Halston Man Amber
Halston (2010)

Who would've thought that Halston would produce such a refined, rich amber? This is powdery, soft, sweet, creamy, and a touch salivic, with a fully three-dimensional interpretation of the amber accord.

I discovered I don't really like amber. This is also a total powder bomb. If you like amber and powder bombs this one is for you.

Stardate 20180105:

Ambery, Synth Oud , Myrrh, spices. Not bad. Would have been better without the synth Oud and Myrrh. A bit too synthetic smelling for my taste.
As others have mentioned already, linear and ok performance.
Not bad for the price.

What jumps out is the spicy-amber and oud-cedar, making this a warming scent that has some sharpness to cut through colder air. However, there is also a smoothness from the golden-amber which is always there and probably why the theme is gold.

I find Amber Man to be pretty linear from beginning to end. Projection is good and longevity is slightly below average on me.

I picked this one up for a scant thirteen dollars so I could get a feel of where Halston's line now stands in terms of quality. I was not expecting much, to be honest. However, the juice in C-3PO's flask here is surprisingly pleasant. It is a cross between two camps of fragrance I already own, so it is nothing new to me, but I do enjoy it for straddling this line and not teetering to far in either direction. The first camp is the spicy cedar and labdanums: Fever by Celine, Zirh by Ikon, etc. The second is myrrh-centric frags like CK Intense Euphoria and Prada Amber Intense. Halston Man Amber is neither as dark and inky as the first group nor as sweet as the latter; It is warm, spicy simplicity which dwindles in volume in lieu of changing over its lifespan. I think what I like most about it is that the initial blast smells of black pepper. Well, little flask, time to meet your new Halston family.

This semisweet amber fragrance has a lot going for it–the herbal bite of geranium leaf and thyme, a rich ambered incense heart and the skank of musk and oud in the drydown. The sweetness is held in check by the same metallic note found in Halston Man; it is like licking buttercream frosting off of the steel blade of a Sabatier knife. Its lack of floral notes along with the woods in the base notes make this a very masculine scent, the driest of gourmands. The dry nature of this scent–rare among ambers–makes this a very discreet fragrance, suitable for the boardroom, the bedroom and all places in between.