Bottle Design:
Kentaro Yamada

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Neandertal Light Neandertal 2015

6.7 / 10 69 Ratings

A limited perfume by Neandertal for women and men, released in 2015. The scent is green-spicy. It is still in production.
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Main accords

Green

Spicy

Synthetic

Resinous

Woody

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Marine notes Juniper

Juniper

Aldehydes

Bergamot

Grapefruit Lime

Lime

Mandarin orange

Pink pepper

Hinoki cypress

Heart Notes

Frankincense Myrrh

Myrrh

Angelica

Galbanum

Caraway

Ginger absolute Saffron

Saffron

Tobacco

Base Notes

Cedar

Styrax absolute Amber

Amber

Musk

Sandalwood

Tonka bean Vanilla

Vanilla

Vetiver

Perfumers

Euan McCall, Christian Carbonnel a.k.a. Chris Maurice

Ratings

Scent

6.769 Ratings

Longevity

7.751 Ratings

Sillage

7.151 Ratings

Bottle

8.462 Ratings

Value for money

5.729 Ratings

Submitted by OPomone · last update on 12/24/2025.

Source-backed & verified

Interesting Facts

100 pieces of the initial version from 2015 were made. In 2018, according to the brand, a "fully developed" version of the fragrance was launched on the market, for which Christian Carbonnel played a key role in its development.

Smells similar

What the fragrance is similar to

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Marijuana

Reviews

8 in-depth fragrance descriptions

11/21/2025

8.5Scent 8Sillage

Leevancleef
11 Reviews

Leevancleef

2

Mineral. Green. Ethereal.

Neandertal Light feels like an ethereal poem written in the language of nature and metal.
With the first spray, it’s as if you’re standing in a quiet morning inside a stone cave touched by the earliest rays of light.
Green winds rise from the depths of nature, gliding softly over Japanese hinoki wood and violet leaves, painting a still, suspended landscape.

The heart shines with a cool mineral touch—like polished glass resting beside a river—blending with orris to give the fragrance inner strength, as if time itself has paused for a single breath.

Then the base unfolds, adding warmth and vitality: ambergris for depth, leather whispering with primal humanity, musk for intimacy, and patchouli and cedar laying a strong wooden foundation like the roots of an ancient tree.
The result is a scent that carries the echo of early mankind, yet glows with a futuristic presence.

06/10/2025

ClaireV
969 Reviews

ClaireV

1

Weird but oddly compelling

Light is a jarring but ultimately thought-provoking fragrance. There is an opening blast of some aromachemical so vile and toxic I can feel it at the back of my throat, and for a moment or two, before this thing rights itself, I have to fight the urge to scrub it off my skin. I suspect a noxious brew of Ambroxan and the milky-metallic shriek of violet leaf, with a pronounced ‘curdled milk’ effect.

However – and you know that the ‘however’ has to be a good one in order for me to get past the teenage body spray thing at the start – Light surprises me by settling into a weird but interesting accord that I can only describe as a tart but creamy ‘rhubarb and custard’ floral that gets me in its headlights and refuses to let go. Yes, I understand that nothing in the notes list would explain this. Yes, it is possible that I’m going crazy. I have worn Light several times now, and each time I grimace my way through the opening (hairspray! licked metal spoons! teenager deo!) and each time I wind up in the rhubarb and custard place.

And if it only stayed there, I would be enthusiastic. However, after an hour or two, the scent begins a slow fade into a chemical marshmallow drydown with an unpleasantly dusty ‘wheaten’ undertone – a sort of stale, chocolate-less smores accord – which reminds me a bit of that Godawful Rouge Smoking by Parfums BDK (which is cherry cough medicine + pleather + bubblegum + stale, wheat-dusted marshmallow) and of Sangre Dulce by Strangers Parfumerie, which is actually pretty good. I’m not keen on this indie ‘protein bar’ accord, to be honest, so this is a mark against it. But that weird salty-floral-creamy rhubarby midsection – oh man. What I’d do for a flanker that excerpted that part.

09/11/2022

6Scent 7Sillage

Ponticus
79 Reviews

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Ponticus

Top Review 61

Yabba Dabba Doo - Fred and Wilma

After Fred's embarrassing disaster with the ladies from Hollyrock, things were tense at the Flintstones' home. Wilma, feeling quite hurt, had retreated to her soft fur bed, while Fred had to sleep outside in the gravel bed with Dino. Even culinarily, her love for Fred was reduced to the bare minimum, so he feared for his impressive figure. The household harmony was therefore severely off-kilter, so Fred decided to win back Wilma's favor with a gift. He thought of a large, self-caught fish for an opulent reconciliation dinner. His path led him once again to the Neanderthal specialty shop "Weapons, Hunting, and More" to complete his fishing gear; he also wanted to return the Fauskeil perfume Dark, which he held partly responsible for the entire debacle.

Hi Barney, why are you just standing around here and why do you have a whip in your hand? Hey Fred, that's my fishing rod; I'm going to accompany you on your fishing trip. Good grief, Barney, I'm going for flounder and stonefish; with that line in your hand, you'll catch at most a few pebble algae or salmon lice. Look, my new rod here is just right for these stone fish. I got it from the gravel guys at the niche shop, where I also managed to exchange the cursed perfume Dark for the new perfume Light, also from Neanderthal and this time in the white Fauskeil bottle. That will be Wilma's extra apology gift, so that my dear Amber will shine for me again.

Slate, gravel, and rock, the little fish just don't want to bite today, Fred; no tugging on the lines, dead silence on the lake. Maybe we could test Wilma's perfume in the meantime; better safe than sorry after the fiasco last time. A rock-solid idea, Barney; I’ll spray it right away.
It smells really good, Fred, like freshly mowed, green, still damp grass! And a few squeezed citrus fruits are lying around too. However, the grassy, herbaceous, and fresh green quickly fades away, leaving the impression that it, lying on the lawn as grass clippings, is already starting to rot and smell. Everything green is already on the compost heap after about an hour, forming a bitter-spicy mélange with plenty of spilled flower vase water. Fish, Barney, I still smell a faint fish scent in there, but we haven't caught any yet; it must be the perfume. This brackish note settles in firmly and makes the scent a bit fresher and lighter, but not better. It stubbornly clings to everything it is sprayed on and smells dry, rotten-green, herbaceous-musty, decayed-woody, and at the end noticeably resinous with a bit of smoke, all kept quite bright and not earthy-dark like Neanderthal Dark. No aromatic hint of forgiveness, atonement, or leniency, and certainly none of the effort for a new desire or seduction. Both scents, Neanderthal Dark and Light, exude a prehistoric, archaic smell that is good for, who knows what, but certainly not to impress a woman or positively accompany an apology.

Barney, this stuff is probably not for my lovely Amber after all! This white Fauskeil is going back too, and I’ll exchange it for a pebble slingshot. Maybe that will help on a later hunt, because fishing isn't working out either. We're going home now, picking up two large, fat Bronto burger bags from the McDriveIn on the way, and inviting our loved ones for a shared meal. Before that, since the perfume reminded me of grass, we’ll mow the lawn around the house as promised. Then reconciliation should work out just fine. Fred beamed like a honey-cake dinosaur and couldn't help but let out a quiet, eager Yabba Dabba Doo.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for Fred's success, and I thank you all for joining me!

03/02/2021

7.5Scent 7Sillage

Chizza
362 Reviews

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Chizza

Top Review 34

Still wearable even today

My life as a Neanderthal was shaped by fundamental themes such as providing for my wife and the numerous children, making fire to cook the animals, and first hunting them down. By the way, we did not hunt mammoths or only very rarely, it was way too difficult with our spears. Rather, we gathered smaller animals or plants. In any case, our tribal leader Floid once called us to a meeting. He wanted to present his new invention or something like that.

“Neanderthal friends, nice to see you all. We all know the problem, after hunting we sometimes smell, and even though the women tolerate it, I do notice that we can bring them joy with a few simple tricks. For this reason, I have developed two scents. You’re probably wondering what scents are. You won’t smell anymore. Or not as strongly.”
“But doesn’t that scare off our prey if we smell funny?”
“No. We use fragrant ingredients that the animals know and won’t wonder about. My first creation is called Earth. I dug up different types of soil in the forest for months and created this milestone!”
“But we already smell like earth! What else do you have?”
“Fire!”
“Where??????”
“No, that’s the name of my other creation. Smell like grilled mammoth.”
“....can we go?”
The meeting place emptied.

“No, wait! I have something else, I call it Neandertal Light. Like Cola Light, which we all don’t know yet. A very prehistoric scent, I was inspired by the middle part of an even older scent, from the star perfumer Tyrannosaurus Rex. Here, test it, I’m passing around the samples.”
Everyone sniffed and expressed pleasure and interest.
“Tell us more, Floid!”
“Of course. We start here with bitter green, that’s due to the juniper. You know, the shrub that the animals always eat or where Borg likes to scratch his back. With the berries. I’ve refreshed this bitterness with something I call Globschfrüchte. Or citrus fruits, I’m still thinking about that. These freshen up the juniper. It sounds a bit diametrically opposed but harmonizes. Especially with a splash of seawater that I mixed in.”

“Wow, really good and the mammoths don’t notice anything?”
“No, because now comes the twist, they think you are trees! I’ve scratched many different trees, I was bored, and something flowed out that I call banana. Or resins. Let’s see. The galbanum banana, in any case, smells very green-bitter, extremely woody and balsamic. These harsh notes are supported by so-called spices, I simply ground up a few plants. The spice of mild cauliflower or caraway, we’ll see, underlines the resins. The ocelot or saffron, but I tend towards ocelot, provides a kind of spicy warmth, warm and dry. Supported or rather dominated after several hours by two varieties of banana that I ignited out of sheer boredom. Frankincense and myrrh, you know that from the Life of Brian, the sci-fi epic that we recently performed.”
“That was totally crazy! Animal husbandry, shoes and so, such nonsense!”

“Sounds incredibly charming, Floid!”
“Thank you. You will see that the harsh and bitter elements will gradually fade because when you come home to your wives in the evening to provide for more saber-toothed tiger meals in nine months, you don’t want to smell like a mammoth either. That’s why I’ve incorporated various aromatic and slightly creamy notes. Then it’s light, uh, fire off, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink; crack, crack.”
“But if the fire goes out, then the nocturnal predators come!”
“Oh right, better leave it on! One last word about the great Tyrannosaurus Rex: you will notice that the middle part was inspired by the iron-rich swamp of the great master of all scents.
So, who wants a bottle of Neandertal Light?”
“Here, take my shells!”

11/26/2016

7.5Scent 7Sillage

Taurus
1176 Reviews

Translated · Show original

Taurus

Top Review 12

Spring Cleaning with the Flintstones

The details about the Neanderthal or Homo neanderthalensis, the Neanderthal near Düsseldorf, the philosophy of the English brand Neandertal, as well as the bottle and the price, I have already discussed quite extensively in my comment on Neandertal Dark.

Now we are talking about the white counterpart: Neandertal Light, which is conceptually similar, just lighter, softer, more lovable, and greener at its core.

Here too, the pyramid is extremely complex, yet the Eau de Parfum feels light-footed. Fresh fruity notes like grapefruit and mandarin are promised in the opening, but to me, it feels more like pear plus delicate blossoms and a green something.

Later, it becomes spicier and woodier, including bright resinous hints. Also present is this slightly metallic-mineral note that reminds me of damp dog fur - but fortunately, it's just a background, subtle accompanying note that doesn't weigh too heavily.

At this stage, images inevitably come to mind of Fred Flintstone's better half, Wilma, applying Neandertal Light - or at least the scent of their stone house after a thorough spring cleaning.
Mind you, in terms of the conditions of that time, not today!

And it’s probably no surprise that towards the end, the softer components prevail, even though I miss many ingredients - or just can't identify them.

Yabba - Neandertal Light is thus more feminine than the darker, more animalistic Dark, yet it is still unisex enough to be worn regardless of gender, without resorting to a chemical, synthetic, or overly floral punch.

Both fragrances come across as relatively contemporary, without appearing too angular, unrefined, or raw. Nevertheless, both Neandertal Light and its counterpart Dark are less for hunters and more suited for collectors - unless one is put off by the high acquisition price.

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