Description
“A sultry heat wafts across the land, lapped up greedily by the abundant flora that thrives in its midst. Trees soar to majestic heights and plants flower for the first time, their petals spreading to give birth to a world rich in diversity. The Cretaceous period comes of age against a backdrop scorched by wildfire and lightning strikes. Over this turbulent landscape, a massive predator looms. Giants rule the earth, but even giants can be cut down within the powerful jaws of the fearsome tyrannosaur. Standing tall, the terrifying beast fears nothing, until that pivotal moment when a fire in the sky signals the end of their deadly reign.
Zoologist Tyrannosaurus Rex is a gargantuan scent that sinks its teeth into the world of delicate fragrances and rips it wide open. Primitive woods and florals seize you and snatch you away to an ancient era. Smoky, charred wood warns of the danger of smouldering fire, setting your senses on edge, while droplets of metallic rose oxide offer a chilling premonition of blood-lust. The mighty Tyrannosaurus Rex is sometimes menacing, sometimes fascinating, but never, ever ordinary.”
TOP NOTES
Bergamot, Black Pepper, Fir, Laurel Leaf, Neroli, Nutmeg
HEART NOTES
Champaca, Geranium, Jasmine, Osmanthus, Rose, Ylang Ylang
BASE NOTES
Resins, Cade, Cedar, Civet, Frankincense, Leather, Patchouli, Sandalwood, Vanilla
Tyrannosaurus Rex was launched in 2018. The nose behind this fragrance is Antonio Gardoni.
Olchik – :
Skip the raptor and go straight to the top of the food chain! If you like cade, you will get it on the top through the bottom. The 65 million year old fade away (>8 hours) was ironically a sweet wood from a long extinct forest. This scent is made to put you, and then keep you in your beast mode. Love always. Jake
ANDREY62310205 – :
Whoa. This is scorched, dry, spice and smoke: like a meteor hit. The top notes smell specifically as if floral-scented paper has caught on fire, then it dries down to a slightly calmer resinous leather. It’s cool.
There will be some who don’t like this–it’s not polite–but it’s interesting and beautiful. If you love the smell of your clothes after a campfire, this may be for you.
olik – :
Woody smoky leathery very dry incensy olibanum powdery ashy vibe, not animalic. Apocalypse in a bottle. Scorched earth and smokey roasted t rex meat after the meteor impact, really. It reminds me of that narrative. Opens in an aggresive dry blast, not so wearable at first, but mellows down very quickly on paper for about 30min, into a much more gentle and confident stuff all around, yet still maintaining a badass scent profile. For a moment it wrong-foots me in the middle stage. I think I start to get some lipsticky aspect, but that turn out to be champaca, ylang and geranium. I keep feeling that it’s not all that well put together but still quite novel. Most interestingly it challenges the way I imagine the scent to be from reading the notes, can’t simply say if it is good or bad. 8.5-9/10.
FaugrurGe – :
I blind-bought a full bottle of Tyrannosaurus Rex by Zoologist off a few strong reviews, notably from the ‘Wafts in the Loft’ YouTube channel, as well as my desire to have one of the limited edition bottles.
I was very unsure after the initial sprays. I have not smelled anything like this before, and it was therefore not immediately within my like-dislike frame of reference. The first day I wore it I made the mistake of applying it like I would most other fragrances – two sprays on the neck and one wrist. I think it is very hard to enjoy if it is over-applied. The subtle nuances are lost and the heavy, deep smoke is overwhelming. I put it on the shelf and didn’t give it much thought as the temperatures were abnormally high and I could instinctively tell it is not a hot weather fragrance. One freezing morning I decided to give it a go with one single restraint spray on the neck. It’s a completely different experience and one that is intoxicating. The occasional waft of smokey floral is much more pleasant than the constant in-your-face forest fire you get if you overspray. My slight initial disappointment of blind-buying vanished in an instant.
Of the Zoologist fragrances that I’ve smelled, Tyrannosaurus Rex is the most long-lasting. It definitely takes you to the Cretaceous Period. The smokey floral and blood-like notes are really quite transportive. I would probably suggest sampling first, and holding back when applying. Slowly but surely learning to love this fragrance though! It rewards patience with a very unique and warming scent. If you enjoy By the Fireplace by Maison Margiela but think it’s too tame and safe, then definitely try this. It takes smoke and fire to a different level.
cdtc – :
Zoologist T-Rex is basically a less interesting version of Bogue’s MAAI. There’s less to almost zero patchouli, less civet, a little sweeter, and overall nowhere near as interesting. I also found the silage and projection to be lacking, contrary to many of the sponsored videos on youtube. Also, just personally, I find the lack of creativity on the part of the perfumer to be strange, you can instantly tell who created it by color of the juice and smell. I’m not saying it’s a bad scent, it’s ok-ish, but honestly, there’s so much better out there that for me this is a hard pass. sample 1st. These are my honest thoughts, I am in no way bashing this perfume, but it was a no for me.
saa_1970 – :
Oh, you BEAUTIFUL monster. Long live this King! It’s a huge galumphing rampaging success.
This was bound to be a love for me given its backbone of cade, that smoky/earthy/spicy extract that always makes my mouth water. It’s a big, often bullying note that can trample everything in its path. What’s so special about T Rex is that – like its stablemate Rhino – it marries a really punchy, butch, solid centre (cade in TR, leather in Rhino) with an absolute fragrant canopy over the top and it all works insanely well. Believe it or not – it is damn cute as well as absolutely fierce.
T Rex is definitely no shy blossom – it comes on STRONG with a great earthshaking rumble of cade and the crack of a rawhide whip. Deep deep smokiness, earthy-muddy, with spice and herbal notes right in there fighting for a place in the ecology too. It smells of baked earth itself – not that slightly damp/petrichor/geosmin thing, but something drier and dustier. The impression of blazing, almost alien primordial heat is definitely there – but then my brain flips a switch and suddenly it’s a vivid-red sense impression of watering dried-out pelargonium (geranium) plants, in terracotta pots, on a torrid August day.
Not just the sandy earth, but the papery roots and leaves of the geraniums, heady and peppery-warm. There’s a whole universe of flowers in there too, rose really beginning to sing after a while, and the aromatic herbal notes opening up new vistas as well. It’s dense and seemingly chaotic, but it’s absolutely unstoppable. (and I haaaaaaaated Maai, a previous Gardoni thing that was equally complex and that I couldn’t cope with at all.)
T Rex is utterly unique, really; the thudding, relentless cade meant I recalled Bois d’Ascese and Perfumer H’s Charcoal (two personal favourites) but those are completely different smellscapes with only the cade in common. This one is just something other, a true work of art, an archaic-rugged-fragrant-adventurous category all its own. I was afraid that the ‘blood’ accord might get too nasty or some artistic notes of rotten meat might sneak in, but no, this is a very gentlemanly carnivore which never turns savage on my skin. It’s VERY assertive – maybe even aggressive – but always wearable. It might be perceived as ‘masculine’ but I’d disagree – this is a unisex adventure for the brave, and the cade lovers, of any gender.
As the hours wear on the florals swell through more and the overall heft and footfall of this giant stomping beast grow a little more discreet, but it’s still very much making its presence felt for up to 6-8h on me , with enough hanging on as skin scent for me to enjoy it privately for up to 10-14h. My skin eats perfume like T Rex (the dinosaur) ate other dinosaurs, so that longevity is stunning, a geological age of its own.
Can you tell I loved it? That’s because it’s truly original and truly exciting as well as beautiful to wear. It will polarise: cade-loathers will hate it, and many will probably find it way too much overall, as well as too weird. But for me – this is no fossil horror, it’s a living breathing stone love. Bravo Victor Wong and Antonio Gardoni!
Hihi – :
Absolutely love it,smoky,medicinal,ashy,leather,resinous, incensy. Fantastic creation from zoologist. well worth checking out.
Depelamitit – :
This scent is hot. Not spicy, but literally hot, as if someone has set fire to a leather couch. It’s scorching my eyeballs. Wild. Wearable? I’m unsure. Enjoyable? Oh yes. Please pass me a glass of water.
Ares42rus – :
Arabian style bokhoor (Incense).
Oriental yet Arabian with that oud like incense. Olibanum at max with doses of resinous civet and crystal clear hints of champaca. Ylang, pepper, osmanthus, and fir are there. The sweet vanilla & turkish roses rises after 10 minutes in gives the smoke effect a slight fruitti play.
It’s a gold smoke filling the mystery ancient rooms of secrets. It’s the essence of the room of painting “Moorish Interior” by Frederick Arthur Bridge. Impressive, and it clearly has “Antonio Gardoni’s” stamp.
spmoo – :
A very interesting and somewhat abstract modern woody scent, this scent (all the hype surrounding its name notwithstanding) is a core example of the Zoologist style- which is to take interesting notes and create wearable perfumes to associate with a member of the animal kingdom. Antonio Gardoni who has created some interesting modern synthetic masterpieces like Maai and OE has been roped in to create this “gargantuan” scent as described by the brand. It is a plethora of synthetic notes that surprisingly work to create a feel of a bygone era. The perfume opens on a citrusy aromatic notes with bergamot, pepper, fir, laurel, neroli, and nutmeg. The heart is floral with notes of champaca, ylang-ylang, jasmine, osmanthus, rose and geranium. The mostly woody base showcases notes of cade, cedar, civet, incense, leather, patchouli, sandalwood, and vanilla. This is a huge kitchen-sink of notes and they surprisingly work together. While T-Rex is probably the most avant-garde of the Zoologist line yet, it is hardly avant-garde compared to Antonio Gardoni standards (check out Noun for example). It is his most easy and straightforward perfume. It is a nice, wearable, mostly synthetic perfume that opens with a loud bang and very quickly begins to settle down into a nice aromatic woody scent on the skin. Unisex (slight masculine leaning) with moderate to strong projection, sillage and longevity. Don’t buy it for the name. Smell it and see if it will suit you and your personality. A very interesting scent but hardly the exceptional creation like some folks here are making it out to be. Enjoy!
STAYERaug – :
I am always excited when Zoologist comes out with a new perfume, and one called tyrannosaurus rex really got me pumped up. So, I ordered a few sample vials from Victor and tried it out.
When first sprayed on, I get a blast of black pepper and bergamot, but I can also very clearly smell all the top notes. After an hour, top notes are mostly gone, and a dirty-metallic rose comes through with hints of leather. The base notes are prominent in phase 3, and the scent becomes tame and more relaxed from that initial top and mid blast.
I end up with a mix of frankincense, leather and sandalwood.
I am not getting any civet or vanilla, and the dry-down stays linear, very slowly fading over several hours.
The sillage is beastly for the first few hours (as expected) but fades to a near the skin scent on me.
This is not one of my favorites of the Zoologist line, but I do like it at least enough to buy a travel size spray.
As with all their compositions, it’s very different and starts off rather challenging, but mellows out to a very wearable perfume.
Do indeed check it out.
serzhn80 – :
There is a sense of chaos when you smell this fragrance, Cade jumps out as the main note giving the fragrance a feeling of scorched forest and herbs. There’s a huge whack of dusty brown notes too and incense. The weirdest thing about this is the feeling of metal and blood coming from the geranuim/rose combo.
This is full on extinction, fireballs…burning trees, leather and all out madness. It’s beastly.
If you have ever smelled Maai by Antonio Gardoni you will have an idea of the direction this one goes in. It is aggressive and complex and the sillage is something crazy, this one really punches you in the face. It’s great!
The dry down is slightly softer and you can feel a more animalic leather, but the cade oil is the “skeleton” of the whole thing, it provides the back bone and feeling and everything else plays second fiddle.
Another amazing creation from Zoologist, this one truly is a monster in all aspects of the word.
🙂
Juannaska – :
leather note, must try for me.
I had Rhinoceros on my want list for a while now and then T-rex comes out and I had to try and compare.
A lot has been said about this frag by previous reviewers, they grasped pretty many things pretty well.
I’d like to highlight one thing tho.
This is a shape-shifter fragrance.
The initial phase is green, aromatic , tons of nutmeg, overall, very butch. I decided it was so masculine there was no way I could pull that off.
Second phase florals show up and slighly sweeten the composition. Now that got me curious.
An hour later the most delicious drydown – slighly animalic smokey, leathery resins, even vanilla.
Mouth-watering drydown to me.
Now I sprayed Rhinoceros on my other wrist to see how it compares…it feels a bit one-dimensional and meek when compared to T-rex, but again, only in comparison. Poor rhino was bullied away hehe
now the conclusion…I really love the drydown, but do i have the strength to fight through the rather unappealing aromatic spicy butch phase?
for now, I say, yeah, will fight with the dragon and snatch its treasures!
rozavk – :
Tyrannosaurus Rex is an amazing and odd creation – if you know the previous works by Antonio Gardoni, you might have a guess in what direction this is headed.
There is a huge blast of what smells to me like frankincense in the opening, the kind found in the likes of Amouage’s Tribute, paired with a metallic rose oxide/geranium combo, and tied even further still with a rubbery, spiced cade note that really causes one to imagine a barbecue of exotic meats and spices. Beneath this, there is a thick and oily champaca note alongside dark and dried florals and woods underneath. There is a somewhat lush and sharp fir note here as well recalling forests of yesteryear. The resins here feel sweet and dry, occasionally bolstering the frankincense, or as if molten lacquer has coated the florals beneath.
This is, in my estimation, the longest journey and the most shape-shifting animal to come from the zoologist ark. There’s a definite smokey-avant-garde opening, a rich floral stage, an animallic/leathery stage, and then a luscious sandalwood base that hangs around for aeons once all else has gone away (days in my case.)
This is just a preliminary notation in my case from the first spray of my bottle, but from what I can tell this is a damn gorgeous juice, and a masterwork from the greatest avant-garde perfumer working today.
Cheers to Zoologist!
9/10
YT: Jess AndWesH
dark-light – :
Day number 2 : Tyrannosaurus Rex
T-Rex love to impress and let everybody know he is there, he is king and want to be respected. No worries, T-Rex will calm down after thirty minutes and become nice and polite. He is not dirty jurrasic beast , no no , he belong to this century. Mr Rex is from big city. He love luxurious leather and ( kinda ) PVC like smell. T-Rex is kinky , he love black dresscode, nights, colder wheather and don’t care about anything.
Scent : 10/10
Longevity : 9/10
Sillage : 4/10 ( this is main problem with Zoologist ).
PiePkarfvef – :
Fantastic!
This indeed smells proper considering the name… though this may be what a t-Rex would like a person to smell like, rather than the other way around.
It reminds me of meat without the meatiness… it’s opening is distinctly smoky and flavourful and with a bit of spiciness.
You’ll be delicious once you marinate in this.
Difficult to describe but attractive and artistic.
I would layer this with rose to make it more (feminine) appropriate for me.
After 20 minutes it settles down and becomes smooth and spicy-resinous.
Spillage may roar at first but it’s subtle for the rest of the day.
I got my sample with my full bottle of hummingbird and this is actually the quieter one after it’s original onslaught.
Impressed with zoologist as always
tashkent19 – :
My experience with Zoologist has been limited but from my experience, smelling the few amazingly well put together compositions i have, I find myself increasingly more interested in getting more into the brand and their aesthetic. This is a review based on my experience smelling it on a friend who owns it as well as a blotter I still have. I’m looking forward to owning this myself so I didn’t want to spray it on myself until I can record myself doing so. Just wanted to put that out there first.
Many will smell T-Rex and not get it on many levels…why choose a dinosaur for ths particular scent? Well the Zoologist brand is like the niche world equivalent of a poem and with each scent there are multiple interpretations one can draw. This imo is one of the coolest aspects of this brand…What separates great niche from okay niche, beyond quality of ingredients and blend, is concept. Zoologist is one of the most conceptual fragrance brands in perfumery without question. You can tell much thought is put into every release.
A T-Rex was a beast and so is the scent. A T-Rex was the Apex Predator of its day and was at the top of its food chain. When one wears just 3 sprays of T-Rex, they are the predator in the room. It will devour all other scents in its vicinity. Finally T-Rex’s are extinct and the T-Rex fragrance seems to pay homage to a style of scent, long since abandoned by fragrance brands in favor of easy to like and craft scents with little to no character. It smells like an hommage to fossils in the fragrance world while staying current and contemporary. The smokey earthiness of the scent could also represent the planet right before the T-Rex became extinct.
Again there are so many ways one could interpret Zoologist Fragrances.
T. rex, the scent, also has an anamalic quality that goes hand in hand with it’s name. It’s dirty and now I finally understand how one can perceive a dirty fragrance as beautiful smelling. Before smelling this I didn’t have much appreciation for dirty, animalic fragrances. The civet and leather in this scent works beautifully with the green notes and incense. At times it smells herbal and woody, smokey and sweet, or dirty and resinous. So many facets of this fragrance reveal itself as u continue to smell it.
Whereas so many niche brands are cranking out designer-ish fragrances for an increasingly dumbed down market, Zoologist is making conceptual art for the skin. Victor Wong as a creative director deserves a lot of credit for steering his perfumers towards smells that no one can say mimics other brands creations. His knowledge of perfume helps him avoid overlaps that could water down a brand and make it derivative.
If u like perfumery that will separate you from the pack in an awesomely good way, u have to try T-Rex by Zoologist. You must appreciate big fragrances, and your palette must be beyond your average department store options. It will shock some people but it will also draw many in. I found myself unable to stop smelling the card I sprayed it on. It was weird as hell how I looked on the train ride home…lmao…This for sure is FBW…try before buying tho. T-Rex is an unpredictable creature and I can’t wait to own it and tame the beast…
This scent inspired me to write a lot…pardon me guys…
Simply Put Scents
kot1987 – :
truly monstrous proportions, i’ll give it that; though on my skin it becomes hideously distorted beyond anything remotely connected to the imagery and instantly introduces headache-inducing components compared to on paper. imagine using a particularly strong floral / citrus chemical bleach to clean out an overused, then neglected and deeply encrusted (with bits of charred food) oven with a rag of dusty old leather and you’re somewhere in the ballpark of where my skin takes this perfume. such a shame, but by no means the perfume’s fault as, like i said, it’s a different beast on paper. gutted.
edit: as it settles down it does eventually lose some of that bleach and burnt oven impression in the opening, revealing a more natural ‘charred wood’ impression with the dusty, singed leather, however that aforementioned note is still looming in the background, waxing and waning. is it the rose oxide which is going berserk on my skin, creating this impression? i can definitely detect geranium as well, but it’s way beyond any geranium i’ve ever smelled. eventually sandalwood arrives to sooth the burns and quench the cinders, and now i can say it’s actually genuinely nice. leathery, mildly creamy with ylang and sandalwood, a sprinkling of dusty spices and a hint of furry animal, but still haunted by a quiet, much reduced mix of pretty much everything that preceded, like vague shadows in the background, giving it an ominous, metallic and slightly mineralic feel. i rode it out and the dry down is very likeable, but those opening impressions… nope. it’s too much on me.
kukurda – :
I am buying it just for the name.
I don’t care what it smells like!
Taran – :
Absolutely nuclear, half a spray fills the room (a large room). Smells like nothing you have smelt before. This is a great winter evening scent when the temperature drops low. 1 spray to the chest is all you need… trust me.
8/10
wlatoevace – :
My sample of Tyrannosaurus Rex arrived today, and I have it on as we speak.
When you first spray it, it feels like an icy blast from the ice age, and then you move backwards through time from there, through a volcanic eruption filled with thick smoke and ashes into a weird, primal jungle landscape filled with plants and flowers you’ve never seen or smelled before. There’s something dry, dusty and mineral-like just beneath the surface, and a shadowy, resinous leather note with heavy animalic facets that slowly appears and lasts almost to the end. In the drydown I smell resins, soft leather and the civet – which on my skin smells like a mix between gloopy, dirty honey and incense smoke.
This fragrance is a fantastic journey that hits you in the gut and leaves you gobsmacked! Tyrannosaurus Rex is a really raw and primal scent, wild, beastly, chaotic, but at the same time it has a weird appeal. It’s not a pretty, easy or familiar smell – it takes you to places you’ve never been before, some of them are scary and ugly, and some of them are strange and weirdly wonderful.
The closest thing I can associate it with is the scenes from the movie King Kong (by Peter Jackson) where the crew is exploring the island jungle, and discovers the dinosaurs and all the weird bugs. This kind of smells like the landscape and vegetation in that movie. This beast is a new masterpiece from Zoologist!
On my skin the sillage seems to be a solid medium from the beginning to the end, and the longevity is great.On my skin it lasts somewhere between 8 and 10 hours.