Hope y’all had a great Thanksgiving. Mine was full of too much food, but great company and lots of quiet.
It’s another Creed today! Creed Windsor is described as a recreation of the scent Creed made for King Edward VIII I guess before he bailed on the crown and married Wallis.
The scent description and notes from Creed’s site:
“Classification: Citrus / Green. Windsor is as subtle as the Duke of Windsor´s hand-tailored suits, shirts and ties, following his philosophy, “Royalty need not shout”
- Top Note: Windsor is a tour of the British Empire Edward once ruled. Its top note is British gin, Jamaican lime and a touch of Scottish highland pine.
- Middle Note: “Duke of Windsor” roses, those he preferred in his own garden, the Nuits de Young variety.
- Bottom Note: Bahamian orange, Canadian cedar and a dab of Australian eucalyptus.”
This fragrance carries all the indicators that I’m going to hate it.
- Recreation of some long-ago scent? Check.
- Pretentious copy that makes me roll my eyes? Check
- Made by Creed? Check
- Royalty involved? Check
- Gin? Incense? Heeeeey, wait a minute.
The open veers fairly traiditional Creed green fragrance, but it’s not heavy green or overpowering like – shh – git, but you would be unlikely to think of anything but Creed on the open. The gin, lime, pine and eucalyptus seem to be softly falling over a base of inense. I’m not sure that it is incense, but the woody notes in it seem intertwined in something that is vaguely resinous. I was so prepared to hate this that when it dawned on me that I really liked it, it was shocking. I just kept sniffing this weird gin-soaked forest that felt like it had been dragged through the local monastery’s brazier and thinking guys would smell amazing in this, but only just a little more amazing than I do. The drydown softens and melts those notes into a pine needle bed that is soft and inviting. I was smelling it for several hours, it had a very nice waft to it that wasn’t too much, just the right amount of sillage. The longer it is on, the more I find my noses buried in it. It’s got a lovely, interesting balance to the notes that intrigues me.
So we can begin the argument again about the exclusivity and the price, etc. I like it, others will hate it, I know the argument on Basenotes has begun in earnest. I have no idea if it is worth it, but it smells great, and this is the green scent from Creed that I can truly love.
I’m happy to give away some samples of this to commenters. Let’s do 4 small samples to four commenters!
Great Post! Creed. Some of their scents I like ( I ‘m not going to tell, too afraid to be sneered at for boorishness) but they are so nouveau riche. If you compare this scent with Creed’s Irish Tweed or AG’s Encens Flamboyant or maybe even something like SL Filles en Aiguilles – where would you put it (at all)? The alleged Windsor Roses somehow get lost between the booze and the pines? Anyway, what an unlikely combination, pines and roses…
It seems to have sold out on the official site. I am dying to know what this smells like. i am a huge fan of selection verte. I wonder how this one compares. Please enter me in the drawing if I am not too late. Thank you!
Gin? Wow, I can’t remember any other fragrance with that note. Please enter me into the drawing as well.
I think it sounds great and I’m a fan of GIT and SMW. Please enter me if it is not too late!
I haven’t tried many Creeds, but Selection Verte seems wonderful to me. (Hey, I like citrus and green (and mint)… many such scents are NOT too manly for me at all!) Pine is also a thumbs-up note.
Hey, don’t you live in Colorado, Patty? You should like that mountainy smell! Of course, you can smell the real thing, so maybe don’t want to wear it. For me, it is a treat that reminds me of good time outside in nature.
Please enter me.
I’d love to try this one, I love incense but still have to find some Creed that really blows my mind, so I’d give Creed one more chance :p
Various brands of gin contain other notes in addition to juniper berries: orange peel, angelica, coriander and cassia are common. So I would think a gin accord would include some of these as well. By the way, I think I’ve read Ernest Hemingway used to splash gin on after shaving … now that’s a real morning pick-me-up!!
Thank you 🙂
What *does* gin smell like? I’ve never had gin, and doubt I could identify it as a note… what other scents incorporate gin in them?
NP
Well, gin is based on juniper. So juniper + alcohol, I’d venture.
Mind you, sniffing the bottle merely results in burnt nose hairs due to high alcohol content.
Thank you! I now know what to look out for if I ever find a bottle of this (or actual gin) to sniff. :d
Wow, really late to this particular party, but let’s not forget Edward VIII and Wallis thought Hitler was a perfect dear and were all set to be put back on the throne when the Nazis took over England and presumably murdered the quite decent George Vi and family. So I don’t care how great they dressed, the Windsors aren’t anyone I’d want to emulate in any way. And if I want to smell like gin, I’ll just spill my martini on myself.
I haven’t liked a Creed yet, but I’m willing to keep an open mind. I do love the scent of gin, although I’m not sure I want to smell like it myself…
I’ll bite for a sample. What the hell.
Doesn’t sound “bad” but doesn’t sound special, either. Has this scent kind of been done before? Comparisons?
Something in the base of several men’s Creeds just makes me kinda ill… or at least like I wanna scrub it off. It’s not pleasant, in a “standard men’s cologne accord” kind of way. If I wanted that sensation, I’d pick up something at Walgreens.
Geez, this place is becoming as much a hotbed of the Creed Lovefest as Basenotes! 😮 😉
Please count me in. I would like to try this.
Sounds dreamy to me! I love green, I love Creed, and I have a thing for British perfumery in general. Please enter me in the draw.
This sounds like a masculine, but I’ll try it! Please enter me in the draw.
Sounds interesting. I like the smell of gin a lot more than the taste. Please enter me in the drawing.
Funny how we all have our untouchable fragrance lines. Creed clearly has ardent fans and rabid critics. Art should provoke a response. I’d love to try gin soaked pine bubbled through incense. Doubt I’d be bored!
One day I will have to go into Holt Renfrew and have a sniff at the Creeds. Do wish more of the sales clerks there were on the friendly side…
I hesitate to admit it, but i like several Creed fragrances and would love to try this one. Please enter me in the drawing.
Gin eh? In the draw with me please!
Please enter me in the draw (and thank you).
Like Klara above, I’m more of a rum fan but this sounds quite nice!
I order Tanqueray martinis to smell them rather than to drink them, so I would love to smell this….Please put me in the draw…..Thanks.
count me in the drawing…
Well, nothing to add. Regarding the Duke of Windsor,,,I remember my Mom recalling an announcement at school saying “The King has abdicated the throne for an American woman”. Was a big thing back then. Please put my name in for the drawing,,,maybe this Creed will be a “hit”!:d
I love gin and incense. Please put me in the drawing!
No references to Eddie Windsor’s Nazi sympathies in that daft copy, I see… Difficult to define the scent of anti-Semitism and a waft of stormtrooper in terms of top middle and base notes, I guess. Romanticising the past is so much easier…
Glad it smells good though!
Well, that’s tough to put in ad copy, Lee. 🙂 I assume the gin is in there to help us all forget.
I don’t think I’ve tried anything from Creed so far, but I’m certainly aware of the arguments around them… It’d be nice to try this one, especially given the incense, woods, and.. gin?
Ah, Creed fanboidom. 😀
Angélique Encens is the only one so far that carries my personal seal of approval, but that won’t stop me from trying! Do please enter me in the drawing. Thanks!
I have to tell you, I so enjoy the new Boy Creed discussions on Basenotes. They are more civilized than they used to be. But the level of passion that they kick off is really fun.
Yeah, they hardly ever need locking anymore. That’s progress! :”>
Hmmm…I am happy at the mention of gin in a frag. Am about to spend some time with a morsel of Gin Fizz…first smack was not what I was expecting, for some reason, so now I’ll have to work my way to empty brain and start over.
I am thinking that a EVER so slightly syrupy, hint of light floral, mixed with a Hendrick’s like gin scent, would be a success. No, now wait a minute…maybe I am composing a cocktail with Hendrick’s, St. Germaine, and something bubbly… 😕 :d
I think you may be ready for a drink. 🙂
I am more of a rum girl myself, but this one sounds interesting.
Also, wanted to say a huge Thank You! I have received the samples of Les Heures de Cartier (that I got in one of your giveaways) and am just about to decide which one of them to try first. I’m really happy that I won that draw, as the Cartiers probably won’t even cross the borders of my country.
Thank you!
Oh, so glad you are enjoying them! I can’t wait to see what Cartier does with the rest of the Heures.
Though I have only sniffed a few Creeds (maybe not the right ones, it seems) this one seems interesting and I would love to be entered in the draw. Thank you!
I’m a sucker for Green scents, so this sounds good to me. I’d love to be entered into the drawing. Haven’t ever sniffed a Creed that made me want to spend all the $$$, but there’s always a first time.
Count me among the Creed lovers! Fortunately, the florals are often available from the discounters online. I love that my Saks has them so conveniently displayed right on the main aisle so I can choose, spritz and trot off before the aggressive Creed SA gets to me. Creed is certainly one line that you have to try on skin, as the scent blotter is in no way an accurate representation, in my experience. I would love a sample of Windsor as I haven’t had opportunity to sniff it yet!
I tried my very first Creed this morning – Tuberose Indiana. Can’t say it’s a winner :p Too much overripe pomegranate made it a nauseating rose scent.
Can’t imagine me buying Creed before I’ve bought everything else first, but I do like a dark incensy scent :p
I have yet to try anything by Creed … but just the notes made my mouth water. It sounds delicious to me! Would love to be in the draw for a sample, thanks! :d
I find Creed very hit-or-miss: some of them are great (Bois du Portugal, the original Tabarome), but at least as many are pretty dreadful (Santal Original and Vetiver Original, not to mention Virgin Island Water) and lots are just neither here nor there (too many to name). I don’t own a single bottle because even the good ones are just too wildly overpriced for what they are. If someone handed me a bottle of Green Irish Tweed, I’d wear it all the time, but I’m not paying $250 for it.
Oh, I liked VIW! Love in Black and that one work for me, and nothing else in the line reallyl does. I liked Silver Mountai Water for a time, but it’s so pervasive and heavy, I just got sick of the smell and put it away forever.
GIT? Bleah. I know it has a lot of love out there, none of which I understand.
A whole lot of people loved Virgin Island Water, but it had that green-coconut element that I find unspeakably awful, and it had a LOT of it. I’m not that much fonder of warm, sweet coconut scents, though: I love a lot of the vanilla Comptoirs but not Vanille Coco or its more intense and therefore more dreadful sibling Extreme.
A little dab of coconut, something subtle: yes, please! A whole lot of coconut? Not for me.
Oh dear. I didn’t post yesterday for fear of just saying “I’m not a Lutens fan” for the billionth time, and now today I have the same predicament about Creed.
Gin and pine? I’ll stick with gin and tonic, thanks! I’m rather alarmed at the thought of all these new loo-cleaner pine-fragranced scents. But I’m glad you’ve found that you love it, Patty, against all expectations.
No need to enter me in the draw, thanks.
Well, it doesn’t cross over into loo-cleaner territory, blessedly. That’s the challenge with the pine note and just citrus notes in general.
Pine is definitely the new “in” note, isn’t it? And isn’t it wonderful to try something thinking you’re going to hate it, then finding, hey, it’s love?? I’ve got a few in my collection like that….
It was fun!
Hello Patty!
How does it compare with Frapin’s L’Humaniste?
I am loving gin inspired fragrances.
I would love to try this one too! May I be entered in the sample giveaway?
Arwen, I’ve never smelled Humaniste, so I can’t say.
The gin is beautifully heavy early on, with lots of lime, it’s almost fizzy, except for all the pine and eucalyptus running around. It’s not a prominent feature on my skin as it dries down, the woods and resinous notes are much more so, but it never really loses that gin tang, which I think is why I find it easy to wear and keep up my interest.
Musette and Mindy – martinis and G&Ts are on me 🙂
Something soaked in gin other than my liver? Count me in!
OK, so maybe I’m beginning to understand the comments in previous posts about the whole rabid Creed fan thing… 😉
This sounds very intriguing.
You had me at gin-soaked.
Please count me in.
Don’t get too excited about – its just an analysis of a fragrance, not a diatribe. And if I may say so, probably the only comment which makes an actual contribution to the discussion so far.
=:)
ack! Mr. Yuck morphed…:o
b-(
ScentRed, exactly. 🙂 I can usually get by with reviewing the womene’s Creeds without too much guff, but as soon as I start talking about Boy Creeds, ack. I did it anyway this time because I think this Boy Creed is really good.
Either your experience with Creed citruses is very limited, or you just haven’t tried that many citrus fragrances, period. The opening is anything but typical Creed…theres a lot of gin and effervescent pine…what Creed features that opening combo? None, except for maybe Epicea. Infact, the opening is classic English, reminiscent of scents such as Blenheim Bouquet. Overall, if you have an appreciation of green or citrus fragrances, Windsor is one of the very best in a long long time. Don’t hold your breath for the upcoming ‘clean’ fragrance from Monsieur Sergey Lutens….its ain’t gonna top this.
Note to self: yes, you can use ‘period’, and then place a period (or full stop) after it, if dismissive superiority is your bag, period.
Love you, Lee!
Hey, Rorqual. I should have been more clear. I didn’t mean it smelled like another Creed scent, but I think it has a distinctive Creed feel that most Creeds have, with a few exceptions. Like Chanel scents have a similarity in the base or construction that are pretty distinctive, as does Guerlain and Goutal and Hermes (at least in the Ellena dynasty) and JAR and Ormonde Jayne. I don’t view it as a bad thing when a brand feels like the brand it is right out of the bottle. It is a great thing when it feels like the brand, but surprises you in good ways, which this one did.
Green and citrus fragrances aren’t my thing at all. I have a few I like, but I tend to find most of those in the men’s category to be fairly generic and not interesting. Windsor doesn’t feel very green or citrusy after the open on me. I get a ton of wood and some kind of resin. Whether that’s incense or something from the rose or a combination of notes isn’t clear, but I’d throw this in that pile of scents, not in the green or citrus category.
despite where I put it or how I smell it out of the bottle, I think it’s a well-made fragrance and one of the best things they’ve done in a long time. So I think we agree on that.
I love anything incense-y.
ewww…Creed :d
gin-soaked anything sounds good to me!
xo >-)
I’ve tried quite a few Creeds. GIT was rejected early on in my serious involvement with fragrances; I found it cloying and green, a hideous combination, and was shocked to see how many raves there were on Basenotes. I chalked it up to a Generational Thing — must be these young guys have a different taste in frags than an old codger like me. But I do have Bois du Portugal and Orange Spice on my bottleworthy list, and own a bottle of BduP. Gin-soaked forest surrounding a monastery sounds trial-worthy to me, though hearing “green” and “Creed” together does make me shudder. 🙂
Made me shudder too, and then I was surprised.
I have a hard time finding a Creed I like. But I still hope!
I would love a sample. 🙂