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Challenge Lacoste 2009 Eau de Toilette

5.9 / 10 157 Ratings

A perfume by Lacoste for men, released in 2009. The scent is citrusy-fresh. It was last marketed by Procter & Gamble / Metropolitan Cosmetics.
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Main accords

Citrus

Fresh

Synthetic

Woody

Fruity

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Bergamot

Lemon

Tangerine

Heart Notes

Ginger

Lavender

Violet leaf

Base Notes

Teakwood

Ebony

Videos

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Ratings

Scent

5.9157 Ratings

Longevity

5.1117 Ratings

Sillage

5.2107 Ratings

Bottle

6.1113 Ratings

Value for money

6.942 Ratings

Submitted by MartinGE, last update on 09/14/2025.

Interesting Facts

The face of the advertising campaign is actor Hayden Christensen.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Concept

Challenge Lotion Après Rasage

Florida

Stag

Classic 406

FM 225

Reviews

19 in-depth fragrance descriptions

10/24/2023

Indominable
23 Reviews

Indominable

4

Fantastic in every way EXCEPT..

I received a bottle when this first came out, and fell in love. First spray is a blast of citrus, and it's good. 10-15 minutes and the florals amp up. The woods are nice and earthy without being overpowering. Very nice and pleasing. After 2-3 hours, it's GONE. And when I say gone, it really is. The sillage and projection fall apart, and there is no discernible skin scent left for you either. Literally like you took a scrubbing hot shower to wash it off. This is EXTREMELY disappointing, because it has serious potential. Lacoste needs to rework this or discontinue it. Better still, some perfume house could do an interpretation of it that lasts.

03/11/2010

1Scent 0Longevity

TVC15

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TVC15

15

Do you still smell or am I already hallucinating?

The real challenge with this Bach flower extract was probably to ask the perfumer how many liters of water a lemon candy can take before the last buyer drops out. Is this sold in 5-liter canisters?

05/12/2011

2Scent 2.5Longevity 2.5Sillage

Taurus
1161 Reviews

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Taurus

Helpful Review 7

Game, Set, and Match

Creating a bottle in the shape of a tennis racket handle is quite original (even if not necessarily attractive) and fits well with Lacoste, the tennis legend and founder of the eponymous fashion label. Especially when you also name your fragrance Challenge.

But that's where the creative approach ends. Challenge is probably the most synthetic, flat, and cheapest version of all lemony scents I have ever encountered. Simply uninspired and irrelevant. Because aside from the lemon and a bit of chemistry, not much comes through.

This, in turn, does not align at all with the supposedly high standards of the Crocodile brand.

No - anyone who concocts something like this and lets it pass as a perfumer or product manager should be sent back to where Mommy used to take their temperature with a thermometer.

10/06/2015

6Scent 2.5Longevity 5Sillage

SlyFox1985

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SlyFox1985

Helpful Review 2

Game, Set and...Draw

Hello everyone!

I was itching to write something last night, but somehow the comment wasn’t fully formed in my head yet. Now it is, and I’ve decided to at least break a little tennis racket for the challenge. So to speak. Because this fragrance has really been hit around quite a bit, and if even the esteemed forum member in the blue shirt (whose comments I really enjoy reading!) rates it at 30%, it can only be a rough defeat, right?

This fragrance was a birthday gift from my best friend, who enjoys wearing scents (even higher-end ones) and found this one very nice and also affordable.
And before the red pen comes out, I can understand many of the critical comments here more or less. I don’t even largely disagree. This is not a great fragrance creation like Pour Monsieur, nor is it an atmospherically dense, profound, or even special representative of citrus perfumes. It’s also not particularly natural or high-quality.

Nevertheless, I find what reveals itself to me after spraying it on my skin to be pleasant. And that is a purely subjective impression. I perceive the top note as zesty, fresh, and sparkling. Slightly sharp, but in a way that appeals to my sense of smell. Time and again, a lightly prickly hint wafts around my nose, fruity. In this respect, the top note captures the concept of "Sport" quite well from my perspective.

The heart and base notes are then not really distinguishable anymore; it’s more of a somewhat diffuse woody note that softens the sharp top note a bit. The fragrance lasts a total of about four hours, but I could still perceive hints of the citrus top notes until the end, which merged with the base wood mixture into something hard to put into words. Again, my statement: neither particularly natural nor particularly extravagant, but in my nose...simply pleasant. And that is personally decisive for me.

The sillage of the fragrance is, for me, appropriately unobtrusive for a citrus summer scent, while the bottle is beyond any doubt. 100%.

I don’t want to start a long discussion here about the criteria by which fragrances should or shouldn’t be rated. Referring to my comment on Dior’s Sauvage, I can only reiterate that this forum brings together different people with different opinions, and everyone has their right to express their views as long as they accept and appreciate the opinions of others. I myself am not someone who claims to only have fragrances with at least an 80% average rating in my collection. I know there are people who see it differently. But that’s okay! Uniformity is boring...

Challenge is, for me, a pleasant summer fragrance for in-between times that will find its way onto my skin from time to time. Craftsmanship is simply put together using synthetic aromas, but the theme is ultimately hit. 50% for that, a golden mean. Not underground bad, but also not a masterpiece. However, the bottle is so great that I’ll add another 10% and end up at 60%. Game, set and...draw. No clear victory, no. But also no clear defeat.

04/21/2014

3Scent 2.5Longevity 2.5Sillage

Leimbacher
2869 Reviews

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Leimbacher

2

Teenage Dirtbag

Holy sh..., what has P&G done to Lacoste? Their goal must definitely be the destruction of the reputation and brand, because worse than the 4 colored Lacostes is probably only Challenge from 2009. Really, the only good thing about this challenge for any trained nose is the tennis look, which Lacoste represents perfectly. They could hardly have saved more on the juice. And I owe no long comment to such terrible synthetic disasters.

Top note: somewhat okay, just on paper. But on the skin, it is neither refreshing nor sporty, nor summery. Just lame, weird, synthetic. Cheapest materials; if it were a tennis racket, it would be broken after 2 uses. And this beginning is still the "best" part of the "fragrance".
Heart: Lavender is absolutely unbearable. A lot of money spent on advertising, nothing in the scent. If Andy Roddick wears this fragrance, he can only lose. Most celebrity fragrances are better. That's all there is to it.
Base: is that supposed to be wood? Phew, luckily it's already gone.

Bottle: super, creative, handy, and innovative.
Sillage: the only overwhelming thing is the headache-inducing synthetic.
Longevity: 4? 4 hours?

For me, this is a fragrance that should be discontinued, which is still overrated here and is too lame and cheap even for the gym! Get rid of it, Lacoste, and take the Refresh version with you!

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