Zino by Davidoff (1986)

by: Dr. Marlen Elliot Harrison

This is another in a series of bargain fragrance reviews, scents that may be found online or at discount stores for US $25 or less. Leave a comment below for your chance to receive a sample, shipped anywhere in the world, free!

Summary: The 2nd fragrance from the house of Davidoff – a rich, animalic and woody oriental - is probably the brand’s most successful homage to Zino Davidoff’s provenance as tobacconist without actually employing tobacco as a note. Thanks to the popularity of oud and incense fragrances of late, Zino feels remarkably contemporary despite its pending 30th birthday in 2016.

Perfumer: Unknown.

Try this if you like: Tobacco/sweet hay, lavender, animalic scents, earthy and spicy fragrances, woody aromas, the scent of a barn (yes, a barn).

Pros & Cons: About that barn comment…Zino was the first scent to fully take me back to being 7 yrs old, inhaling the aromas of a horse stall while cleaning hay.Picasso’s Minotaure was the 2nd to offer this accord and I find some similarities among the two with Minotaure offering much lighter fruit/green/hesperidic topnotes whereas Zino is citric lavender. As there is nothing fresh or particularly youthful about this one (compared to Cool Water, for example), I’d say it skews to a slightly more mature audience. Absolutely unisex for those who appreciate woody orientals.

Notes: “It starts of stingingly fresh with lavender, palisander, clary sage and bergamot at the top. The heart is composed as an elegant floral bouquet of geranium, rose, lily-of-the-valley and jasmine. Warm and manly components lock the composition down: patchouli, cedar wood and sandalwood, along with a tender touch of vanilla. The fragrance is named after the founder of the brand.”—Fragrantica.com

Reminds me of: Patou Prive pour Homme; Floris Santal; La Martina Cuero; L’Instant pour Homme; Etro Mahogany;

Designer’s Description: Not available.

Number of times tested: 100+ times over the last 30 years.

Number of sprays applied for this review: 2 sprays to the back of my hand from a vintage bottle I purchased.

Fragrance strength: Eau de Toilette

Development: (Linear / Average / Complex) Zino is a bit dry and herbal green (sage and patchouli) at the start but becomes nearly gourmand (vanilla) by the drydown.

Longevity: (Short / Average / Long-lasting) I get around 8+ hours from only two sprays; I can still smell it on me the next day.

Sillage: (A Little / Average / A Lot) This one has gotten noticed (and compliments!) but I find it a little overwhelming upon initial application.

Note about the packaging: Dark amber glass bottle in the traditional Davidoff style with beige cap and gold lettering, all in a yellow/beige paper box.

Where can I buy it? I found my 1oz EDT tester bottle online for $10 USD.

The Bottom Line: Ok, so as this is my second Davidoff review this autumn, maybe it could be fun to explain who this guy was! Born to Jewish Ukrainian tobacco merchants at the turn of the 20th century, Zino (1906-1994) grew up between Kiev and Geneva and also spent time studying the cultivation of tobacco in Central and South America. He later took over the family business, developed the first desktop humidor, and became a prolific writer about tobacco…and the rest is history! The first fragrance was launched in 1984 with moderate success and Zino and Cool Water soon followed, the latter cementing the brand name as a fragrance house as much as a tobacco house.

Davidoff’s second eponymous fragrance straddles the boundaries of traditional men’s perfumery like Azzaro pour Homme (herbal, woody lavender) with the at-the-time trendy amber/oriental theme made famous in scents like CK Obsession and Hermes’ Bel Ami. These genres of scent quickly became dated with the advent of marine/ozonic and unisex fragrances and so Zino disappeared from view, eclipsed by 1988’s Cool Water. It has never, however, been out of production and I find it curious that Coty chose to keep it around for a bit when so many of its contemporaries have faded.

One of the great curiosities of Zino is its notable leather/tobacco accord despite the fact that the composition employs neither leather nor tobacco. Perhaps the vanilla, patchouli and woods steer this one in that direction. For those who miss the incrediblePatou Prive (1994) by Jean Kerleo, Zino still manages to be a close cousin. However, a quick look at the Davidoff fragrances website suggest that Zino is actually no longer in production.

Zino (the fragrance) was reformulated a few years ago when the brand license changed hands (now part of Coty Prestige); look for the Zino Davidoff name completely in cursive script at the front bottom of the bottle to identify an original bottle. I have sampled both, however, and am happy to say that the reformulation is surprisingly successful in its similarity to the original, if not equally as rich.