Ptsau

I finally got my nose on it as Aaron being so generous to give out a free 10ml of my choice plus a free 30ml of the Fake when I purchased a 50ml of it. You know what....I LOVE it so much. I don’t know why there is so much hate of it on Fragrantica. I think some people just criticize his fragrances based on his personality, not the juices themselves. For me, I care the most about the juices he creates, though I also respect what he does and his genuine reviews of other fragrances even he sometimes criticized some of my favorite fragrances. I’m totally ok with it as I think scents are very personal and subjective and I respect them.

Back to the Onyx. I now know what real natural and concentrated oud smells like (I still love my Oud for Greatness even though now I know it contains very little to none of the real oud because it just smells super good). I found that I do love the animalic of the natural oud and I really appreciate the quality of it. This perfume has the jammy rose that playing so well together with the chocolaty patchouli and plum. Also the natural oud lasts all the way from the middle till the end of the whole duration. It’s divine quality (I think Alexandria II in my collection really contains good amount of natural oud too after comparing with Aaron’s creations). He is just so good at playing with the oud in different ways. Once I try his fragrances, I learn so much from them and know what are actually good. His fragrances are just so different and high quality. You just need to find something that matches your tastes because they’re really DIFFERENT comparing to other more well known niche houses.

Performance wise, it is superb. My skin tends to eat perfumes as I always get less longevity than other people but interestingly this one last super long on my skin,12+ hours or days on clothes. Projection on me is crazy too. On his website he suggested to use 8-12 sprays so I started with 8. OMG! My husband said he could even smell me from 3 feet away after 5 hours of application and his nose usually doesn’t detect fragrances very well. I think I will to use less sprays from now.

P.S. I also got 10ml of the Ambré Extrême, Oud, Oxytocin and a 30ml of Fake. Honestly I love all of them but not as much as Onyx and Ambré Extrême, which is my another favorite from him. I am sure I will get a 50ml of the Ambré Extrême when I am almost done with the 10ml. I’m not gonna do full reviews on any of these as I don’t want to make this review to be too long but I know I will try more of his stuffs very soon.

I finally could test it at Bloomingdales as it’s finally opened to sell at US retailers. I heard many good things about it for a long time but just never wanted to buy it blindly and it wasn’t easy to find sample too. Now I finally got a full bottle.

I was only so so with its opening. It was a little too green and earthy for my taste although I like patchouli but this opening just have strong green fishy vibe. Good that the green apple made it more pleasant and uplifting. That’s why I said I was only so so with its opening. After 0.5 to 1 hour, the strong green earthy vibes became faint. They still there but just not as strong and step back more into the background. The patchouli is still prominent but just not as fishy green with the sweetness of the tonka beans, vanilla and rose starting to showing up, though not cloyingly sweet. It smells gorgeous starting at this point. The green apple is still there but not as strong and as it dries down more, I can detect the smokiness even there’s no tobacco in the notes breakdown. It does smells like Herod and Layton mixed together with patchouli (more on the Herod side that I really love too). Then after 5-6 hours mark, it became sweeter but still not cloying and the smokiness is growing stronger with the patchouli is still there. It’s like creamy and smoky patchouli. I am just so in love with its scent.

Performance is great although not superb. Last 9+ hours on my perfume eating skin and last for days on my clothes. It has great projection for 4-5 hours. My husband could still smell me from a distance after I put it on for 5 hours then it will become closer to skin after that.

It is a perfume that would evolve in stages. It’s not the gourmand kind of sweet. It is thick, complex, unique kind of mass appealing fragrance. Not so niche but also not a designer kind of scent. It’s quite unisex as I’m a woman and love to wear it. I also think that you can wear it all seasons as long as you know how to control your sprayer. It’s a 9.5/10 for me(it would be 10/10 if it has a better opening). It does worth the money with its unique scent and performance also 125ml is a big bottle that last you forever.

I got a 2ml sample and I kinda liked it, don’t love it. It does smell smooth and high quality but just not my type of scent. It smells too powdery to me and has a very ordinary profile. It’s not something unique and groundbreaking. It smells more designer than a niche. I’m looking to try Enclave as the notes breakdown is quite up to my alley.

I got a sample to try from the ScentXplore. I loved it on the first wear. It feels like a more unisex version of Aventus. My husband has Aventus and I love the scent but it is just too masculine for me to wear, plus the batch issue of Aventus disappointing us (we won’t get another bottle of Aventus after finishing the existing one). This one definitely has better performance than my current bottle of Aventus and I can wear it too as it’s more unisex. But when I tried it the second time, I didn’t love it as much as the first time. I think it’s because it’s too reminiscing the Aventus and I’m so used to the smell of Aventus on my husband so it’s not something exciting anymore. I may get it someday after finishing the Aventus and if I can find a discounted price because as a dupe, I don’t think it worths the retail price. At least Aventus is better worth the money of its originality and it uses all natural ingredients as Creed claims.

It’s a very unique and complex leather scent but I am still not sure about getting full bottle because it is so hard to wear and way too masculine. I will test another sample to make sure if I should pull the trigger. Very good performance tho.