La Collection

Méchant Loup L'Artisan Parfumeur 1997

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7.2 / 10 235 Ratings

A perfume by L'Artisan Parfumeur for men, released in 1997. The scent is woody-spicy. It was last marketed by Puig.
Pronunciation

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Main accords

Woody

Spicy

Sweet

Resinous

Gourmand

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Liquorice

Pepper

Heart Notes

Hazelnut

Chestnut

Hazelnut wood

Base Notes

Gaiac wood Honey

Honey

Cedarwood

Tonka bean Myrrh

Myrrh

Perfumer

Bertrand Duchaufour

Ratings

Scent

7.2235 Ratings

Longevity

6.7182 Ratings

Sillage

5.9178 Ratings

Bottle

7.7170 Ratings

Value for money

7.028 Ratings

Submitted by CocoLeFay, last update on 03/12/2025.

Interesting Facts

The fragrance was part of the collection "La Collection".

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

A*Men - Le Goût du Parfum

Parco Palladiano X: Olivo

G I R L by Pharrell Williams

L'Anarchiste Eau de Toilette

Ultimate Eau de Toilette

Reviews

10 in-depth fragrance descriptions

11/04/2013

7.5
Bottle 5
Sillage 5
Longevity 8
Scent

Flavorite
240 Reviews

Flavorite

Helpful Review 6

Lay Down as a Lamb, Wake Up as a Wolf

Delicious sweet candied toasted hazelnut is drizzled over a kind and gentle myrrh, then it gets really naughty. Méchant Loup loosely translated means naughty wolf and that is a very fitting name for this fragrance. I smell a little bright pop of crisp ripe apple upfront, toasted nuts, honey and a gentle subtle brandy accord, although not indicated in the notes. The first time I sampled this I was certain that this would be the L'Artisan that made it into my FB collection. The only reason why I held off was due to the events that followed about 8-12 hours after initial application. Talk about a 'wolf in sheep's clothing!'. I put this on and felt so relaxed, cozy and soothed, I quickly opted for an afternoon catnap. When I awoke 3 hours later...it was the smell that woke me up...my smell...a musky, rugged manly smell of bone-dry cedarwood, gaiacwood and Iso E super tinged with oakmoss. It was just like a Werewolf turning and waking up lost, naked covered in caked dirt, pine needles, rabbit blood and crisp dry maple leaves with bits of fur in One's teeth- deep in the forest the day after the full moon and thinking what in the ___have I done now? Described as unisex, perhaps masculine leaning, I find it very lovely and feminine up front, and then it morphs into a wild man-animal after about 8 hours. This starts off so soft, yummy and tender, after about 20 minutes I detect that peppery note, but here it is more like white pepper and isn't enough to induce sneezing like either "Oxygen" by Lanvin, which I want to love but find so peppery, it induces a sneezing fit. This fragrance is like nutty praline candies, without being cloying. I find it gentle at first when dabbed from my tester it is a low sillage scent, but with the spray of the FB, it probably has a bit more projection. I read somewhere that Méchant Loup is a favorite of Penelope Cruz in spite of it's masculine dry down and I find this to be a wildly seductive balm on the right woman or man. I would definitely expect to be followed around in Méchant Loup and asked at least once what fragrance you're wearing, because it is so "un-perfumey" and atypical of today's department store type fragrances, it will garner curiosity, at least and stalking by hungry animals at best. This strikes me as a perfect fragrance for "Joan Harris" the full-sized sexy redhead bombshell on "Mad Men". Women wearing this one, be warned...tongues will wag! Men wearing this one, be warned...ditto!

11/19/2015

ColinM
516 Reviews

ColinM

Helpful Review 5

Méchant who?

Méchant Loup opens with an odd sort of cheap nutty-tobacco fougère accord topped with a sort of pine-nutmeg accord, overall echoing a bit (just a bit) the reformulated version of Captain by Molyneux with less complexity and more focus on the woody-spicy part, blended with a say, “drugstore vibe” of balsamic-herbal cough syrup feel and an overall “brownish” feel of anisic, caramelised sweet woods and dried resins. I honestly don’t get any honey nor the “hazelnut” note, to me this seems more just an almost nondescript and rather faint balsamic-woody scent with a sweetish, yet dry and light anisic-resinous base and a whiff of generic herbs, also with a really subtle powdery-soapy feel.

I do admit that for the first minutes (and sadly, only for those), Méchant Loup succeeds in conveying a bit of a “fairytale”, childhood-inspired rendition of a forest ambiance, using “brown” aromatic-sweet tones and an ethereal, elegantly weightless texture instead of a more predictable cascade of green pine-herbal notes. Think of Serge Lutens on a military diet: resins and sweet notes are there, but there’s really no gourmand thickness here – all smells rather dry and breezy, distantly echoing also the salty woodiness of Miller Harris Fleurs de Sel.

So far so good, and now the bad news. As most of L’Artisan offers, Méchant Loup actually and definitely feels in fact way too tame and kind of cheap to be compelling enough. The mild “magic” you get at the opening vanishes as soon as you’ve paid for your bottle, quickly collapsing down to a really cheap, flat and annoyingly persistent musky-woody anisic-soapy drydown, which is the only evolution you’ll get (and please appreciate the stretch of calling it “evolution”). Some – mostly desperate sales assistants, I guess – would call this ethereal and delicate, I’d call it just pale and faint. I can’t stand L’Artisan’s consistent attempts at selling lame weakness as a “style choice”. Normally I wouldn’t care since their concept aren’t that interesting as well, but here it’s a bit of a shame since I think this would be a really nice idea, just wasted in a really mediocre execution.

5/10

01/16/2013

8
Scent

Sherapop
1239 Reviews

Sherapop

Helpful Review 4

The Fraternal Twin of Fou d'Absinthe

Why did it take me so long to figure this one out? L'Artisan Parfumeur MECHANT LOUP is the fraternal twin of FOU D'ABSINTHE! Both are spicy woody orientals, each with its own distinctive twist. In MECHANT LOUP, the dried licorice root is central, in contrast to the absinthe of FOU D'ABSINTHE. But the wood is just as important. MECHANT LOUP is less sweet and a bit less spicy, but the two blends work very similarly on me and are quite complementary. I only just discovered this by wearing FOU D'ABSINTHE on my left side and MECHANT LOUP on the right.

I reviewed MECHANT LOUP a while back and found it to be a masculine scent. I no longer feel that way. Have I broadened my horizons? Will people think that I'm wearing a men's cologne if I don this in public? Do I care? It smells great! I love licorice, and this composition holds the distinction of being the least sweet licorice perfume familiar to me. It's an interesting trick, actually, because licorice root itself is incredibly sweet, as anyone who has imbibed licorice tea is well aware. Zero calories and yet it tastes as though it has been sweetened with a lot of sugar. It's a kind of magical trick by mother nature--or reasonable facsimile.

So how did Bertrand Duchaufour manage to create a licorice-wood perfume which does not smell sweet, given that licorice root is naturally sweet? The answer is clear: he's a magician too! MECHANT LOUP is considerably less sweet than FOU D'ABSINTHE, but I regard both of these compositions as fully unisex. Yes, there is a faint suggestion, a vague of waft, of orthodox masculine notes, but the oriental facets are much more marked to my nose. It's beautiful!

11/02/2022

7
Pricing 7
Bottle 7
Sillage 8
Longevity 9
Scent

Loulou31
89 Reviews

Loulou31

2

Il a tout

Un de mes parfums préfères sur les hommece parfum a tout. Une harmonie boisée terreuse et sucrée purement délicieuse.
Les noisettes,le réglisse,le bois les résines le liquoreux.
Franchement il coche toutes les cases du chic,gourmand sans être sucré ,classe et sensuel.
Je connais ce parfum depuis plus de 20 ans et je ne m en lasse pas.
On ne le sens pas sur tout le monde ce qui lui donne une aura supplémentaire à mes yeux

12/18/2024

7
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 9
Scent

Xavica
209 Reviews

Xavica

2

A wolf in sheep's clothing

"Bad Wolf"? Not so much. On the contrary, I find this perfume rather comforting.

It has a woody base, certainly, but also a very pleasant sweet side brought by licorice and honey, which gives it a "gourmand" side.

It's a wood/delicacy duo in a way, but it's not too sweet nor too woody, the balance is really perfect. It smells like a forest of dry wood but with sweet smells in the air. With this name, we think of Little Red Riding Hood but in reality, it could be Hansel and Gretel who, in the middle of the forest, have just found the gingerbread house.

I like it very much.

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