Born To Stand Out Black Creme, Hiram Green Ultra, Comme Des Garcons Monocle Syros and other reviews – 2025

For this year’s final review episode of Love At First Scent, I covered new releases from Comme Des Garcons and Zoologist, as well as Quentin Bisch’s much-hyped Black Creme for Born To Stand Out. Here’s a link to the episode, followed by the full list of the scents I covered, with timestamps: Born To Stand Out Black Creme and Black Karak, Comme Des Garcons Monocle 05 Syros and Max Richter 01, Hiram Green Ultra and Zoologist Portuguese Man O’War reviews.

Born To Stand Out Black Creme (Quentin Bisch) 6:12
Born To Stand Out Black Karak (Veronique Nyberg & Maxime Exler) 20:15
Comme Des Garcons Monocle 05 Syros (Antoine Maisondieu) 27:17
Zoologist Portuguese Man O’War (Antoine Lie) 35:02
Hiram Green Ultra (Hiram Green) 44:30
Comme Des Garcons Max Richter 01 (Guillaume Flavigny) 50:42

Even though I wasn’t especially taken with Black Creme, I confess I’m going to be fascinated to see how it fares. Perhaps its egocentric grandstanding will resonate with Born To Stand Out’s increasingly abrasive ‘try hard’ schtick.

Far more interesting is Antoine Lie’s Portuguese Man O’War for Zoologist. Its drydown may be a touch too weak-kneed, but what comes before is enthralling: a multi-layered evocation of delving into long-buried territories, with ginger, geranium, jasmine and a convincing, dusty gunpowder note coming together to create one of the year’s most intriguing olfactory harmonies.

Less dramatic but equally worthy of your time is Syros, the latest collaboration between Monocle and Comme Des Garcons. Dry-herbal compositions certainly aren’t rare in perfumery (Serge Lutens Point Du Jour is a commendable recent example), but when they’re pulled off well, they’re such a welcome antidote to the endless rivers of caramel that remain a prominent feature of the mainstream landscape. Here, Antoine Maisondieu has employed rosemary, thyme and turmeric to give us a vivid snapshot of a blissfully silent Greek island. While we wait for the world’s science boffins to give us a teleportation device, Syros will have to do.

Persolaise

[Review samples of the Born To Stand Out scents were provided by the brand; the rest were obtained by me.]

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