Millesime Imperial

Creed likes to style itself as the perfume supplier to movie stars and royalty. Perhaps they are, but there are some problems: their longevity is ephemeral, and at the gargantuan prices they charge, that is simply unacceptable.

I've only tried three Creed perfumes: Millesime Imperial (MI), Bois du Portugal (BdP), and Green Irish Tweed (GIT). BdP was a smoother, less sparkly relative of Patricia de Nicolai's New York and since I swapped New York for a bottle of L'Artisan Parfumeur's Patchouli Patch, you'd think I wouldn't like BdP. I actually do and gave it a pretty good review.

Bois du Portugal is described on the Creed site as a "rich, warm, and very masculine concoction of exotic wood and spice notes." Whenever I hear the term "very masculine," I am always puzzled: what is very masculine. As opposed to a bit masculine? Anyway, marketing shmooze aside, BdP is good.

I think I've recounted that I smelled GIT for a second at a Nordstrum's counter in Las Vegas. I thought it was pure shit. Since it's my idol's (Cary Grant) favorite, I'll simply have to give it another try, but as Boise's without a "good" department store like Nordie's, this will take a while unless I splurge for a sample.

We come to the subject of today's post: Millesime Imperial. The first time I wore it, I was slightly underwhelmed because I'd read many great things about this perfume. For instance, one Basenote member after another talked about receiving the highest praise a Basenoter can expect: compliment upon compliment from ravishing models. Well, I made up the last part about models, but you get my drift. So it's not hard to see why I was not head over heels in love on first application.

For me, almost every perfume has to pass The Missus Test with a few notable exceptions (L'Instant de Guerlain, for example, which she hates, but I like) and MI passed the TMT with flying colors; R loved it! Well, things were looking good for this aquatic wonder. The next pleasantry was finding out that MI lasted. And lasted. And lasted. Almost 12 hours actually. That was several weeks ago now and I've suddenly realized that MI is now a purchase-worthy fragrance.

MI reminds me of rambunctious healthfulness, it's light and easy with a marine/aquatic note that's not only lovely, but memorable: I've not been able to get it out of my mind and that, for me, is a characteristic of a "fiver" (a five star) perfume. Bvlgari's Aqva--I always have to decide whether Bvlgari is spelled with a "v" or a "u" and I always choose the "v" because I like Latinate words but Bvlgari, stop being so pretentious!--is a good and cheaper alternative but MI is my favorite aquatic so far, yes, even better than Davidoff's Cool Water.