Elysium Noir Roja Parfums 2025

Occasionally, bad fragrances are just that: bad. More often than not, there's a bit more to the story. You see, perfumery is a credentials business, yet in most cases, it doesn't even matter if you actually have them, you just need the public to be under the impression that you do. This is the story that followed Roja Dove for years (if not decades): the idea that he was just a marketing pleb from Guerlain, yet ultimately, it doesn't even matter if Dove himself is the perfumer or not since Roja Parfums as a brand boasts an elite catalogue of market-leading products within various different genres. The product spoke (and still does) for itself with Dove receiving positive reputational windfalls.

With Dove looking to sail off into the sunset, the brand was given a difficult task: to find someone who can tell the story just as well as Dove, regardless of whether they had a helping hand or not. And so they turned to French flavors house Argeville where we find waterboy Antoine Cotton. After releasing a couple flops earlier in 2025, Elysium Noir will likely end up being the final creation for Cotton with the brand looking to pivot to a different creative nose in 2026. And on behalf of the fans of British luxury niche house Roja Parfums, I say good riddance.

You see, Cotton didn't have any verifiable credentials as a perfumer to begin with. When Omani brand Amouage opted to bring in Alexis Grugeon back in 2023, he already had more than a dozen designer products under his name, some more generic than others. Maybe that lack of experience is in-part to blame for Cotton's complete ineptitude. The original Elysium pour Homme Parfum is certainly among the top 5 well-regarded citrus-aromatic fragrance in the niche market today (I'd argue it's number 1, but that's a different story for a different day). This 50ml PPH version already had 2 flankers prior to the release of Elysium Noir and both of those fragrances stayed sufficiently close to original, yet for some reason, Cotton thought that was not the right lane.

Execution wise, Elysium Noir is the Roja that smells the least like Roja and that's largely because the scent basically smells like a designer fragrance. Elysium Noir opens in the fresh, macho masculine shower gel genre. There's essentially *zero* of Elysium's citrusy DNA shown with Noir's scent profile being dominated by ambroxan and lavender/geranium in the top. On-skin there is a prominent smell of musk and there are some touches of soapy white florals. As the scent develops, that same musk is opposed by what I assume are juniper berry and cypress in the heart/base. Performance is objectively light, I'm rating sillage 3/10 with implied longevity around 5 hours, likely biased downwards.

Some might think the heart of this review is the build-up to the product coverage, but alas, it is not. You see, on the German version of Parfumo there is the aptly titled review (and I'm quoting verbatim): "5.1 is bullshit". The reviewer is referring to the average rating this fragrance held at the time of review which has since trended upwards to 5.4/10 (n=148) as of the 3rd of November 2025. As a niche hobbyist, I find that take amusing, because 5.4 is effectively a compliment for the generic product launched by the brand with Cotton at the helm. With review after review comparing Elysium Noir to generic designer products like Y Eau de Parfum, Versace pour Homme Dylan Blue Eau de Toilette and Invictus Eau de Toilette, it shouldn't be a surprise why fans of Roja don't want to be quoted €350/100ml to smell like the basic bro who thinks the aforementioned designers are worthy of their inflated ratings & coverage. There's a reason why they say the best ability is availability: a reduction in choice leads people to feel more fulfilled with their decisions. And given the type of choice I both have myself and have explored, it goes without saying that Elysium Noir is a slap in the face of Roja's fans.

Antoine Cotton, you are FIRED effective immediately.