Bruno Banani
Bruno Banani
156 votes
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The green apple strikes first with sharp, almost cloying brightness, immediately flanked by a herbal bite of rosemary that feels synthetic rather than botanical. Bergamot attempts to add citric refinement, but it's overwhelmed by the artificial sharpness of the apple, creating an opening that feels generic rather than inviting.
As the fragrance settles, a watery floral emerges—geranium attempting structure against undefined aquatic notes that contribute little but transparency. The middle hours feel hollow, with the individual notes failing to create meaningful dialogue; instead, they exist as separate entities, never quite cohering into something greater than their individual mediocrity.
The base reveals itself cautiously, with tonka bean contributing a faint sweetness that mingles with distant cedarwood and moss, but the performance is so muted that by the fourth hour, the fragrance has largely dissolved into skin warmth and memory. What remains is primarily a vague sweetness rather than any distinctive woody character.
Made for Men Bruno Banani arrives as a crisp, decidedly synthetic interpretation of Mediterranean freshness—the kind of fragrance that feels more like a concept than a lived olfactory experience. The green apple and Tunisian rosemary opening promises herbaceous vitality, yet there's a peculiar hollowness to their interaction, as though they're performing freshness rather than embodying it. The geranium that emerges in the heart should provide botanical complexity, but instead it sits alongside vague aquatic notes that read more like ozonic wallpaper than genuine marine character.
This is a fragrance caught between intentions: too sweet in its tonka bean base notes to feel genuinely sporty, yet too synthetic in its overall architecture to achieve the creamy warmth those same base notes might otherwise suggest. The cedarwood and moss attempt gravitas in the drydown, but they arrive too faintly and too late to salvage the preceding dullness. There's a plasticky quality that pervades the entire composition—the result of those synthetic accords dominating at 64%—which undermines any sophistication the perfumer might have aimed for.
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3.6/5 (194)