Invictus Victory Intense Elixir

Really amazing scent from open to close. Here's how I smell the note breakdown. In the opening I smell a soft lavender, cardamom and a smooth tonka note, as it settles the black pepper and incense are very subtle in the background adding depth. After an hour, what's left is hints of the soft lavender, the vanilla comes through with that soft tonka bean and what's hanging around in the back is that incense and patchouli. Everything is very well blended, the scent is amazing and definitely very underrated. My only gripe with this is that I got a 200ml of the newer V shaped bottles with the white packaging. I fear my performance is not as great as others have mentioned. Performance is still decent, projects well for the first 2 to 3 hours and continues to work into the 6 hour mark but after that it's a skin scent.

This smells exactly as you might expect — opens sweet with an aromatic, camphorous spice from the cardamom and lavender; turns smoky and musky in the drydown while keeping some sweetness. It's actually not overly sweet at all, and I think is very easy to wear. Sillage is a nice vanilla and lavender mostly. This has a similar vibe to SWY Absolutely, but with a different sweetness, and a smoky, musky twist. This is easy to like, but might be redundant if you already own a few fragrances in this DNA. Personally, I think there are better and cheaper alternatives to this, especially since it's particularly pricey in my region.

From the very first time I smelled a small sample of this fragrance, I became absolutely enamored with not only the addictive characteristic spiciness of this fragrance, but also the pleasant sweetness it has. The addition of black pepper adds a great comfy character to it, and the dry down on the skin is deliciously gourmand. Generally, a lot of vanilla-based scents tend to be more on the synthetically saccharine side, but this one has a smooth creamy depth that stands out. It also layers extremely well with Valentino’s Born in Roma Uomo.

I own almost every single Invictus and I'll try to review them all and oh is this one GOOD. One of the best designer vanilla fragrances. I caught a coconut note in the first batches, after the reshaping of the bottle and new batches, maybe not so much. Winter daily. I've got a 200ml bottle just because I can't get enough of this fragrance, yes the larger bottles may look strange for some but that's not an issue. 10/10 fragrance and it was very nicely gate-kept before influencers started talking about it.

Seriously incredible. Spicy vanilla, incense, and tonka bean. Easily the best masculine vanilla scent that I've ever smelled, closely rivaled only by Le Male Elixir. I sniff the atomiser almost every day because of how addictive the vanilla is.