I do get the basil and drop of gin in the opening too mind, but overall it’s a leather and pine binge. I would suggest this for the mature man, 40’s and up. You won’t be getting huge compliments, as a matter of fact the opposite. This is a mature man’s scent and should be worn for personal enjoyment.
(Though Polo itself is not smoky.) Amazing what scents can do to your memories. Once it dried down, it turned into a mix of black pepper and a freshly mowed lawn. Basically, what hits you first is the mix of cut grass and other plants, then the unmistakable piquant smell of the black pepper. 90% of what I’ve sampled before have been women’s fragrances, which tend to skimp on the black pepper. While I think that it would smell quite masculine and attractive on a man, I’m not sure that a woman wouldn’t be able to wear it in the right circumstances.
And yes, it’s still absolutely outstanding. 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. Like dozens and dozens of men my age, this scent was what got me into men’s fragrance.
I recently read about this perfume and was astonished that it was created in 1978. And that it is called an old man’s perfume. I’ve been wearing this since the time I was 24 and fit right in. I think it is extremely masculine scent.
You think you could handle the life of a German barbarian in the late fourth and early fifth centuries? Could you really swing a battle axe with one hand? Could you really defend your family from onslaught after endless onslaught of pending chaos and death? Not if you can’t pull off wearing this masculine beast of a fragrance.
I tried the new version of the original, which is needless to say, very very different. Fresh, earthy, spicy scent wrapped in dried tobacco leaves created for the MAN of the 70’s and 80’s, I used to wear more in cooler summer days. Whenever I get a new green juice scent first thing comes to mind is this Polo green. Don’t listen to the reviewers harping on and on about how superior previous versions are .
I was fooled by the smell of Polo Blue, but the bottle clearly said it was a fake product. Only buy Polo polo dress shirts from reputable sellers with free return policy. Polo is a masterpiece that has survived the years.
Seriously, the old style paper notes, imagine a fat roll of money and sniff it. Not the performance monster it was but still lasts for days on end on clothes. My uncle had had this as his signature scent for over 30 years.
It still lasts well and seems more versatile now to me. Redolent of pine trees and stale cigarette butts. A sharp, bitter synthetic “green” fragrance that’s more dated than Burt Reynolds’ mustache. This is the most ubiquitous fragrances on older men in America, especially the South. Much like my elders, I respect it, but I’d rather spend my time and money on any other piece of my collection. This is one of the few fragrances that I can smell in public and undoubtedly know exactly what the man is wearing.
The scent has definitely changed over the years, and I am fortunate to still have a Cosmair 4oz spray and 8oz splash that I will never use up, because I have so many other fragrances in my collection now. However, when I want to go back in time to the greatest green, leathery, mossy performance beast of my young adulthood, I reach for this classic. I haven’t tried the most recent formulation. I hope, for the sake of this legend, that it is better than what has been offered for the previous few years. This seems to contain all the qualities I have been looking for in fragrances like Aramis and Caron Yatagan.