L'Homme Idéal Eau de Toilette

Guerlain launched L’Homme Idéal in June 2014, in time for Father’s Day according to Journal du Luxe. Now Smell This saw it as the house’s first major men’s fragrance since Guerlain Homme in 2008. Thierry Wasser, Guerlain’s perfumer, signed this eau de toilette, offered in 50 and 100 milliliters.

A myth, a reality

The tagline sets the tone: the ideal man is a myth, his fragrance a reality. Guerlain says it decoded men’s aspirations to draw a concentrate of the ideal from them, and gives him three qualities, intelligence, beauty and strength, each entrusted to an accord.

Journal du Luxe compares this tongue-in-cheek approach to that of Chanel’s Égoïste. Persolaise sees in it the tension of a house obliged to line up commercial hits without losing its standing: a mainstream fragrance that nonetheless does not surrender entirely to the logic of department stores.

The almond of Jicky

The common thread is almond, which the house describes as running throughout, from top to base, and presents as its first masculine almond. It sees it as a nod to Jicky, created by Aimé Guerlain in 1889; Persolaise recalls Wasser’s admiration for his predecessor’s bitter almond.

A line that grew

The house has since expanded the line: alongside the eau de toilette, it now sells an eau de parfum, L’Intense and Extrême. The original eau de toilette now comes in 50, 100 and 150 milliliters, still under Thierry Wasser’s signature.

What the house says today

Guerlain ranks it among its masculine icons and still presents it as a masculine almond, mysterious, seductive and captivating, with an intensity it calls medium. The 2014 tagline still accompanies the fragrance’s page on the house’s website.