Today I will be dissecting three fragrances from the legendary house of Azzaro and its ever-so-popular Wanted line. I will be checking out Wanted, Wanted by Night, and The Most Wanted in a head-to-head showdown. Which one of these will actually be the most wanted?
The Presentation
Bottle design isn’t always a top priority, but who can argue with a nice fragrance that just so happy to have a totally unique bottle? It’s a win on both fronts…and it can be a good conversation starter.
All three bottles features a cylindrical bottle that resembles the a revolver. This is ment as a play on the fragrance name, Wanted. It is meant to make you think of an outlaw.
All three of them have their own style, but I think Wanted looks the worst of out the bunch. The warm ambery glow and darker colors of Wanted by Night and the pitch black bottle of The Most Wanted convey the bad boy message a lot more vividly.
I am going to give this one to Wanted by Night because I like the contrasting colors. I do enjoy the all black bottle, but I think the alternating colors makes the bottle more appealing and it draws me in a lot more.
The Scents
The smell of the fragrance is by far the most important thing to me. It is what speaks to you and draws you in. It is what put a smile on your face. With a good smell, a fragrance is nothing.
The original Wanted opens up with sweet citrus that is followed by an almost aquatic apple note. It is followed by a trail of spicy ginger and sweet tonka bean. It is quite similar to Paco Rabanne’s hit, Invictus. The overall scent seems to lead in a more youthful direction.
Wanted by Night takes a different path than its older counterpart. It begins with a sweet citrus as well, but in the form of an almost candied orange. It is followed by cumin and spicy cinnamon. The heart and base reveal sweet vanilla, tobacco, and smooth leather to complete a more sensual nighttime fragrance.
The Most Wanted decides to tone down the sweetness of its two previous flankers. It becomes even denser and more date night oriented with its use of warm cardamom, sweet amber woods, and luscious toffee with a sweet boozy vibe.
I am going to have to give the nod to The Most Wanted for the scent alone. It feels the most rich and attractive. Wanted is the best for casual situations where you want to smell playful. Wanted by Night is sweet and warm, which is perfect for a date night, but I feel like The Most Wanted is the most useful out of the three due to the composition being less sweet and appropriate for formal and casual situations.
The Performance
No one wants to buy a fragrance and be amazed by the beautiful concoction that brings such delight to your olfactory sense for the bliss to end in only 2 hours. You want to be able to smell yourself all day and use fragrances to help keep you in a good mood. So the performance of a fragrance is quite important. You either want to smell yourself or have other smell you. What is the point in wearing a fragrance if it doesn’t do one of those two things?
All three of these scents have amazing performance. Wanted is probably the weakest as far as longevity goes, but it has the best projection. Wanted by Night lasts a good 10 hours on skin and projects a few arm lengths away for around 3-4 hours. The Most Wanted lasts around 9 hours on skin, but it has the weakest projection at only an arm’s length and sits closer to the skin much faster than the other two offerings.
I will have to give this one to Wanted by Night because it’s the best of both categories and it’s the strongest fragrance overall. The other two are certainly not slouches when it comes to scent strength.
The Versatility
Weather plays such a pivotal impact on how fragrances perform and smell. Getting a fragrance that is versatile enough to is important because you want to be able to wear that fragrance you love as much as possible.
Wanted by Night and The Most Wanted are more suited towards colder weather in the autumn and winter seasons. They are a bit too dense to want to wear in the heat. The sweetness and warmness of these scents can prove to be too much to bear in the summer sun. Can they still smell good in the heat? Absolutely, but you might get a bit annoyed by the scent on super-hot days. You can certainly get away with wearing them on summer nights though.
However, Wanted can be worn all year long. You can rock it at a beach party or Thanksgiving dinner with the folks. The underlying freshness of this fragrance makes it suitable for almost anything outside of formal wear.
The Attractiveness
Many of us wear a fragrance in hopes to impress other people. We want something that will be enjoyable to those around us. Some of us have a deep desire to share our fragrances with someone else in hopes that they will get as much joy from it as we do.
All three fragrances have received positive compliments from strangers. The one that seems to be the most loved by women is Wanted by Night. I think this is due to its classic masculine combination of warm spices, woods, and tobacco. This fragrance will garner attention from any age and gender.
Wanted ranks second in this category, but it mainly garners attention from the younger crowd. Your mileage may vary, of course, but not all of us are younger. If you are one of these people, then Wanted might be the best for you.
The Most Wanted is the most mature of the line and gets the least amount of compliments, but it still does get some. These are mainly from people who are 25+. This is probably because of the underlying booziness of the fragrance.
The Uniqueness
The uniqueness of a blend is important because you want to wear something to stand out. So, getting something that smells like 5 other popular fragrances isn’t the best option to me.
This is the category that Wanted fails the most in due to its uncanny similarity to Paco Rabbane Invictus. It’s just too similar to deny and it loses major point on this one for that.
The Most Wanted is also quite similar to Armani Stronger with You. However, it is not as close to the Armani as Wanted is to Invictus. However, they are close enough that I don’t think that you need both, so it loses points.
Wanted by Night is the most unique in the line. It has some shades of other fragrances in it that resemble sweeter cinnamon spiced fragrances, but it feels like its own creation and I am going to have to pick this one for that reason alone, since the other two are much closer to current popular releases.
The Cost
One of the most important things to consider when purchasing a fragrance is the value for money and accessibility of the scent. In other words, how easy is the fragrance to find and purchase? Being that Azzaro is a worldwide brand that sells its products in almost every department store, we are in luck.
Honestly, the price difference between the scents is very medial. At retail pricing, there is only a $6 difference between the three fragrances. So, I am just going to opt to go with the best smell to performance ratio for this one and choose the middle ground with Wanted by Night.
The Overall Winner
When I started to write this article, I assumed it would be easy to crown a winner, but it wasn’t. The whole line is very good for different scenarios. So, realistically, all three are winners. However, that is not how this game is played. There can only be one.
The Most Wanted is my favorite smell from the line and I wanted it to win, but I must be fair and give the trophy to Wanted by Night for winning th emost categories. It’s the most balanced of the 3 and excels and being a remarkable entry that is not overshadowed by the original and flanker.
As I said though, all three of these are great fragrances and you should chose the one that suits your tastes the most. I found that I did like Wanted by Night more than the others from this article, so I learned something and hopefully you did as well.
