Pineapple Royale by Montagne

Creed Aventus, commonly known as the King by anyone who gets even a little deep into the world of fragrances. I’ve often wondered why this is, given I don’t see it as the best scent out there, but, I’ll give you my theory: It’s natural. That’s it, Creed introduced the frag community to a natural smelling fresh scent, something that complements and gets absorbed by your skin in a fresh way, instead of sitting on top of skin as a strong wood scent or a strong citrus, like you would have in the 80’s and 90s.  That’s my theory and I’m sticking to it! Regardless of the reason, Aventus is so important to the fragrance community that the business of cloning or creating an inspired expression of it has become a normal thing, even for designer houses!. Hundreds of videos compare Aventus to every other fragrance out there, and Aventus versus every clone or inspired expression out there, the reality is that Aventus is here to stay and companies will continue to search for that DNA as a way of bringing new customers to the door, with that, my review today is about Montagne’s offer to the world of Inspired Expressions, Pineapple Royale.

When I think of Aventus I think of 2 notes, Pineapple and Birch,  a wrong assumption on my part as the fragrance is actually composed of 12+ ingredients, but, that’s the DNA for me…those 2 notes, those are the main violins on the orchestra. Pineapple Royale takes what I consider to be a “safe” approach to creating their fragrance: They go natural. Now, notice when I use the word safe, I do it on a different context, I say safe as a way of saying “If we go natural, we’ll get more customers”, they don’t rely on gimmicky marketing or fancy bottles, or 2 paragraphs of beautiful words on their page for the product, or people lying through their teeth on youtube sponsored videos, they rely on word of mouth and great ingredients and they hope the fragrance will do the work. So, does Pineapple Royale take those 2 ingredients seriously? Let’s go deep:

Opening

When you first try Pineapple Royale (PR), the first note you notice is that pineapple, it’s fresh, it’s airy, never powdery, it’s complimented by the bergamot but unlike other fragrances that use bergamot, you don’t think of citrus when you first spray this, you think of pineapple, a little sour but not sour, a little sweet but not sweet, the opening is fresh and clean, it makes you feel refreshed and evokes the feeling of wearing a slightly-loose but perfectly fitting linen shirt under a ceiling fan on a fresh day, after a shower, that’s the best way I can describe this opening, it’s beautiful and without a doubt, very evocative of the Creed DNA. There’s a note of apple but I can barely feel it, it’s fleeting, I don’t get any lemon or citruses like some other Aventus’s inspired expressions, this is perhaps the most airy opening on an inspired expression I’ve ever experienced.

Mid

My favorite part of PR, the mid. When the pineapple note gets sub-dued, it’s like the drums are shut down and now you can hear the violin by itself and WOW. I love this stage of PR, the birch starts coming out poking it’s head, the patchouli and the rose are there too playing with the birch, it’s less fresh but more inviting, more complicated, the pineapple is still there and very present but now it’s not the main attraction, the mid (around 15 min after applying) is , for me, almost perfect.

Application

I have to mention this….even though it’s weird. When I apply fragrances, I do 5 sprays usually, 3 on the chest (never on the neck because I don’t want my neck to over-dry and I have a beard that I’m not interested in it smelling like a cologne) and 1 spray each on the bend of my arms. I do this for a variety of reasons but most importantly, I like smelling the bend of my arm during the day and it just looks like I’m yawning or something in front of people, they don’t know what I’m doing but they don’t care as its not un-natural to move your hand and place the bend of your arm on top of your mouth/nose. I put it on my chest because I’ll lift my shirt from the neck area during the day and that works as aromatherapy for me, it helps me with stress and frankly, allows me to enjoy my fragrance during the day. But…why do I go through the effort of explaining my application process for you? Because of the dry down

DryDown

The dry down on PR is birch, musk and ambergris to me, I know there’s oak moss there but I’m not as suited to detect that scent so it goes over my head. It’s a good dry down, masculine, complete and natural, but I’ll be honest, it’s nothing to go crazy about specially if you own many fragrances with those notes, the only obvious difference is how natural it feels. It’s not a bad dry down, don’t get me wrong, but buying this frag for that would be challenging for me….and this is where it gets interesting. This fragrance keeps its “head” (the top / mid notes) for hours if you don’t “cover” it or drown it, what I mean by this is…the sprays I put on my arms, because I use short sleeved shirts, do not get in contact with fabric and the smell of pineapple and birch is detectable for HOURS (and I love smelling it through the day). However, the sprays I put on my chest, covered by my shirt, immediately go to the musk and ambergris stage, it’s very strange, it’s almost like the top notes literally sit on top of my skin and therefore get picked up by the fabric. I don’t think this information is necessarily important in your purchasing decision but it’s good to know! Did I mention how much I love the Pineapple/Birch on this? It’s magical.

Performance

Right now, for me, the performance is not good. I get 3-5 hours depending on the day before it goes into skin scent territory, it just doesn’t last. Now, there’s a caveat here, I live in Seattle where it’s been pretty cold so I bet those temperatures are directly affecting the performance, I’ll test again in the spring/summer and will modify this review to the results of that. So, I don’t think this is a Fall or Winter fragrance unless you only want a few hours of a scent bubble.

Comparisons to others…

I thought about going deep and test and test against Club de Nuit Intense (CDNI) because it’s such a famous version of Aventus, but, I decided to not do it because of 1 reason: They don’t compare. CDNI is synthetic and has a metallic after-scent that is very off-putting to me, even if the top notes are good, I can always tell it’s cheap, with PR, I don’t get that at all, nothing is headache inducing and nothing feels cheap about it, so yeah, no use comparing. I also though about comparing to DUA’s versions, I decided to not do that because of a single reason: DUA is beast mode, it wouldn’t be fair to either to compare, PR is more about the little notes, the airy feeling, the fresh feeling, the natural ingredients… DUA is about people around you telling you “DUDE, I can smell you from a mile away”, so they over index on some notes to get that, don’t get me wrong, I love DUA, but they do things their way and its different from Montagne

Conclusion

I’ve been thinking about this conclusion for a while…do I do a conclusion as a comparison to Aventus, do I do it as a comparison to other clones or inspired expressions, do I do it as a stand-alone fragrance. I decided on the last one, I’ll do a Montagne Pineapple Royale as a stand-alone fragrance conclusion: You can’t beat it, period. I keep a list of every fragrance I have ever bought and the price I paid for it,  I went in and compared what I paid for this versus what you can get for the same money (on discounters) and it’s also a fresh fragrance, notables include Issey Miyake’s summer fragrance, Ferrari’s Noble series, Bvlgari Blv, Bentley for Men, Individual by Mont Blanc, CDNI, L’Homme by YSL among others… I’ve got to be honest here, none of those touch the quality of Pineapple Royale, none of them have that immediate vibe of freshness when you put it on, none of them have that wow factor. How good is Pineapple Royale then? I tried 5 versions fo Green Irish Tweed before I decided to buy the original, Pineapple Royale was my purchase #3 of Aventus, I’m not buying Aventus. No need.

Thank you for reading! '

X.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/99bottledscents/

Pineapple Royale: https://www.montagneparfums.com/fragrance/pineappleroyale

Malay Aklan by Montagne

As you get into the world of fragrances, one thing becomes clear…Creed has a name because it deserves to have a name, I would love to tell you otherwise as their prices make them hard to collect but I tell you, when you first smell a Creed you notice that it’s DNA is very hard to replicate and their scents tend to have a very natural feeling to them (specially the Millesime series).  Why am I talking so well about Creed for a review about Montagne? Easy, so you know how high my expectations are, so you know that when I review an inspired expression of Creed’s Millesime Imperial, I will be brutal and I expect to be impressed, anything less will become an instant NO from me (I’m looking at you Armaf).

The Opening

Malay Aklan opens up very fresh, marine, bergamot, fruits… but none of it is heavy, everything is airy as though it sits on top of your skin like dew on a big leaf, it opens up so fresh that you wonder if it’ll perform, if anyone around you would be able to tell you are wearing it, you doubt yourself for a second there and perhaps over-spray to compensate….then you get it, the scent bubble, the beautiful and natural scent bubble that makes you think of mandarins for a second, shifting into fruits later without losing that marine salty undertone that yells fresh at you. It never becomes cloying,  its never insulting, never animalic, never leather, just fresh…

The Mid & The DryDown

On the listed ingredients, there’s Iris, I can’t notice it…for me iris is always powdery and this fragrance never goes  powdery for me, …..but, the musk! Oh how magical is the musk and the sandalwood! What is the dry down for me? This is hard to describe, but I’ll try. Usually, chemical-induced fresh fragrances lose their opening notes and mid notes too fast and basically  turn into the heavy base wood note, whatever that is. Malay Aklan dries down to its sandalwood and musk base but it doesn’t lose that fresh feel , it stays airy and marine, in fact…and I know this is weird, for me the change from opening to dry down is not exponential, its linear (but not in a negative way, linear in a keep-enjoying-me-linear), the clean vibe stays and hours after applying this you can sniff the same DNA still, that’s a big deal with fresh fragrances that lose potency over the day…this loses potency but it’s still there, up to 9 hours later….it’s still there! It’s crazy, it’s almost too powerful for a “freshy”.

Compared to the Original

So I was finally able to test it, on skin, against the original, however, I could only do it once and I put MI on my skin and later put Malay, so, it’s not a deep dive per se as I wasn’t able to do my multiple day comparison test. However, this is where I stand: On my skin, with my chemistry, they are fairly similar but I detect more fruit on MI over Malay, there’s some watermelon DNA that isn’t listed for MI but that I can detect. Now, this is where it gets interesting, I hate the watermelon note (perhaps why I can detect it), it just doesn’t jive with me, now, it disappears on MI eventually so not too bad but, still, the point stands. I’ll say this, they are not completely alike but Malay Aklan is very close AND, unlike other houses that I’ve tried…Malay feels as natural as Millesime does, you don’t get any chemicals at all, it feels so clean. So, if you put them on test strips without names…most people would say they are the same fragrance (on the opening) and on the dry down Malay’s performance is over the top, it’s quite ridiculous, so that depends if you like that or not. If you are a fan of the watermelon note…however….you should pursue MI over Malay. If you ask me which one I would buy? That’s easy, Malay everyday, pound for pound there’s nothing on the Creed version that makes me think it should get my money.

A word of Caution

I like aquatic fragrances to go to the gym, or I did in my 20s, as a test, I decided to wear Malay for the gym, I put 1 spray on the chest and drove to the gym. Did cardio first so sweat a lot, the scent bubble became too much for the gym, TOO MUCH. On the gym I am very self-conscious of strong smells and Malay was off putting with “lemon pledge” DNA that I was not happy with. This was my fault, I shouldn’t had wore it for the gym! No one complained…but, I’m 6’2, over 200 pounds and have a big beard, people don’t usually stop me on the street to talk to me.

Conclusion 

I’ll be honest here, I got this fragrance thinking that if it didn’t work out, I would give it to my 12 year old son (who  has a healthy collection of Armaf bottles because of this same reason), worst case scenario, they don’t work for me…I buy the original and he gets the inspired expression. First time I tried Malay Aklan, I was impressed by the scent, but, truly believed it wouldn’t perform, it was too airy to perform I told myself and I made a note about measuring longevity….I have a note, 9 hours later that simply says “WOW, still there”.

I had my doubts about projection…so I tested that, I can say you would get 1.5 hours of solid projection, mind you, this is not Beast Mode, this is not going to leave a trail of scent wherever you go, this is the projection you want at a house party (even when its outside) where someone close can smell it without making the air around you so dense no one can ignore it. I’ve worn Malay Aklan three times, it has grown on me further with every wear, its a fantastic scent and one that I truly believe benefits my collection, should you buy it? Well….maybe? If you like Millesime Imperiale, then yes, 100%, if you don’t know it…try it first, it’s well done and playful, but so are tons of other fragrances that are as interesting. If you ask me “Should I buy this to replace MI?”, then the answer is Yes.

 I give this fragrance a solid 8/10 for itself, a 10/10 if I consider it costs $40, a 8/10 with how close it is to the original. I am happy its part of my collection, looking forward to Summer so I can use this a ton!

Eau Santal by Montagne

Sandalwood is perhaps the most mis-understood of all scents, it’s strong but can be turned into a deceptively simple fragrance, in the case of Eau Santal, an interpretation of Le Labo’s Santal 33, Montagne goes in your face…and it goes in early! What do I mean by that? When you first wear this I would describe it with one word: prehistoric. Let me tell you why, if you’ve never smelled Santal 33, be prepared for a strong fragrance….let me rephrase that, be prepared for a really-strong fragrance!, its woody, it’s dry, it’s spicy, when I use the word prehistoric its because this is what I imagine opening up a bark of a tree that’s been sitting for hundreds of years smell like, it’s that earthy. People use the word “pungent” to describe certain frags, I would use this word with one caveat…pungent implies it smells bad, in this case, this is pungent because it’s sharp and strong, do not expect a soft “woody” scent that sits on your skin, expect a slap of wood on the opening, but, that sharpness is tone down by something…that’s where the bergamot and the mandarin come into place, it makes the fragrance airy and removes some of the heaviness you expect from such a woody frag. I

The dry down of this scent is all about wood and what I can only describe as “old paper”, its very strong yet the spicy tones down and what you get instead is this lovely sandalwood that is not tamed but perhaps its willing to share the spotlight with the other ingredients, it goes from prehistoric to civilized by bringing in the cardamon, the amber, the iris that provides just a touch of the powdery feel that makes it pop on your skin. It sits lovely on your skin and provides hours of a scent bubble, I don’t apply cologne to my shirts but I imagine putting this on your shirt will mean you can smell it all day!

Now, how does this compare to the original and to competitors?: I determined that I needed to compare this against Le Labo’s original fragrance and compare it against at least one of the famous “clone houses”,  I decided to use Alexandria Fragrance’s Santal’s Kiss for this purpose. How did I conduct my test…it literally took me three days! I used Eau Santal by itself on Day 1 as I wanted to understand how this fragrance conducted itself when playing solo, wore LeLabo and Santal 33 on each arm on Day 2 and then on Day 3, I compared Eau Santal to Santal’s Kiss by doing the same test. All 3 days included me going to the office and working for around 9 hours, all while taking notes on my handy notebook!

How does it compare against Santal 33?

I’ve got to be honest, my nose is not specific enough for me to say that this is 93% close or some random number like that, I did a test however, the day I wore it solo, I went to Nordstrom (I needed to sample something else), the lady asked me what I was wearing, I gave her my arm to smell, she said “Santal 33 I see, nice”.  If you ask me how close it is, I would say…. I could not identify one versus the other if blind testing.  Now, let’s be honest, when I wore Santal 33 and Montagne on different arms, I could tell a difference, Santal 33 smelled “cleaner” but not enough for me to be able to say how different which means it’s extremely close. I think Santal 33 has more cardamon if I were to identify anything different.

How does it compare with Alexandria Fragrance’s Santal’s Kiss?

I hate to say this because I used to like Santal’s Kiss a ton…but, Montagne’s is a bit more airy and therefore closer to the original, the dry down of Montagne does not sit heavy on your skin,  I can detect the amber and the musk more, that makes a big difference, this fragrance is meant to be Eau de Parfum, not extrait, and Montagne made that right!

How does it perform?

In one word? Epic. I put 2 sprays on my chest, one on each arm bend, …that lasted 14 hours! At hour 14, I showered and I could still smell it! The projection was at least 3 feet for the first 2 hours. This is what beast mode gets defined as! Now, this is a strong scent so be careful, if you are taking public transportation and you just applied it…you might get the stink eye from someone because the projection is beastly! Beastly!

Conclusion

There’s a simple formula here…..price vs performance, do you go with the original or do you go with the inspired expression? Montagne is the winner, hands down. The price of this bottle versus what you get is simply ridiculous, Santal 33 is extremely expensive and I tell you, unless you have both bottles and try them side by side, you will not be able to tell one from the other, if you wear this to a party…and someone knows Santal 33, the’ll talk to you about it. Amazing and highly recommended.