Complex Boadicea the Victorious for women and men

Raw Leather? Harsh Violet? Animal? Offensive? more so than my precious Serge Lutens MKK?! I WANT THIS ;3

This is good, very good fragrance. But avoid it if you are not perfume maniac. Complex is only for those people who like challenge in fragrances. From time I know this perfume most fragrances with animal notes are like piece of cake. Even Muscs Koublai Khan by Serge Lutens semms to be cologne for children compared to Complex. Musc, leather, for sume castoreum (however not listed) are most prominent notes that stay on your skin for hours and hours. Incense if also present but it plays the second role from the beginning to the end. This is the wildest perfume I know. IMHO not for every day use but for special occasion (and for sure not for the office). The silage and projection are unbelievable. My new favorite from the family of scents with animal notes in the heart.

Riccardo you nailed it! I tested it yesterday at local shop and it was so "strong", damn. Duro is much better, but they are very different scents.

Ohhh my! I'm utterly confused.
I have here the same problem as with 1740 Markiz de Sade - this fragrance seduces and attracts me, but at the same time feels repulsive and so... dirty. Disgusting, but alluring.
Wild, sour and nasty animalic notes constantly mix and alternate with beautiful, perfectly blended incense: creamy and bit dusty like in an old, wooden church, fresh and sticky with resins, bold and strong. I start smelling it with rising fascination, but then suddenly animalic notes come to foreground and I lose all the beauty. But still, I can't give up.

What a Perfume.

BAM! This is what happen when you spray Complex on your skin. A blast of (extremely) bitter green notes on a straight forward animalic leather accord and some violet that stays quite linear for hours and hours. In the drydown I get hints of musk and some incense (labdanum?) lurking in the very back.. .Just think about a Nasomatto remix version of Bandit without flowers. Loud, overwhelming, monolitic and uncompromising. Almost disturbing yet somehow fascinating. Don't get me wrong, it takes guts to really appreciate this composition, but if you're into weird, bitter animalic leather fragrances you should give this at least a try. For trained noses only.

Complex projects for yards and has a tenacious lasting power (more than 12 hrs).
Advice: If you decide to approach this composition be aware that you won't be able to smell anything else for hours.

Rating: 7/10

(This review is for Eau de Perfume)

COMPLEX is another fragrance from Boadicea the Victorious that smells rather masculine to me. I was very excited that my dear husband agreed to participate in the testing experiment again.

We were both almost scared by the strong and rather strange beginning. It was green and herbal but not in a pleasant way. My husband commented that it smelled to him like decaying leaves with a hint of woods. This herbaceous weird note persisted in the heart notes with rather bizarre metallic accord. Perhaps it is supposed to be leather? The heart and base notes smell way better on my dear husband than on me but it was still not something that we would ever wear.

COMPLEX definitely fits my category of unusual and weird perfumes. I suggest sampling before buying.

Now that I joined Fragrantica I re-post my review of Complex by Boadicea the Victorious.

I bought Complex just today in my favourite perfumery. It remembers to me "Duro" by Nasomatto for its leathery note, but in this case is a more wearable leather, and more animalic, maybe because in Complex there is a strong, very intriguing musk note. "Duro" remembers to me a leather jacket, while "Complex" remembers to me a living animal. Is also very remarkable the incense note in this perfume. I will not wear it in office time but I think it's an interesting choice for a sexy date :)

I bought Complex just today in my favourite perfumery. It remembers to me "Duro" by Nasomatto for its leathery note, but in this case is a more wearable leather, and more animalic, maybe because in Complex there is a strong, very intriguing musk note. "Duro" remembers to me a leather jacket, while "Complex" remembers to me a living animal. Is also very remarkable the incense note in this perfume. I will not wear it in office time but I think it's an interesting choice for a sexy date :)

Boadicea the Victorious COMPLEX is more forceful than complex. Lots of green and lots of leather, plus a few other components thrown in as well, though I must say that I do not smell any evidence whatsoever of the purple wonder of violets in this composition!

COMPLEX is a loud leather, but also a labdanum and herb-heavy chypre. Think: old lady in pearls and tweed meets Harley dude in leather and chains on a wet day in the forest and for some reason they fall for each other, tumbling to the ground next to the dying embers of a campfire to form a greenish-leather-virile-dusty ball that rolls about the moist dark soil sprinkled with pine needles and cones.

Strong and declarative, COMPLEX has great longevity and big sillage. My cat seems to like this a lot, and if only he'd spring for a bottle, I'm sure that I'd wear it now and then!

Very, very smoky and addictive and I loved this for the first 10 minutes, but after that it turned to such a scrubber for me that I almost screamed trying to scrub it off. What was wrong? I have no idea. It smells like leather to me, yes, but bad kind of leather. The kind of leather which reminds of mechanics leather jacket with some petroleum on it.
And I do not get ANY flowers at all.

I must admit that having always loved the legend of Boadicea, I was always going to try this brand out of I ever could. This is what I call a celebrity scent!! Whoaaa!

I suppose in hindsight this was a challenging place to start.

Upon opening this is one powerful brew. Basil & sage & resins are battling it out to be the boldest & most abrasive. I can smell some leather but it is either still being cured in strong chemicals or possibly even still on the cow as it does have a faint farm manure edge to it.

After a while it changes to smell more like a campfire smoke. The smoke from green, damp wood. Possibly pine. So powerful is this scent that my mind tricked itself into hearing the crackle of the fire & feeling the ambient heat rise in my face. The leather disappeared in this stage.

Thankfully it deepens & softens relatively quickly. Joining it later was a sweetish incense & more resin. The leather does come back, but it is not a refinded ladylike handbag kind of leather. It is more ripped off othe beast kind of raw, dirty leather, possibly smeared with the faintest trace of manure. It is actually quite scintillating. Later in the drydown a hint of marijuana creeps in.

Overall, I found it to be quite an interesting & enjoyable olafactory adventure. I don't know if I would or even could wear it, it is VERY acrid & smokey. Perhaps if I apply a small dash to the wrists and waited a half hour before leavng the house...?

If you like leather & want to try a truly uncivilised variety of it, then I thoroughly recommend Complex.

PS - for scientific purposes I did try to get my man to try some of this unisex fragrance but he was being a big girl's blouse about it & refused.