So I’ve added the majority of these in the last 2 months. I’m taking a break now and I’m not buying anymore until I get some niche fragrances in here.

I am attending a wedding in 2 weeks. I sometimes have a hard time deciding what to wear for certain occasions. I have narrowed down my choices to the following. I am looking for crowd pleasing and passable through the May heat in the Northeast.

Cloudy and 15°C, so I decided to pull out some untested winter samples. This is my second fragrance from the house. The first was Oud for Greatness, which I really liked, though I cannot see myself wearing it just yet. It still left a very positive impression of the brand. I actually ordered a sample of Absolute Aphrodisiac but received Side Effect instead. I did not mind the mix-up since I had not tried either. This fragrance has become very popular among teens because a famous streamer wears it. If you search “Duke Dennis cologne”, Side Effect shows up. Anyways this is a super linear and very well blended fragrance in my opinion. The listed notes are rum, tobacco, cinnamon, saffron, sandalwood and hedione. Together they smell like spiced rum candy with a soft vanillic undertone. There also seems to be a plum-like nuance somewhere. I am not sure if that comes from the hedione since I do not remember smelling it before. I really like this one. It is sweet, warm and seductive. At first I thought it smelled like ATH Addicted, but after doing a side by side, it did not. After a few more cap tests, the closest comparisons to me were Monkey Special, Zara Rich Warm Addictive, and from memory something from Kilian in the black bottle line. The dry down is also quite similar to Gris Charnel minus the cardamom. I do pick up a very faint burnt rubber note, but if anything it adds character in a good way. Performance is not the best. For the first 70-90 minutes the projection was solid, around 2-3 feet, then it dropped off quickly. From hour 2/2.5 it becomes almost a skin scent. It has been exactly nine hours now and it sits very close to the skin. The only way to wear this is to overspray. Overall it could be a 10-12 hour fragrance, but about 80% of the time it will stay close to the skin. I have seen many reviews claiming newer batches are heavily nerfed, with only 4-5 hours of performance. My sample is fairly new, so I am not sure what they are referring to. If what I experienced today counts as bad performance, I might start hunting for an older bottle.