Crimson Tobacco

Red Tobacco earned its fanbase on sheer projection - a wall of cinnamon, saffron and sweet tobacco leaf that Mancera lets bloom for hours. Crimson Tobacco copies the pyramid closely: cinnamon and nutmeg upfront, tobacco leaf sweetened with vanilla and white flowers through the heart, patchouli, amber, sandalwood and oud underneath. The spice is where Aromara's version earns its keep, arriving just as loud as the original in the first thirty minutes, which is exactly what buyers chasing a Red Tobacco dupe are after. Where it diverges is longevity and the oud - Mancera's base has a resinous, slightly medicinal oud that keeps developing for eight-plus hours, while Crimson Tobacco's oud reads thinner and the whole composition flattens into a generic warm-spicy amber by hour five or six. It's a fair trade at £35 against Mancera's £195: the loud, satisfying cinnamon-tobacco opening is there, the marathon dry-down isn't quite. Best worn to cold-weather evenings where the spice can do its work before the projection tapers.