Rive Gauche Yves Saint Laurent 2003

Version from 2003

Rive Gauche (2003) by Yves Saint Laurent

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7.8 / 10 184 Ratings

A popular perfume by Yves Saint Laurent for women, released in 2003. The scent is chypreartig-floral. The longevity is above-average. It is being marketed by L'Oréal.
Pronunciation

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Main accords

Chypre

Floral

Green

Spicy

Fresh

Fragrance Pyramid

Top Notes

Aldehydes

Green notes

Bergamot

Honeysuckle

Lemon

Peach

Heart Notes

Lily of the valley

Gardenia

Geranium

Iris

Magnolia

Rose

Ylang-ylang

Jasmine

Base Notes

Oakmoss

Musk

Tahitian vetiver

Tonka bean

Ambergris

Sandalwood

Perfumer

Daniela Andrier

Ratings

Scent

7.8184 Ratings

Longevity

8.2154 Ratings

Sillage

7.8155 Ratings

Bottle

7.8155 Ratings

Value for money

7.754 Ratings

Submitted by Seren, last update on 12.04.2024.

Reviews

13 in-depth fragrance descriptions

08/13/2019

9
Bottle 7
Sillage 8
Longevity 10
Scent

Doctorsdyery
2 Reviews

Translated Show original

Doctorsdyery

Top Review 45

Unlike everyone else...

A hint of black lace flashes out under the blazer with shoulder pads. She wears a pantsuit, has her bob tamed with gel and put on red lipstick.

During the day she holds the strings in her hand. Women can be anything. Chief physician, head of a corporation, artist. Men are no longer above things and women.

It's the early eighties.

She determines what she wears, who she is, what she can do and who she sleeps with.
She dresses casually and at the same time elegantly and stylishly. In the evening she quickly swaps the cashmere turtleneck she wears at work for a blazer with shoulder pads. And some earclips. Gold, plain, noble.

She runs off, in pumps towards the taxi.
When she arrives at the café, she orders a glass of wine and lights a cigarette. It seems a bit unapproachable, beautiful and cool at the same time.
So completely different. yes completely different than many women today.
She doesn't think about breast enlargement or eyebrow tattoos.
She is who she is and that makes her irresistible.

Your date arrives and is perplexed again. This woman is driving him crazy. She smiles, a bit timid and challenging at the same time.

She wears the trouser suit, a touch of black lace and Rive Gauche and nothing else.
The evening can begin. Where it ends, it will also determine...

That's how I picture her. The one Rive Gauche was wearing at the time.

And secretly, I wish I could have lived through that time. If there was a time machine, I would dare a small excursion into this tempting time.

And what should women have worn back then, if not Rive Gauche?

A classic that I still find very wearable today. Metallic at the beginning and at the end so wonderfully powdery, without sticking at all, yet very soft and protective. Timeless. Wonderful.
The bottle? You couldn't have done better for this fragrance.

So very different from all the others.

I guess you'll have to move in with me. Maybe even a blazer with shoulder pads... D

Right now I would have a great desire to resurrect the woman of that time and to exchange her for a uniform mush, a beauty frenzy and an influencer. It would be time again...

My first comment, cut me some slack. ;)

09/29/2023

8
Pricing 10
Bottle 8
Sillage 9
Longevity 9
Scent

Axiomatic
21 Reviews

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Axiomatic

Top Review 53

Deconstruction

What is behind a green floral chypre, what can be so intriguingly disturbing?
The present composition is already malicious, elegant and quite striking, no confusion possible.
But would it only remain so.
It is the people and the constellations, which can tell more about a floral vetiver.

A few years ago, after believed erasure of plaguing memories, I stood sedated at the YSL booth.
There shone this alien capsule in blue, silver and black, the name and concentration naively printed in italics.
My hands shook and something constricted my throat.
I ignored the hint of a lady's scent, Kouros standing on the other side.
Like decades before, I defied the warning.

Hiss!

Daniela Andrier seemed to have implemented an age requirement in 2003, her version draws Jacques Polge's 1970 masterpiece FSK suitable.
Somewhat metallic the start is already, but far more gentle than originally intended.

It was these aldhyde, which should imprint itself at that time forever in my brain.
Today, unfortunately, they evaporate more quickly, have something concealed, as if, as is fashionable today, a scene had been subtly censored, perhaps blurred manipulated.
The further we imagine ourselves freer, the more regimenting the barriers, strange development.

The bouquet of flowers following the aldehydes is exquisitely put together. So balanced of white flowers, greenish roses, poisonous lily of the valley. Very fresh and moist thanks to the magnolia, put together as if à la minute and accompanied by an eerie greeting card of handmade paper.
Sure, the peach, together with the ylang, hands a warmer ticket to the auteur film. But once you have entered the cinema hall and taken a seat, the images will flicker greenish cool and more serious.

The star of the evening is a vetiver purified with hydrochloric acid. Immaculate, aristocratic green and with the best manners. The hydrogen cations extremely gently caress the fragrant smoking grass.
Following their chemical property, they wait for opposite pole partners. So they lurk diligently embedded between the flowers.
And they know about their decomposing power.

In the process, the environment is cleverly anesthetized. Without realizing it, the creamy base of oakmoss and sandalwood exudes a delicately comfortable foundation with this subtle clay glaze. You can let yourself fall, you are gently caught.
The sexual drive of matted musk drips well-dosed and tasty, made up with amber, stealthily on the leaves of grass.
An idea of spice, as if a flake of fleur de sel had been sprinkled on it. Just that exact pinch to make the palate buds kind.

The curtain will close elegantly. But for this, the base is simply too successful not to crave the next event. The tuning of the soapy woody, slightly tonka-sweet, will linger long as credits on the skin.

Great, not?

I award Ms. Andrier 9 points, the smooth 10 continues to earn Mr. Polge, his Rive Gauche is the unabridged version with director interview.

The first advertising of the fragrance came out in 1973, at that time I was still too small to understand. However, that was to change towards the end of the decade.
Here in the first clip, a stereotypical submissive wife is shown alongside her bossy husband. I just wonder which decade was meant by this, during my childhood I did not experience a single adult woman like that.
A few hisses further she is now liberated, munching smacking a cream cake and smokes thereby. High-caloric she strengthens herself with a milkshake. The mad one at the advertisement or the film is to always deliver a perfect figure thereby.
At the next table squats a man and offers her fire. How outrageously chauvinistic!
The potential scoundrel is fortunately pushed aside by her friends and ridiculed with relish.
Funny, I don't recall ever seeing a men's fragrance with roles reversed.

The other advertising clips of the 1980s were not to be surpassed in striking mediocrity.
Sometimes a yuppie couple in Paris quarrel and reconcile, sometimes a single woman/wife has almost missed to appear at the registry office for her flash wedding/divorce in time, the occasion remains open.
But the pinnacle of the hilarious is fending off two burglars in a luxurious apartment in Paris. Just wear a YSL costume without bra and blouse, quickly hiss Rive Gauche and already Mademoiselle/Madame has outdone Bruce Lee with karate chops. Sadly only that the violent reality with such burglaries always provides with gruesome, bloodstained reports in certain media for bulging cash registers.

Shuddering is not the fragrance, quite the opposite, he could, however, an ominous development of the 1970s fragrant underline, at least in my immediate environment.
The mother of a school friend wore the fragrance like a second skin.
And it was she who had written like no other the word self-realization on the flag.
Stupid only that her extras / children somehow did not fit cinematically to the scenery and clumsily longed for familial security.

Both extras/children are strapped to dignified cinema chairs, I can always leave the cinema hall early, disenchanted silent on the drive home and guard my secret spray site like a treasure.

Yvette, you most beautiful of all beauties, unrecognized muse of your never-known Helmut Newton, submissive yet overlooked prêt-à-porter icon of your guru Yves, best pupil of your deconstructivist teacher Jacques Derrida, besides mother of two children/statists.

Your pet name product of solidary friendly acclaim of your peer group, the cynics did not escape your buying behavior chez YSL.

The one extra/son led me to you still as a child.
My social standing never sounded so ironic to my ears.

But one thing I hold dear to you, taste and gesture were in your prosperous cradle.

Others will also use Rive Gauche, but never as memorable as you. You disappear from my memories.

Yvette, no one else sprayed in so exquisitely, so naturally smooth.
Your hand movements, as if rehearsed, paid homage to the cold metal cylinder like fragile porcelain.
Neck, cleavage, thighs.
Just there you always had to laugh sarcastically.

Until the beginning of the 1980s you will have achieved your intention, your contribution to the destruction of traditional conditions will bear fruit. But this world will become all the colder and more merciless.

Today I look at the current photo of my school friend. Amidst the aldehydes of my metal can, his eyes still look sad, rimmed with dark shadows.

I guess the dose was too strong for him.

Life on Mars by David Bowie says it all, facilitates my dressing of floral vetiver.

And something alien laces my throat again.

10/05/2020

10
Pricing 10
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 10
Scent

Toppine
8 Reviews

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Toppine

Top Review 40

Back to the Future Part II

The old Rive Gauche used to be my first perfume and has managed to keep me away from all further fragrance attempts for years. To this day I still can't get along with older perfumes and classics. The first spraying experience overwhelmed me with sharp, pungent and vile poisonous aromas and the absence of any fragrance.
Nevertheless the bottle was bought - youthful exuberance. At the same time I talked my later ex-husband into 'Kouros', which he kindly regarded as a test of courage that he passed bravely. Of course the fragrances were not worn, not even when stoned or on a trip. My first perfume life was over...

Many years later - at the side of another man - I started to be interested in fragrances. The new Rive Gauche is now in my collection. Everything is different and my nose is more trained. Thanks to Mrs Andrier the aldehydes are still there, but detoxified.
A delicate green tone mixes with clear peach and bergamot. Powder covers the flowers gently without suffocating them (or me). And the base is a dream, softly caressing chypré with beautiful vetiver. The fragrance exudes class, style and elegance. It remains cool and transparent, which is what I always like best.

Now he's all French YSL, whose fashion and style I used to love so much. I put on a black sweater, smoke a cigarette and listen to 'Fly like an Eagle' by Tom Petty. Rive Gauche has come back to the future and I think of my ex-husband who died too soon after a long illness...

10/19/2020

10
Bottle 7
Sillage 10
Longevity 8.5
Scent

DieNase
20 Reviews

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DieNase

Top Review 19

Slow motion

In slow motion this scent runs. For hours the phase of slowly decreasing soapiness of the aldehydes lasts, paired with an indefinite fruity floralness, the rose probably. The fruity rose becomes juicy in the further course, vetiver, or more precisely vetiver acetate pushes this rose forward and gives it radiance and conciseness. This phase in turn seems to last forever, the power hardly ever diminishes. The next morning I wake up with her.
For me a perfect business fragrance, distant but not unapproachable, brightly beautiful but not erotic, not playful

06/30/2018

10
Bottle 8
Sillage 8
Longevity 9
Scent

Schwälbchen
21 Reviews

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Schwälbchen

Top Review 13

Less is more

When the fullness and bustle of the day exhaust the measure of the bearable, it draws me to Rive Gauche. Not a loud fragrance screaming for attention, but a flatterer who knows how to please with understatement.

The strong aldehyde start shows parallels to Chanel No 5. Where, however, "la Cinque" rises with opulent floridity, Rive Gauche develops reservedly. The blossoms, withdrawn in sweetness, are accentuated wonderfully gently by a metallic-fresh accord. I like it infinite when this cool powderiness surrounds me like a silver veil.

Depending on temperature and activity, a wonderfully pleasing chypre base develops after a good hour. Although the oak moss is clearly perceptible, it is generally softer and rounder. Nothing scratches here, no bitter bitterness. And so reservedly he might also inspire perfumos, which deter the word Chypre Sonst. With the overall decency a wonderful "unagitated" companion, which I like to wear very much.

Rive Gauche lasts me 6-8 hours without any problems. On very warm days he retreats faster and gets very close. I value the Sillage in the upper average and the bottle is unparalleled.

Conclusion: I am glad to have discovered it here with you, because in the end your fragrance descriptions contributed to the test and purchase.
I am glad that I have him and enjoy ;)

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