Like Gucci Pour Homme (2003), the newly released Gucci Pour Homme II (created by perfumer Karine Dubreuil) is a subtle fragrance. I saw Pour Homme II’s packaging long before I knew anything about the scent and I worried that the cologne’s blue tint was a reference to sea and sky, to ‘water’ and ‘air’ accords that are so over-used these days in men’s fragrances. Before smelling the fragrance, I read the list of Pour Homme II’s ingredients (bergamot, violet leaves, cinnamon, pimento, black tea, myrrh, tobacco leaves, white musk, and olive wood) and though no marine or ozone notes were mentioned, I was still “concerned” because the recipe for a bland men’s department store-designer fragrance was there in its structure: Top: bergamot, Middle: cinnamon-pimento, Base: musk/wood.
Gucci Pour Homme II opens with refreshing violet leaf and bergamot notes…