Perfume Review: Super Cedar by Byredo

NOTES: Rose, cedar, musk, vetiver

I have scanned a few reviews, and people seem pretty pissed off that it doesn't smell like cedar like the name implies. Let's just let that cat out of the bag right now. 

Super Cedar is loaded with aromachemcicals. The most prominent note to my nose is that highly synthetic, ethereal rose, the same one that was so confusing for me in Le Labo's Rose 31. I couldn't understand Rose 31 for the longest time. Nothing about it smelled natural. Don't get me wrong, it smelled damn good, but I am still hard-pressed to believe there could be any real rose in it. 

Now Super Cedar seems to contain that same synthetic, sweet, magenta rose, and it is amped up by the cedar-like scent of Iso E Super plus ambroxan and a musk cocktail similar to that which is found in their own Mojave Ghost, so for me this perfume might be more aptly called Super Rose. I like it a lot! It smells sweet and clean, Super Simple and Super Modern (hahaa!). Compared with Rose 31 it doesn't have any spice, where I a get a tiny dose of some distinct chemical spices like cinnamon and pepper. But I like both perfumes very much.

I think anybody walking into this with expectations that it should smell like real cedar on steroids is going to be sorely disappointed. But if you realize that Iso E Super smells like cedar to a lot of people, and maybe that is where the name is coming from, then the name makes a lot more sense and your expectations are more likely to be met.

Byredo can do very little wrong in my eyes (but I still have to say, God, what is up with that dull, bland perfume we know as Gypsy Water?!), and despite the comparisons to other aromachemical perfumes, like Escentric Molecules, I still firmly like the stuff. I am beginning to see that I actually very much enjoy these highly synthetic perfumes for their cleanness and ethereal factors. 

Personally, I don't see this as a 100% Iso E Super perfume as I have noticed others saying. They don't seem to get the chemical rose that I detect, and Iso E Super doesn't smell like rose. I am not saying this is the greatest stuff out there, and I am not saying that there are more than 5 ingredients in this perfume, I don't know about that. But at the end of the day what a person likes is highly subjective, and to me, this smells good. Thumbs up!

​Available at LuckyScent