No Limit$ Dark Platinum Eau de Parfum 90ml

Set against the rest of the No Limit$ line, Philipp Plein No Limit$ Dark Platinum Eau de Parfum 90ml is the dry, herbal one, and it is noticeably less sweet than the Gold.

Eight materials, and they work as a single block rather than a sequence of stages. Lavandin leads the impression, and it is the rougher, more camphorous cousin of the garden herb: medicinal, a little bitter, with none of the soft soapy prettiness the tamer varieties bring. Bergamot sits over it with a bitter citrus brightness, and clary sage reinforces the herbal reading with something dry and slightly musty, like a cupboard of dried stalks.

Cistus is the material that gives this its depth. It is a sticky, dark gum of a resin with something faintly animal about it, and it is what makes the composition feel expensive rather than like a shaving preparation. Sandalwood softens it with a creamy weight, patchouli brings the smell of a cool cellar, tonka bean adds a blurred warmth that never tips into confectionery, and amberwood pulls everything into the polished finish modern men's fragrance relies on.

In wear it is a cool scent with a warm floor, and that combination is useful. Expect real presence for the first hour and then a close, persistent trail that lasts the rest of the day. It works in an office, through autumn and winter, and at the sort of evening where you want to smell groomed rather than loud. Released in 2024, it reads as masculine without insisting on it.

Philipp Plein is a German designer who started his fashion label in 2004 and grew it into a group covering ready to wear, footwear, jewellery and watches, directed from Lugano. The perfumes are made under licence rather than in house, the first such agreement dating from January 2019, and The $kull was the opening scent. No Limit$ arrived in 2021 and Plein Fatale, the first for women, in October 2022.