Tobacco Mandarin

I’m usually not interested in bashing on scents, but this one is really less than impressive. Byredo is not my favorite house to begin with, as many of their scents disagree with my skin. But Tobacco Mandarin is extremely pale and flat, well uninspired even. It’s quite dry to my nose and has a paper like quality to it. Not fine handmade linen paper, but rather a cheap basic office printer variety. Longevity is ok for a Byredo, though. Like many commenters have stated already, it’s simply not worth the price.

Ugh, I had high hopes for this, but all I can smell is the cumin. No mandarin or any fruit whatsoever in the opening… So glad I didn’t blind buy this. I even gave away my vial…

Sleek modern Oriental that showcases a nice refined tobacco note. The perfume opens with a juicy mandarin orange surrounded by slight hints of cumin and coriander. The dense heart has the tobacco with slight touches of labdanum and leather. The perfume settles on powdery incense and sandalwood with a slight touch of oud. The masculine leaning scent has moderate to strong sillage and good longevity. Not hugely original but a fun ride with an ambience of a vintage men’s club in Hongkong or China. Enjoy!

I hate that I like this, I really REALLY do. I've spent the better part of 4 years 'completing' my collection, finding long-lost, discontinued, rare, hard-to-find perfumes, and for the last 6 - 12 months, I've been silently ticking these off my list, one-by-one, when out of nowhere, a chance encounter at Mecca (the Australian boutique, not the holy city...!), where another scent I was hunting was sold out, I sprayed this one on on the recommendation of a staff member. Me, a HORRIBLE fuckin' SNOB, who REALLY should know ALL about these scents already, and NOT be introduced to them by some twenty-something part-timer uni student, I spray it on because WHY NOT, the other scent wasn't there, and BOOM -- I fell in love with it. In many ways, this goes where Arabie SHOULD have gone (or where I wish it would go), it's dirty, cumin-ey, there's stank, but it's held in a restraining grasp by the tobacco. It's quite a revelation for me, actually. It actually silenced me. I'm a snob for noble snobby reasons (I've been to Mecca HUNDREDS of times, and sprays HUNDREDS of scents on in there, just not this one. Man. I've tried it out twice, and, according to a stupid theory for new vocab retention which has NO CONNECTION to liking a scent, I need to put a bit of space between myself and this scent, 2, maybe 3 weeks, and then we'll see how I feel. But, at this stage, I thinks I wants this. It doesn't have that metallic rust that cumin sometimes brings, nor does it SOLELY smell curry-like, sweat-like or stank-like, it's a charming blend of ALL of those components... Let's see how this goes in a fortnight or so...

It's an intoxicating scent... with some disclaimers. I personally found myself being enticed by the scent the more I wore it. Some sprays went on very smoky and smooth, with the mandarin peel coming on to blend the scent well. On some sprays, I got a lot of spice. If you get the tangy spices, I suggest you stay away from this scent as that smell, at least for me, is very off-putting. Also to note is that the tobacco is more subtle than the name suggests, it complements the olibanum and sandalwood well but definitely is not on par with something like tobacco vanille in terms of prominence in the scent. Also, do not spray this on with a white shirt!! it will stain. Scent: 9/10 Longevity: 8/10 Sillage: 7/10 An absolutely gorgeous scent, and worth the price as the use case will ensure that it lasts a VERY long time in your collection.