The Only Fragrance I Can Wear Absolutely Anywhere

3 min read

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Fragrance is a point of quiet contention in my home. My wife has great taste, a few amber-y and floral standbys that she adds to sparingly. Tom Ford’s Oud Voyager was her first new scent in like five years. But I’m prone to blind buys. This pisses her off for reasons both financial and olfactory. If she notices something new on my side of the dresser, she’ll ask if it’s from work or if I spent our money on it. And if she smells it on me, she’ll be honest: “Another niche animalic oud—groundbreaking, babe.”

The first time I can ever remember her giving me an unprompted cologne compliment was a few weeks ago when I was wearing this Ralph’s Club New York eau de parfum. The bottle was at the Esquire office for some cologne testing, and I spritzed some on. I met her for a drink after work. Almost instantly, in a crowded room, it caught her nose, and she asked what it was. I told her. She made it very clear that she preferred this to the roster of smoky, boozy, or earthy bullshit I typically wear.

It didn’t exactly take me by surprise. It’s a mass market cologne. Blackcurrant, sandalwood, and vanilla: It should, by definition, catch someone’s attention without being too divisive. It was just the fact that it happened so quickly. It made me feel like I’d been radicalized. I’m not a Fragrantica top user, but I thought maybe I’d spent too much time smelling my niche oud fragrances. Maybe, I ought to step back into something more mainstream. My wife agreed.

It Can Do Black Tie or a Weeknight Date

On its release, the original Ralph’s Club was positioned as a black-tie alternative to the rest of the Ralph Lauren lineup, and the rest of the releases has followed suit. The Ralph’s Club line was typically pretty simple, inoffensive and sophisticated. The notes were a straightforward flow of lavender and sage, then cedar.

This new expression, Ralph’s Club New York, caught my wife’s and I noses because it’s a more complete fragrance. It keeps that through line of Ralph’s Club—lavender, sage, woods—but it builds on the front and back ends of the scent. On the initial spritz, I get a good dose of blackcurrant which gives it a red wine ripe fruit smell. The new expression also added vanilla to the base, giving the scent a longer-lasting boozy quality. I think both notes give the fragrance romantic bookends on either side of the lavender, sage, and cedar heart. Neither ends are cloying, so they’re fine for a dressed up occasion. But, they are sweet, and they do draw people in—which makes them great in a more laid-back romantic setting.

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It Can Also Be a Summer Scent

The other note I get from this fragrance that’s new to the Ralph’s Club line is citrus. Specifically, I get a bergamot note on the top, alongside the blackcurrant. It’s subtle, but it just brightens up the fragrance a bit. All that sweet and fruity I described in the last section can make a fragrance feel heavy when the weather warms up, but I’ve found whatever freshness was added on the front end really cuts through it. If you, like me, don’t love the ultra-fresh summertime fragrances, it’s a great bottle to try out.

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It’s a True Crowd Pleaser

After the initial shock of my wife being immediately taken by the scent, I started to think about it objectively. It’s not surprising. All the stuff I’m into, like the menswear I write about, isn’t exactly mass market. And it makes sense that a mass-market fragrance is more likely to get compliments. It’s just that I didn’t think it’d come so quickly.

The lesson? It’s OK to go for something with mass appeal. If I want to smell like a barn, I still have Naomi Goodsir’s Corpus Equus. If I want to smell like wet dirt, I still have Orto Parisi’s Terroni. But when I’m going to work dinners, date night with my wife, and anywhere I want to smell good but not… challenging, I’ll turn to Ralph’s Club New York. It’s fruity, woody, and ambery. It doesn’t ask too much of the person smelling, and it doesn’t demand attention. It is, in every sense, a perfect everyday fragrance.

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Photographs by Florence Sullivan