Hella hot and a quarter of Colorado is on fire. Daytime was just chores today, so I wanted something super fresh and invigorating. This thing has all the freaking citruses! Settles down to a musky, oakmoss and even a touch of amber. Project ls pretty hard for an hour or two before it settles in to the base, but still manages to keep a little citrus though it. Imagine that with 5 different citrus notes. Later in the evening, I had a private dinner for a very wealthy but low key and understated client. I reapplied around 4pm so by the time the event began, I was already in the dry down again. It definitely didn't seem like I offended anyone's oflactory senses and they lived the food, so it was a win for me!

Next up we’ve got Percival, named for the legendary Knight of the Round Table, the very first knight linked to the quest for the Holy Grail. So… have we stumbled on a “holy grail” of a fragrance then? Let’s cut through the hype and find out. Launched back in 2018, this one was crafted by perfumer Hamid Merati-Kashani. Right from the first spray you get that familiar crisp, “just stepped out the shower” polish – and yeah, there’s absolutely no skimping on ambroxan here. But what makes it stand out is that fascinating synthetic called hedione, which brings this soft, dewy green-jasmine edge to the mix. Honestly? Go look up hedione properly sometime, give it a proper test on its own – it changes how you’ll see so many modern scents forever. It opens with a bright, mouth-watering burst of bergamot and mandarin orange, tangled up with clean, powdery lavender and geranium for that sharp aromatic kick. As it settles down, that loud citrus fades back and the heart takes over: jasmine, violet leaf, a pinch of coriander and just a hint of cinnamon, adding gentle warmth and depth without ever getting heavy or cloying. And like I said – keep paying attention to that hedione weaving through all of it. By the time it hits full dry-down, you’re left with a smooth, musky, woody base: rich amberwood, that same ambroxan that runs through the whole scent, soft balsam fir, white musk, and another clever synthetic called Clearwood. Think of it like patchouli’s smarter, cleaner cousin – all the grounding richness, none of that muddy, earthy heaviness. Now for the elephant in the room: PDM’s eye-watering pricing, and this is the perfect example of why so many people roll their eyes at it. It’s impossible to ignore just how close this sits to Montblanc Legend – which itself takes obvious cues from Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce. Don’t get me wrong, Percival is noticeably better: more refined, better balanced, and feels far less generic than either. But once you see the price difference? You really do have to ask yourself what you’re actually paying for. One weird quirk worth knowing too: with this many potent aroma-chemicals, it’s notorious for making you go completely nose-blind to it on your own skin – happened to me the very first time I wore it. Fitting, really – chasing the “grail” and all that, I could barely smell it on myself! But step outside, catch a breeze, and there it is – drifting nicely, wrapping around you in a soft, solid bubble. And the performance? No complaints there: 8+ hours easy, and that projection wakes right up the second there’s any movement in the air. All in all, easily one of the most interesting, and most divisive, releases PDM has ever put out.

I make this post partially humorous but also to seriously ask you what your biggest pet peeves that beginners or people not as invested in this hobby as us are. I say outsiders carefully as not to say it in a clique kind of sense. Because I’ve unlocked a pet peeve that’s so weirdly specific, to anyone outside of the bubble, I look psycho! So asking you guys, what are yours? And do any of you relate to this specific one that I have? My biggest, most frustrating issue is so irritating to me because of how ridiculously widespread it is, and it comes with the misconception of cologne, perfume, and gendered fragrances. It strikes a positively DISSONANT chord within me when someone refers to all men’s fragrance as “cologne”. Makes me like unreasonably irritated. Crazy right! But hear me out. One of the biggest misconceptions in fragrance is the idea of A), gendered fragrance, and B), men’s fragrance is all “cologne”. Traditionally, cologne is a concentration of alcohol to oil, and actually one of the weakest concentrations. Most fragrances nowadays for men aren’t colognes at all but Eau de toilettes and Eau de parfums! They don’t wear cologne! They wear perfume! Gendered fragrance in and of itself is a western marketing construct used by companies to get men to start wearing it, to make the market less intimidating and fit in with the stigmas and social values at the time. Along with that, the word “perfume” had a largely feminine connotation, and men at the time did not feel comfortable wearing something with the name of something that sounded so well… feminine. Considering there WERE popular men’s fragrances that were cologne concentrations like from Acqua di Parma, and the word “cologne” sounded rugged, masculine, and less feminine, so it became synonymous with all men’s fragrance. Now as to why this particular stereotype and misconception bothers me so much, I’ll get into that. A), I hate the word cologne. Always have. When I bought my first Versace my girlfriend at the time was like “how’s the cologne?” And bro it bothered me. I wasn’t mad at her or anything lol, but I associate the word with the absolutely terrible chemical bomb my dad would wear with his axe body spray. So when I hear “cologne”, I think of that. Even I look at my older posts and see myself use that word and I criiiiiiinge