L'Homme Elie Saab 2025 Eau de Parfum

Elie Saab is a brand more known for the feminine leaning fragrances so I decided to get a 2ml to try this 2025 "male" release. I must admit that it was quite a delusion. Not that it is bad, just super average with nothing real new to speak about. Opens spicy and a little bit citrusy, then dries out in the usual wood patchouli-vetiver. It can easily be a signature scent, no special notes, nothing good or bad to report, just an everyday scent. Somehow it can be classified as boss bottled without the tiktok hypetrain. Performances are ok, nothing special also in this department. A little bit overpriced for what it is but what is not overpriced nowdays?

Car freshener opening. Not the worst one I've encountered, but nothing to write home about either. Spicy and weirdly sweet, and not in a good way – like the sticky part of the sticky tape. Bergamot is bitter, but somehow less fragrant than the pepper beside it. Wood... I think it's meant to be wood, based on the listed notes? But it just smells horribly synthetic.

It's... annoying. I feel as if by just writing my thoughts down and talking about them I am expending more energy and thought than went into its production.

An arm's length worth of sillage fizzles out and settles close to skin in less than an hour. That's for the best, because as the scent blossoms, it gets worse – sharply spicy, gooey and sweet, spoiled and sour. Bergamot, dusty pepper, synthetic woods and a fair bit of myrrh. Smells... priesty.

Reminds me of my father driving back home after funerals. Cheap cologne, expensive incense, sour sweat emanating from his robes. The dirty earthy smell of cash he'd pay me for mourning – crinkled and still a bit damp from someone's hand holding it through the whole ceremony.

It's not overwhelmingly horrible, but neither is it any good. I wouldn't want to smell like this even if I didn't have to spend any money on it.

Becomes a skinscent in ~3 hours. Sour and spicy. Sweaty, with a chemical aftertaste of a fly trap. Lasts forever afterwards. Was still visible when I went to the shower ~10,5 hours into the experience.

Unpleasant and boring. If this perfume wanted me to feel something, perhaps it should've learned from my father and paid me for it.

This perfume was a pleasant surprise for me.

It has been a long time since a truly masculine fragrance appeared on the market, with traces of the 90s and distinct from this cursed “cotton candy” trend.

Frankly, I am tired of all these perfumes launched in the last two decades, that smell the same, with sweet aromas, no personality, and no charisma whatsoever.

But I “belong” to Gen X. I've used and know countless fragrances that are completely different from the trends that are imposed on us today. Everyone smells the same, more “sugar,” less “sugar”...

I highly recommend this new fragrance. It's a fragrance that's different from the trends of recent years.

I received a tester sample of this. It attempts to replicate one or a mix of the following: Terre de Hermes or Dior Homme 2020/2021. It likely leans more towards the Hermes side due to the myrrh that mimics the flint. In fact, it feels more like a funk.

This fragrance is quite basic, not well blended at all, and has a scent reminiscent of something you've encountered countless times before. It also comes across as rather cheap and synthetic. Although it's marketed as a summer fragrance, its performance is lacking; it lasts only 3-5 hours with average projection at best.

The concept and execution are poor, and I cannot recommend it at all. Any Montblanc Explorer, Missoni Wave, etc., would perform much better and be a better scent.

With this latest release from Elie Saab, I somehow had both high and no expectations at the same time. I didn't actively seek it out but rather stumbled upon it in a perfume store. After all, the classically elegant bottle design and the name "L'Homme" piqued my curiosity.

Right after spraying it on, I mentally rifled through my fragrance archive to find similarities with what I already knew. And lo and behold: within seconds, I recalled Pontaccio 21 Eau de Toilette as well as, even more strongly, the classic "Jazz (1988) (Eau de Toilette) | Yves Saint Laurent," only less high-quality, less complex, and with a more pronounced hint of synthetics.

Primarily, bergamot and vetiver stand out with a rather spicy note, including cedarwood. In this combination, it is less fresh and invigorating, but rather bitter and dry. This is not necessarily wrong, or at least not wrong if it came across as much more natural. However, it feels slightly piercing, rough, pinching... in short, unbalanced. Even the use of myrrh and patchouli cannot bring any joy.

L'Homme is certainly wearable in summer (that's how I would categorize it), as long as you don't mind a slightly overpriced price, moderate projection, and longevity, and are willing to accept that perhaps soon a fragrance at the checkout in "Action" performs better.