Aglianico

This scent has it (unexpectedly) hard with me. He is a love-hate without hate - but also without deep love. Fascination without long-lasting attraction. Nevertheless: a very good scent.

What I appreciate him for

The dominant, spicy, even slightly fresh cardamom note, which is perfectly enveloped by a somewhat delicate lavenderiness and is literally "rounded off", radiates a masculinity that does not have too much sweetness (there is, of course, a little sweetness in the background). Pleased to meet you. LNDH does not make the mistake of trying to curry favour and "pretending to be sweet", but remains true to a certain polarity - even if it is only culturally shaped. This makes it, I think, really a very good first-date-let-as-drink-good scent, especially for the evening hours. He doesn't yell chubby: "I want full contact!", but subtly says: "This means something to me, I wanted to make myself beautiful / scented well for you."

But then there is something else, perhaps decisive, which is why I find LNDH so fascinating. This fragrance is like its older brother - the, in the best sense of the word, Nice Guy "L'Homme" - very soft, gentle, harmonious for all its spiciness - especially "in the air", on the back of the hand or a test strip it is a little more biting. Unlike in Kilian's "Intoxicated", for example, cardamom here does not rob one of the senses. It rather seems as if all scent components have been purified and purified like mountain water through many layers of rock. Malicious tongues would probably describe this more as "softened for the mass market" or "dilution".

This combination of spiciness and softness somehow gives me the impression that LNDH is a "romantic" men's fragrance. Rather quiet, a little dreamy, a little playful, not intrusive, more urban-masculine than viking-masculine. Its colour (for all synesthetes): dark purple/blue like the sky on some days immediately after the blue hour in the evening. A night scent without blackness. The intended and really perfect complement to L'Homme. Cultivated, with manners, without airs and graces. Pleasing, without edges, but not without peculiarity. Really well done. I wouldn't be surprised if Owen Wilson had worn this fragrance in Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris".

Which dims my fascination a little bit

I'm afraid he gets on my nerves quickly. Literally. Sometimes I feel uncomfortable with him, as if there is a disturbing component. Once it led to headaches, which I only know from amber crackers or very waxy scents that take my breath away. Perhaps it is the lavender that tires me or becomes too much for me at some point (e.g. in "masculin Pluriel" or "Sartorial") or it is a previously covered synthetic. I don't know - and luckily it always doesn't come up.

And apart from that the LNDH lacks a little bit of angularity. Harmony is beautiful, but sometimes there can be a little friction. At least if you wear perfume not only to please others, but also for yourself.

There are a lot of things to be said about durability and sillage, but I'd rather leave it alone. My impression: The durability is as always strongly dependent on your own body temperature, outside temperature, sweating, skin vs. clothes vs. hair sprayed, how many sprayers etc. And adaptation. Everyone has to find out for themselves. With me, he is somehow in the middle of the field in both cases, rather in the lower.

So, at least for me, it remains a "threshold fragrance" overall: a fragrance that I probably won't include in my collection, but which I can't forget either. Definitely one should have tested it once. 99 percent of all people should like it well or very well. And even here, in a specialized forum where most users know many fragrances, it is well rated and loved. Quite right.

I get a little melancholic when I put on this scent. It reminds me of "Chihiro's Journey to the Magic Land", for me one of the best cartoons ever. An excess of fantasy, creative ideas and at the same time minor grounded, infused with a weightless melancholy.

Kenzo Power is the opposite of a power fragrance. He is no Wumser, no loud Oriental, screaming Synthetiker, no avant-garde precursor of the Egokultur today. He went out of style. A floral scent for the gentleman, flowers of all colours floating on an almost infinitely wide grey river, while warm summer rain sinks down on them. The - admittedly a little artificial - sea of flowers is flanked by a subtle citric freshness and for my nose a little powderiness. However, the latter is significantly less pronounced than in the "iris fraction" of Dior, Prada, Valentino & Co.

Synthetic? Probably. My impression, however, is, as I mentioned, above all: artificial. Just as an animated film does not depict or want to depict (photo) reality. For me, this fragrance goes just as well with grief as with spring or with the baby bottom mentioned below in a commentary, with the colour purple as with fresh green or a grey November.

Kenzo Power is a pure, quiet, flowery understatement with recognition value. An introverted emotional scent, but one that you can really wear and want to wear. I'd rather see him in younger people, but that's for everyone to decide for themselves. Shelf life and sillage are in the lower midfield. Sometimes this scent is accused of being "watered down". Wateriness and the accompanying restraint are indeed associations that also came to me. For me, however, this fits in wonderfully with the overall concept.

The Layton is certainly ...
... about a hyped scent (just look around on Youtube)
... about a somewhat squeaky-sweet-youthful, not necessarily subtle fragrance that serves a direction that has been very popular (and will continue to be) with younger people in particular in the last two decades
... a "flatterer", who wants to please, and who is smooth and uncontroversial despite all the spicy and brittleness sprinkled in (and yet becomes a little controversial just because of that)
... for a fragrance that is overpriced, one compares it with generic fragrances from the "mainstream"
... no art scent - Layton should and wants, besides monetary aspects, to please, no more and no less.

That sounds pretty negative so far. But Layton is also ...
... a "functional scent" (olfactory well received), which does its job more than reasonable. Beside the Reflection Man it is the only one of my fragrances that has not only attracted other people's attention several times, but has also motivated some to spontaneous positive reactions (rare in our culture). "Spontaneous" is the decisive word here. Because if you actively ask another person how they like a scent, their reaction is not a real compliment
... a fruity, tasty and sweet evening fragrance for dating, going out or simply lolling on the couch and dreaming of love. Or whatever comes to mind. He reminds me a bit of a non-alcoholic fruit punch or baked apple (from a red apple variety)
... sexier and a clear bit more adult than the usual suspects à la Paco Rabanne and Azzaro (not to mention Diesel)
...a great fragrance in a great cover. The bottle body already looks a lot - not to mention the "bullet lid"
... a fragrance with a really long shelf life and satisfying sillage - for some settings this might be an advantage
... a real all-rounder outside professional contexts. It fits to the date, to the club, to the Christmas market, to the walk, (economically dosed) to the cinema and and and ...
...a slightly addictive scent. With hardly anyone else I "hang" so often and so close to my own wrist.

Does he belong in any collection? Please, no!
Should he be blindbuyed? Just don't!
Does he drop pantys? God, no!
Is it worth its high price? Everyone has to for s... uh... No, it's pretty expensive.
Is it a great date/away scent for younger people? Yes!
What is he to me? A functional fragrance (see above) and a "guilty pleasure" (as Schoork put it, see below). That is, I think, for a single fragrance not so little at all.

First a short but necessary excursion.

Fragrance markings and fragrance pyramids are a minefield. We're reading: There's ginger in there. So we search for the ginger until we find it. Whether it is now contained or not (this could probably only be found out in the laboratory to some extent). But sometimes it's the other way round: we smell something that doesn't seem to be included. A prominent example: the Layton Exclusif. Up to a correction proposal, based on the official manufacturer's page, everyone thought that the fragrance contained the scents Zibet and Oud. (Allegedly) Blow cake! The "Animalik", which even my amateur nose meant to sniff out, is (allegedly) not included. A brief comparison of the other fragrance pyramids of Parfums de Marly fragrances with those of the manufacturer showed that almost all had to be revised and thousands of perfumes and perfumos had sniffed out "things" that (allegedly) are not included. Psychological science offers numerous explanatory models for this collectively erroneous olfaction. But maybe the problem is also on the other (manufacturer)side.

Why this introduction? For two reasons.

On the one hand because this observation has made me generally cautious about fragrances, and I have come to the conclusion in the meantime: The fragrance pyramids of the manufacturers are likely to be strongly marketing-driven and may even be adapted afterwards - one should primarily trust one's own nose and those of other "end consumers". Meanwhile I don't believe anybody anymore who claims that he/she could "imagine the real scent" on the basis of a scent pyramid, no matter how many thousand scents have already been tested. A scent is more than the sum of its scents - and you can obviously not always rely on the scents given.

On the other hand, with regard to the scents - to finally mention the Water Splash - one could assume that this L'Homme flanker is completely different from the original, which has already become a classic. Because: They then shared only neroli and cedar(wood). But: Every not snuffy nose sniffs out even at night three spontaneously from sleep that these are two very, very closely related scents (see numerous statements below). The best explanation: A Flanker can be sold better with large differences in scents on paper.

Nevertheless, in my opinion Water Splash is an interesting fragrance for at least the following target groups:
1) All those who do not yet own L'Homme or other Flanker and would like to purchase a very similar fragrance at a fraction of the price from the same manufacturer and officially the same perfumer. Currently with about 0.33 € / ml really cheap to have.
2) All those who appreciate L'Homme very much, but find it a little too "distant" (yes, that is a completely subjective impression). The Water Splash adds a delicate, slightly bitter-citric fruitiness to the L'Homme DNA, which for me makes it a decisive nuance "warmer", "more lively" and "more summery". (Like an aperitif with mineral water vs. one with mineral water and a dash of orange).
3) All Prada fans who just want to own every Prada fragrance (which should be quite expensive).
4) All those who are looking for a serious, not boring "business fragrance" that can be worn without hesitation even in their leisure time, and who can make friends with a 150ml bottle.
5) All those who would like to take a seat in David Hockney's famous painting "A Bigger Splash" on the empty director's chair at the edge of the swimming pool in front of a luxurious Californian flat-roof bungalow on a day with a bright blue sky, to witness that title-giving "Splash" after jumping from the 1-meter board, and who value being appropriately scented for the context.

He sits in a street café on one of the last warm summer days and watches two women. One of them may be mid- to late twenties, the other ten years older. He wonders why they're sitting here in the middle of the day, during the week. You don't make a living? And then he asks himself the question about himself. Holiday, the banal answer is.

The younger one, tall, is evenly suntanned, the hair faded, lion's mane. Colorful balloon pants, festival bracelets, two visible tattoos: a heart and an oriental pattern. He thinks that she just returned from her surf holiday in Tarifa in the Bulli.

The somewhat older one wears a white blouse, a black skirt and silver earrings. Maybe a late lunch break after all. She types something into her smartphone, then puts it into her handbag, crosses her legs and watches the people passing by, drinks an espresso.

A gentle breeze goes through the canyons of the city, a scent blows over to it.

Embracing fruit. A sliced apricot, sweetened and intensified. Summery, lush fruitiness. And then there's delicate jasmine like in tea, which he loves to smell and doesn't like to drink. White, white flowers on apricot skin and flesh. But there's something else. A leather wall, a little rough, a little brittle. Tanned skin. A composition that might not fit together and yet fits his nose. A dynamic of hopping and stopping. Fruity, liquid seduction and awe-inspiring distance-seeking. Culture that is based on nature, but claims to be more. Style for the sake of elegance. Contrast to generate tension and let the clumsiness of pure desire and its immediate fulfilment sink into the swamps. A scent, he thinks, that takes time. A scent for the togetherness in the corridor of traditional cultural codes. A fragrance with a demand: Don't destroy the tension immediately, be patient! A scent like a sign against a disinhibited Carpe Diem, which makes the day and the life the slaves of the own, fleeting pleasure fulfilment.

Not quite easy, a bit exhausting, upscale, demanding. A slight challenge, as if the flowers were playing with the bees, sometimes shutting themselves off, sometimes letting the most seductive scents flow out. And all this in an idiosyncratic manner.

He rises; he wants to get to know the wearer of this fragrance. He knows exactly who and how.