Trumpers is the real deal - they actually are over a hundred years old, they use top-quality ingredients, and they have mostly resisted modernizing and/or ruining their fragrances. They're also inexpensive. They're like the anti-Creed.

I found Trumper's Curzon, Wellington and Marlborough excellent. Curzon was a generic men's barbershop cologne done well, Wellington has the most beautiful lemon scent I've ever smelled, and Marlborough is a rough, smoky geranium oil (think the green stalks of the geranium). They also offer Eucris, which is a kind of puzzling, dark scent that attracts hyperbolic description (motor oil, a dank crypt, Dracula) but is in fact kind of vague and gentle. I'm not a fan of lime scents so I've never tried their lime.

In Creed news I just bought a bottle of Green Valley, which is like Green Irish Tweed minus any trace of sweetness. Pretty good.

I've also recently come around on Dior Homme, which I initially found very disappointing. It's actually got quite a lot going on, kind of like one of the great scents of the 70s and 80s, but it's all very muted and sleek. It has a heavy, swishy iris note that I find endearing.

The problem with the Trumpers aftershaves is the limited longevity of the scent. Now the Penhaligon's Extract of Limes is something else, it will last all day and all of the night.

One always has to walk the tightrope of too little and too much; that's where the art of applying cologne comes into play. There are masters, also rans and damn right amateurs. And one has to experience the full glut of experience before one can arrive at the optimum application of aftershave.

Excessive scent on a man gives an instance castrato effect in business and pleasure, it is effeminate to the extreme. 

Few men have the tenacity to stick to the learning curve, because of the above inherent risk. Present company excepted of course.

I might actually get round to checking out some new aftershaves tomorrow, including the Creed Orange Spice as G is interested in. The missus bought some Creed scents over christmas, an essence of Spring and Mediterranean, both rather nice.

If I purchase any cologne on Saturday, its likely to be a Vetiver and/or Pengaligon's Sartorial backed-up by Blenheim Bouquet shower gel. Always a winner.

The whole subtle smell thing is not for me.
I hail from the caribbean and unlike Bermuda where the practical American Expats made shorts acceptable business attire, proper work attire is a full suit. Unfortunately, a suit can be your own personal sauna under the caribbean sun.
Air conditioning helps but if you have to step outside or park somewhere then walk, you will sweat. So the cologne impregnated handkerchief is a must.
As soon as you walk inside wipe your face dry with pretreated hanky and presto, fresh as a daisy.
Secondly, because heat and sweat are so pervasive the larding on of scents is not offensive gaucherie, but a considerate masquerading of your errr... maturing animal spirits. By the same token light and ephemeral scents just don't do the trick, given the circumstances.

My memories of the respectable or successful guys my Dad's age was predominantly of Van Cleef or Paco Rabane Homme, attractive I guess because they smelled almost like the man had just taken a shower with a fragrant soap.
When I went to college in 1972, that's what I took with me. Big mistake. Wearing cologne was like wearing outdated corrupt capitalistic vice. I didn't mind pissing off hippie wannabes, but it was a chick repellent so it had to go.

Still, I never lost the love for fragrances and during holidays vacations at home, part of the pleasure at parties inside air conditioned rooms was/is smelling the adults, men and women. Fragrance is as much a part of personal presentation as vestiment back home. I miss that here in the US. It's as if at any party where you want everything to sparkle, the entire olfactory realm is just blah.

When Versailles Homme (Des Prez) came out I went wild and even put it in my hair, just so that I could tussle my hair and take a whiff of it once in a while. I miss that too. Nowadays I use Versace Homme when i want a "grown up man" smell, and still do quite a bit of Rabane mainly because it reminds me of Dad, but other times I'm just as likely to use any of my wife's fragrances.

As far as women, Gardenia just does it for me (Gardenia by Isabey mmmm...). It arouses a mixture of emotions that can most delicately be described as the Full Freud complex. But really, any woman with any Floral has me off balance.