Play Intense

Givenchy launched Play and Play Intense in September 2008, two men’s eaux de toilette built on the same idea: a bottle shaped like a music player and a name that takes up the play symbol, a universal code of listening and images.

Two fragrances, one amyris wood

Both compositions are the work of Lucas Sieuzac and Émilie Coppermann, perfumers at Symrise, with Françoise Donche, creative director for fragrance at Parfums Givenchy. Alain Lorenzo, then head of Parfums Givenchy, recounts asking for one more polarizing scent and one more accessible, built around Caribbean amyris wood.

This soft wood, which the house likens to sandalwood and cedar, is their shared signature, along with bergamot, coffee flower, vetiver, and patchouli. Play Intense is the fuller-bodied version, to which tonka bean and labdanum are added.

The face of Justin Timberlake

To embody Play, the house explains that it looked for a man recognized all over the world, new to perfumery, and able to carry its modern elegance: that would be Justin Timberlake. The singer, for his part, felt that a fragrance bearing his name would have felt like cheating, since he would not have created anything.

Kevin, of Now Smell This, notes that in Europe, where the two fragrances launched first, Play accounted for 60 percent of sales against 40 percent for Play Intense, before their arrival in the United States in the summer of 2009.