I tested Roja Dove Fetish pour Homme in direct comparison to Puredistance M. Considering that both are credited to Roja Dove and criticized for cloning Bel Ami, you'd think they'd smell alike. Au contraire, mon frère. Where Fetish cures its leather with a veritable symphony of aromatic spices and dark florals, M opens with a cumin-y snarl that would send Bel Ami running to find its deodorant. How droll that cumin isn't even in the pyramid, 'cuz that ain't cinnamon, kids. Ironically, M is the cat o' nine tails on the basement toy rack, while Fetish is a Helmut Newton Sumo on slightly daring display in the drawing room.
You might expect this assessment to favor M–and for some people and/or occasions, it would. But once the echoes of that snarl die down, M becomes just a dank skin scent that, while sexy in its way, is no Eau d'Hermès. Now, it really is cinnamon, albeit a dirty one, so any "thank you master may I have another" impulse requires reapplication. And it's kind of pricy to use up that quickly.
The leather in Fetish is more sumptuous, and smelling like Taschen's impeccably upholstered Helmut Newton kink all night instead of the sharp crack of M's whip for a hot 30 minutes strikes me as smart choice for most evenings, in or out.
I pulled this out of my sample bucket and put it on blindly...At first I thought that I had grabbed myself an incense fragrance...i smelled a high pitched piney incense...after that , to me, it smells like Puredistance M flavored wiith a spicy predominately lime dirty citrus..I love citrus and I love leather , so I find this fragrance to be extremely pleasurable to my nose and worthy of my full bottle wish list...as always, exquisite ingredients and blending...for associations that come to mind , this sits somewhere between the old school lime/leather of Davidoff and the futuristic avant garde lime/leather of Christopher Street...oh , and did I mention smoke...this has a nice overall touch of smokiness...enjoy...
Alongside Danger, Fetish is probably my favorite Roja. This one is a statement maker for sure. You need to own this one rather than let it own you otherwise you could be in big trouble. There is a resemblance to HdP 1740 and to a lesser degree Interlude. They are not identical but they surely give off the same vibe and do share some of the same notes. Spice, leather, pickled lime, dirty vanilla, booze. It's all here. Could intimidate the weak.
Only for the brave of heart but really something special.
Men's scents owe a lot to the iconic and legendary Bel Ami by Hermes. For many of us the benchmark leather scent, it is one I have come to love and think of as something as close as possible to a signature scent as a frag-head can get to.
Fetish by Roja Dove fails to impress on originality right away. Its opening notes are a relatively good interpretation of that original smoky-leather-chypre called Bel Ami that we all know and love. I for one wouldn't be able to distinguish the two early on in a side-by-side comparison.
The similarities unfortunately end there. The heart contains bucket loads of cypriol - perhaps Roja Dove's scent DNA - which makes the scent reminiscent of moth-balls. By the dry down, the smooth and crisp vetiver note joins the party and the curtain draws to a close. There is sadly no encore.
There is a well-known obsession among niche perfumers recently to rip-off classic scents and this reeks of a lack of originality. Uninspired is an understatement. What else could they do? Roja has intentionally borrowed the top from Bel Ami and then made a complete hash of the rest. Surely if you're going to make a copy, you should do it right? Or improve it at the very least?
I am surprised a house that is obsessed with bling is able to create a fragrance with such a bland and uninspiring heart and dry down. With this level of cypriol, it makes me wonder who Roja thinks he's kidding.
The current edition of Bel Ami should be in every man's wardrobe and costs a fraction of Fetish. Fetish (and it's not too distant cousin Puredistance M) are redundant in this sense and all fragrance enthusiasts, including any millionaire readers, should steer clear of this one.