O/E
Bogue Profumo (2015)

(Review of the new 2025 formulation)

Before applying O/E I had prepared two thoughts firmly in mind: one, this was going to be hugely green and camphoraceous from looking at the pyramid, and two, since it’s a Gardoni composition, everything in it is going to be lobbed at me in one massive and hulking blob. I wasn’t prepared.

The opening of O/E is like a bouncer checking you at the door. He looms big, large, and he’s not kind. Upon first sniff the camphor note is huge - chemically and sharp as well - but it is accented with green herb notes and peppercorns that are equally as loud. It is nose blinding and challenging, but just like a train wreck I can’t seem to look away. These fade pretty quickly though to a lovely citrus fruit salad - yes, a fruit salad, this is Gardoni remember: the citruses are presented to us as a morass. Bergamot, grapefruit, lemon, and probably some lime as well are given a lightweight sheerness and sheen via a very metallic and piquant orange neroli note. It is tantalizingly mouthwatering. This camphor, green herbal, citrus and metallic floral opening is grand and sweeping; every inhale brings the question of how is it possible for these materials to have so much breadth and depth. Gardoni’s multi-layered and languid approach to material handling is serving the mandate of O/E very well so far.

Big. I have I said O/E is big yet? It’s big. Very big.

Just when you think you’ve peeled back every layer this onion has you find several more. Evergreen resins and aromatic woods of every possible tree you can think of are here: I smell cypress, pine resin, cedar, spruce, fir, and slowly they reveal one of the biggest gin notes I have ever smelled. The smell of botanical gin, a massive steam distilled juniper berry accord, is very potent here. Wear this to the office and people might think you enjoyed a liquid lunch at the nearest tavern. Despite the typically sharp nature of the woods and resins, and the “heat” that can come with a juniper/gin note, they are very well rounded, soft, and slick in O/E. Big, but not hurtful or pushy.

By the time the skin scent is reached O/E has calmed down to a green and aromatic vetiver adorning a spicy and resinous sandalwood and cedar base. Big, no more. The skin scent is quiet, but there is still plenty of freshness and energy.

What a trip! O/E manages this strange but brilliant trick of funneling down, of sitting so many enormous things on top of something timid and tiny, without the whole of it collapsing into a mess or becoming hilariously out of balance. Speaking of hilarity, read the superlative-laden website description. Egos as big as the perfume, it seems. But that’s no matter, because O/E is as good as it’s made out to be.

I obtained my Bogue samples in vials, meaning for a decent experience in testing I had to decant them into atomisers. In the process of decanting O/E, I managed to get some on my hands as well as on a beermat that I was performing this operation over. Here's what I smelled during the process, in swift order and at high volume:
- lavender (very briefly)
- some kind of South Asian cooking herb mix
- what we call Vicks Vaporub in the UK, a "mentholated topic ointment" for colds and such
- a "compound herb inhaler", comprising a small bunch of herbs and in a small tub, given to me as a present by one of my students
- camphor.

As with the other Bogue samples, this was not something I imagined liking on skin. The beermat was put into my wardrobe to keep the moths off my knitwear. I was thinking that I should warn the Funwithfrags family in advance of wearing O/E. Surely personal perfumery should be easier than this?

After all that, it's not that bad. I do detect most of the notes, although there are too many for coherent experience. It is very strong and long-lasting, but somehow intriguing. Most important, although I am not going to go near it again once the sample is finished, I can imagine someone liking it, wearing it, and not causing consternation in doing so.

Camphor (why?), herbs (thyme in particular), a touch of lavender, a dash of tobacco and patchouli. None of the notes stand out in any sense of that phrase.

the wall of scent
a Phil Spector-esque kind of scent
citrus and green
perfectly balanced
screaming..
quality

Limber and brash citrus bustling with herbal and wood sap accents – bracing stuff executed in a lumberjack style, deliberately rough around the edges and unashamedly upfront about it. There's good use of a wet earth accord in the mix, which seems to move in an out of peatiness, grounding the entire composition, as do the array of woody and resinous tones in the background. There are some sweet rosy florals too, cleverly folded in, so they're there in the middle of the thing but adding a supporting voice rather than detracting from the outdoorsy citrus theme.
O/E registers as heavy on the naturals, thus can come across as being of the ‘stir the essential oils' school of indie perfumery. But overall it's far more skillful than that, with all the materials on song and never slumping into the brown shade that can creep over ‘natural' perfumes. Despite the complex orchestration of its various elements, the abiding impression is one of directness – in that it is full of life. A treasure.

O/E is an interesting offering from Bogue, and as with other offerings, it has a staggeringly long note list, almost to the point that it's unclear what it should smell like.

I'd similarly categorize it as a bit of a resinous floral mix, except not nearly as sharp as 07738 during the opening, far more a balance of citruses, other fruits, florals, woods, and resins, medium in sharpness and body, and, as implied, a little easier on the nose than 07738.

I had to take a stab at the most prominent notes on me, I'd suggest a citrus blend with juniper, cypress, rose, jasmine, mixed resins, and sandalwood. It's really quite a nice creation, unisex and versatile with respect to season and occasion, in my estimation.

I quite like it, but as it's priced higher than most of the others in the, at $280 for 50ml, it's tough to defend at that pricing unless you really love it, but having now sampled a few items from the line (including Noun, the Luckyscent anniversary exclusive, previously), I can reflect that there is clearly a lot of care put into the brand's perfumes, which are generally quite dense and robust, as well I'd certainly recommend the line as an interesting pursuit.

7 out of 10

Genre: Citrus/Fougère

O/E does not seem to have been received quite so rapturously as Cologne Reloaded and MAAI were before it, and I must admit there's something challenging going on here - a kind of deliberate dissonance that's not going to suit every taste.

Antonio Gardoni seems quite fond of a very distinctive and peculiar accord that paradoxically weds a medicinal, antique apothecary element to a furry animalic note. The idea may have first emerged with Cologne Reloaded, and was expanded upon in MAAI, Gardelia, and MEM. In O/E, Gardoni accompanies the animal/apothecary accord with a bright citrus and a weird, bitter, metallic note that I can't begin to identify. The effect is decidedly raspy – to some perhaps even nails-on-a-blackboard disturbing – especially for the first ten minutes or so on the skin.

However, I find that with patience, O/E seems to find its footing, and what started out as grating discord settles into an intriguing olfactory chiaroscuro effect, the likes of which I've experienced in certain more traditionally composed fougères and citrus chypres. Certainly not for every taste, but interesting enough to hold my attention.