Eros is the men’s fragrance Versace launched in 2012, the house’s first for men in five years. Aurélien Guichard strikes an opening of mint, green apple and lemon, and catches it with a sweet base of tonka bean, ambroxan and vanilla. The turquoise bottle bears the house’s Medusa.
A harsh reception in 2013: Dariush Alavi (Persolaise) sees it as mainstream men’s perfumery at its most formulaic, Kevin (Now Smell This) as a tin-pot hero, Thomas Dunckley (The Candy Perfume Boy) as a din of citrus and vanilla.
Olfastory’s review
Persolaise, January 2013
On January 24, 2013, Dariush Alavi, who had hoped for a twenty-first-century Antaeus given the campaign, finds it dull and predictable, almost a definition of the most moronic side of mainstream men’s perfumery. After a moment of green apple in the manner of the original Hugo, he finds only a generic freshness of cheap mint, pine and lemon over abrasive ambery woods; his sample came from the house.
Now Smell This, February 2013
On February 6, 2013, Kevin describes a vanilla-mint barbershop opening that reminds him of Jean Paul Gaultier’s Le Mâle, and an ambroxan tinged with clove, alongside tonka bean. Cedar, vetiver and oakmoss make up, in his view, a standard-issue woody accord.
A quarter of an hour later, he sees “not a hero but a phony,” and a cheap one: the vanilla curdles, the ambroxan sours, and a clean note in the style of Axe deodorant makes him queasy. He suspects not a single natural material in it.
The Candy Perfume Boy, April 2013
On April 12, 2013, Thomas Dunckley enjoys the unabashed kitsch of the bottle and the advertising, but is let down on first wearing. The lemon and apple opening strikes him as ordinary, a citrus din that the herbal note in the background cannot cut through.
The vanilla arrives quickly, sweet, powdery and not very creamy, with burnt-sugar facets he would have liked in a better-balanced whole. Vetiver, cedar and oakmoss seem absent to him: Eros ends as it begins, too loud to let its nuances show.