Reviews of Bad Boy by Carolina Herrera

The opening and mid weren't too bad but the drydown is pretty bad. The EDP version has a slightly better drydown but has a worse opening than this one. Smells like a peppery tonka bean chemical mess.

Oh, yuck. If you go out and smell a guy drowning in cheap cologne, he'll smell like this. It's not that he's wearing Bad Boy - he's probably wearing an Axe body spray or one of the thousands of other men's scents that smell like this (peppery grape topnotes over metallic aquatic spices).

Honestly, who is this for?? Men who want to smell like this likely haven't heard of Carolina Herrera and don't like cutesy bottles and would scoff at this price point.

It's maybe not original,but overall this is a compliment getter and the girls definitely love it.safe clubbing/night out scent.it's blatantly synthetic and comes across as quite stock.sort of like how some songs feature similar chord progressions,BB has a familiar scent,it's like a mixture of Invictus and Diesel Plus Plus.

After a few seconds of citrus,the spices and hot cacao in the middle sets the romanic mood,and tonka bean amber taking center stage that gets sweeter. it's sweet,but it is not unisex.who says every single perfume with some sweet notes sgould be considered unisex?totally this won't be apoeal to the collector on the endless search for an organic masterpiece,but it's perfect for beginners and people content with a handful of fragrances for casual use.last about 5 hours.

Bad in a kind of
Chocolate shoe polish way
Which is to say, good

And fairly subtle
Not as "bad" as Le Parfum
Chococat approves

As the pleasantries
Of the varied components
Provide interest

Without scaring off
Hello Kitty and her friends
From Mainstream City

Where bad boys smell good
But not quite untrainable
Like those Basenotes Boys.

This fragrance is almost all about its stylistic bottle being the juice itself samewhat pale and uninspired. A connection between salty-aromatic and ambery elements with a dark urban touch from tonka bean and bitter cocoa. Sporty, darkly virile, metropolitan and salty-cedary, a juice for "minimal" contemporary fancy urban fellows with no idea about vintage tuxedos, 80's luxurious leatherwears-boutiques and the classic Bernard Chant's olfactory sleights of hand. This weird juice starts out "growling" with a liquid cardamomish green aura which is aromatic, lemony and kind of woody/salty in a way to exude a sort of sea-weeds like effect (probably the arid effect from liquid pepper, bergamot and cedarwood perhaps even supported by salty-ozonic molecules). Pepper, cedarwood and sage are dominant along with this weird synth kind of salty-ozonic-lemony molecule connected to tonka bean and cocoa (which does not perform as a typical cocoa bean note but as something toasted/metallic connected to woody-aromatic saltiness, soapy tonka bean and green aromatics). The effect is really synth in a virile salty way a la cheaper Bottega Verde Uomo Nero d'Ambra (dark, cedary-woody and aromatic).

An olfactory panic attack brought about by sensory overload in a crowded airport.

The bottle is attention getting, if not attractive.

The jus unfortunately is nothing but a melange of a bunch of popular releases. Armani Stronger With You, YSL Kouros Silver, a bit of Invictus and 1 Million from Paco Rabanne.

It simply doesn't come together well, but I suppose the idea is to smell like ALL of the popular releases, all at once.

I'd buy it if discounted because I like the bottle. And in 10 years it will be a good reminder of the mid 2010s

It is a clone of Halloween Jesus del Pozo. I'd prefer Halloween it lasts more than Bad boy do.

Carolina Herrera Bad Boy (2019) is the masculine counterpart to Good Girl (2016) that nobody really wanted nor expected, and seems to be the basis for Carolina Herrera Kings (2019), which was released before this in the US but was oddly developed afterward. Instead it seems that Latin America and Europe got first dibs on Bad Boy, and much of that may have to do with the redundant nature of both compositions, or just the fact that US male fragrance buyers shy away from campy themed bottles in a post-Avon world where they aren't commonplace anymore. Whatever the reason, Bad Boy is finally a global release nearly a year after it was first spotted, but the good news is those who didn't have access to it haven't really missed out on much. If you've smelled Kings, you already know the dry down of Bad Boy: Just strip away the violet leaf top and spices in the heart, but leave the sweet tonka "amberwoods" base alone, and turn the whole compositions towards the youthful side of things. Bad Boy to me reads like a study on "what works" to pull the most attention, compliments, and positive interaction from a male-marketed fragrance in the late 2010's market environment, and smells like the homework assignment of a perfumer looking to base their thesis on just that. Bear in mind that doesn't make Bad Boy truly bad, just incomprehensibly average and pleasant.

The opening of Bad Boy is sweet vacuum-distilled bergamot a la Creed Aventus (2010) and most of its children in the 2010's, but more accurately Montblanc Explorer (2019) because that's the quality of ingredients you'll find here. This sweet bergamot is paired with the same airy marine note as Abercrombie & Fitch Fierce Cologne (2002), but thickened up with pink and white peppercorns so it doesn't feel too summery. The clary sage and cashmere woods in the middle of Bad Boy further compare this to Fierce but a rounded bubblegum shower gel sort of vibe also hearkens towards Paco Rabanne Invictus (2013), with more Paco Rabanne comparisons rolling in once the heavy tonka base reminds me of 1 Million (2008). There is a bit of some fractured patchouli molecule here for additional thickness but no cacao as the note pyramids on some sites may state. In the end, this a kinder, gentler, smoother version of the "universal mall" accord that permeates most Macy's and Sephora stores, sitting somewhere between clubber and generalist masculine fruity sweet clean and rich. Wear time is about about 8 hours which is average, and projection also sits close to skin with good sillage during those eight hours. This will offend nobody, and you may indeed garner some compliments wearing it, but Bad Boy is a misnomer for such a capitulating fragrance. I'd say you could use this three out of four months in a year, just not in the dead heat of summer, where the sweetness is likely to be cloying.

Of course, there's no getting around the bottle of this little number, as it screams "Shazam" to me every time I gaze upon it, although some people may liken it instead to The Flash or David Bowie's Aladdin Sane period. Louis Turner (who worked on the original Good Girl) was brought in to work with Quentin Bisch on Bad Boy, and I honestly think that between the two of them, they were concocting how to include the most bullet points from an impossible list of things the bean counters at Carolina Herrera insisted on being in the scent to guarantee "maximum market penetration". It's really kind of sick that this is where we are with designer masculine fragrances (and to a lesser extent feminines too), that a perfume is designed not to stand out from a crowd or carve out its own place in the market, but rather to be a mosaic of the most-prolific success stories of the last twenty years combined with the most-trending buzzword notes and accords. The sheer distillation of market research and cost-cutting found in releases like Bad Boy is soul crushing anymore, regardless of how kitschy the bottle shape may be. Still, I can't bring myself to hate Carolina Herrera Bad Boy, as it does nothing wrong, but on the same token just sorta does... nothing. It exists, it smells okay, and is definitely not lightning in a bottle. Neutral.

Struggles to be average. Sweet opening fades to tonka and woods.

Bottle is visually interesting and it has a very good sprayer.

This is bad. You've smelled it all before. Here's a bit of Armani Stronger With You for Men, then a bit of PR Invictus, tad bit of CH Chic for Men and a little bit of PR 1 Million too. Pair all that with this bottle and...well it's simply horrid. For instance, I really don't like Versace Eros but I'd rather wear that one than CH Bad Boy. Sapienti sat.

Originality 1/10
Scent 3/10
Longevity 8/10
Projection 8/10

Just very average.

Smells decent but reminds me of other typical modern mall scents, specifically Invictus in the opening with a slightly spicy, airy freshness. Drydown is a little sweeter and smoother, less harsh, going the Stronger With You route. Because it goes both fresh and sweet, it seems pretty versatile. Leans younger.

Performance is just decent. Projection is average while longevity is 5-6 hours.