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what's a guy to do?
I’ve often been struck by the fact that reformulation of classic feminines, even when done cleverly and respecfully, as was the case for Lauder’s Legacy series, amounts to an alarming weight loss. Often no brains and no respect were involved, and the perfumes came back from their visit to regulatory and accounting looking gaunt and strange. In common parlance, they’ve had work done. Some are so emaciated as to be unrecognizable. But almost in every case, the shift makes them more masculine, a translation in perfume space of the anatomical fact that smooth and soft are feminine attributes.
I have many of the classics on my shelf but had to go to the local perfume floor to make sure no further surgery had taken place. It had, but no matter. Good news nevertheless: young men really do not need to wear a loud aromatic fougère that makes them smell like 11-year-olds clutching skateboards. They can instead confidently set on their bathroom shelf a bottle of a perfume the age of their mom without raising suspicion of a second job as a gigolo. My suggestions are Jardins de Bagatelle and Nahema (Guerlain), Knowing and Youth-Dew (Lauder), Cristalle (Chanel) and Yvresse (YSL).
