Pour Homme Yves Saint Laurent 2011

As a child, I spent a few summer vacations in a small town in southern France in the mid-70s. There, I likely encountered some olfactory experiences that I stored in my subconscious, because a few years later, when I began to take an interest in fragrances and wanted to choose one for myself, some of them felt surprisingly familiar.
I was clear that I definitely did not want to wear these scents, as they reminded me of the older men from Avignon, Montpellier, and that little town Millau.
I, on the other hand, wanted to smell young, fashionable, not so 'old' (in Germany, men at that time did not typically wear a fragrance, at most a shaving lotion...).
So it ended up being ‘Antaeus’, which I could soon smell on every corner in Paris.

Much later, I learned to appreciate the fragrances from my childhood: they were, as I eventually found out, ‘Eau Sauvage’, ‘Equipage’, Guerlain’s ‘Vetiver’, and Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Pour Homme’.
In exactly this order, my relationship with them relaxed, although I must admit that the latter, Yves Saint Laurent’s ‘Pour Homme’, remains a challenging scent for me.
Sometimes I find it magnificent: the sunny freshness, the juicy, tart lemon, the aromatic mint, the strong, earthy-mossy base - like the rough, rugged brother of the much smoother, more civilized ‘Pour Monsieur’ by Chanel.
But then, when that strange animalic note reliably blooms during the middle of the scent development, which characterizes this fragrance so distinctly, I think: what for, what’s the point?! Who needs it?
The scent would be so beautiful, so classically beautiful without the animal!

But okay, the animal is there, and I fear it is meant to be exactly where it is: right in the heart of the scent. Because ‘Pour Homme’ is indeed ‘Pour Homme’, not ‘Pour Monsieur’. And so this ‘Homme’ is also not - see the now-iconic advertising photo with the completely naked Yves himself! - clad in fine tailoring, freshly shaved and neatly combed, no, this ‘Homme’ sports stubble, long hair, horn-rimmed glasses, and nothing else - except of course this fragrance!
And yes, even freshly showered, or washed (people didn’t shower constantly back then) he still smells a bit - like a man.
Fragrances like ‘Jules’, ‘Yatagan’, and especially ‘Kouros’ have picked up on this and highlighted it even more - the scent of a man that smells at times more, at times less quietly animalic and, at least for noses of that time, quite erotic.

But wait, what does ‘animalic’ mean here?
Civet? No. Castoreum? No. Ambergris? No. Musk? No.
Animalic? Actually not.
But where does this dirty note come from?
The notes listed on the bottle, Citron, Petit Grain, Mint, Patchouli, Oakmoss, are certainly not responsible for it.
If you research further pyramids attributed to this fragrance, quite different notes are sometimes mentioned: in addition to those already mentioned, also Lavender, Sage, Marjoram, Thyme, Rosemary, Rosewood, Cedar, and Vetiver.
I find Marjoram and Thyme particularly interesting here. Anyone who often cooks with fresh herbs and strips the small leaves from the stems knows these earthy-dark, somewhat dirty undertones that accompany the typical aroma. They disappear again while cooking, but freshly crushed between the hands, they are unmistakably present.

Aha, so it’s not animalic after all, at least not animal-based, rather a kind of plant-based animality - which is a contradiction in itself. But plant aromas don’t always smell pleasant either; sometimes they can smell pungent (Sage) or sweaty (Cumin). Marjoram and Thyme also belong to those herbs with questionable scent facets - here, however, tending more towards the fecal.
Sounds awful, doesn’t it? But it’s not.
At least not for me. Although I - as I said - took a long time to endure this rough aromatic hint.
I’m not yet talking about ‘wearing’, just about ‘enduring’!

In the past, I actually found it awful. Even when I discovered my love for 70s fragrances a few years later, ‘Pour Homme’ was still an absolute no-go. ‘Yatagan’ and ‘Azzaro pour Homme’ were fine, even though they both had a rather obscenely animalic undertone, but not the scent from YSL.
And to this day, I find this blend of fresh chypre with a herbaceous-aromatic heart, to put it mildly, an acquired taste.
I feel similarly about ‘Para Hombre/Pour Homme’ by Loewe. A fragrance that follows a very, very similar concept, although the herbal aromas here are not highlighted quite as dirty.
I don’t really find either of them wearable. I find the Loewe scent a bit more bearable than the one from YSL. On the other hand, they both smell great, just somehow time-bound, like they are pinned down in the early 70s. ‘Eau Sauvage’, on the other hand, is completely timeless - at least for me.
But ‘Pour Homme’ beams me back every time to southern France when I was just 11/12 years old, no longer a child and not yet a teenager, and the men I encountered often wore these heavy herbal scents - however, no deodorant, which created a confusing amalgam.

Maybe the day will come when I can also wear ‘Pour Homme’ without hesitation. Who knows. I have also learned to wear ‘Kouros’ - in homeopathic doses...
For now, I’d rather pass.

If my memory serves me right, the latest version is quite close to the original.
Longevity and projection are enormous for a citrusy chypre, which is probably thanks to the mentioned aromas.