Dirty English (2008)
by Juicy Couture

Dirty English comes on strong with cypress and smoky tones dominating the mandarin and bergamot of the opening. It’s a dramatic opening and it is done with taste – it isn’t over the top. As a piece of drama, the opening is a flash in the pan, but there remains a substantially competent and enjoyable fragrance after the flash is gone. The second stage is a neutral leather / mild spice accord that offers an enjoyable natural warmth, and hangs around for a decent amount of time. The drydown is as good as the rest. To my nose it is quite woody with its vetiver, cedar, and ebony; there is little sweet in it and what there is seems to come equally from amber and musk. The cardamom in the base serves to connect the base with the middle accords, with a distinctive neutrality. The background smoke and conifer lasts through the drydown, providing a comfortable otherworldly feeling. In all, I find this an admirable fragrance – one that hopefully indicates a new direction in modern masculine designer fragrances. Good projection and very good longevity.

What a great scent. Smoky, woody with incense-like sweetness. I can almost imagine this smelling like a Tibetan pipe den or something.

It's a very masculine, sexy smell - it almost seems to smolder - but not the sweet freshness you'd typically find out at club. Seems more appropriate for nice romantic night at home by the fire on a winter evening when you want to get cozy.

The belching, ill mannered grandson of the boozey, yet civilized Escada pour Homme. Pure, fake mud.

This fragrance is incredibly strong, I admit when I first smelled it off a test strip I pulled away like I'd just been slapped. I love wood scents, and they mix well here, but I was a bit unsure of whether or not I wanted to test this fragrance on my arm. Sure enough, Dirty English is easy to accidentally over-apply, and no-where near the realm of subtle. If you really love those woody scents and decide to pick this up, I recommend being extremely cautious with your application -- staining and over-scenting is easy to pull with this one.

Grab a handful of dirt and throw it at your head. That's what Dirty English smells like.

I wish I was joking but I'm not. I tried two different bottles of this stuff just to be sure. It opens smelling like fresh dirt and potting soil. Dry-down becomes a little woodier and a little more subdued but it never stops smelling like dirt.

It's most definitely original, but there's no way in hell I'm going to willingly walk around the office smelling like this. Perhaps if I was an outdoorsman or wanted to smell like I had been outside landscaping all day...

Sick and tired of the excessive lemony freshness of what everyone else my age is wearing these days (at least in Montreal), I've been on the prowl for a spicy and woody scent that doesn't make me smell like a sober, fifty-something year old accountant.

I thought I had found that with Dirty English, being simultaneously youthful, sexy, and woody/spicy. I must say that, when I first decided to buy it, I loved it. It smelled woody and warm without a trace of the conservatism I was trying to avoid.
However, after you wear it for a few days, you start to grow weary of it. It's spiciness is a little too tame, it's warm woodiness watered down by it's unnecessary citrus elements.
It just leaves a lot to be desired.

Plus, it has an air of adolescent obnoxiousness about it; it smells like Abercrombie and Fitch stores, to be frank.

And I really don't want to smell like that.