Club de Nuit Milestone Armaf perfume – a fragrance for women and men 2019

I will start out this review by saying that Millesime Imperial is my all time favourite fragrance and it isn’t particularly close … at least it used to be.

It truly was love at first sniff, I couldn’t get enough of thing. The saltiness, the freshness, the complexity, the way all the notes blended together masterfully. I’ve been chasing that MI high I got with my first bottle ever since I ran out of it but to no avail.

I’ve been thoroughly disappointed in the last 3 bottles that I’ve bought. That delicious, oceanic, salty, natural note is a shadow of it’s former self, and the longevity/performance is frankly laughable at the price point. I distinctly remember spraying 3 spritz of my first ever MI back in 2005/2006, and I could still smell it clearly after 2 days on my clothes. Now I’m lucky if I get 2 hours before it disappears.

After watching a couple of videos on this clone, I decided to give it a try and …. wow. It’s outright scary how close this is to the original. A few notes off the top of my head though:
1. It’s not as complex as the original in it’s heyday (but then again, nor is what Creed offers nowadays for 10x the price)
2. The saltiness is a tad milder then the original
3. The drydown is a bit one dimensional and feels ‘cheap’. It doesn’t take you on a rollercoaster of scents like a good, expensive perfume does.

All in all though, I’m honestly stunned at how good this is. 90% there in terms of smelling just like MI, but without the 10% intangibles that made the original truly special. If you’re sick and tired of how shite Creed has gotten with their quality and their prices, I would buy this in a heartbeat. It’s seriously, really, really good.

Edit: Having now tried PV’s Rush of Unicorns + ROU Intense, Alexandria’s Citron Del Mar, and Dua’s Imperial Pastique, I must say that the Armaf is hands down the winner and it’s not even close.

ROU: Smells 60% like old MI, way more floral and unisex, far too watered down, opening isn’t even close. As it’s own standalone alone fragrance it’s very good, as an MI clone it is not. It’s actually a better clone of the newer pathetic batches of MI than the older good stuff.

Dua: Take the fruity part of MI and dial it way way up, then remove all the freshness and saltiness of the original. Tada you have Dua’s clone. That is if you’re lucky and don’t get the characteristic wax smell that dominates the whole scent in about half of the Dua’s I’ve tried.

Citron Del Mar: Just ‘ok’. Not wow at all. More citrusy than fruity with that familiar salty air scent.