A “men’s fragrance” that’s fresh & airy, airy & fresh! If the bright, clear fields in an antihistamine ad have a scent, this is it. When first applied there’s some slight citrus, lemon or grapefruit –the mythical kind that juniper bushes produce. A tiny whiff of wild herbs follows: think heather & weeds, not cooking; but the central feature is a spectacularly bright-fresh post-rainstorm brisk aquatic smell. This fresh-airiness is most likely courtesy of Iso E Super, a chemical that reportedly smells like fresh air and conifer wood (I do not yet have my own sample of Iso E Super, available from Escentric Molecules, which packages it as Molecule 01 [UPDATE: Turns out this isn't a solo chemical, they blended Iso E Super with a few other scents to "round it out". Thanks. A. Lot.]).

Many, many perfumes use this chemical, but few as obviously as this one, and also Air by Kenzo (or Kenzoair, as Kenzo prefers). It presents an idealized, very very faint interpretation of a cedar forest in the clouds with a cool wind skimming thru….. so minimal there’s almost no there there. Herrera’s fragrance has fresh air from somewhere completely else, some place with fewer pine trees, and everyone there has already attained satori. Instead of the cedar cloudforest of Kenzoair, Herrera for Men has citrus-rain on the plain in Maine (perhaps, but definitely not in Spain). The Iso E Super adds an inspiring eye-opening happybrightness to this scent that Kenzoair bypasses on its way to its next zazen session. Comparing that to the post-rain plain in Maine (or maybe Heaven or Mars, whatever, it’s out of this world!) illustrates the very different moods one chemical can evoke by perfumers with skillz.