Panda (2017)
Zoologist Perfumes (2017)

First spritz is horrid. Aquatic doom replete with stinging sensations and strange sounds. Sounds that might have been me. But it gets better.

Not a lot, however. It stays quite marine-like. And I tire of that. Plus, it has occasional hints of a bandage accord. And no, I didn’t spray it onto a fresh cut this time.

I’m left wondering exactly what about the panda is being represented here. Do pandas like generic fragrances or something? If so, they’ve struck gold with this one.

All that said, I actually enjoy wearing Panda. It's just different enough, I guess.

Quite liked this. Weirdly reminded me of Aventus for some reason. Nice fresh fruity opening with a mossy woody dry down. Lasted a good while on my skin.

I get that blast of ISO-E Super right up front, but on my skin it doesn't last. I evolves very quickly into fruit-filled barbershop, with a pronounced tart-apple note, and pretty much stays there until that nondescript "woody" dry down. I had some hope when a beautiful osmanthus note popped up, but it was just for a moment. I can see where it would appeal to those who like to keep a certain number of fresh, juicy, "cologne"-type options in rotation. But I have too many much better ones in my collection, so this is a no for me.

This opens like any traditionally masculine musk fragrance then evolves a bit with fruit and oud. I thought I would love it by reading the notes. I dislike it for myself and wouldn't care for it on a man.

This is awful. Like seriously, just terrible.

5 seconds of cheap apple/raspberry topnotes leads to a couple of hours of dreadful, cheap-smelling aquatic "woody amber" Axe body spray smell.

Even cheap designer scents at least have better performance than this. Aside from the cute panda on the bottle, there's no reason anyone should seek this out.

Panda (2017) starts with a blast of ISO-E super. Which is disappointing, because it's shared by so many generic men's fragrances. You can smell a bit of the tea, citrus and apple, but that synthetic dry wood note cuts strongly through everything and dominates the scent. So sharp and irritating, it kinda burns my nose, and I liked T. Rex haha. This keeps going for a while, it isn't until about 3 hours in that the synthetics start to calm down and you get a bit more of what's underneath. Still there, but softer. And to be honest by that point my nose is already kinda blown out.

I'm also struggling to figure out where others are getting earthy notes from. This is an uncharacteristically fresh fragrance for the house. I don't get anything earthy, skanky, or challenging. It doesn't remind me of a forest, or anything else out of the natural world, it just reminds me of other fragrances. Longevity and sillage are both huge, but no point to that if I don't like the scent. Is it wearable? Sure, but so is Bleu de Chanel. Zoologist has far more interesting scents.