Black 
Comme des Garçons (2013)

Black comes storming out the gate with blackpepper, burnt green woods, incense, and a clear black rubber accord blended in. Birch tar and licorice come into play fairly quickly. The opening stanza is very polarizing but keeps you sniffing for more. Once the initial eye opening smells settle in, the fragrance rides closer to the skin giving wafts of some burnt wet woods intermittently but ultimately dries down on my skin to a fragrance that is cedar and vetiver at the forefront with those woods playing mostly in the background. This strikes me as made by a perfumer who loves dark fragrances of yesteryear but put this together with modern sensibilities. Kudos for CdG doing something that isn’t just another mainstream attempt at the masses, and for putting something together that’s a bit of nose candy for those whose nostrils have experienced many different flavors. This is one of those fragrances that people should not blind buy. I like it, and will give it more wearings to determine if a full bottle is on the way. FWIW, my wife wasn’t too impressed by the opening but has been mainly indifferent to the drydown and yet acknowledging that she likes the cedar accord that her nose has honed in on. 👍

If obsidian shards could be cooked and thus release an aroma, they would smell of CDG Black. This is black pepper incense, plumes of forest smoke, cinder cone daydreams and licorice-scented vinyl records that would play public service announcements on conservation. Black is that delicious Maillard reaction on toasted marshmallows on a campfire, sands sweetness, sans gooey.

Peppery charcoal pillows, glowing embers at dusk, comforting warm tar on a cool, shivering night: this is what Black feels. The trigeminal nerve tickling black pepper eclipses the smoke in its heart, embedding itself into rubber: Never, ever had a lover who put the pedal to the metal and burn rubber on me, Charlene, oh, no—kinda rubber. It would make Bvlgari Black and Jacomo de Jacomo blush.

It mellows into creeping root stalks of vetiver, toasted oat morsels, and the most realistic driest sauna cedarwood accord—heavenly. CDG Black is a fragrance for the books, my favorite smoky scent. 

Heavily smoked woods ... burnt tar that's been baking under the sun ... and the dark savory-sweetness of licorice underlying everything. This one was always a fun fall scent for me, and one of my favorites from the brand.

Smoky birchy-incense, with a bit of leather and cedar. One of CDG's best fragrances, and in my top 20 favourite fragrances of all time. The smoke is thicker and more peppery than what you would find in Aventus. This isn't anything like Aventus; I'm just using it as a reference.

If you're not a fan of black licorice, the combination of the birch tar and licorice might be slightly off-putting. It's still a smoky birch dominant scent with a bit of sweetness coming from the olibanum and licorice. The smoke feels quite natural so there's no abrasiveness or scratchiness. It's a type of smoke that you want to inhale, rather than turning away because it stings your eye.

Umami smokiness, that has moderate performance. For some reason, I got a bit nauseated by the licorice note. Maybe I associated something bad to the licorice smell, because I didn't have this issue when I first bought it. Also, the performance wasn't up to my standard so I sold my bottle. But I still think this is a wonderful fragrance; I wanted to buy it at first sniff. If you can find it, please give it a try.

I wanted something that smelled like Neutrogena T-Gel shampoo. This does the trick! Added bonuses include: fair price, a handsome bottle, and excellent performance. I usually wear a spray of this to the solar plexus, under a shirt and a sweater, and get small, potent whiffs of smoke and incense for hours. Recommended.

A dark gothic rooty vetiver scent in the opening blended with birch tar, patchouli, and other resins. CDG Black smells smoky , balsamic, woody- camphoric, like the gradual decline of a pine resinous forest in the twilight. The rooty vetiver is noticeable in the opening for longer than an hour until the birch tar becomes more noticeable but the game is between the vetiver and the birch tar. like cat and dog chasing each other. An enjoyable fragrance with moderated projection, not too strong but also not too weak, you won't choke people around you. The quality is ok not as good as Black Tourmaline by Olivier Durbano for example or Amouage or Arabian Aoud fragrances. More on the masculine side in my opinion and for both day and night use.100% recommended if you like moderated incense fragrances and looking for a winter scent to add to your wardrobe. Since eventually this fragrance will be discontinued by CDG in the future, better invest in something similar easily available and on continuous flow.