Toy Boy
Moschino (2019)

An unexpected sample was thrown in among a regular purchase. It's not listed anywhere that I can find but the first thing that hit me was a delicious cedar (I imagine it's actually the rose waltzing with other notes and I already like rose). That's enough for me to like it. As somebody approaching 60, I assume from the *ahem* unorthodox bottle design and ad campaign that this wasn't intended for me but...I don't care. Good is good.

The contents betray the marketing, the twee name and cutesy bottle. Or maybe not quite. Take another look. The bottle is a toy bear, but it’s jet black; the ad campaign features a very attractive and subtly feminine-featured male model, dressed from head to toe in jet black leather with metal adornments that calls to mind The Village People (or something a bit more social-underground for some tastes, like Tom of Finland), and shows just enough skin to not be publicly appropriate (in the vast majority of public places that is). The fact the mind just as easily says Boy Toy rather than Toy Boy is another hint. Though I wish that it would be, this will not be a perfume for the majority, the unconfident and conforming guys in their teens or 20-somethings. It’s going to appeal to men older than that, more confident, less conformist, and with a more… bombastic personality. Cue one of the thorniest, pepperiest, woodiest, greenest rose perfumes you can buy. There must have been a bit of a spicy green rose bug going around; another tough, head-scratcher perfume, Rose & Cuir by Jean-Claude Ellena for Frederic Malle, spun the spicy green rose down the leathery-woody route rather than a spicy woody route like Toy Boy.

Pepper, pepper, pepper. Big, fruity and nose-tickling rainbow pepper. There is something a bit softer and a bit juicy in this top section that is hard to pin down, touches of clove as well, but pepper is the star. Then an immediate rush of red rose, which might have been that odd “juicy” note warming up to become a jammy red rose. Shrouding the fruity rose is a massive dose of sticky elemi. Citrusy and calling to mind solid-state frankincense, there is no smoke or temperature here at all, just lemony, green, resinous aromatics. The jammy red rose, sticky green incense, and peppercorns string down to the base where they morph into cashmeran, floral and clean, and some synthetics I haven’t heard of along with what seem to be massive slugs of Iso E Super and vetiver, peppery and green-aromatic, cedar, woody.

Toy Boy is funky, weird, doesn’t do or go the way you expect it to, and it’s darn good fun to wear. It’s a head turner that plays with mainstream masculine perfume expectations in a very well-done left-field way. No one would say that fruity jammy roses would be acceptable in a mainstream masculine perfume, but, it turns out, shove a massive pepper mill into it and set it against very strong cedar woods - not only is it olfactorily pleasing and original, but it also checks all of the necessary boxes for a mainstream house to release it. Bravo to Yann Vasnier for this novel creation, and kudos to Moschino for having the cajones to release it.

Opens lemony, reminiscent kenneth cole black, settles into a lovely, somewhat feminine rose but with just enough dirt to make it appropriate for a male. It reminds me (though not a clone) of C&S #88. My wife said she smells cedar, i dont. As others said, i like it, it's interesting, i dont think i would buy it. Somewhere between neutral and positive.

You certainly wont smell like every other 20 something shopping at sephora, though.

Edit: I think I am going to buy it haha.

Edit2: changed my mind again. This is very strong. It's the kind of scent that if you dont shower it off before bed, your sheets and pillow will smell like it indefinitely until the next time you wash /them/. I like it, it's unique. Every time you catch a whiff it's a little different, but always framed in rose. I have a feeling Im going to tire of this in a few hours. Ive been wearing it for 8 and it's still going.

I had a four-hour layover in Detroit and discovered that they have a World Duty Free store, so I spent an hour sampling fragrances. This one really struck a cord with me, but decided to ease into it with a 5 ml mini bottle purchased on ebay for under $10 including shipping. Toy Boy ever so slightly reminds me of Royal Mayfair, which I love. I like TB's rosey-floral-spicy scent, and performance is good, but I'm not feelin' a full-sized bottle is in my future. I recommend test driving this one first.

First off just ignore anyone who said they smelled this and didn't like it, it makes the heart skip a beat. It has an endorphin rush tied to it and plenty of people dislike that

I don't like toy boy in the traditional sense, but I don't imagine it was designed in that way

I think toy boy was intended to make a statement, to be a little confrontational and to reward the people who engage

I won't get into trying to describe the notes because toy boy is above my head

I got a whiff of my Mont Blanc Individuel at work and thought of toy boy, so what I can say with confidence it that it leaves an impression :)

This scent needs some time to consider and ruminate over before posting a review in a quick knee-jerk kind of way. It's a little weirdo that has grown on me hugely. It’s proven to be quite a multifaceted wee beast, initially all I could get was a heavy dose of pink pepper, after the 3rd or 4th wear two weeks later, my perception of it unfolded to get that juicy rose and pear and then some darker notes I can’t quite put my finger on. In the dry down, the Vetiver is barely there for me but I get a nice dose of sandalwood and fresh nutmeg. It's wonderfully multifaceted. My first Yann Vasnier creation that I am aware of, and I thank the guy. This has been such a pleasure to get to know, I pick up different glimmers all the time. Love the design of it’s presentation too, hats off to the creative team and the boardroom at Moschino who went along with it. I believe many people get side-tracked by their aesthetic compasses being pulled off by the ad campaign side and proceed to heap scorn onto the "child-like" or "deviant" non-prude characteristics of the presentation, too bad... I Love it! Had to get a second bottle.