Top Notes 
Heart Notes 
Base Notes 
04/11/2015
Drseid
819 Reviews
Drseid
Helpful Review
5
Starts North, Goes South...
North opens with an aromatic lavender and natural smelling Virginia cedar starring duo. As the composition moves to its early heart the natural cedar gradually gains further strength, eventually overtaking the lavender. Moving further through the composition's heart, the cedar changes in character, now adding in an incense-like facet to the mix as remnants of the aromatic lavender finally vacate. During the late dry-down the cedar starts to dissipate as it is gradually replaced by relatively gentle black pepper that takes the fore through the finish. Projection is on the low side of average, as is longevity at about 5-6 hours on skin.
North is a composition consisting of “what might have been". The open is truly outstanding and quite similar to the amazing aromatic lavender and natural cedar duo found in Anat Fritz by Anat Fritz (and it's intentional slight reformulation and re-release now called "Classical"). The primary difference between the two is Anat Fritz kicks up the aromatic lavender to much higher levels and leaves the cedar a tad more rugged and stylistically aggressive. That said, things were off to a great start. Additionally impressive was the way the composition emulated the use of incense without actually containing any, with the cedar deftly changing character in an ever so subtle fashion without losing any of its great smelling qualities. If one could hit the pause button and could freeze the development right here this review would be a big rave, but alas the perfumer couldn't quite leave things well enough alone... Instead, the late dry-down turns into a rather bland generic black peppery affair, with remnants of the cedar well in the background. The pepper is not much of a foundation for the composition and ultimately it falls apart in short order, leaving the wearer scratching their head as to what just happened, wondering “Why?". Even with the major let-down late, the composition is definitely a winner on the whole, but with the superior smelling and performing Classical by Anat Fritz selling for less money (despite North being an Extrait and Classical an EdP), a purchase becomes more than a bit of a tough sell. The bottom line is the 185 Euros per 100ml bottle North has a lot of things going for it, but when things go south, they plummet big time, still earning a "very good" 3.5 stars out of 5 and a recommended rating. Rating aside, this is definitely a disappointing outing when one takes into account what might have been.
North is a composition consisting of “what might have been". The open is truly outstanding and quite similar to the amazing aromatic lavender and natural cedar duo found in Anat Fritz by Anat Fritz (and it's intentional slight reformulation and re-release now called "Classical"). The primary difference between the two is Anat Fritz kicks up the aromatic lavender to much higher levels and leaves the cedar a tad more rugged and stylistically aggressive. That said, things were off to a great start. Additionally impressive was the way the composition emulated the use of incense without actually containing any, with the cedar deftly changing character in an ever so subtle fashion without losing any of its great smelling qualities. If one could hit the pause button and could freeze the development right here this review would be a big rave, but alas the perfumer couldn't quite leave things well enough alone... Instead, the late dry-down turns into a rather bland generic black peppery affair, with remnants of the cedar well in the background. The pepper is not much of a foundation for the composition and ultimately it falls apart in short order, leaving the wearer scratching their head as to what just happened, wondering “Why?". Even with the major let-down late, the composition is definitely a winner on the whole, but with the superior smelling and performing Classical by Anat Fritz selling for less money (despite North being an Extrait and Classical an EdP), a purchase becomes more than a bit of a tough sell. The bottom line is the 185 Euros per 100ml bottle North has a lot of things going for it, but when things go south, they plummet big time, still earning a "very good" 3.5 stars out of 5 and a recommended rating. Rating aside, this is definitely a disappointing outing when one takes into account what might have been.
2 Comments
