I got back from a work trip to hot and steamy Miami and was happy to find that the bottle of Man in Black Parfum I had ordered arrived a bit early. It’s cool and clammy here, so I’ve been wearing the heck out of it. I’m really happy with this purchase.
I had been looking for a bottle to fill a cool weather, rich, warm, spicy category, and this one won in my testing. I was surprised, but it beat out some real titans: YSL 6 (beautiful, but a bit peppery to my taste and way too expensive for what you get), Palais Bourbon (this probably would’ve won, because the mids and dry down are beautiful - but it has a harsh barnyardy open that I really disliked), African Leather (I really wanted to like this one, but something in it just rubs me the wrong way) and a bunch of others. As I’ve grown in this hobby, I’ve learned to be okay with saying no to challenging fragrances, and for whatever reason, my nose finds so many things challenging. Which often leads me back to designers.
Bulgari Man in Black Parfum is just a smooth, easy, dumb, cool weather reach that still manages to feel refined. It’s well blended, when I wear it I just feel enveloped in this ambient bubble of smooth rich warm resins and spices. Everything works together and there are absolutely no sharp edges. There’s leather here, but it is super smooth and adds to the depth; there’s a hint of tuberose, but it’s not overwhelming - it just kind of adds a sheen to the composition; the tonka here adds a hint of powdery sweetness to even things out, but this is not your typical syrupy sweet vanilla cool weather scent. I much prefer the MIB Parfum to the EDP, which has a sharper leather and an obvious iris note that wrecks it for me (there’s supposedly iris in this one, which I’m usually extremely sensitive to, but I literally can’t detect any here).
I do you think I go a bit noseblind to this one because just when I think it’s faded, I’ll get a blast of it. What I notice is, for two hours I’m constantly reminded I’m wearing it, but it’s not in your face, it’s just kind of there; then for the next few hours, I keep getting whiffs of it. After about 5-6 hours, I have to really lean in to sniff it, and it’s gone an hour or two after that. I feel like this was designed to be an evening scent for the refined, mature gentleman - but I think you can pull off wearing this during the day. It’s certainly not a T-shirt and jeans kind of scent, but likewise, you don’t need to be wearing a tuxedo (although if you were, this would be perfect). I got a 100ml tester with cap for $63 and couldn’t be happier with this purchase. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for relatively cheap but refined dumb reach, warm spicy not too sweet cool weather scent