Blessed Baraka
Initio (2015)

Blessed Baraka is just a loud amber and sandalwood combo. Maybe it was fresh in 2015, but by 2025, this has been played out far too many times. I think there are much better tobacco-style scents out there. I agree with Varanis—it smells unbalanced and cheap. It feels like I’m smelling the budget version of a more expensive fragrance. And considering the price, I’m passing on this one. I don’t even think it’s worth sampling.

Don’t get hung up on the notes lol. There are no flowers in this perfume, maybe the ubiquitous hedione employed liberally by Initio. There is a lot of javanol, though I’m not gonna pretend I went to ISIPCA and rattle off a bunch of synthetic materials. It reminds me of Molecule 4, monster projection, beautifully done amber notes, cherry hardwood, Mexican Coca Cola. You have to try this on the skin. It’s fine on the blotter, but meant to be worn by a confident personality. Great scent for cold weather.

There are two worlds conflicting in this fragrance, I think. Whether it's woods and musks, florals and vanilla, or fruits and cream - I'm just not a fan of when bright and citrusy and rich and deep are mixed. The result, to my nose, smells like turned milk or something similar.

Add to this the price, and it's a hard, hard pass for me.

Initio says: "A solar fragrance endowed with a sacred strength to provoke the hand of fate."

I says: A pleasant but generic sweet, musky vanilla woody amber that provokes the Hand of Fate to flip Initio the bird for asking over $300/100ml. No one would be surprised to smell this from a $20 bottle with Britney Spears' name on it.

This would be a neutral at a sane price point. It earns a thumbs down for serving up designer adequacy with niche pretension.

Quite surprised to see the strong negative comments about this one. Nearly bought it, but it was just lacking that little something special that made it different to the rest. Still a nice scent with decent performance to boot.

Don't we all get a little snooty here on Basenotes. I see Toy Boy has 7 positive, 0 negative/neutral reviews. Except no one buys it and I never smell it on anyone, despite its production level of probably 50x Blessed Baraka. This one has all the DNA of the most popular PDM and Initio. This one is actually stronger than most (in the OFG class that way). And the truth is the vast majority of fragrances are a very poor investment at retail (kind of like watches). And you can get a 90ml close to half retail if you're patient, so then it's not a bad value proposition since 2-3 sprays should take care of you all day. And, like watches, the reason we can sometimes score this at that price is because SOMEONE bought it at retail (bless you). You know, if we want these fragrance companies to continue to employ artists who make art for the sake of it, don't forget these are also COMPANIES. And to stay in business they need to make money. And if the gym rats like this, great. When I walk into a gym, I'd sure as hell rather smell this than have it filled with more damn Polo Red Intense or Sauvage, or Fierce. I for one am tired of that. So there my Toy Boy sits in my closet, and once a month I put one spray on my arm at night, and say "oh wow, what a masterpiece of inventive perfumery," and then put it away again.

If you are on the fence about this fragrance, I'd absolutely recommend it at a significant discount to retail. If you're a snoot, then at least appreciate this for its excellent execution on what it is trying to do.