The first fragrance I’ve loved rather than just liked, before I was pretty disillusioned with what was on offer wrt modern fragrances, I think I might favour the older ones. This fragrance screams ‘Grandfather’ to me. It has a very classic scent that smells like a well put together older gentleman. It is a bit dated, but in a classic sense of the word. My only caveat is that the tobacco note is somewhere between the raw dried leaf and smoked cigarette smell. It becomes more evident on clothes as the day goes by.
This bottle and scent helped shape me as a man. It made me want more out of my life. 30 years later and I’m still chasing that feeling I get when I think of the old Ralph Lauren stores, the ads, Ralph’s homes, etc. I would take this bottle ralph lauren t shirt with me to my grave and bury me with it. 6 out of 5 scent when you remind yourself that this was when things were really good and perfume houses were in their ascendancy. Polo tried hard to add flankers, red, blue, that weird orange one.
Today it is tough to find a fragrance today that will actually last the whole day. There’s nothing that compares to this 80s powerhouse. And this will last all day into the next day. The sillage polo dress shirts and longevity of this beast are the best that I have. Herbal tobacco with some leather and a some fresh fruitiness. I normally don´t like leather, but it´s not too much in this one.
It was just a stud of a fragrance. A fragrance born the same year as me, ended up being my very first cologne that made me say hey, I need this in my life. I want to look like this, I want to smell like this, I want more plaid in my life, and I need a better haircut. Must have been 1989 or so I started stealing sprays from my older brother.
I get mainly artemisia and pine, oakmoss and vetiver, tobacco, rugged old school leather accord , just the right amount of sweetness in the background. Of course, it still has that boozy classic men’s cologne smell that is far from clean by modern standards. At the same time, it has more depth than I would have imagined.