SOTD - YSL Kouros · Brotherhood Of Scent

SOTD - YSL Kouros

Yes Ladies and gentlemen, the moment of truth has finally come for me, I'm finally reviewing and wearing a fragrance I've been waiting for so long to review, the most controversial and polarizing fragrance in existence; Kouros by Yves Saint Laurent. (DISCLAIMER: This review is written upon my experience with the current "softer, cleaner" formulation of Kouros, not the old strong animalic many have known, hated and loved.) Now what exactly does it smell like? Some say piss, some say sweat, some say soap,the question is who's right? Well for short, the answer is all of them! But allow me to elaborate, the opening of Kouros (and that in my experience gets to live quite long on tester strips) is the part that smells animalic as HELL, it literally does smell like a stinky sweaty guy, no kidding, but past the opening into the drydown (1 to 3 minutes after spraying) it becomes incredibly clean; now I'm not talking nowadays clean, it smells like soap, yes but not like modern soap but like 70s soap. On my skin Kouros smells almost exactly like Palmolive Classic Green soap or Palmolive brillantine just much more refined; a very mature old scent for some but for me it's just beautiful! Finally as for the infamous piss note, it comes in the very very drydown past the 7 hour mark and even though it is indeed pretty "pissy" it's still accompanied by a very good dose of florals, so even then I wouldn't say it's something you should be sacred of. On my skin and as for my bottle (Batch 38WD1M9) it's basically an old school floral soap like fragrance, great for different occasions and all year round wear unless you want something refreshing during the warmer days. Performance? 6 to 8 hours so far, I've heard it used to last weeks but at least mine is 97% gone for the morning after. Good sillage and projection but once again, not a "room filler" anymore. Ah by the way if you've never tried Kouros you don't even really have to blind buy a bottle, find a tester or get a decant, just find a place where they have it for sale and squeeze the box a little, some of its scent comes out even with the plastic wrap on.

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