Armani Code

Armani Code launched in 2004 under the name Black Code and was renamed shortly afterwards, which is a small piece of history worth knowing because the fragrance itself has been revised more than once since. It arrived at a moment when masculine perfumery was still dominated by aquatics, and it went the other way entirely: warm, sweet, faintly powdery, built around anise and tonka, engineered to smell like an evening rather than a morning. Two decades later it is still one of the most recognisable date-night fragrances in the world, and the entire category of sweet-spicy masculines descends from it. The version most people mean when they say Armani Code is the original eau de toilette, commonly attributed to Antoine Lie, which opened on lemon and bergamot, ran through star anise, olive blossom and guaiac wood, and settled into leather, tobacco and tonka bean. The anise-and-tonka accord is the signature, sweet without being gourmand, with a soft leathery shadow behind it. It is worth being straightforward, though: Armani has reworked and repackaged Code over the years, and the house's current refillable eau de toilette is described in different terms, built around green mandarin from Calabria, lavandin from Provence, tonka bean absolute and a cedarwood heart. The tonka warmth carries across both, but a bottle bought today will not smell identical to one bought in 2006, and anyone telling you otherwise is guessing. It is an evening fragrance and always has been. Cool weather helps it; on a Cape winter night out it performs the exact job it was engineered for, and in December heat the sweetness can become heavy. Aim it at dinners, bars and occasions rather than at desks. Longevity is good, around seven to nine hours, with projection that is deliberately strong in the first two. Three sprays is the ceiling. Armani now sells Code across several concentrations, including eau de toilette, eau de parfum, Parfum and an Elixir, and they differ meaningfully in weight and sweetness, so try before committing if you have a specific memory of the original.