Galahad

APOM pour Homme from the hand of the great Kurkdjian is a fragrance that can lift my mood from the cellar to the top floor within seconds.
In its simple trinity of the pyramid of essences, the fragrance is both simple and yet wonderfully harmoniously composed. The colour of the perfume reflects all the associations I associate with the course of the fragrance.
But why now the name after the probably best known cartoon bear of the world. On the one hand because it has the same colour as APOM, on the other hand because this miracle water works as if it had been matured in a honey pot. Apart from the first few seconds of the opening note, the fragrance is woven with a honey sweetness that lies on the skin like warm sunlight. If you look more closely at honey, you will notice that the flowers of the nectar suppliers are decisive for the taste of the end product. On French markets, for example, there is a diverse variety of flower honey from a wide variety of habitats. From the simple forest or flower honey to the spicier lavender honey, the sugar-sweet nectar differs both in taste and colour. In the kitchen I appreciate this fine sweetness very much and replace almost every sugar with it.
The honey sweetness in APOM clearly comes from an orange blossom. To sum up, the scent for me can be described as a large pot of orange blossom honey, which stands in a glass-covered orangery between trees and the sun shines on its scent in the room spreads. This is the place this wonderful mood enhancer puts me in. Light, orange and yellow tones surround me as well as a juicy green of the leaves and a dark brown of the wood, whereby the scent does not slip unbearably into the sweetness. The discreet wood note provides a mature spice, so that the syrupy heaviness is also well bearable on warmer days
I definitely see APOM on the first sunny days of spring, but also in summer with a light breeze and below 25 degrees. Perfect with a white shirt or polo shirt and probably most suitable in a more Mediterranean flair. Here the small honey bear projects 8-10 hours loosely and provides for a sunny light aura in good mood.
Due to the little changing fragrance pyramid only a small point deduction. Otherwise, APOM is nobly composed from start to finish and Kurkdjian proves once again that three fragrance components are completely sufficient to create a first-class fragrance.

Charles Baudelaire, one of France's most influential poets, titled his cycle of poems, which was important for the modern age of Western literature, "Les Fleurs du Mal" (The Flowers of Evil). As is so often the case in French, a letter determines a major change in semantics.
The fragrance creation of the French label Jean Paul Gaultier by Francis Kurkdjian, also a compatriot of Baudelaire, could well bear the lyrical title. Kurkdjian, the creator of the classical "Le Male", tried to perform a flowery and optically bright metamorphosis of the classic with this nimbler. In my opinion, the fragrance, which is no longer produced, has little in common with the title and the brilliant white appearance. Rather, a piano lacquered bottle would fit better here.
The fragrance, whose title directly evokes the literary association in me, unfolds a scent image that awakens a further, this time pictorial imagination with a figure of "Hamlet" in me. It is Shakespeare's Ophelia, the unhappy lover of the title hero, who drowns in a water surrounded by flowers. The original text is:

"A willow tree is leaning over the stream
And shows in the clear stream its grey foliage,
With which they fantastically wreathed wand
Of cockfoot, nettles, Maßlieb, cuckoo flowers.
...
Until their clothes, which were heavily drunk,
The poor child of her melodies
Drawn down to the muddy death."

The British artist John Everett Millais captured this scene on canvas - a masterpiece of pre-Raphaelite art. And this same picture already evoked the title of the fragrance for me. When I sprayed the scent on for the first time, I felt as if I stood next to Ophelia's water grave and smelled all those flowers that were transpiring around the slowly sinking water light.
Whoever has the painting in front of their eyes and wears the scent on their skin may be able to feel my connection to Baudelaire, Shakespeare and Millais. So strong an associative image has hardly ever been aroused by a fragrance.
This may also be due to the fact that I have perhaps never experienced such an indescribably strong and expansive scent as the aforementioned Fleur du Male, which actually becomes maliciously dominant with more than two sprayings. I can only confirm the floral note, which attributes his name to him, as well as the numerous descriptions, to a limited extent. As in the painting, for me the fragrance has an antiquated, somewhat stale and slightly musty note throughout, which always reminds me of an overripe splendour of flowers that have already fallen into biological decay. As strongly withered, already more dead than living flowers, so he smells the Fleur. Just as I imagine Ophelia's water grave of wet shore grass, aquatic plants and all the flowers around her. But also with the basic note of a being that is no longer among the living. The aesthetics of the dead, a motif that Baudelaire and later the Expressionists in Germany also took up, can be found in the Fleur. As fascinating as I feel the scent because of its unbelievable durability and projection, so repulsive are the scent wafts, which accompany you up to a day, after a short while, on me. Slight nausea, the smell of organic decay and a constant "Memento Mori" surround me when I wear it. Like a flower of evil! That's why I don't perceive any light scents like Neroli and Petitgrain or chamomile in the Fleur, but always have the image of an exotic giant flower in mind, which grows night-black and toxic in dark and humid places, such as in floodplains. Anything that approaches this flower cannot escape its spell.
The "Fleur du Male", a scented icon, which cannot deny "Le Male" to its ancestors in approaches, is simply unbearable for me. I don't know what the occasion is, nor could I define a type of carrier. It is an olfactory experience that took me into fantastic worlds and at the same time strongly deterred me, as I always felt slightly uncomfortable and surrounded by a breath of decay. He is a beast, he is terrifying, he demands a lot from his wearer and he is definitely not a "crowdpleaser". It has to leave my collection because it is not what I expect from a floral fragrance.
Instead of the man's flower, the Fleur has always been the flower of evil for me! As little as I can bear the mood of expressionism longer, I can carry this scent on my skin. The love between the fragrance and me failed just as dramatically as in Hamlet. I wanted to love him as much as I wanted to love Le Male. But the feelings that the fragrance aroused in me were morbid and so "Fleur du Male" became my Ophelia

Acquired because of the numerous rave reviews in this forum on a grey and foggy January morning in the drugstore market, this impulse purchase turned out to be intolerable for me after several test runs.
The unbeatable price of 15€ per 100 millilitres is definitely an argument, the less the fragrance can convince me at this price. I generally don't dislike sweet scents for the man, the JPG Ultra Male I appreciate very much, especially in the cool season, because it has depth and a fragrance progression. For me, the absolute exclusion criterion for this fragrance was the blatant, all-trumping synthetic. Not a single one of the very homogeneous components looks authentic anyway.
So what do I smell ... First comes a very sticky sweetness of a light fruit, with apple I cannot associate this with the best will in the world. Most likely it reminds me of dry apricots "breaded" with cheap honey. The freshness of a lime or bergamot can only be guessed from the background. And then little happens in the process. The scent is sweet and it stays sweet. Pushy and sweet in a pungent way. Steaming woods and dark nuances, which according to the pyramid are supposed to be contained, can hardly be filtered out for me. Vanilla is the most prominent substance in the further course of the disease.
In the overall composition, the fragrance therefore doesn't seem complex to me, but that for many hours, because the shelf life is quite given. Not surprising with the synthetic bomb, either.
That's why I really have to label the fragrance with the attribute "cheap", because it seems neither noble nor balanced in composition. So it had to leave my shelf again.
But my subjective impression doesn't have to evoke with every similar perception, so I can only recommend to test the scent, it is in every drugstore. If he pleases anyone, "Do not judge me by my Price!" still applies

At the end of 2018 I dared to approach the fragrance palette of JPG and of course started with the classic and founder of this series of beautiful flacons.
The last in the bunch and my collection. was the very one in dark tones and with the ultimate claim of masculinity in the title. In addition to Essence, which is one year younger, the dark sailor is a much-anticipated bottle on the shelves of all perfumeries. At the same time, he claims to address a young target group, to which I also count myself. He is preceded by the reputation of a party scent, sometimes even a Casanova water. At least the first one I would like to contradict, the dark sailor already seems seductive and enormously attractive to me, but he doesn't scream for attention but rather for intimacy. It surrounds the wearer with an extremely sweet aura, fresh in the first minutes, then heavier, which invites the wearer to approach it in order to be able to sense the depth structure of the fragrance.
The greater the distance at which the fragrance is perceived, the more one-dimensional it appears. As you get closer, however, other nuances reveal themselves - spices, woods and vanilla come to the fore - creating a homely atmosphere. From a distance I always sniff the sweetness of an overripe pear, behind whose façade the depth of the entire bouquet reveals itself. After a good hour, the light-fleshed sweetness of the pear becomes darker than the pod of a vanilla. The spicy components help to create more depth.
His territory is - in my opinion - less the dance floors of clubs or overcrowded events, because he can't set a counterpoint in a sweating, agitated crowd and doesn't stand out. I like to wear it alone in a feel-good atmosphere with a good book on the couch. However, the fragrance finds its purpose in one-to-one situations in which you want to cast a spell over your female counterpart. For other men, contrary to its martial double sentence "Ultra", the fragrance is more feminine and androgynous. For younger women, it conveys closeness, security and self-confidence. The wearer also needs the latter if he does not want to appear superficial with a very sweet, extremely seductive scent.
Its season is definitely autumn and winter. Its time of day is darkness, in which it would also be wearable on fresh spring and summer nights. However, more suitable variants are available here.
The outfit to be combined is, as with the entire "Le Male series", a well-fitting shirt or polo with an optional jacket, here I prefer dark blue as the basic colour. Within your own four walls, as a pure feel-good fragrance, it can also be combined well with a "favourite piece" (sweater, hoodie). The durability and Sillage are neat, but I don't think they are outstanding. After two hours it gets very close to my body, which is why I don't see it as a party scent. In fact, it unfolds almost better on clothing than on skin, because then even after a day a super pleasant essence of the base notes is still perceptible.
In addition to the more variable, since fresher original, an ideal addition to the range. For young and young-at-heart perfumers with enough self-confidence to create an ultra sweet fragrance, a rewarding investment. I will wear it to Christmas Eve tonight because the fragrance supports the feel-good factor in the family circle. Anyone who wants to wear the fragrance does not become an ultra-man in the sense of a muscular, tough Herakles, as the bottle suggests, but a modern, sensual, approachable man who must radiate self-confidence! Another successful composition by Kurkdjian

I associate the scent immensely with childhood memories ...
The father of my best friend at that time wore the fragrance already in the mid 90s, when the fragrance was still a novelty. Whenever I spent the night with my friend, the whole bathroom smelled like JPG LM in the morning and even then I liked the smell, it smelled so incredibly mature, masculine and ripe. When I started to get excited about fragrances I was not yet at the Le Male stand myself, although I sprayed it on every now and then when I was on a foray through the perfumeries.
On Black Friday the time had come - the always torn classic was so cheap, that I just hit it without thinking much. And I haven't regretted it since. It may be reformulated and weaker, but for me it still smells just like it did in childhood, with the only difference that I now feel mature enough to carry out the scent myself.
In my opinion it takes a lot of charisma and self-confidence to wear Le Male, otherwise the wearer and the fragrance are very different. The striped torso remains a super faithful companion throughout the day, as I have hardly experienced it with any scent before. More than 10h durability with a strong but not exaggerated silage is possible, especially in cold weather. And exactly in this season the sailor also belongs - I would not apply him over 10-15 degrees, then he becomes too pompous. But if it's autumnal or wintery, Le Male illuminates the surroundings with a fresh spice, which in my opinion is truly unique in the fragrance DNA.
To sum up, Le Male has absolutely rightly acquired legendary status, as the fragrance is still omnipresent on the shoulders despite having been there for 23 years. And I don't mean that in a pejorative way. The reason for his success story lies beside the ingenious marketing, whose biggest Clou probably is the bottle, also in the unique composition of the smell from the hands of a master of the guild.
Meanwhile also the Essence and the youthful brother, the Ultra Male, have moved into the showcase. For more official occasions with noble threads I would choose Essence, if you want to remain discreet, if you seek attention, then the founding father. To jeans, speaker and T-shirt gladly the Ultra-Male. All three fragrances are recommended between the end of September and mid-April, as they are too pompous, heavy and too spicy or sweet for the summer months.
A milestone in perfume history!