L'Homme Yves Saint Laurent 2022 Eau de Parfum

When I first sprayed this on it blew me away. I got hit with that beautiful orange and cognac. I tried a ton of different fragrances that day and this smelled like nothing I tried before. It was an instant buy for me. Sweet but masculine and sexy. It’s got really good longevity and sillage but not overwhelming. I couldn’t love this scent more.

In the evening, a poker night at the casino with the boys was on the agenda for Saturday, so Money for Nothing and Sharp Dressed.
Earlier that afternoon, tactically smart, I went to the Saturday market downtown with my better half.
Who wants to spend forever examining strawberries at the fruit stand when you’re going to pack some anyway? So a quick "Hey sweetie, I'm in that store back there" later, I found myself in the perfumery I trust.
Alongside the always laid-back owner in his fabric pants and dark glasses, I also encountered the new YSL L'homme 2022 there. Boom. Bullseye.

The scent:
It can work magic. The top note is zesty fruity fresh, but not that sticky apple freshness; rather, it’s the blood orange sparkling in combination with bergamot, with the first two or three kicks from its friends in the base note. If they were blank, the two would smell different together, but something masculine from below helps, is that vetiver already? Fantastic.
Packed.

Interesting thing, Yves, you never let the heart note stand alone; to be precise, the top note very slowly transitions directly into the base note, so that the masculine-fruity top note takes the noble, but never overly present lavender by the hand and immediately slaps it with the spicy wooden board. The transition lasts a solid 1-4 hours and remains groovy-masculine with masculine fruit, sweetened oak wood, and a herby green, very complex mix to boot, with the vetiver perfectly dosed here, showing once again how multifaceted this one green component can be. There are at least 2+ other scent aromas helping out in the background, but they are not listed. Bullseye, it grooves. The ride through the heart note track is the best part of the new L'Homme, all with a hefty portion of scent quality; the price is definitely reasonable.

Well.
... imagine sitting relaxed and without appointments in a white linen shirt, armed with sunglasses, in a bar in Havana City, sipping an ice-cube-chilled Cuba Libre at a very unorthodox time, the smoking Monte Cristo casually resting in the ashtray, while the daily newspaper is briefly set aside to have a quick chat with the bartender about classic cars, and the ocean sun is shining through the palms into the large, dark brown wooden windows; then I’ve just described the feeling of the base note.

The scent will remain in my collection until it is discontinued.
Oh yes, never stop at blackjack on the way to the poker table!

Orange bottle, 10x bitter orange mentioned in the marketing, a split orange on the advertisement... There is no way around it, one must suspect that the bitter orange is meant to shape the main character of the perfume. Therefore, it is all the more surprising that the scent smells a bit different than I expected.

Yes, in the opening, this advertised bitter orange is indeed recognizable BUT much more subtle than expected. I would have anticipated a sparkling, zesty orange with a slight acidity, but in this case, the bitter orange is very unprovocative and quiet, blending under the woody notes. If I had to illustrate this metaphorically, I would say it’s as if not only the orange was thrown into the juicer, but also the branch it was hanging from. But different than expected does not necessarily mean bad. I like the opening, even though it is rather quiet and unremarkable.

However, the orange fades relatively quickly, and after 20-30 minutes, unfortunately, a synthetic note emerges. Probably triggered by lavender, which has made me extremely skeptical whenever I discover lavender in a perfume's ingredient list. Because unfortunately, it is usually associated with cheaper designer scents, as is the case here. Towards the end, it becomes woodier and a bit creamy. Fortunately, at least the woods are not overly marked by synthetics. The manufacturer particularly promotes one of the woods: "An elegant upcycling ingredient - oak wood infusion. Distilled from oak wood chips from cognac barrels." The term "upcycling," which comes from "recycling," is about enhancing a waste product, in this case, used cognac barrels, through repurposing. It’s a nice thought that the wood from old barrels is incorporated into perfumes, thus giving it a second life. The only question is which alcohol the wood prefers, in the barrel or in the bottle?!

There is a fundamental problem that I keep hearing in reviews of the "L'homme" series from YSL, namely the weak performance. Unfortunately, this is also the case here, as four sprays on the neck last only two hours in self-perception. For an EdP, this is very weak, and accordingly, I find the price too high.

The bottle fits perfectly with the color of the bitter orange and immediately indicates that this is a "L'homme" scent from YSL.

This perfume is a solid flanker, but it could definitely show a bit more courage and present itself stronger and more provocatively. La Nuit de L'Homme Bleu Électrique feels like a more electrifying alternative from its own house.

Yves Saint Laurent, it must be said bluntly, has a catastrophic marketing department when it comes to naming perfumes. Whether for men or women. It’s almost a miracle to order the correct and intended one among L´Hommes Parfum, Le Parfum, Parfum Intense, or Intense Le Parfum
(I believe some of the examples above don’t even exist like that anymore… Or do they?!:-) )

What times those were with iconically distinct bottles and names like Opium, Kouros, Jazz, and the like. One longs for those days…

As for the perfume itself, the Eau de Parfum is a quite pleasantly crafted all-rounder. More autumnal than the fresh-violet-toned EdT, a bit cozier, yet still casual and suitable for everyday wear, without drifting atmospherically towards the October storm season.

Overall, a rather warm opening, carried by a very softly enveloped orange, which is accompanied by a nicely rounded lavender undertone. Compared to Caron’s “Pour un homme…” or even Gaultier’s “Le Mâle,” where the lavender appears very natural or at least clearly graspable, here it hides a bit under or behind a slightly sawed-off powderiness. Perhaps the oak wood, which comes to the forefront quite early, is to blame, as it somewhat vanillan-toastily-woody stifles any hope for ethereal spaces.

The good thing: The scent is not breathtakingly original, but one wishes that certainly more men would opt for this at least smoothly crafted, harmonious fragrance rather than torturing others with horrors like “Sauvage” or lab news from Boss or Davidoff. My 20 cents on that.

What a great scent! Orange meets lavender and creates a very modern, woody-sweet blend.

Right upon spraying, it becomes clear that the orange is the focal point of the fragrance. The opening consists almost entirely of a wonderfully pleasant orange. Towards the end of the opening, the lavender note joins in.
These two notes together define the fragrance. Occasionally, the geranium makes a brief appearance, and here and there the bergamot - but only for a very short time.

The fragrance is generally short-lived as well. The longevity and sillage are really weak, which is why I would describe it as a sofa scent. You come out of the shower on an autumn or winter evening and want to have a cozy night on the sofa - this fragrance fits perfectly at that moment. It smells super pleasant and has a high feel-good factor. And who wouldn’t want to feel comfortable on the sofa?

I generally find it difficult to classify fragrances as classic or modern, as I don’t view them from that perspective. But with this one, it was different - the word "modern" immediately came to my mind.

Overall, a great fragrance. Nevertheless, I have decided to part with it, as its weak longevity and sillage make it unusable for me and it would just sit in the cupboard.
What a shame...