comes in a thousand times more beautiful bottle! Besides that, the Alexandria looks really cheap. But with 50 mL it also costs a hundred dollars less.
So now it is certainly clear what the fragrance is best suited for. To look after bikini girls... argh, I meant for the summer, on holiday, lying on the beach and so on :DD
You know what I mean. Anyway, Hawaii Volcano isn't bad for a dupe and might be worth a sniff.
And that's it. Don't stone me just because I mentioned bikini babes again (as if you ladies never wear bikinis, I've seen hundreds of such pictures of you in your photo albums here, mu ha ha ha.... Uhhhh, or have I seen pictures like this somewhere else? I can't remember exactly.... :DDD). Anyway have a nice evening and see you next time :)
Itchynose
