Libre

A year ago, I took the scent off for me. I thought it was quite nice, but also kind of one-dimensional and boring. Luckily, I received a sample from dear Lukas here and had to realize that my scent taste has changed within a year. It did not have to be the heavy, complex and sweet gourmands anymore. The longer I am on the road here, the more I appreciate seemingly simpler scents again.

No, the Noir Extreme is by no means a simple or boring fragrance, but even if it is classified as a sweet gourmand, it comes across as fine, without being slain with its sweetness, as gourmands like to do. I think it is the citric notes in the top note that give it a certain lightness. To be honest, I personally cannot perceive these notes explicitly. But this also applies to the rest, i.e. Kufi & Co.

The fragrances are strongly interwoven and thus create an incredibly intense warm and cosy atmosphere. At no moment do I find this fragrance overloaded or intrusive. Exactly for this reason I see the field of application more complex than with many other gourmands and not only limited to the cold season. It also works great on an evening in spring/summer or on a cuddly Sunday on the couch.

The Noir Extreme is not classified as unisex, which I think is correct. In spite of its sweetness and warmth, for me it is a masculine gourmand. Nevertheless, there are certainly some ladies who can wear it well.

It is rare that I write a comment and even rarer that I award a 10 to a fragrance. But I have been wearing the Noir Extreme for a whole week on almost every evening and each time I have found it better. I was even looking forward to spraying it in the evening. From that time on I didn't even want to test other fragrances at the same time. That makes it my heart's scent and my perfect 10!

Rarely have I found it more difficult to evaluate a fragrance. I tested it intensively for one week and from 5 to 10 every rating was there.

I think my first disappointment was simply that I imagined him to be fresher. The unfulfilled expectations are always one of those things...

But with each test I found it a little better and more interesting. Especially the Drydown is very appealing. You have to like grassy notes to enjoy this fragrance. But these peaks are well intercepted by the berry notes. Especially at this point I like the fact that it's not the kind of overwhelming fruitiness that's being used at the moment.

Despite its 15 years on the hunchback, the fragrance still has a modern look for me and also the potential to become an evergreen.

Speaking of green... ...because of his grassy notes, especially in the beginning, I once had him play LV Sur la Route. In direct comparison, the Sur la Route seems more grassy, intense and natural to me. Bleecker Street, on the other hand, scores with a slightly more interesting scent. What they have in common is that their price is simply outrageous. That's also the main reason why I haven't bought either of them yet. If I should still change my mind here, there would be slight tendencies towards Sur la Route ;-)

Testing this fragrance was definitely fun. Thanks in this context to Schoorck, who made this so uncomplicated possible :-)

First of all I would like to thank Carlitos01. Without him I would never have become aware of this pearl.

This is not an aquatic species that one would associate with the sea. It is also not a citric newbie. The scent lies somewhere in between and has a kind of freshness I have never smelled you with a perfume before.

From the Fanta4 there is the song "Tag am Meer". For me this scent is my day at the lake.
A lake where I am already very early on a beautiful summer day. Even before all the hustle and bustle starts. The air is still fresh and the sun has just touched the water. A gentle breeze is blowing through the trees on the shore. I paddle out onto the lake with my SUP and take a deep breath. What I smell and feel now, that is exactly what this scent reminds me of.

I already evaluated the fragrance here a few days ago based on a bottling and made a statement. For two days now I have been testing a bottle and the fragrance further extensively. Today I had to raise the rating and write a comment about this great scent. Because it simply deserves more attention!

I already know that this will be one of my most worn fragrances this summer.
But even today, on this beautiful spring day, he was an excellent companion!

By the way, the "Extreme" in the name is rightly borne by him. It is extremely cheap and has an extremely good durability and sillage for a fresh scent

All of you who read my comment about the "Icon" already know my weakness for barbershop fragrances ;-)

Now, is that a barbershop scent, is it soapy?
No, he's not, at least not to my way of thinking!
And still would assign him to the barbershop scents.

But actually it doesn't really matter. You don't have to put everything into a drawer ;-)
For me, there is definitely something very attractive about the scent. I already felt this way when I got a bottling of it months ago. I liked it immediately and couldn't even say exactly why. For me it is a typical feel-good scent.

However, this feel-good fragrance had a decisive catch. Durability and silage are not really the best. But unfortunately this is apparently typical for the fragrances from the house of John Varvatos. For this reason I decided against buying it. But it should come differently ...

Thanks to Warilol's statement, which suggested good durability, and an exchange with him, I finally decided to buy it. Fortunately for me, at that time there was a little used bottle in the souk :-)

I don't know if this is an older batch or if I was just lucky, because both durability and sillage are really satisfying for a Varvatos.

A lot has already been written about the fragrance itself. To be honest, I find it difficult to assign or interpret the fragrances of the pyramid correctly, because everything is very well coordinated and merges smoothly into each other

Yes there is leather in it, but I do not find it leathery at all. Also he has a slightly sweetness without being a gourmand. The same applies to the spices and boozy notes. There is nothing too much and nothing too dominant. Nothing disturbs and everything is in its place.

Conclusion: Successful all-rounder with a vintage touch and barbershop flair.

I don't know where it comes from, but I've developed a penchant for barbershop fragrances recently and have tested all kinds of scents from young to old. Unfortunately, no clear favourite has been shown yet...

Yesterday I wore the Dunhill Icon again after a long time and the scales fell from my eyes. Why wander far away when good things are so close. The project "Barbershop" was put aside for me

If you now say that this is not a classic barbershop scent, I completely agree with you. But for me, barbershop primarily means masculinity, spice and freshness. That's where the icon scores and adds warmth and creaminess with iris, oud and cardamom.

As a point of criticism one could mention that Neroli is very dominant at times. This is what gives the fragrance a mature character with all its advantages and disadvantages. I could already listen to "he smells like an old man". In my opinion, this is not due to the fragrance itself but more to the association many people have with neroli. To be honest, sometimes I still feel the same way. But that may simply be because my grandma loved 4711 and the brain simply makes connections and evaluates them accordingly ;-)

Dunhill Icon is a fragrance that needs to "mature", but also needs a certain maturity to wear and appreciate it. I appreciate it a lot by now and I can only advise anyone to test it if they are into masculine scents with an intense shelf life and good silage.

@Henryhill667: Before I wrote this comment, I also read some other comments. With your statement "must be saved" I had to smile. No idea why that is so, but I feel the same with this fragrance. I treat it as if it were the most precious fragrance in my collection. Maybe someday I will realize that it always was. As I said, the scent has to mature ;-)