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Diesel 'Only the Brave' cologne picks brave lyricist Common to compliment product

Store display at Carson Pirie Scott in Lincolnwood, IL

 

The fragrance department store representative I talked to while revisiting this scent kept talking about how gorgeous Common was, but she didn’t know who he was. I think it was a smart decision for Diesel to partner with Common on this deal, not only to bring Common to a more mainstream audience but he represents the scent well. When the average hip hop lover thinks of Common, we think of conscious hip hop and fresh lyrics or maybe even his work with PETA as a vegan. But it never occurred to me that he’d be the posterman for anybody’s cologne line until I saw him perform at Chicago's House of Blues a couple years back and then again at Milwaukee’s Summerfest. He is definitely the flirty one onstage with the ladies—this brotha is undercover smooth, nothing like the Common I met in December 2008 who had the sniffles in Best Buy and walked around with anti-bacterial ointment.

 

And this scent has that same frisky, handsome feel to it. Diesel’s “Fuel for Life” cologne is okay but nothing to brag about, even with the mix of anise, raspberry and heliotrope, but “Only the Brave” is powerful and universal. Some colognes are better in office settings, club settings, date settings or only for special events, but Diesel seems fitting for any man. The scent has a mixture of lemon, leather, amber and cedar wood.

 

The reason Common works so well with this fragrance is because he constantly goes against mainstream fashion. It’s normal to find him in a thrift store hat and some jeans, looking like he could care less what fashion magazines have to say. It takes strength to make a decision like that in a celebrity-driven world, and Diesel has that “Only the Brave” theme to it. It’s not a scent you wear when you don’t want someone to know you have on cologne. It’s the type of cologne that a woman (or man) would sniff around for to find the body it's on.

 

I’d give this scent an easy 10 on a scale of 1-10, a perfect cologne as a gift and to add to a man’s collection. As much as I love Usher for Men, I think Diesel's "Only the Brave" cologne is better.