****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
You ever notice when you write a spontaneous review then try to write a serious one, the serious one never turns out as good? I wrote a review for Givenchy Pi many years ago here on Amazon. It was one of my commented on reviews. As it had a unique story with it about how I came about finding Givenchy Pi and how finding it ended up causing a major change in my life. I'd like to tell a similar story with this cologne, but really don't think I can top the Givenchy story.Late in 2014, it was time to start talking to my wife about which Givenchy I wanted for Christmas. I had also been using Givenchy Pi Neo. I really don't consider myself a very distinguished or even worldly person, so the Pi and Pi Neo had been enough for me. No one ever complained about either and both still brought compliments, but honestly, my nose was getting tired of them. I could remember my dad wearing Dior colognes before he passed away. Based on my memory and samples, he was wearing Eau Sauvage. I was now ready to move forward in my own fragrance timeline. The Givenchy smelled a little younger than I am.So, I went to nearly every decant website I could find and ordered a bunch of samples, upwards of 20 different ones to start with. I told my wife, the ex-fragrance counter worker, "I really believe the Dior Homme Intense will be the one." I hadn't smelled it at that point. All of these 20 samples came at the same time. I was on a two week vacation from work and would put one on for 3-4 hours, wash it off, try another for 3-4 hours. The list of samples is expansive, everything from other classics like Chanel Allure Homme (also love it) to the A* Man line I hadn't heard of. After trying the first batch of samples, it was clear to me and everyone in my family. The Dior Homme Intense was the one. My wife says it fits my personality as a laid-black, preferring classic to hip, type of man. My analytical mind wasn't satisfied and ordered another near 20 samples. I had spent enough on samples to buy this bottle I'm reviewing. A few stood out, but none compared to the Dior Homme Intense on me. Kind of surprisingly, my next two picks were also Dior (regular Homme and Dune), Guerlain made a little noise as did Chanel, but I ended up buying this 5.0 ounce bottle here at Amazon.My bottle came with the Christian Dior sticker seal, the plastic was firmly in place and the serial codes were still intact. I sprayed it on as soon as I got it and can tell you it's authentic. I did order from Amazon, not a seller. One spray lasted nearly 10 hours on my skin. While I know this isn't as entertaining as my somewhat funny Givenchy review, I can tell you I now have a favorite cologne to replace Givenchy. This scent isn't overbearing unless you use too much. I have tried two sprays, but typically only use 1. You could probably get away with 2, but I wouldn't dare use more than 2. Despite it being a lighter scent, it does seem to get thicker and heavier with more than 1 squirt. Never cloying though. On a side note, I did also buy a bottle of Chanel Allure Homme, Dior's Eau Sauvage Extreme and Dior's Dune. With these four, I can offset the extreme seasonal weather I live and work in and with the smallest bottle being a 3.4 ounce, I should have enough for several years. My wife was so impressed with it she ordered herself samples of Dior's women's perfumes and I bought her a bottle of the Dior Addict, which is what looks like what I'm becoming.I don't have a trained nose like a lot of people, but this is what I smell in this cologne: Iris, seems to be an even dominant note. It's worth mentioning if you smell a trace of "cardboard" or "paper" it will wear off in 10-15 minutes. It then warms into a iris-vanilla-something clean and sophisticated rolled into one. Now, I would recommend it as highly as possible, but if you're like me, you need nearly 40 samples to tell you which you like best. I did feel like I had wasted some money on samples, but realized our son who is 10, loves spraying cologne on. So he got a whole box of cologne samples to spray on. Should also be mentioned all of the samples still had 3-5 sprays in them except the Dior ones. I will recommend it for office wear as long as you only use 1 spray. Definitely would recommend it for your night out cologne with your wife or girlfriend. It definitely pushes buttons with women. It gives you that scent that makes women say, "Don't let me go yet". I wouldn't lead you all wrong on this. I take my cologne experiences very seriously. The one group I wouldn't recommend it to would be teenagers, maybe even early 20s, it's not a playful cologne at all. It's more of a lets get down to business cologne. I tip my hat to the people at Dior for this fragrance. It's one of those colognes you can make your own instead of your cologne making you.
