there are houses or brands whose creations inspire me. Acqua du Parma for example, especially the Blu Mediterraneo series. Or Profumum Roma, some fragrances have also found their way into my home. Lorenzo Villoresi is also one of those I can warm to. All Italian, coincidentally. With the English, however, I have my difficulties, which I only noticed when writing here. So it took years until a Penhaligon's found my favour with Sartorial. And Creed could not attract any attention from me, not even the Aventus celebrated by so many.
At the end of the day, fragrances are and remain a highly individual matter and a question of personal taste. And that's a good thing, because how bad would it be if entire airports, trains, buses or trams smelled exactly the same. I like it when people, whether male or female, leave a scent trail past me, always different, often familiar, sometimes new and all the more interesting, sometimes appropriate and sometimes not. I find it enormously exciting and I am happy when I (presumably) recognize which scent a person is wearing.
But back to Creed, as I said, a long-established, almost venerable brand that hasn't convinced me yet. By chance, a power outage in the office "damned" me to stroll and so I ended up in a temple of fragrance. The Himalayan tester was stolen, as the saleswoman explained to me (it's really incredible, but in this day and age people steal what's holding the stuff), so a mini-tube had to serve the purpose and be used.
Himalayas. Once many, many years ago the subject of a paper I gave when I was at school. Hence a name that is familiar to me, that evokes memories (of good nature), but which also evokes reverence for the irrepressible power of the elements, which in the case of the Himalayas has also claimed many lives. Expectations therefore exist, but limited due to my previous experience with Creeds.
It starts out fresh and fruity, then becomes slightly woody as it progresses, and the base note then fades away somewhat softer overall.
A great scent. He is not a loudspeaker, not a market crier, not one who attacks or attacks you, not one who takes your breath away.
He's clean, elegant, virile. One that, when you feel good, makes you feel even better. One that underlines your personality but never changes. One who emphasizes that here comes a man who has everything under control, but never gets pushy. One that is perceived in a personal conversation, but without polarizing or dominating your counterpart. One that does not take up meeting rooms within minutes, but still leaves traces. A gentleman.
For me very very close to the perfect fragrance. I find composition and progression equally successful. What am I missing for perfection? A slightly better performance. Although Himalayas have a fantastic sillage and shelf life compared to other creed freshies such as Milessime Imperial. The Sillage decreases after 2-3 hours, but the durability is really good, on my skin it lasts about 9 hours, that's okay. Thus a 10 for the fragrance per se, 7 for the Sillage (because fresh scents practically always struggle to close range), 8 for the shelf life. Yeah, and the bottle, typical Creed, you can like it, you don't have to. A joke is the packaging, just a despicable cardboard box, so you can sell a supermarket fragrance but not a high end product for 160 eurons. Others can and do this much better.
But in the end it all depends on what's in the bucket, doesn't it? And for me it is already my personal fragrance of the year 2020, so after several attempts Creed even got a super critical nose like mine :-)
Top Notes
Bergamot
Grapefruit
Mandarin orange
Lemon
Heart Notes
Pink pepper
Nutmeg
Cedarwood
Vetiver
Pepper
Gun powder
Base Notes
Ambergris
Musk
Tonka bean
Rate
Collection
Classify
Notes
KingPin
Akunin
