Born to Be Unforgettable

Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun

Kilian 2018

Someone feels a note of shower foam, but for me this note is short-lasting. Then I feel cola with cinnamon and big percentage of lime juice.
I think it should stand for some weeks to smell ideal and brighter. But now it's smells only like a soda candy from Roshen.
Anyway, it's propably good for anyone!
In addition, I recommend this
fragrance to non-binary people

Be aware, this is not a linear cola scent from opening to drydown. I was really hyped for this release by Kilian. I wanted a cola scent anyways. The instant lime-cola opening blew me away. Unfortunatly yes, it do fades quickly but for me the cola note is still there but way-way in the back supporting the cedar, the nutmeg and the cinnamon making them sweeter. The drydown hours after fades into this sweet fresh vanilla coca cola with cinnamon and i love it. Not heavy on the nose, not overly sweet, and not generic or too linear but as i said, I wouldn't use it as a daily personally it could tho. Suited for both cold and warm weather. The performance is average tho, solid 6-7 ish hours. It's worth the money if you know what you're getting. Very unisex imo. Definitely test and/or sample before buying.

Short-lived lime with only a hint of cola, and the dry down doesn't remind me of cola at all. The first hour is great, but it just gets steadily worse, and by the end, you kind of want to replace it with something else (and NOT reapply it). For other fragrances with the cola profile, I recommend to try Eau d'Été, much heavier on the lime.

First wearing of By Kilian Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun (from the My Kind of Love collection), a travel size of which I bought due to its reported cola smell, and certainly there is somewhat of an attempt to recreate the sort of fresh caramel citrus fizz that usually amounts to a cola smell, but this mostly smells like mixed citrus/woody designer-ish mix with hints of sweetness, and not a lot there overall.

I’ve not tried much of the My Kind of Love collection so I do not have a working sense of its quality or focus, but I’m a little disappointed in this specific offering, given that it doesn’t smell much like cola nor is that lovable of a generic, designer perfume, either. I’m not exactly sure what the perfumer was going for in this creation. It’s not bad, but it’s not especially good, either.

Fortunately, it performs decently, though. It doesn’t appear to be for sale through normal retail means anymore (it was released in 2018) so I assume it’s been discontinued.

5 out of 10

Hating for the love of the game - that's a perfect way to sum up this review. Back in 2018, this fragrance was known under the name "Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun", or "Boys" for short. Kilian subsequently discontinued the fragrance and relaunched it in early 2024 under the name it bears now. However, I am very much puzzled what the thought process was to rerelease "Born to be Unforgettable / Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun | Kilian" at a time when the market clearly was no longer seeking such product.

When I first wore this scent back in March 2024, the very first sentence in my notes was "this is trash", preceded by some vulgarities. "Born to be Unforgettable / Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun | Kilian" is an age-old classic synthetic macho/F-boy type masculine aromatic fragrance. From the very first moment, you are drowning in an ocean of ambroxan and the rest of the scent is merely a co-star. In the top, you get light touches of cola-like citruses with the accord being rounded out by the nutmeg and cinnamon, made sweeter by the vanilla. As the scent transitions, very little remains besides the ambroxan. I'd argue the scent's masculine aromatic nature can be deceptive and give off the impression that there's more accords to it, whether that be geranium, sage or a different note in this scent category; but ultimately, any such accord would just blend in.

Final accords: synthetic-fresh-sweet-citrus-woody

By 2024, Kilian as a brand was already deep into post-COVID price hikes and the same fragrances that previously sold for €160-180 were now up to €225-245. Kilian had (and still does have) a lower-priced tier where the highly-rated I Don't Need a Prince by My Side to Be a Princess resides. Unfortunately for the brand, it's a lot easier to execute a gourmand women's fragrance than it is to execute a masculine aromatic scent and the overt lack of quality means that even something like Mancera's Tonka Cola outclasses "Born to be Unforgettable / Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun | Kilian". Performance is definitely below average with sillage going from light to very light and longevity in the 4 hour area. All-in-all, "Born to be Unforgettable / Bad Boys Are No Good But Good Boys Are No Fun | Kilian" is another reminder of just how terrible Alberto Morillas is as a perfumer. Many of the big names are still living on their legacy IP, but with Morillas you are constantly reminded that his name recognition almost entirely originates from product that smells just as poor as this.