40 Rogue
Rogue Perfumery (2019)

Conjuring an image of a many tiered waterfall in my drowsy mind, prominent in the grounds of a fine house with all it's many classic doors & windows thrown open to the blossom filled afternoon air and the sounds of that fountain cascading through notes… and occasional pools of mingling, before cascading again… down & down, swirling around & around… as if every little pool & rivulet were the rooms & corridors of this floral bedecked house itself-in a perfect fusion of structure & landscaping… no separation between environments.

A radiant, light-hearted classic chypre, perfect for summers sipping champagne at your countryside chateau. The aldehyde-green basil-sweet but rotten peach & citrus notes are on top, and as it dries there are flowers, powder, and as it dries further the beautiful classic chypre bed of oakmoss, vetiver, and musk emerges. Really what 40 Rogue primarily smells like is wood, animalic musk, soapy aldehydes, moss, and florals, all designed with a hint of green. Feeling womanish, beloved and wise when wearing this.

I must admit, unfortunately, that it is a perfume that can easily be at least strange, if not outdated or anachronistic. The sensation it conveys is of something with truly vintage scents, of those smells that our grandparents had on us when we were little. Now, short parenthesis, moving on to the perfume itself and without emphasizing or diminishing anything, it is a chypre with fougere elements, characterized by strong aldehydes that are accompanied by oak moss and synthetic animal musks and flowers, making a particularly pungent, masculine and not at all pleasing but, I repeat, very masculine to my nose. I personally like it a lot, a lot and still a lot. It is something very special and definitely NOT to be taken without a thorough test first. I don't know what similarities it has with the original 40 Love as I have never heard the latter.

Opening is kinda familiar from other Rogues in previous sample pass : citrus; 1960s slightly nose-puckering acetic alcoholic hairspray/hair salon vibe; something fruity apart from citrus; fresh - fresher than I was expecting - nice (almost minty/herby). Settles down to smoothness, hay/grass (?), slight plastic/heliotrope note. Mid and base very well blended but faint. It subsides , and although it lasts on my arm, it is not - I think - throwing out massive sillage, nor is it projecting for ages (unlike Mousse or Derviche).

This scent didn't do anything for me. I'm not a vintage aficionado.

Love the drydown!! It reminds me of Lauder for Men, vintage, with real oakmoss.

However, it takes a long time to get there. And that's my gripe. I'm not a fan of the heart, which lasts for 4 hours. It's not off-putting, but it's not what I would drop coin for.

Great longevity though, after 12 hours I still had a scent bubble around me.

Try before you buy, and maybe it'll be worth your while, but I'd rather try something else with more of this base.

40 Rogue opens with an odd, dark narcissus floral and rotting orange fruit led accord with underlying green oakmoss before transitioning to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart the rotting fruit gives way to an aldehydes spiked floral accord that is predominantly carnation with just a hint of rose. As time passes, the aldehydes become more and more assertive, as they meld with the carnation to become co-stars over time. During the late dry-down the aldehydes finally vacate to leave the remnants of the carnation to pair with only slightly animalic musk through the finish. Projection is below average, as is longevity at around 7 hours on skin.

This is a tough review to write... Not because the notes are particularly complex or difficult to pin down. No, it is tough because 40 Rogue is supposed to be a resurrection attempt of the long since discontinued 40 Love pour Homme by Jean Desprez. Not having sniffed 40 Love it is difficult to comment on whether the resurrection attempt is successful from a replication perspective. On this, I can only say that the aldehydic carnation accord is quite recognizable to a similar accord in many Desprez compositions I *have* sniffed. So maybe 40 Rogue succeeds in its attempt? Having said that, while potentially succeeding to resurrect 40 Love, if it smelled like this stuff, what a stinker it must have been! The open is completely off-putting, with its very bizarre mixture of narcotic florals and rotting fruit. While the open is horrific, the aldehydic carnation development which is substantially more appealing and near-surely on point to the original still is not much of a lure, nor is the musky late dry-down. Add in some relatively poor performance metrics and from a pure smell perspective 40 Rogue flops and is the least appealing offering from the house to the nose of this writer. The bottom line is the $125 per 60 ml 40 Rogue may be successful in its attempt to resurrect 40 Love, but if 40 Love smells like this "below average" 2 to 2.5 stars out of 5 rated mini-stinker, I would think it better off left dead, yielding an avoid recommendation to everyone except fans of 40 Love.

Here's a hoary one. My point of reference for 40R, after some thought, turned out to be the Truefitt range, especially where they pull off this same menthol followed by florals trick. And - while I hate to quote myself - this bit of a review of Truefitt's Grafton provides an excellent stepping-off point:

"...given that it could use a big slug of oakmoss to finish, a bit of a shame it's not constructed somewhat more robustly." [I should also reference Freshman here for its menthol opening, while Grafton has tarragon as its starting point.]

The pay-off to this review is that 40R doesn't really represent a big advance on the Truefitt scents. A properly animalic or mossy drydown would have worked wonders. Sadly, on me it dies away before getting anywhere near. It's still beautifully constructed, with the tarragon giving way to the florals and then something a little dirty at the back end. But for this reviewer it never quite lifts off - and it's *so* old-fashioned.

A proviso: still certainly worth trying. And perhaps this tells us more about the long-term successes of the Truefitt scents than I had realised. But, not something I hanker after trying again.