Good Monday Morning, Brotherhood! I hope everyone had a restful and eventful weekend. I have to come clean and admit my wrongs… as the title suggests, boy, was I wrong. After seeing everyone’s raving reviews of this fragrance, I picked up a sample along with Ambar Dominicano. I was an immediate fan of Ambar Dominicano, but when I first sprayed Midnight Raspberry, I was completely turned off by my initial impressions and dismissed it almost instantly. ROOKIE MISTAKE!! I rushed the process and wrote off a fragrance without giving it the attention, patience, and focus that a scent of this caliber truly deserves. I was in a hurry, didn’t revisit it, and gave it no real afterthought something I think some have done at one point… myself included, obviously. Fast forward to today, I decided to slay the rest of this sample decant, but this time with intention. The opening is exactly where I stumbled the first time. Initially, I picked up a bit of funk, a jumbled mass of woody notes that I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I noticed that again on the second wearing, but this time I let it breathe… and it didn’t just develop, it blossomed. What followed was a beautiful, slightly gourmand raspberry wrapped in what I can only describe as a soft chocolate cloud. While chocolate isn’t listed in the note breakdown, I’m convinced the patchouli and Vietnamese agarwood combine to give off that warm, chocolatey nuance. It’s warm without being heavy or dreary, as the saffron and cedar add just enough lift to keep things airy and refined. The star player here is the raspberry, not sharp, but a fluffy, semi-sweet, whipped raspberry that’s downright addictive. This fragrance is for sure unisex in my book and is a refined, high quality profile. It’s not a projection monster and honestly, it shouldn’t be. If it were louder, it could easily become overwhelming. Instead, it creates a beautiful, intimate scent bubble that commands attention only when someone gets close if you catch my drift. This is prime date night territory perfect for the (Bow Chicka Bow Wow 😉) close encounters.

This isn’t a fun story to share at all, but I hope it helps you guys avoid making the same mistake I did. A few days ago, I asked the community whether it would be a good idea to trade my Hugo Boss Bottled EDP 200ml for an Azzaro The Most Wanted Parfum 150ml. Original post for reference: https://www.skool.com/bos/my-first-possible-trade Most people thought it was a solid deal, so I told the guy I’d go ahead with it. Unfortunately, things didn’t turn out well at all. We had agreed to meet up 9 December to make the swap. He showed up two hours late and didn’t even bring the fragrance with him… Since I know him pretty well, I still handed over my bottle and trusted him to bring the Azzaro the next day. That didn’t happen. Three days later he told me he no longer wanted to trade for the Boss (not exactly fun news to hear). He showed me his collection, but nothing in it appealed to me or added anything new to mine. So I suggested he either buy it from me or just give it back. After some back-and-forth texting, he agreed to buy it for 90 euros. But the story doesn’t end there. For about two weeks he barely replied to my messages, and eventually he admitted he didn’t have the money to buy my bottle. Yeah, that was another great message to receive (being very sarcastic here btw). Still, I arranged another meet-up and waited again. For the third time, he decided the deal no longer worked for him - this time because of money. I have a lot of patience, but things were starting to get ridiculous. Even so, we finally reached an agreement we both liked: 50 euros plus his Afnan Supremacy In Heaven. He transferred the 50 euros and promised to drop off the Afnan the next day. Three days later, however, we still hadn’t closed the loop. Once again, he claimed I was ripping him off by asking too much (even though he had suggested those terms himself every time). By that point I was so fed up with all the time and effort I’d put in that I just said 70 euros would be fine too.