It might be the best male aphrodisiac ever made.

I love the top smell of B (I’m sorry Katie, I’m so clueless when it comes to the lingo), but if you dwell on it too much the liquid smoke comes in way too strongly.

C is just wonderful, and I get smoky, but not meat tenderizer.

If you could combine the allure and feistiness of B, with the femininity of C, you would probably be able to take over the world.

I’m so excited! And I smell TERRIFIC!

I would like to say that I get a first announcement of “I am perfume!” and then a nice whiff of armpit in B. Ooh, but it does turn into leather and faint tobacco at times. Now I can see why leather and tobacco would be appealing. Too bad it alternates with armpit. After 5 or 10 minutes it has settled into an incense and leather/faint armpit. Hrm. Quite nice. So that’s what a nice incense smells like. Yummy. Now it’s back to armpitty incense, with hints of tobacco. Not able to identify the greenness; perhaps it’s that part which screams perfume to me.

C starts out much more fruity/floral/sweet? And spice. Then turns into fruity incense, and now all the sweetness is gone and it’s kind of flat incense with an undertone of spice. Ah, but the citrus does come back. How interesting! Don’t really get any leather.

B is definitely more tenacious than C. C spiral nicely, but I find B more interesting. C smells very nice, but I have to sniff it to remember what it smells like. Perhaps I’m just too amused by the rankness of B?

Marina, mmmm, I’d love to somehow tie that warm dry down of “B” down into the base of “C,” but who knows if that is even possible? The notes in “B” are particularly tenacious, and might overtake the more brittle aspects of “C” that I also like. But I’d dig some new amalgam of the two, since I do want it to have more leathery intonations

lilybp, thanks, and you’re so welcome for the note listing. I got leather from the “C” too, but it was not nearly as omnipresent as it was in the “B” version. Man, you got armpit, too? I got no armpit at ALL! Crazy. I think you’re right about it being a combination of elements, not just the vetiver alone that’s causing that armpitty bit.

StickyKeys, drydown is the slow unfolding of notes in a fragrance. A fragrance is composed typically of top, middle, and base notes. (Think of it like a pop song: the top would be the instrumental intro to the song, the middle would be the verse, and the base would be the chorus or “hook” that makes the song stick in your head.) The top notes tend to be more volitile and fleeting, and evaporate quickly. As the fragrance continues to wear on the skin, you can more easily perceive the other notes in the composition in the middle and base. So as the more volatile odorants evaporate off the skin, the fragrance is perceived to be drying down to the basenotes. What you smell on the drydown is the base. Please note this is not a “real” definition, it’s just the one I’m conjuring up on the fly Hopefully someone else here can word that all better!

Andy, ack! There’s so much there you’ve written, and I’ve no idea what to respond to first!

B: I do like very much the base on “B,” but what you mention kind of confirms my own little trials on my guinea pigs: the green simply isn’t as strong on men’s skin as on paper. “Green aldehyde berry,” you say? Interesting. Much more specific and descriptive than my weak “sticky.” I wonder if we’re smelling that aspect the same way and just using different words to explain it?

C: It is really well done, yes! That citrusy bit you mention seemed so light and so discreetly quiet that I decided it wasn’t worth the mention. I love that seemed more prominent to you. I do think it could be worn happily by most men, too, possibly because it lacks any silly sociological perfume clues that it’s “supposed” to be for one gender versus the other. And I do hope it becomes deeper, personally, as I like it very much as a nice direction, but I want more! Which, for me would include that shiny resinous quality of frankincense being pulled into it as well, since like you I am also a frankincense lover. However, I am trusting Laurent to choose a good angle of attack for the overall composition, since I’ve simply nil idea on how one would balance it all out without it turning into some awful crude stew.

Contrary the hair dresser scent. There you feel cosy and treated like someone special with wonderful hair that just needs this extra bit of care to make you a different person. Thus, I like the scent within the hair dresser saloon, even if my hair dresser fails regularly to make me a different person. Thus, I like Katie’s sample C, too (sorry… I couldn’t help… this is the association I had the first moment and I promised to be honest…). It is fresh, with quite a substantial amount of citrus freshness, somewhat limonene driven, with a nice ambergris line that is discrete, just perfect, and there is this “animalic-hairy” undertone that is also well done. So far so good. It is a scent that could easily be worn by a man, for sure. This is funny: Although I find it somewhat “normal”, without much deepness, I like it somehow. Why? Because it is well done in my opinion. Do I understand this one? No: I have no clue. In my nose it smells distinguished, somewhat expensive, lovely. Which brings me to the final question: The more I sniff on this little paper strip in front of me, the more it remains a question mark what Auxeos R1C has to do with Frankincense & Myrrh. I hope for the next version, as I am a Frankincense lover.