The Merchant of Venice — Venetian Blue Intense
Essence
Venetian Blue Intense is the higher-concentration 2018 reissue of The Merchant of Venice’s 2016 Venetian Blue, part of the Italian house’s masculine Nobil Homo line (the men’s counterpart to the women’s Murano Collection, sold under the Mavive umbrella). In plain terms it is a fruity-smoky “blue” fragrance built on the same pineapple-and-birch axis that made Creed Aventus famous, executed at the designer-to-affordable-niche tier and dressed in a striking Murano-glass-styled bottle. The “Intense” tag signals a denser, woodier, longer-wearing rendering of the original rather than a new composition. Among enthusiasts it is best understood as one of the more openly Aventus-adjacent pineapple fragrances, with a fougere/chypre scaffolding underneath that gives it a slightly drier, more European-formal character than the tropical-juicy clones.
Scent Profile
The opening reads as the standard contemporary pineapple-citrus burst - the fruity top (pineapple, apple, lemon, bergamot) hits sweet and a little sour, with the apple in particular drawing complaints of a “cheap green apple” candied quality from skeptics. Within fifteen-odd minutes the black pepper and birch assert themselves, and this is where the Intense earns its name: the smoky-tarry birch is more pronounced and the patchouli underneath gives an earthier, drier middle than the lighter original. The drydown settles into the oakmoss-ambergris-musk base - described by wearers as a “balmy, thyme-mossy-ambery finish” - that pulls it toward the Aventus drydown comparison repeatedly. One detailed wearer noted a “dry Venetian bergamot and a shadowy, smoky pineapple leaf” up top, with petitgrain, birch wood and vetiver framing the base, becoming a skin scent after roughly six hours. It is not strictly linear but it is coherent: fruity-fresh to smoky-woody to mossy-musky, with the pineapple persisting longer in the Intense than in most pineapple fragrances. The signature accord is smoky pineapple over dry moss.
Performance
wearer reports are mixed-to-positive and clearly favor the Intense over the original for longevity. The original Venetian Blue is widely criticized for weak performance (one reviewer reporting roughly 4-5 hours, and a reviewer concluding it “weakens significantly too early”). The Intense is described as “more concentrated, longer lasting, deeper and more intense” per the house’s own framing, and wearers corroborate a denser, heavier projection profile suited to cooler weather. Expect moderate projection for the first couple of hours and a skin-scent phase after the six-hour mark. wearers feedback describes the Intense’s longevity as “above-average.” Best deployed in cool-evening or transitional-season conditions; multiple wearers warn it is “more dense and heavy” and not ideal for summer daytime heat where it can read as too thick.
Wearing Context
Practical reading from the documented profile: this is a fall/spring-evening and cool-weather fragrance more than a high-summer one, despite its “blue/marine” marketing positioning. The fruity-fresh top gives it daytime and office legibility, while the smoky-woody base gives it enough depth for dinners and date-night settings. As a crowd-pleasing pineapple fragrance with Aventus DNA, it skews toward the mass-appealing, “smell good and inoffensive” social register rather than anything challenging. It is marketed to men but, as with most pineapple-citrus-woody scents, is functionally unisex; one wearer explicitly noted “It is a good fragrance for girls, too.”
Comparisons & DNA
The reference point, stated by virtually every reviewer, is Creed Aventus - Venetian Blue Intense lands in the smoky-fruity-chypre family that Aventus codified, and the connection is the birch, moss and ambergris in the drydown more than the top. Critics in wearers feedback are blunt about the resemblance, with multiple comments reducing it to “Just Aventus. As always” and “Aventus vibe.” That said, more careful wearers draw distinctions: it is drier, spicier (more black pepper), woodier and lacks Aventus’s leather facet. older discussion boards reviewers also triangulate it against Bleu de Chanel (“a more formal and refined Bleu’s uncle” in the top) and Acqua dell’Elba/Portofino-style marine Italians. Within its own house it is simply the concentrated sibling of Venetian Blue (2016), differing in concentration rather than formula. Cheaper Aventus-clone alternatives (e.g., Armaf-tier pineapple fragrances) are repeatedly said to be closer to Aventus than this is.
Reception
Reception is genuinely polarized along a single axis: people who enjoy a well-made pineapple-woody scent and don’t mind the derivativeness rate it well; people who object to (a) the synthetic quality and (b) the lack of originality rate it harshly. On the positive side, wearers call it “fresh but also intense,” “elegant,” compliment-getting, and praise the bottle effusively. On the negative side, wearers commentary includes notably acidic takes: “synthetic drugstore fragrance,” “Crazy synthetic scent with an unbelievable amount of pepper, plus pineapple… Loud and disharmonious,” and the cutting “Aventus is the better mistake! Cheapest aftershave with squeaky-sweet pineapple.” The recurring criticism beyond the Aventus comparison is a cheap/synthetic green-apple note. The bottle is near-universally admired even by detractors (“only the bottle dazzles while the scent disappoints”). Blind-buy verdict: reasonable for pineapple-fragrance fans who want the Aventus profile in a distinctive flacon and don’t mind paying niche-ish prices, but skeptics should sample first given the synthetic complaints and the existence of closer (and cheaper) Aventus alternatives.
Versions & Reformulation
Two related products exist: the original Venetian Blue (2016, EDP) and Venetian Blue Intense (2018, marketed as Eau de Parfum Concentree). wearers listings treat the Intense explicitly as “a variant of the perfume Venetian Blue… which differs in concentration.” Venetian Blue Intense premiered at Milan’s Esxence fair. No further reformulations of the Intense are documented.
Acquisition Notes
This sits at the affordable-niche tier. One European wearer reported paying 165 euro for 100ml of the Intense versus about 130 euro for the original. The Intense is sold as a 100ml Eau de Parfum Concentree; the original came in 100ml EDP. Decants and samples are available through the usual split services. No significant counterfeit problem is documented for this relatively low-profile house. The house (The Merchant of Venice / Mavive) sells direct, and the line is carried by various niche retailers; authenticity risk is low relative to the genuinely faked Aventus it resembles.
Notable Facts & Lore
- The Nobil Homo line is built on the conceit of the cosmopolitan Venetian merchant-nobleman and the historic spice/trade routes of La Serenissima, with bottles styled after traditional Venetian glass and fabric patterns.
- Venetian Blue specifically is pitched as evoking the Adriatic sea and the merchant-traveler.
- The most “notable” fact in practice is how thoroughly the enthusiast wearers reads it as an Aventus interpretation - that comparison dominates virtually every discussion of the fragrance and is its de facto cultural identity.
- No celebrity associations or viral moments are documented.