Preface.
I wasn't a million first-hour fan. Very early, - at the beginning of my Parfumo time, I always had the feeling when testing it is his rather negative reputation, and is really just sticky and sweet.
But I learned to like him in a roundabout way; I have learned to appreciate this sweet, commercially effective but also oriental attitude.
Somehow I suddenly liked his quirkiness. After years of getting to know the "really" good things, and in a weak moment I decided to test this "chavvy scent" again,- I suddenly found 1 million EdT interesting, and sometimes really good to wear
I would even say that real oriental fragrances are among my favourites, although they are often difficult to wear in our western regions. (Amouage, Rasasi, Camel stable, 1001 nights, etc...)
This is nothing negative, but my nose had to get used to it a little bit too. Fashion is a creature of habit, it takes time and openness for new things
All the better if a great designer defuses the oriental concept enough to make it wearable, but still keeps it interesting enough to set it apart from much of what you smell.
Fragrances of this kind are for example La Nuit de L'Homme, Joop Homme, YSL Body Kouros, JPG Le Male. They all play with oriental notes, but cushion them with sweet accents, sometimes freshness (Le Male) or ethereal aspects (Body Kouros), to soften them a bit, to integrate something into our time and fashion culture.
And that works great with the perfumes in question
1 Million, on the other hand, is a little more radical, all the fragrances in the series insist a little more on their oriental roots, at EdT, for example, by making the rose soaked in blood mandarin and sprinkled with mint the main actor, and so jumping and screaming in everyone's face,- I am different from the others!
At the first test of the normal 1 million I was even slightly disgusted...
In 1 Million Privé, on the other hand, cinnamon and blood mandarin orange frame the notes of myrrh and shisha tobacco, reflecting the oriental anecdote. Much easier to like because it has fewer rough edges and corners, and is of high quality!
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that there is a sweet, sticky nature to all of them, a "club", youth attitude. Of course you can be above that,- or not, depending on your taste.
Now for the new 1 million perfume.
My first impression was "wow"! O holy mother earth, that's a thick layer of...
Sweet, striking, concise, but at the same time very unique in its kind, easily recognizable. So at least in the league in which it plays, it seems very individual to me.
It is for me also such a fragrance, where I have to smell my arm again and again, over and over again, it is somehow addictive.
But that does not automatically mean that I find 1MP "good". So, is it good?
Well, I can tell you right away that this "release" is very tempted to label it as too picksweet, cheap, too commercial, too mainstream.
However, if you get involved and test with 1-2 sprayers on your body (not only back of the hand test), it really rewards you with an individual and appealing scent.
I don't find any more such strong orientalism as with the other 1 M's, here tuberose is probably the only thing that makes it oriental. (Tuberose originally comes from Egypt, so I'll let that go...)
So he is more of a borderline oriental, but the hints are easy to remember.
But I let it apply, it is still somehow "different" and therefore smells interesting, not to say it is easily addictive.
On the positive side, I would like to point out that my most hated fragrance at the moment, "Cashmeran", is in here, but not so I notice it, so it doesn't show that clumsy, wadded facet of cashmeran that suffocates any kind of fragrance into a lack of character.
No, here it's just an ingredient that makes the composition a little smoother, grinds the corners but doesn't take away his eggs! Also leather, a strongly polarizing fragrance ingredient, hated as well as loved, is so interwoven into the whole thing here that I can hardly perceive it in isolation
Well, I find 1MP to be sweet, borderline oriental, challenging, but at the same time somehow surprisingly well balanced.
I really like the fact that it doesn't bore me, and shakes me up a bit, so I can also recommend the experiment to you! There's something to get here.
Oriental greetings,
Your N471v3
