Best
Lomani

Best is another old school powerhouse that has outstanding performance in longevity and sillage. A fresh, green, spicy fragrance that can be worn year around. Any age, any occasion.

At the opening you will get a powerful and fresh citrus blast with woods and musk in the background, and just a touch of sweetness. I get a fresh out of the shower (men’s shower gel) vibe.

In fact, Best is a very masculine fragrance with clean and fresh citrus notes with the musky notes added in. It definitely has a barbershop feel to it as well.

Lomani is something of a cult Parisian fragrance house that is known for it's cheapo masculines that have remarkable style even if they lack somewhat in the performance department. The one that started it all, Lomani Pour Homme (1987), is a soapy barbershop fougère that follows in the footsteps of Drakkar Noir (1982), but unlike so many that also did similar, gets accused of being an attempted clone, when it is in fact less similar to Drakkar Noir than several of it's peers that don't get the same accusation. I feel much of this has to do with the Lomani price point and misinformation, but regardless, the eponymous debut scent carved out the path of an underdog hero which facilitated not only this follow up from the same year, but also the erection of an entire house in time. Best by Lomani (1987) is obviously not an appropriately-named sophomore effort, because even people in the know about Lomani Pour Homme often haven't heard of it, so how can it be their finest hour? Lomani would release so much stuff, some original, some near-clones, that they unintentionally drowned Best in an ocean of meh. The fragrance feels sort of like the darker, muskier, more mature brother to Lomani Pour Homme, almost like both formulae were made at the same time a la Halston and it's Z-14 and 112 (1976), but given distinctly different packaging unlike Halston, and staggered by a few months apart. Lomani Pour Homme would appeal to the crowd looking for fresh and clean, while Best would appeal to a more mature audience still seeking aromatic scents like Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme (1978). Best plays out much like a marriage between something such as the aforementioned VC&A scent and the debut Calvin Klein masculine called Calvin (1981), with touches of castoreum and fir like Bogart One Man Show (1980) and the later Rochas Globe (1991), not that it's as high-quality as any of those.

Best opens with some interesting 3-way citrus action of bergamot, lemon, and mandarin in the top, bringing it a semi-oriental vibe with the sweet mandarin especially, giving Best a fruity countenance usually reserved for oriental masculines, but rather than commit to that path, it heads down the fougère road like Lomani Pour Homme with lavender, balsam fir, and an herbal composite "fern" accord that reminds me of the orris in Paco Rabanne Pour Homme (1973) most. Comparisons to One Man Show and Globe also start near the middle, but the fougère/oriental/powerhouse hybridism of Best gets even stranger when the base comes on, as a train wreck of notes hits you in the face, almost nauseous at first until they calm down. The final drydown shows the inexperience of whoever composed this and the lack of quality control on the house's part, but considering it's under $10 (cheaper than an Arden or Avon), this can be forgiven slightly. Sandalwood, cedar, pine, patchouli, vetiver, cinnamon, ginger, amber, and musk are all touted to be in this. The last 4 definitely are, but the rest are just in a barf bag jumble until they calm down, turning Best into a spicy, fruity, musky and leathery coumarin bath with hints of clove and castoreum that brings in the Calvin comparison with the musk, but with a fraction of the budget and half the strength. Best is an enjoyable scent once all the chips fall, but that last transition from middle to base is so clumsy and over-stuffed that it's almost offensive, making the scent a nice opener, but then queasy and almost scrub-worthy, until it redeems itself at the end with a smooth finish. If you don't mind a little bit of challenge in your fragrance, or are just masochistic, you probably won't take issue with this, but having a fragrance that is pleasant then really unpleasant, and finally pleasant again just works my anxiety a bit and makes me deduct points. Spraying on shirt keeps top notes around longer, so like with Lomani Pour Homme, doing so corrects some of Best's issues (which in this case is the dry down and not the longevity).

Ultimately, the way I approach Best is like a great song with a terrible guitar solo: the singer and rhythm section are on point, but when the lead guitarist steps out, it's just whammy bar and random dive bombs without any real fretwork, which is what the transition from fougère-like middle to whatever that is in the base feels like to me. You wait out the cacophony until the final refrain emerges and the song gets on with itself, which is what happens once Best stops trying to be a Swiss army knife of aromatic proportions on a Kmart budget and just settles into being the cheap guilty pleasure masculine spicy musk it's touted to be. Best is still soapy like Lomani Pour Homme, but is for the guy that wants some virility with his soap, and couldn't shell out for the big boys back in the day, or still can't in modern times because all his favorites are long discontinued and astronomical in price, so he wears this instead. Best by Lomani is a misnomer because it reeks of settling for less, unlike Lomani Pour Homme, which actually tried to be a low-priced but competent competitor in it's genre and succeeded. Despite the tough love, I still like Best and give it a thumbs up, but only because it's dark broody 80's "Victorian revival" style is gradually becoming extinct outside a few niche selections, and it's one of the few easily-accessed surviving examples of it's kind. Best by Lomani in the 21st century has transformed from an inferior devotee of stronger specimens, to an affordable window to a forgotten time when guys wanted to reek of soap, spice, peat moss, animal funk and musk. It smelled like 1978 on a budget in 1987, and now it just smells deeply esoteric if a bit hairy in that final transitory phase to the musk. A fascinating cheapie, not an everyday scent, and probably not something to wear in social settings, unless we're talking about the Middle East, where Lomani is actually competitive with giants like Coty.

Yes a musky gem, an obscure dry blend of fresh herbal notes, green lime, roots, oakmoss, fern and coniferous resins with a final woody/ambery warmer dry down. Super virile, bracing, saturnine and melancholic. In the same league as Borsalino by Borsalino and Enrico Coveri Pour Homme but more leaned towards the aromatic/fougere side of the moon (with Azzaro's like kind of accents). Immensely invigorating at morning with its dry/earthy/musky/gingery feel. Another great classic for straighforward nostalgic moody fellows as me.

an obscure gem of a fragrance!This is a musky, fruity, earthy concoction that smells awesome. Very masculine. Cheap in price but not in smell. Glad I discovered this obscure gem.

I would rename it Lomani Worst.
Do not waste your money.