Explorer Infinite Eau de Parfum

Of everything in the Explorer line, Montblanc Explorer Infinite Eau de Parfum is the leanest, built from four materials where its siblings use eight or ten, and that restraint is either the appeal or the problem depending on what you want from a bottle.

Bergamot opens it, bright and green and faintly bitter, with blackcurrant beside it bringing a dark red tartness and that slightly sharp, almost sulphurous edge the material always carries. The two together make a clean, modern opening that feels expensive and lasts about a quarter of an hour.

Patchouli is the entire middle. It is the polished version rather than the raw leaf, cleaned up and smoothed out, earthy without the damp cellar quality, and it carries the fragrance through its longest stretch. Musk closes it, soft and skin like, and that is the whole composition. There is no twist in the final hours and nothing held back for later. What you smell at twenty minutes is what you will be wearing all day, which is worth knowing before you pay for the bottle.

That makes it simple to wear and easy to overapply, because the eau de parfum strength gives it more weight than the short list suggests. Two sprays carry a full working day. It suits the office, it suits spring and autumn better than deep winter, and it is aimed at men who would rather smell clean than memorable. Anyone who already owns one of the other Explorer bottles will find little here that is new to them.

Antoine Maisondieu and Jordi Fernandez composed it. Montblanc belongs to the Richemont group, and its own trade has always been writing instruments rather than perfume, so the fragrance range is made for it by an outside producer.