Scandal Elixir Parfum pour Homme

Jean Paul Gaultier presents Scandal Pour Homme Elixir as an amber, fruity and woody fragrance, and gives only three notes, black cherry, patchouli and tonka bean, each on its own tier. The label says more about the materials surrounding them.

Top

Black cherry opens the ball, juicy and insolent, seizing the senses without hesitation, says the house. Sandra Raičević Petrović smells a cherry liqueur in it, whose boozy facets soften into a woody, balsamic blend, lightly sweet and subtly smoky.

Heart

Patchouli asserts itself with immediate power, says the house. Sandra Raičević Petrović finds it neither muddy, earthy nor rough, but bright and clean; as the fragrance develops, she perceives a vinous facet of dried plum, as if aged in a cask.

Base

Tonka bean concludes, smooth and, for the house, outrageously elegant. Sandra Raičević Petrović describes a textured, slightly rough vanilla and, once the cherry has faded, a woody, soapy layer recalling pine-scented shaving foam, fresh and creamy.

What stays out

Longer lists add clary sage, bergamot, lemon, lavender, rum, geranium, spearmint, vanilla and akigalawood. The house passes over them in silence, but the label mentions lemon, bergamot, lavender, geranium and spearmint oils.

What the label declares

The published list counts forty-five ingredients. At the top, after alcohol, fragrance and water, come Iso E Super, vanillin, coumarin, linalyl acetate and acetyl cedrene, a cedar derivative; further down appear patchouli oil, camphor and sclareol, derived from clary sage.

On the protection and color side, it lists one UV filter, butyl methoxydibenzoylmethane, and the colorants blue 1, yellow 5, red 4, red 33 and violet 2. Anethole and anise alcohol add an aniseed facet, carvone that of spearmint.