MNGR

This fragrance is a true evergreen among the well known men's summer designers. It is probably familiar to a large number of people - and I don't just mean members of this community - even if they can't always directly associate it with a name and label. Maybe it's even one of those fragrances to which almost every man or woman would say: "I know that one, or at least I've smelled it before". The high degree of recognition, however, cannot be transferred one-to-one to the pleasantness. It may happen more often with this fragrance than with others that it is classified as too common, too inflationary, too shower gel-like and wrongly as too trivial. I would contradict then nevertheless quite gladly.
All these statements I can understand, because just a few weeks ago I felt similar. Meanwhile, however, I can say that D&G light blue eau intense pour homme (DGlbeiph) is rock solid and just right. I'm a bit reluctant to say "you can't go wrong with this" because I think it depends too much on the person wearing the fragrance. From that point of view, someone can certainly destroy a fragrance, e.g. by their behaviour, or create such negative associations that people will automatically give it a wide berth. DGlbeiph could well be such a person due to its popularity. In this respect, one can go wrong with this fragrance in particular. For example, if the achievement of compliments is high on the agenda or if extravagance is to be worn for show.
Much more, this fragrance is a kind of anti-hero, because it is certainly not niche. Neither is it extraordinary or flashy. Because of its exuberant maritime freshness, it is also almost impossible to overdose on. Its astringency doesn't flaunt anything, nor does it put anything particularly shiny in place. Its durability and sillage are really good and yet it remains as it is: undisguised, linear, uncompromising and honest.
Due to the wide range of wearers DGlbeiph does not represent a fragrance that makes you stand out from a crowd just because of the scent. But who wears it consciously and gladly, which takes possibly to him, because he just may not appear ambitious, overly noble or distinguished and in this respect does not try to exaggerate something. Certainly not. He symbolizes a fine and sympathetic sublimity, which, however, is not perceived as such.
For me, the choice of this fragrance is a conscious decision against others. Be it for pragmatic, functional or the reasons listed above. However, he always radiates a certain basic attitude, a basis and an understanding of a fragrance. Simple and easy but therefore not trivial or simple-minded.

Then the heat is literally in the air. In Mediterranean regions, this heat, which lasts for long periods of time, can sometimes be perceived olfactorily. When it has not rained for days or weeks. The thermometer consistently measures more than thirty degrees during the day and more than twenty degrees at night. Then drought and dryness oppress the body and it can only be endured either in the evening or under shady umbrellas near the sea. Without a drink within reach, it's no fun. With, however, quite a lot. Treat yourself to one.

Especially when the annoying worries of everyday life move into the far distance and small tables in narrow streets praise "La Dolce Vita". In the background, the rattling of the portafilter machine can be perceived and between thick sandstone walls gleams pristine white espresso crockery. People in stylish sun hats in light linen clothing under small, round parasols stir their sweet cups with miniature spoons and gesticulate spiritedly. They smoke cigarettes from soft packs as they do so and, if you'll pardon the expression, look very good doing it. Beige Vespas bump along the soapstone pavement. Red geraniums on the shutters and balconies. There's a fig tree in the middle of the tables, after all, this is Fico di Amalfi.

The fruity-lovely of the fig expresses the flair of this sweet lightness in a particularly authentic way. Distilled and bottled in azure blue flacons, this fragrance represents for me a guarantor of Italian self-confidence and uncompromising with stylistic-formal details. Functionality is a secondary matter here and is simply smiled away in the best Tutto Bene manner. "La dolce vita in una bottiglia."

An Acqua Di Parma Blu Mediterraneo Fico Di Amalfi (ADPBMFDA) should, after all, be used, ie several times a day and not fly away due to sparing use. By the way, the number of words in the name serve wonderfully as a guide to the frequency of application per day, with just as many sprays. In short: 8x8, or eight sprays every three hours. So much for durability. If you want to test the fragrance on several occasions or possibly longer than a two-week holiday in Italy, the 150 ml bottle is the minimum of all things.
On the subject of sillage, I can more or less tie to the comments on durability: an overdose or even penetrating obtrusiveness to a few fellow men, is almost impossible. ADPBMFDA wears one rather for himself to trim the own mood to "Dolce Vita".
Similarly restrained is the course of the fragrance, which is relatively rigid and linear, from intense fig (immediately after spraying) to fig medium strong, fig subtle (after about 1 1/2 hours) to fig gone (after about 3 hours, see above). A circumstance that seems to cling strongly to the Blu Mediterraneo range. But "Chi vuole saperlo ?", right " nessuno" , except "il tedeschi" maybe. From there "non importante".

And that's where a few questions sometimes intrude or not. It all depends. The questioner probably expects more for the price (which is okay, all things considered) and grumbles about what the makers cite as a unique selling point, justifying the high diversification. Linearity as a plus, so to speak. An ADPBMFDA doesn't have to have a progression. "But it does." says the German "No." the Italian. Whereby the German still to consider that the fragrance is anyway rather what for women, without wanting to get anyone too close.

There it is again, the proof that a fragrance is not able to create a mentality, but only the construction of an atmosphere. An ADPBMFDA does not make an Italian out of a German. Perhaps it is not supposed to, but the conscious imitation is certainly aimed at now and then. To bow sincerely to purism and linearity as an art form of a fragrance may be difficult for some, but it is necessary in order to shed certain prejudices and stereotypes. However, these heavy-handednesses are not bad or to be classified as bad per se. After all, they serve wonderfully as markers of distinction between people perhaps also as demarcation from certain cultural zones.

The good thing about it: at the end of the day, i.e. in the evening, when the sun is lower and you stroll through the narrow streets described, then one thing immediately catches the eye of the trained observer: the people sitting here, with their much too large sun hats and their much too large cups, ice cream cups and Pall Mall mega-packs are certainly not Italian. Because they don't wear hats to protect from the sun in the evening anymore, because it's almost gone. Nor do they drink a latte macchiato, and certainly not with a straw disguised as a spoon. Even less do they eat copious amounts of ice cream with a mountain full of cream, smoke unsightly and fast, or stare incessantly at their way-too-big smartphone when they're not listening to way-too-loud voicemails or typing them in themselves. "No." They, the Italians, have long since gone elsewhere and, incidentally, don't wear fragrances from big azure bottles in the evening either. These are meant for the day, the sun, the light, the beach and the sea. But they only smile about that and don't grumble. Because that's the beauty of it: la dolce vita is an art that not everyone has mastered.

*this text may contain ironic passages

As is so often the case with fragrances, it is individual notes of a composition that appear particularly forcefully and nevertheless suggest a certain similarity to already known. Whether actually this one component (note) or the interplay of several (chords) of the pyramid can be made responsible for it, is questionable or better, not proven. How, when, by what and why subjective associations are evoked, is in my opinion an extremely neuropsychological process, which runs differently from person to person and consequently cannot rather be explained with a standardized model.

Thus it does not remain out that one broods from time to time and breaks itself even the head over it, where this or that impression already times was noticed. Sometimes it comes to the realization. More often this remains however from.
Perhaps it is a sensory paradox, possibly but also just another (more or less) untrained nose, respectively an inexperienced olfactory consciousness.
Caught in this, as unsatisfactory felt situation of being thrown open, this thought is perhaps a comforting one: the memory of an odor and the inability to assign this conscientiously and accurately, arises from an evolutionary handout, which should help to be able to discover new things lifelong. So to speak a genetic setting of the course, of an all-generally valid forgetting process. This can be regarded as truly life-supporting equipment, it is nothing less, than the origin of continuous joy in everyday events.

So or so similarly the introduction of a contribution can look, if the description project turns into an explanation attempt, which is to be rooted "far out" on a holistic abstraction level.

That MFK Amyris Homme (EdT) in my subjective perception is directly related to this, stems less from the agreement of the, previously established and admittedly deliberately steeply formulated thesis, but rather from the fact that it has happened here ultimately different.

If I was still caught yesterday completely in the confirmation of this thesis, I can relativize it today for the first time, if not completely refute. The ongoing examination of the fragrance dynamics allows me to make the, initially believed in hiding association, with a view to the temporal development in the drydown yet. This sets m.E. due to a rather moderate durability, quite quickly, albeit abruptly. Namely, exactly when the rather top-heavy, masculine freshness has evaporated and also the calming freshness and cleanliness radiating iris (iris) steps back felt. What comes next is the grandeur already announced in the title and truly controlled seductive ambivalence. The fragrance now appears a few shades darker, though not necessarily heavier. The entering, rounded sweetness of the tonka bean makes the appearance eerily shallow and harmonious. I am reminded to some extent of the evolution of MFK Amyris Homme towards the base of a prominent German designer fragrance that comes in a transparent glass bottle embossed with large letters. In contrast, the performance in the MFK appears much more sedate and subtle.

Ultimately, both are of course a rather unequal pair, since structure, pyramid and not least the target group associated with it - certainly also price justifiable - but some differences. What one of them wants so badly, the other one shows off rather subtly. With a very fine, ensnaring and creamy, in parts vanilla-like note, it strikes the quieter, yet more amicable notes "towards the end". This is overall round and pleasant.

A few years ago - I mean, it was 2013 - I consciously noticed this scent for the first time. That was in high summer at an open air near the forest, pretty much in the center of the republic. Despite an estimated two thousand visitors, the atmosphere was overall very pleasant and familiar, due to the green idyll and tall shady mixed forest groves. Well, I have to admit: the community around the party makers is known to me and I am more or less a part of it. But still: the atmosphere felt very free and relaxed. There was this invisible cloud of relaxation, empathy, and awareness of the specialness of the situation hovering over everything.
In moments when you perceive this aura live and are so happy that it's there, it often ebbs away shortly after. Probably because expectations begin to grow exponentially ad hoc as soon as the perceptions described occur. I guess in about 10%* of the cases this flight of fancy lasts and the party stays in the memory. About 1%* of the time, the hours that follow exceed expectations. The upside of this, this will henceforth form a pillar in cortex and cortex. The disadvantage: as soon as the described advantage occurs, very long afterwards many parties and happenings are inevitably measured against it, which is in a way unfair to subsequent events and their almost unfulfillable prophecy.
In the present case the peculiarity of the circumstances was largely forced by an encounter with a good acquaintance.
I was standing at the bar, had just gotten my drink, and that very acquaintance came straight at me from the direction of the dance floor, with a small crowd around her. We had not seen each other for a long time at this point and greeted each other accordingly warmly and exuberantly. In doing so, of course, we become relatively close. We chatted briefly. After ten minutes, I went dancing. She went somewhere else. Already on the way to the dance floor everything was a little different for me than before, I thought. Even while dancing, I couldn't shake this feeling. The green of the trees was stronger, the sky was bluer, the music was better and the people around me were even more cheerful.
I blamed it on the general feeling of well-being, but felt an urge within me to see my acquaintance again as soon as possible. I began to look for her in the grounds. Found her quite quickly and was all the more pleased. We talked more and more and soon I noticed that one question was burning more and more under my nails. I must say, that acquaintance has Spanish roots, black half-long hair and a very winning smile. The scent she wore I would never have attributed to her type before. She wore it, however, with such nonchalance that she henceforth epitomized what wearing a perfume associates for me with a most unpretentious yet eccentric sense of self.
I noticed that the feeling of approximate perfection triggered in me was also prevalent in her and she radiated a perpetual joy, knowing that I was the same. She retrieved a small glass bottle from her pocket and sprayed a spritz from it on each of my wrists.
Two months later, on a holiday trip to Mauritius, I bought this fragrance in the duty free. Every time I put it on, I think of that day in the summer of 2013. Unexpected and implausible, yet inevitable.

*corresponds to a retrospective, subjective probability assessment, on average

I must confess, the addition of "Noble" is on the one hand a contradiction, on the other hand the exact nuance of what characterizes this fragrance. "Noble" in no way means elitist or diva-like traits here. Rather, it describes the goodness and honesty of what "Noble Palo Santo" (NPS) is able to bring out in you: the good side. That, of a down-to-earth individualist whose pragmatism springs from neither egalitarian nor insensitive natures.
The understanding of its terrain is inherent in the fragrance. The nebulous mystique between "too cheap to be worn authentically" and "too tempting to pass by". Before you know it, you're turning around and hitting it. In a period of lockdown, gladly blindly. This sincere naivety is the first step away from prejudices and clichés that have stood in the way until now. At the same time, it is, if not an originally social one, at least a moral distancing from the apparent dissonance between price and quality.
So the idea of an everyday companion (always in the pocket), an always-goer stored in the center console of the car or the notorious office roll container guardian becomes one that makes it into the bathroom.
Once there, it gradually makes its way from the mirrored cabinet to the adjacent, open and prestigious shelf, to which every guest looks quite subconsciously when he or she washes his or her hands, by virtue of its confidently positive "you grow through me" aura. He may be irritated, maybe even stunned or shocked, but when he comes back he may see you differently than before. He sees your offer to flip up your visor and the strength to not spray away your own vulnerability.
You have taken a step towards yourself, realizing that associations can arise anew at any moment