It was fairly early into my exploration of fragrance that I realized I particularly enjoyed a few notes, more than others.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 At the top of the list was cedar, and I’ve come to enjoy it in all it’s shades and nuances.\u00c2\u00a0 Perfumery mainly uses two species, the Virginia Cedar, which is the sharp, resinous, woody scent that most people associate with hamster bedding or pencil shavings.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s also Atlas Cedar, which is a more distinguished, camphorous smell, beautiful in it’s own right for entirely different reasons, and used in entirely different applications.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Rarer are the perfumes that use cypress, which is a nice balance of the qualities of both and was used, along with Atlas cedar, in Juicy Couture Dirty English.\u00c2\u00a0 I have said for a long time now that this is the most underrated fragrance of 2008, missing the ballot altogether for Best New Fragrance in the 8th Basenotes Awards entirely, replaced instead with things like Diesel Fuel For Life and Lanc\u00c3\u00b4me Hypn\u00c3\u00b4se.<\/p>\n
But enough reminiscing.\u00c2\u00a0 Dirty English opens in a very unusual way, in that it blends sweet citrus notes with spicy cypress and caraway seed.\u00c2\u00a0 Let me take a step back and say how much I enjoy the addition of spice notes to fragrances, and what a difference they can make.\u00c2\u00a0 The black pepper note in Ralph Lauren Romance Silver saves it, it gives character and strength to Burberry London, it turns the entire composition on it’s ear in Cereus No. 7, it…well, you see where I’m going.\u00c2\u00a0 The maneuver is a good one, and it’s a very distinct spicy opening.\u00c2\u00a0 The edges of the sweetness and spice fade, and the drydown is much like the opening, but with the growing presence of moss and leather to esconce it firmly in the masculine category.\u00c2\u00a0 Where it really shines for me, though, is body interaction.\u00c2\u00a0 The hotter the temperature, and the more I sweat, the better and better this thing gets.\u00c2\u00a0 It is my go-to summer scent, despite not strictly meeting the criteria<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s entirely because of skin interaction; Gucci Pour Homme is a close cousin to Dirty English but I rarely wear it in the hot months because it doesn’t do anything interesting on my skin.\u00c2\u00a0 I seem to share, overall, the most interesting dynamic with Dirty English out of anything in my collection. Projection is above average, longevity varies with temperature, lasting longer in warmer weather on me.<\/p>\n One other thing I enjoy about Dirty English is that it acts as a crossroads on a journey of cedar exploration.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s well rounded and centered, and examples of extremes can be found in every direction, towards Virginia Cedar in Gucci Pour Homme (or, Pencil Shavings Pour Homme), towards Atlas Cedar in L’Occitane Notre Flore Cedre, towards cypress in CdG Monocle Scent One: Hinoki, and other close cousins can be found in creatures like Parfums 06130 Cedre and CdG Series 2 Sequoia.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re all distinct and different, and it really demonstrates how much utility one note can have.\u00c2\u00a0 Hopefully some of you that passed up Dirty English because of the Juicy Couture name will remember this and give it a wearing the next time you see it on display.\u00c2\u00a0 To skip it is to miss a very unique cedar creation, and the most underrated fragrance of 2008.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was fairly early into my exploration of fragrance that I realized I particularly enjoyed a few notes, more than others.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 At the top of the list was cedar, and I’ve come to enjoy it in all it’s shades and nuances.\u00c2\u00a0 Perfumery mainly uses two species, the Virginia Cedar, which is the sharp, resinous, woody […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fragrance"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1RwV4-39","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195\/revisions\/196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danieltharp.com\/weblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}