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
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