CR7 Origins Eau de Toilette 30ml

CR7 Origins Eau de Toilette, from the fragrance line Cristiano Ronaldo licenses under his initials, is the dressier and more grown up of the scents carrying his name. It opens on lavender and bergamot with cardamom beside them, and artemisia is the material that makes the first few minutes interesting: bitter, grey green and slightly medicinal, it gives the lavender a herbal edge instead of a clean one. The heart is the part that sounds expensive. Tobacco reads as dried leaf rather than smoke, sweetish and a little leathery, cinnamon warms it, iris adds a cool powdery greyness that cuts the sweetness back, and cedarwood runs dry underneath the three of them. Vanilla, musk, sandalwood and amber make the close, and they go the comfortable route: soft, warm, slightly creamy, the sort of drydown that sits close to a jumper and lingers on a scarf. Nothing here is unfamiliar, which is the point of a scent sold at this price to a young audience, but the tobacco and iris pairing lifts it above the obvious. Eau de toilette strength keeps it moderate. Give it three or four sprays for an evening and it will see out a dinner, and it works best in cold weather and after dark. It is pitched at men, and it would suit someone moving on from sweeter fruit scents without wanting to spend designer money to do it. Ronaldo's fragrances are a licensed business run by outside companies, so the scent is not his work in any sense: he is a footballer who put his name, his initials and his face to the range. It started in September 2015, announced by him one day and launched in Madrid the next, and his image has carried the advertising ever since.