Gary Valenciano pour Homme Aficionado 1989 Eau de Toilette

Gary Valenciano pour Homme (Eau de Toilette) by Aficionado

Bottle Design:
Tom Ford, Doug Lloyd

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8.2 / 10 401 Ratings

A popular perfume by Aficionado for men, released in 1989. The scent is woody-spicy. The longevity is above-average. The production was apparently discontinued.

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Main accords

Woody

Spicy

Oriental

Resinous

Sweet

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Mandarin orange

Rosemary

Bergamot

Heart Notes

Oud

Vetiver

Knurled Envelope

Base Notes

Amber

Mandragora Musk

Musk

Juxfriplon

Perfumers

Alberto Morillas, Jacques Cavallier-Belletrud

Ratings

Scent

8.2401 Ratings

Longevity

8.2308 Ratings

Sillage

7.6295 Ratings

Bottle

7.6295 Ratings

Value for money

7.577 Ratings

Submitted by DonVanVliet, last update on 07/04/2025.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

M7 (2011)

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X Oudh

Magnificent Black

D7

M7 Fresh

Reviews

15 in-depth fragrance descriptions

11/26/2015

7.5
Bottle 10
Sillage 7.5
Longevity 10
Scent

K1
121 Reviews

K1

Top Review 7

A perfume that really shakes

A warm, resinous woodsy fragrance with gloomy sweetness presenting both golden ratio beauty and beasty masculine aggressiveness, as presented in ad picture with hairy naked guy. YSL has done a perfect plan to change the path of perfumery as Chanel had done with No5. Releasing the first oud-dominant fragrance from a designer brand - no matter how pioneer in fashion - was jaw-dropping. M7 is the world's first serious take on oud that opened the gates of heaven to westerns…
M7 is a solid linear fragrance that doesn't promises for anything. It's a long rocky moan of guitar in Guns n' Roses stage. An open-shirted modern virile masculinity that before this, used to be identified by hairy cocks of aromatic fougères that lack one thing M7 presents: oriental mystery. It maintains a close kinship with medicinal materials and cough syrup, which M7 has always been notorious for. Some people were afraid of this medicinal aspect of oud (I clearly remember the debated on the very page you're reading now), whom I'm afraid to be still on the same idea while there are oud oud oud everywhere!
So pity that badass Tom Ford has ceased the line and the house replaced it with new edition. M7 was and still is an unequivocal masterpiece.
9.5/10

11/28/2014

10
Bottle 7.5
Sillage 7.5
Longevity 9
Scent

MasterLi
375 Reviews

MasterLi

Top Review 6

M7... the Myth, the Legend!

Tom Ford was known for a lot of things... he was the man who turned around the fortunes of Gucci from almost bankrupt to such a degree that they were able to buy YSL. He always took risks and they paid off, they were always daring and innovative. A master of design.

M7 was (and in some cases still is) a fragrance unlike any other. It was the first time the note of oud was introduced in mainstream perfumery. There was nothing like it at the time of release. Innovative and daring (just like the YSL of the past). This fragrance is strong yet soft, powerful yet quiet. Very masculine but with a hint of femininity. It's also very well made. Beautiful, elegant stuff.

M7 opens up with a slightly herbal and aromatic accord of rosemary with fresh bergamot & mandarin. What starts to come through very soon though... is the oud. Oud, or Agarwood, is the sap from an infected tropical tree. It can smell medicinal, it can smell sweet, animalic, and can often be cloying. Here that isn't the case. In M7 the oud is perfectly balanced with the other notes, the amber and the musk. There is also an earthy vetiver note which stops this from being overtly sweet, and the drydown is a smooth, powdery amber & musk combination. Extremely pleasing and nice.

My bottle is a reformulation from 2009, but not the "re-orchestrated" version released recently by Yves Saint-Laurent called M7 Oud Absolu. I haven't smelled that but I'm told it keeps some of the character of the original.

Personally, I think this is a wonderful gem of a fragrance, but I think that this has since been explored more by the countless oud variations that flooded the market in recent years. I have a hard time recommending this purely as an oud fragrance, and if you want oud, there are better examples out there. But for what it is, it's a masterpiece in my opinion. But for everyone else, feel free to check out the new version or any "stronger" oud blends out there... because I'm keeping this one for sure!

04/11/2021

9
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 10
Scent

TomFragance
34 Reviews

TomFragance

Very helpful Review 7

Il Profumo

This masterpiece is so difficult to review, I always find it difficult to explain that I particularly like them also because it is like dissecting my intimacy, it becomes a very personal thing and honestly I don't know where to start, but let's start with a similarity. Compared to modern perfumery, M7 is an orange spot in a sea of gray. It is certainly one of the most beautiful, original and fascinating perfumes I have ever smelled.
I went in search of M7 when the hype wasn't as high as it is now, as soon as I smelled it, I immediately felt that it had something different than all the other perfumes. Today it has become almost impossible to find, and deserves all the hype surrounding it.
To understand the essence in all its completeness it seems only right to start from the birth of this perfume.
In 2002, Tom Ford, creative director of Yves Santi Laurent deals with the marketing of the seventh fragrance of the group, for this reason it is called M7, and he succeeds very well, the bottle, the mysterious amber parallelepiped is more striking than the nude used as a testimonial, a trusted creation. in Morillas and Cavalier, not two common noses.
The thing that makes this perfume special is the introduction of real agarwood, never used before by Western homes. Today there are an infinite number of perfumes containing oud, but with the difference that in M7 the oud is real and not synthetic, and also blends perfectly with the ingredients, it does not want to be a perfume made mainly of oud and more.
The opening of M7 is nothing short of overwhelming, aggressive, it is a paw of a tiger, medicinal, pungent spicy, dried herbs, mandarin rosemary and Haitian vetiver which then blend perfectly with amber, the round and woody oud, but not chewy as we are used to in modern perfumes. The perfume with the passage of time becomes sweeter, amber, dark, it lies gently on the skin remaining slightly powdery, deep, soft, modern despite being a 20-year-old perfume, it stimulates the senses, very versatile, and above all, elegant, masculine, oriental, absolutely three-dimensional, dense and damn sexy and long-lasting.
And there is another reason why they like M7 so much, by now I was tired of perfumes, I had boxes full of the usual cheap perfumes that now appear like mushrooms on the shelves of perfumeries, M7 was my key to perfumes vintage / discontinued, it made me understand you can find emotions in the bottle even in old perfumes, finding old gems has given me a lot of satisfactions that not even the best niche could give me.
I knew this review was going to be long and I'm sorry if I bored you.
I close with a banality but it is the harsh truth, they will never make perfumes like this again.

Rated 10/10

07/04/2013

Vlad
1 Review

Vlad

Very helpful Review 5

Hello Fall!

This rare 2002 bird displays quite a strange cargo yet it defines color Sinopia, shade of red and brown. Named after the Turkish city it is a reddish-brown ochre-like earth color pigment, also used in traditional oil painting, in fresco or in secco. Sinopia was written in the 15th century in Florence, Italy and described as full of honeyed ambrosia yet lean and dry in character. It projects up well. For the more it is worked up, the finer it becomes. It is good for use in dry autumnal weather. Fresh even to start with, it quickly transforms to calm, serious and mature tune. Phenomenal use of medicinal agar as the side effect, with also prominent orange on top and myrrh and labdanum at its base. Intensely masculine, elegant and sensual. You will need to lit the fireplace, source hand rolled cigars Made in Cuba, and splash for a few bottles of an extra old cognac. Thanks to Morillas & Cavallier.

05/15/2012

ArkangeL
152 Reviews

ArkangeL

Very helpful Review 5

The Nature of M7

This is a very active fragrance, as if to say the notes have ADHD... or simply get along very well. When they calm, there's a Black Orchid vibe. In the sense that the two come off warm, spicy, balmy and almost obnoxious. When I think of Black Orchid, a clean shave and a suit comes to mind. When I think of M7... stubble, a blazer and jeans immediately surfaces to mind. M7 is far more rugged with a masculine feel.

Smoked oud and vetiver, laced with dry spices and amber. Rough yet smooth, if that makes any sense at all. Discontinued? What the hell for? You ever wonder why the best ones get voted off? This industry is rigged like reality TV.

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