Luna Rossa Carbon
Prada (2017)

This smells like an Adidas deodorant I used to use in the 2010s. There is some mint/menthol or eucalyptus, some synthetic citrus that goes away. Prada name on a drug store fragrance. It's devastatingly boring. Just get L'Homme, or even the Luna Rosa Black. They are so much more interresting without being too heavy.

Prada Luna Rossa Carbon EDT -

Sauvage for suburban Dads who just want to smell good without overthinking it and need an easy-to-reach for "driving a sensible midsize SUV while drinking Starbucks on their way to the office" frag.

Thumbs up.


3 / 5 stars

I have worn this three times from a 2ml decant. Supposedly a Sauvage scent but I'm not really getting that for most of the time. For me, it starts out sort of generic citrus, lavender and vanilla, in a vague Sauvage-ish style, but then dries down to a somewhat-mediocre barbershop scent. Sort of an Irish Spring soap meets Barbasol shaving cream. Not bad, but nothing special.

I tried this because it has been touted as being similar to Sauvage and Scandal. It is just junk. Poorly orchestrated, screeching synthetics like a drugstore body spray (some might even smell better).

Carbon is clearly a lavender fougere. The lavender is quite metallic, with a chemical sheen. Meanwhile, there's also silvery violet leaf, which hints at an old-school marine fougere. But the most pronounced smell is a vanillic coumarin, even from the top, so the focus is really the interplay between the coumarin and the violet leaf, with sharp metallic lavender buzzing overhead.

To use comparisons, this is part Polo Green (metallic lavender fougere), part Cool Water (violet leaf marine) and part Le Male (sweet coumarin). It just sort of fades from there, ending up as thin metallic lavender chemicals mixed with thin artificial wood, while the coumarin simmers down to a background sweetness.

As for my rating, I personally don't like Polo Green, Cool Water, or Le Male, so a clever mix of all of them isn't likely to win me over. I enjoy a proper fougere, but the metallic chemicals ruin that for me. By no means is Carbon as bad or as intentionally unremarkable as a typical men's designer aquatic, so I have to give it at least a neutral, but it''s clearly not for me.

Some people say this is a better version of Sauvage, but after sampling it I found it's much worse. The watery notes, metallic notes, and carbon notes wind up smelling either soapy or like hand sanitizer. Really besides having bergamot and pepper at the top of the pyramid I don't see the connection to Sauvage. I couldn't smell the pepper in this whereas it's done amazingly in Sauvage