Baccarat Rouge 540 (Eau de Parfum) by Maison Francis Kurkdjian

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Baccarat Rouge 540

Baccarat Rouge 540 Maison Francis Kurkdjian 2016 Eau de Parfum

Ranked 34 in Unisex Perfume

7.7 / 10 4803 Ratings

A popular perfume by Maison Francis Kurkdjian for women and men, released in 2016. The scent is sweet-woody. Projection and longevity are above-average. It is being marketed by LVMH.
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Main accords

Sweet

Woody

Spicy

Synthetic

Floral

Fragrance Notes

Saffron

Ambroxan

Hedione

Virginia cedar

Perfumer

Francis Kurkdjian

Videos

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Ratings

Scent

7.74803 Ratings

Longevity

8.74506 Ratings

Sillage

8.54461 Ratings

Bottle

8.34320 Ratings

Value for money

6.43438 Ratings

Submitted by OPomone, last update on 11/16/2025.

Interesting Facts

The fragrance is part of the Baccarat Rouge 540 collection.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Baccarat Rouge 540 Extrait de Parfum

Belle Icône

Trajan

Red Temptation Women Eau de Parfum

Ana Abiyedh Rouge / أنا أبيض روج (Eau de Parfum) by Lattafa

Ana Abiyedh Rouge Eau de Parfum

Zeta

Reviews

339 in-depth fragrance descriptions

02/14/2016

3Scent 10Longevity 8Sillage

Drseid
828 Reviews

Drseid

Helpful Review 7

Play The Game, Avoid This Luxury Crystal Maker Inspired Perfume...

Baccarat Rouge 540 opens with a brief dash of saffron spice infused dulled orange before quickly moving to its heart. As the composition enters its early heart, the orange morphs to a vague, slightly transparent and relatively sweet fruity floral jasmine accord, as powerful woody amber takes on the starring role, with significant powdery oakmoss and fir balsam support. During the late dry-down the composition remains highly linear as the powder infused woody amber continues to control sans the jasmine and sweetness, now with mild cedarwood support through the finish. Projection is very good to excellent and longevity outstanding at nearly 24 hours on skin.

What a stinker Baccarat Rouge 540 is. I knew in seconds I would detest this composition, and sadly after a couple full wearings on skin my opinion hasn't changed. The initial dulled orange is tolerable, but that only lasts five seconds before the composition turns cloyingly sweet from the woody amber, and extremely powdery from an unpleasant and poorly implemented oakmoss and fir balsam tandem that is suffocating to the powder averse like this writer. As the composition is highly linear, things don't change much all the way through the finish, letting the nose torture continue on and on... and on. In truth, there really isn't anything I can say positive about the composition's smell as it is all bad, really. At least on the flip-side for those perfume warriors that can tolerate wearing this scary stuff, the performance metrics, especially longevity, are absolutely outstanding. So if you are insistent on wearing an early "worst new perfume of 2016" candidate (at least easily to the nose of this writer), you will live with this stuff all day and all night without any fear of it wearing off. The bottom line is Baccarat Rouge 540 may seem like a relative bargain at its current selling price of $300 per 70ml bottle (as it originally was sold as a 250 piece limited edition in a fancy Baccarat crystal bottle for an eye popping $4000), but in truth $3 is paying too much for this "poor" to "very poor" 1 to 1.5 stars out of 5 rated horror. Spending your $300 at the baccarat *table* is a better investment.

06/21/2016

jtd
484 Reviews

jtd

Top Review 5

game of chance

Kurkdjian excels at creating well turned-out perfumes. Smooth, seamless perfumes with lovely olfactory shapes and pleasant profiles. Of course, he also makes Cologne and Absolue pour le Soir, two of the dirtiest roses available, so he’s not limited to olfactory pleasantry. Still, most of the Maison Francis Kurkdjian perfumes have a mannered quality. Where various perfume lines promise Arabian fantasy or minimalism or narrative, MFK offers the comfort of normalcy. Only better. MFK gives us the mainstream, but with a perfection that negates the inherent dullness found in middle of the road.

Take the Amyrises. They are luxe versions of what you might find on the department store fragrance counters at any given moment—they are designed to be. They might not draw your attention at a distance, but up close the fit looks just too good to be off-the-rack. They balance a prim detachment with a wink to let you know that there’s more here than just an idealized designer perfume.

Baccarat shares the refined, muted quality of the Amyrises but not their designer style. It is more abstract and uncluttered. The polish, the precious-metal glow that many of Kurkdjian’s perfumes have is there, but the shape is less conventional. It riffs on a mainstream sensibility, but less so than the Amyrises.

The opening of the perfume matches the the nearly-fruity scent of fir to a juicy orange but cuts the sweetness with a mineral edge. The saltiness and a cotton-candy note circle each other, yet Baccarat 540 skips the lingering caramel predictability of the current run of praline perfumes. The specific notes seem to recede over time as large olfactory images come into focus. A marine/ambergris shape gives a balanced, synthetic profile to the heartnotes. The sweet/nutty pairing holds together through the drydown giving a cozy coherence from top to bottom.

Unusual? Yes.

Edgy? Not in the least.

Interesting? Try it and see.

05/07/2025

9Scent 10Longevity 10Sillage

Omnipotato
394 Reviews

Omnipotato

Helpful Review 7

Artistry in minimalism

Baccarat Rouge 540 is like Nirvana (the band, not the concept in Buddhism). Even if you don't like it, you have to admit that it was massively influential and ushered in a new era of perfumery.

I personally find it wonderful, and a real "unisex" fragrance. Of course, fragrance doesn't have gender, but what was done here was a meshing of traditional feminine and masculine notes perfectly: ambroxan and oakmoss on one side, and floral notes and sweet notes on the other. And these 4 descriptors are pretty much the entire fragrance — quite literally.

If you are not aware, and I think even many die-hard fragheads are not, Baccarat Rouge 540 is a combination of pretty much just 4 very cheap aromachemicals: ambroxan, hedione (a light floral scent), veramoss (a synthetic oakmoss), and ethyl maltol (a sharp, sweet scent). There are a couple of saffron aromachemicals (safranal, safraleine) at very low concentrations, but that's pretty much it. This is what makes it such an easy base to build upon. You can add some oud to it and you get Oud for Greatness Eau de Parfum. Add some leather and you get Spirito Fiorentino.

A lot of people might consider it unfair in some way that such cheap juice commands such high prices, but I don't. The price should be based on the artistry and skill required to make the composition, not the addition of the price of all the materials that it takes to make it. A painting is worth much more than the paints used and the canvas it sits on. After all, folks pay hundreds for Molecule 01 or Molecule 02, and while that is more extreme minimalism, I actually appreciate the minimalism in BR540 more. It's an actual composition, a scent with development and character, that even manages to appeal to both men and women, and be utterly unique. It's unfortunate that women have sort of co-opted this one for themselves, as I think men would really enjoy it if it weren't for the societal connotation nowadays that this is a women's perfume. And it doesn't smell like anything else. Not even remotely like anything found in nature; it's what I call an "abstract" perfume like Ganymede Eau de Parfum where it is not necessarily meant to invoke anything in particular, just be a great scent.

For me, Baccarat Rouge 540 is bigger than "I like it" or "I don't like it." It's important to the history and heritage of perfumery. I personally can't stand N°5 Parfum, but I can't deny its sheer importance and magnitude. In a few decades, people will undoubtedly say the same about Baccarat Rouge 540.

06/26/2023

10Scent 8Longevity 8Sillage

NoirAlethea
1 Review

NoirAlethea

Helpful Review 7

What black magic is this?

Due to the way BR540 makes me feel, I can only imagine that FK exchanged his soul for the formula. Some people are immune but I am completely under its devilish spell.

How is it possible that the listed notes can be combined in a way that smells childlike, forresty, delux and sugary but still unisex? I imagine that on the day that FK passes (many, many years from now) the pact will have been fulfilled and we ALL will just smell bandaids and dental offices. Until then I will remain captivated.

01/05/2025

5Scent 10Longevity 10Sillage

Xavica
311 Reviews

Xavica

Helpful Review 4

SO sugary !

I think Baccarat Rouge 540 is one of the sweetest perfumes I've smelled in my life!

Sugar, sugar and more sugar with a little hint of strawberry. It smells like candy, tagada strawberries or even cotton candy. You absolutely have to smell it yourself because some people only smell ambroxan or saffron! Clearly the kind of perfume that no one agrees with.

I don't find it bad, the smell is not unpleasant but it is much too sweet for me, I wouldn't be able to wear it. I personally prefer its copy Tinharé , a little less sweet and with tangerine instead of strawberry, which brings a little freshness and bitterness to the whole thing.

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