Just look at the video below – an advert for Armani Code.  If we can believe the ad we’ve attached here, Armani Code is ‘the ultimate code of seduction’.  Listen out for that weird emphasis on the syllable: ‘mate'.  Presumably the idea is to emphasise the sex angle, the mating game and all that. 

Don’t get us wrong, that vid is pretty damn cool in its low-budget way, which is why the Best Cologne for Men YouTube channel is pretty much devoted to ads like that.

But the idea that Enrique Palacios needs to rely on his EDT to get girls is pretty unlikely.  Mini Anden is all over him, and old Enrique doesn’t even look interested.  In fact, he seems mildly irritated by her attentions, like he’d much prefer that sassy little blonde he’s spotted somewhere in the middle-distance to Mini’s brunette charms…

Anyway, however much guys may fantasise that Armani Code is a ‘panty-dropper’, let’s focus on the realities:

Armani Code is meant to be an oriental (heavy, sweet) with citrus odour.  Well, our humble noses detected the following:

Primarily, a sugary vanilla blanket that covers all other smells – this isn’t unpleasant by any means, just a tad cloying.  But it lasts a long time, we have to admit.

A core of toffee and a hint of sweet coconut (something like a combination of Cadbury’s Caramel and a Bounty bar, for any UK readers out there) – all blended with the minty goodness of Colgate Total (a good thing, too, since all the other smells so far are registering like a binge in a chocolate factory – creates havoc with one's dentistry, you know, so toothpaste could be handy right now).  At times, it smells like a sophisticated version of a can of Lynx Africa, if that's not being unkind.

And finally we discovered that clean combination smell of fresh upholstery and new plastic fittings in the interior of a brand new car. And after that odour had faded for a while, we ended up with WD40.

We’ve used a few strong phrases there, but overall we would give this scent the thumbs up. It’s definitely a ‘going out and having fun’ type of scent: we wouldn’t wear it to work, to be honest.  

Just to provide a point of comparison:

Armani describe it as a: ‘citron cocktail of bergamot and lemon with soft notes of olive tree blossom, warmed with Guaiac wood and Tonka Bean […] seductive and modern’.

And other people online have detected the following: lemon, bergamot, olive blossom, guaiac wood, star anise, leather, tobacco and tonka bean.  While we’ll run with the Tonka Bean notion (vanilla, approximately), and maybe the leather (we're thinking new car upholstery again), we really didn’t get too much citrus or bergamot.

Finally, a quick word on the bottle: low marks for the styling, we think, as it's curved and too slender for us to shout masculinity. Unless you want to read some sort of phallic imagery into it, but who wants to spray cologne on themselves from something that might look like a penis?

Overall rating: a solid 7 out of 10.

Related article: Check out our blog post on the creepy advertising campaign with Chris Pine.

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