Just because we love men's colognes in general here at Best Cologne for Men, it doesn't mean we're completely uncritical all the time or don't find the occasional fragrance that just doesn't work for us...

Enter Bvlgari Blv Pour Homme.  An Italian name... of a man that was Greek... that implies: 'Bulgarians'... with a product name that contains French. And to crown it all, it's got the Latin-style 'v' for a 'u', which makes it annoyingly hard to type: your fingers want to type 'Bulgari Blu' the whole time... So it's a Tower of Babel of languages and nationalities here, a mixture and confusion.

It's a pity the Bvlgari Blv Pour Homme itself isn't such an interesting mix: you're meant to find ginger and cardamom (Bvlgari themselves say so) and maybe some lavender in there (according to other noses). But we didn't detect any of that at all.

All we got was soap. Hand-soap.  Soap, soap and more soap.  We're thinking: wet washing on the line; rosy-cheeked kids decked out in clean sports gear; car shampoo; and the handwash in grandma's ground floor toilet.  Are these the connotations the man about town is looking for?

All those ideas imply freshness. But the problem is: Bvlgari Blv Pour Homme smells sickly - it's like you've been heavy-handed with the detergent.  It's too much for the nasal passages.  Why not just douse yourself in fabric softener and have done with it?

And to top it all off, to smell like grandma's toilet is to smell feminine and, let's be honest, a bit uncool: if there is such a thing as a masculine-smelling cologne - and we think there is - this one is pure oestrogen.  It should be called 'Pour Femme': it's so overpowering and floral, it's like a lady's perfume.

Even more disappointingly for advertising junkies like us, we cannot find a promotional video for this cologne.  It must exist somewhere, but online it's as rare as rocking horse shit, as far as we can tell.

All we have is the dull promotional still on the left.  We can't even identify the model: his eyes aren't sunken-in enough and his cheek-bones insufficiently pronounced to be Jon Kortajarena, so it must be some other, earlier guy.

What are we meant to make of it? He's wearing a t-shirt.  His face is blank and expressionless.  He hasn't got a woman. He doesn't look tough. He doesn't look happy. He's clean-shaven.  He doesn't look sulky, aloof and mysterious.  We can't tell if he's got a ripped body.  He's got blue eyes - geddit? And there are blue streaks or light-beams across his face.  Bvlgari Blu(e), right?  But that's it. 

In fact, with its blue lights and faces in half-shadow, the advert reminds us of nothing more than the usual template for a sci-fi flick's promotional poster.  

What are we meant to conclude from this? That it's modern?  That it's technologically sophisticated?  That it's the future?

If so, grandma at least might be surprised to hear it...

Overall rating: a sickly 3 out of 10.

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