I got a bottle of the Oud Intense based on this thread.
As I have shopaholic daughters who like going in the posh shops they have a standing instruction to pick up as many ADP sample bottles as they can get their hands on. As such I do have some of the ADP Colonia Oud to compare it against.
Honestly, it's pretty much identical. Maybe a very slight difference right at the beginning as the alcohol evaporates, but after that I couldn't tell which wrist had ADP and which was the
I can now give myself big luxurious sprays of the stuff, an indulgence normally reserved for the fragrance section of John Lewis, rather than ekeing out a 1.5ml sample for a special night out.
Great stuff, highly recommended.
So, a bit of an update.
My bottle of Oud Intense is now 2 years old and still smells good, but it’s running out and I’m going to have to replace it in the near future.
I’ve been trying to tidy up my shaving stuff and in the process I came across a sample bottle of ADP Oud Intensa, which is probably about the same age as the Copycat so decided to repeat the experiment.
Straight off, the ADP scent is stronger and somehow more “Oud-y”. In comparison the Copycat still smells great, but not quite as intense. The slight difference I noted when they were both new is now more noticeable.
Over the course of the day the difference in intensity persisted, the ADP was always just that bit more intense. Both scents lasted for several hours, easily a whole day or evening.
None of this is to suggest that the Copycat smells in any way bad, it doesn’t, it still smells fantastic, but as both scents have aged, the ADP seems to have retained it’s depth better. Given the price differential, this is not a surprise. The surprise is, given the price differential, that the difference is not more pronounced.
In conclusion, I’d say that the Copycat was fantastic value for money, but if you have a lot of scents to choose from, so that some are hanging around on the shelf for a good while, maybe you would be better off buying the original rather than the homage.