Guava Noir

Guava Noir chases BornToStandOut's Black Guava, a niche extrait built on the collision of bright fruit and dark wood. It opens vivid and mouth-watering - sweet, sugared guava brightened by mandarin and a flick of cardamom - the juicy, energetic top the original is loved for. The heart is where the shadow falls: smoky oud threaded with rosy peony, rose and a touch of geranium, the seductive darkness overtaking the fruit. The drydown is deep and resinous - amber, dark patchouli and earthy cypriol - smoky and a little mysterious. The original is famously intense, an extrait that projects for ten hours-plus and clings to clothing for days; this dupe dials all of that down to something far more manageable, keeping the guava-and-oud story but losing the knockout potency and tenacity, reading flatter and more synthetic in the oud. It remains a striking, sexy fruity-oud - bold and mysterious - that suits cooler-weather evenings, an affordable and far gentler budget stand-in for the BornToStandOut.