Lomani
Lomani (1987)

This scent is a shapeshifter, always defying my expectations. When I spray on Lomani, I get a Cool Water ghost mint top note and for just a moment feel like I’m dousing myself with some aquatic shower gel. But then that all nearly disappears in a blink and I move into a blossoming drydown (not a big middle ground here) of vetiver, patchouli, and moss. Fabulous, and with the moss and amber base it goes on for hours. Even after you think it’s faded, others will still definitely smell it. A word to the wise. Cheap as chips and just simply a great bracing masculine scent—even with the skyscraper cap. 🙂

This super-cheapie is (in)famous for sharing Drakkar Noir's DNA. It has a fresher vibe than Drakkar and opens louder and much harsher with extremely metallic citrus, lavender, and a juniper berries accord. It's much soapier than Drakkar, and I'm not talking about some gentle soap note like Prada is known to use... this is more like one of those harsh laundry bars of soap from yesteryear.

Lomani PH also differs substantially from Drakkar because it's missing the leather in the dry-down. Well, as far as the reformulated juice in my bottle is concerned, it's missing *the* dry-down, period. I can only assume Vintage Lomani PH had an oakmossy base and to conform with new IFRA regulations the perfumer replaced the oakmoss with absolutely nothing, so the fragrance goes nowhere, just fades out. I don't like this one enough to seek out a vintage bottle for comparison sake.

Projection is very good for about an hour, but longevity is horrendous since it has no base. Overspraying works to retain the opening notes a lot longer, but with that much dihydromyrcenol you might get a headache at best, or fall into a coma at worst. Therefore, reapplying is the way to go, but not everyone enjoys carrying decants and constantly reapplying a frag with a harsh opening. Naturally, it lasts longer if you spray on clothes.

Masculinity Level: Steven Seagal in Executive Decision, mostly because he dies unexpectedly early on, just like the new Lomani PH.

Lomani PH punches WAY above it's crazy low-price weight class. It's one of those "nothing to lose and everything to gain" scents: a brighter Drakkar that, dare I say, I like just as much, with a price I've seen as low as $7.50 for a 3.3 ounce bottle. Performance is decent and it deserves a place in most people's scent collections. Recommend.

Imagine waiting for a haircut at the barbers,the sound of the clippers buzzing,radio in the background,some bloke and his dog,shaving foam,snipping scissors, brylcreem,cossacks hair laqueur,this is Lomani PH.it is working class manliness in a bottle.a gloomy man in his late fifties.working hard,long hours,in that anonymous office-building you always pass by.still pays the installments on car and house. can't quit smoking.an astringent fougere with a distinct sharpness.very lemony,soapy traditional barbershop smell from this one actually good quality for it's style.

It opens with a blast of strong lemon and rosemary in a woody base.after some time appears a dominant fresh lavender note with vivid coumarin and mild geranium.the patchouli gives to the blend the mild sweetness which smooths it.and everything leads to the dominant note of oakmoss with a earthy base.it is clean and reminiscent of shaving cream combined with green soap.it's synthetic abstracts qualities (the way the notes come at you as a whole) give it a conceptual feel that may seem a bit dated (nothing dates like a concept),that of freshly showered machismo.Lomani PH is not old fashioned this is clean an oddly invigorating.it is not great for formal events like a wedding or fancy events,it's just way to fresh and bracing for that,it's more representative of tuning up the car in a t-shirt.on other hand,Azzaro or Aramis can be more elegant in the formal and more fancy situations.

It's cheap. It smells a lot like Drakkar. It's cheap. It has decent projection and longevity. It's cheap. A bit soapier than Drakkar. It's cheap...but it does not smell "cheap". One of the most decent clones out there. And it's cheap

Everyone across the fragrance universe loves to call this the "cheap Drakkar Noir (1982) clone", "Drakkar Light", or sometimes even "Proto-Cool Water (1988)" because of it's ties to that aqueous scent's lightness, but in application it doesn't much resemble either of them. The problem with all the Drakkar Noir comparisons, is they do damage coming from a perspective of a person who hasn't sampled a lot of soapy citrus-forward fougères, which all arguably "smell like Drakkar Noir" when you take into account the bright bergamot opening countered with a sweet fruity or citrus note that they all share. Lemon, tangerine, or apple (depending on the fragrance) all balance the bergamot in fougères like this, creating that recognizable introduction; Creed Green Irish Tweed (1986) did this, then Houbigant Duc de Vervins (1986) and Geoffrey Beene Bowling Green (1986), Lomani Pour Homme (1987), Sung Homme (1988), and even Cabaret de Gres Pour Homme (2004) over 20 years after Drakkar Noir launched. You can't sit there and tell me they're all clones of Drakkar Noir, even if I know some of you folks believe so, as it is just an example of a genre being formed in a scent's wake, with Drakkar Noir being the initial push. With all that said, it is true that Lomani Pour Homme does follow in the footsteps of Drakkar Noir in it's opening moments, but just like all the above fougères I named, takes it's own path. Lomani Pour Homme is a deep album cut of a scent, and not a chart-topping single of a fragrance like Drakkar Noir. The stuff housed in this very-80's angular bottle and jacked with enough colorant to stain a shirt will not impress most people, and hardly anyone outside of Europe or the Middle East (where the Parisian Lomani is oddly most popular) will have even heard of it. There's a lot of artistry and balance in this bottle, which is made all the better by how cheap this is to attain. The smell is certainly no revelation, but more respectable than it's price tag suggests.

The soapy-sweet opening that sends most hardcore died-in-the-wool Drakkar guys frothing into an outrage consists of lemon, tangerine, bergamot, and lavender. It's really unsurprising, and if you look up any of the clean fougères I compared it to, you'll see similar openings and I feel it leans far more green like Duc de Vervins than Drakkar, but that's my take away. There are only so many ways to catch a mouse here folks, especially in the tightly-defined fougère category, so just wait it out, and if you're a huge fan of soapy clean openings, you don't really need further convincing anyway. This highly-recognizable soapy lemon accord reminds me most of GIT or Bowling Green after a few moments have passed, as there is a bit of verbena attached to that lemon. The middle of vetiver simply pulls further in the green direction that draws associations to the aforementioned Geoffrey Beene scent, before coriander and dry patchouli (not the resinous headshop variety) start doing the talking on skin. Juniper is listed as a note in the middle, but I find there to be more of a geranium kick than anything, leading Lomani down a mid-century barbershop path, until the shockingly chypre-like base knocks me for a loop. I think this base is where more modern and mainstream noses cry foul with Lomani Pour Homme, claiming it to be thin, weak, unsatisfactory dreck imitating their beloved Drakkar Noir, because we're drawn in closer to an old "masculine citrus" chypre-like dry down that has sharp oakmoss, cedarwood, a very light civet dusting, and an incense note warming things up just a pinch without a heavy bass riff. Anyone who has smelled Monsieur de Givenchy (1959), Avon Tribute (1963), or Monsieur Lanvin (1964) already knows what I'm talking about here, except in Lomani Pour Homme, the "dirt" is dialed way down low so it doesn't contrast the soapy clean top and heart too much. Lomani Pour Homme goes on clean, and ends up a little warm and dirty at the end, which is usually the opposite of how these things work, making it all the more fascinating to me. It's not a powerful scent, but the spray head issues a lot of juice, telling me you're not meant to be conservative on it's use anyway (also like Monsieur de Givenchy). The woods in this can sometimes get a little raspy and nosehair-stinging, but that's the one nagging part of the scent's cheapness that I guess can't be avoided.

Lomani itself is a value brand owned by Parour Paris, a house that exists on the same level of EA Fragrances in the US, shipping out from labels they either made (like Lomani) or purchased (like Remy Latour) to sell in Duty-Free shops or discount big box retailers/drugstores throughout Europe and the Middle East. You're as likely to find a Lomani perfume there as you would a bottle of something Claiborne here in the states, with most Lomani scents floating between $10 and $20 USD at MSRP. Obviously, folks wanting words like "Haute" or "Maison" on their bottles should not still be reading this review, but in case you are, you might get a kick out of knowing that both Bollywood and Iranian celebrities have approached Lomani to make their signature lines for them, which is part of why the stuff sells by the bucket over there, since that brings Lomani some unanticipated local prestige in those markets. Folks in Lomani's home turf see this in the same way Americans saw Revlon products in decades past, as a cheap solid alternative to the big designer brands, so Lomani is pretty odd as an obscure French drugstore brand with larger-than-normal success in the Middle East. Bottom line here is that Lomani Pour Homme is still around for a reason, plus it's everywhere online and at sale prices often under $10 too, making it a no-brainer for anyone that want to stock up on an unabashedly 80's soapy lemon fougère that strays shy of being a powerhouse, but will still carry good longevity and can be used with abandon. I'd say this does the simple barbershop fougère vibe better than the smokier Drakkar Noir, but that will just infuriate it's fans more. The big degree of separation is where Lomani finishes compared to it's peers: it's only soapy and clean 80's in the beginning, then it becomes dry, forthright 1950's masculinity that simmers down to an oakmoss and earthy incense glow on skin. The freshness of the opening pulls a "now you see me, now you don't" which confuses people, but for me it's one of the scent's strongest quirks, as it really is rather linear outside of that huge pendulum swing. Office and casual use recommended, and surprisingly good in heat, this "Undrakkar Notnoir" is ironically more versatile than it's oft-compared older cousin, and thus suitable for daily work use.