Kouros
Yves Saint Laurent (1981)

Judging on some of the comments I've read this truly is a love it/hate it fragrance. I fondly remember the first time I purchased it back in 1988. That's when I just started getting into fragrances, but what did I know at the age of 17? I remember how unusual it smelled and how long it lasted and also the fact that I was NOT too crazy about it then. Young and dumb definitely. Fast forward all of these years later I now have 3 bottles from the Parfums Corp era. This time period definitely holds it's own against anything Sir Charles could come up with. However my mission in life is to locate a first formulation bottle and pull the trigger. Costs be damned!! This is the KING. Undisputed and no current formulations allowed because it's truly a shell of its former self with the base notes almost nonexistent. No thanks I'll stick to the tried, true and Best thank you.

Someone recently mentioned they noticed I had never written a review on Kouros. By George, I have not! Well, I honestly felt there really wasn't much more value I could add to the conversation. What can I really say that hasn't been said already? It seems concensus in most fraghead circles that it's a (gay) icon, an institution, the KING. Who am I to disagree? I enjoy it a great deal, too. I have decants of older formulations, a non-silver shoulder recent bottle, and I don't want to pontificate on superior versions, inferior versions, Charles of the Ritz, real civet (eye roll), this and that. It's moot. Look below.

What I can say though is this pet project by Pierre Bourdon where he pushed the limits of where Animalis and costus root can go in a perfume has created a legend—often copied, never quite duplicated, and it has its place in the corps d'elite of perfumes. It was THE new wave in 1981 and I can only imagine how hot it was smelling this on all the writhing male bodies in clubs during the decade.  I would just rather spend my time writing about other fragrances that are owed their due. Kouros has a whole lot of love, and I am just dropping in to share my love. 

I get how people smell an antiseptic cleaning vibe from this. It smells like an industrial nightmare. My vintage bottle is well preserved, but out of over 150 bottles in my collection, this one is the worst smelling. Vintage Leather Oud is challenging, but is my favorite scent. My tola of Hindi Oud is fecal on the opening but oh, so delicious. I love challenging and animalic scents. Kouros is as unbearable as Secretions Magnafique. Truly awful. Why people like this is beyond comprehension. I've had this on for three hours today. Excuse me while I get some bleach.

I love the 80s version of Kouros, the one that smelled quite bit more dirty, a bit more complex and was more powerful. I remember it from my dad. I recently bought the modem version and it's not the Kouros I love. It somehow smells OK but it's like a shadow of its former glory.

Over the modern version I prefer Ted Lapidus pour Homme or Al Rehab Lord. I will buy some clones, maybe they are closer to the power of the original. Here I am thinking about Milltown Lloyd The Man Silver and some oil from Amazon I discovered on Basenotes and which some reviewers said it is as close to original Kouros as possible.

I got that they are required by laws to change the composition since some ingredients are forbidden. However the forbidden ingredients have replacements that smell exactly the same. So I don't get why they didn't replaced the banned ingredients with equivalents and instead diluted Kouros so much that no one who liked the original is happy with it. If they wanted something less offensive and more modern they could have kept Kouros close to the original and make a new snowflake version Kouros Light or whatever.

Original version: 10/10
Modern version: 6/10

Sure that if you try Kouros and you are a modern "male", accustomed to those sweet and cloying metrosexual scents that smells like pastry and make you look like a cream puff filled with vanilla cream and covered with cinnamon .... and well, I don't I will certainly wait for words of appreciation.
The fact is that Kouros is a masterpiece, period. A perfume, certainly, son of another era but which, today, still inspires many creations of that niche segment.
Charles de Riz version, 81-86.
He opens strongly with vaguely sour, aromatic and green hints, accompanied by strong soapy aldehydes that taste clean. The scent is constantly supported by the slightly dirty musky base, by the leather and by a vaguely sweet note but which is not sweet. The overall result is a clean dirty smell, but which is not dirty in the true sense of the word, but rather carnal and corporal. On the other hand, as Bourdon himself declared, this perfume is the son of a particular phase of his life, deaf and ambiguous, marked by carnal and faithful passions, a period in which the same perfumer was struggling between lover and wife; in the light of these anecdotes, this creation can well be understood and interpreted.
Beautiful, really beautiful and unique. Brilliant. For me, an eternal nostalgic for the past, growing up with my father who used all those men's perfumes from the 1970s and later, Kouros represents (together with other classic or classic-style masterpieces) the perfume par excellence that a male should still have. today.
For sure to try, in the original version of course. I don't know how the new one is and I'm not even in a hurry to test it since I have a good supply of the original 80's.
Definitely masculine, 100%, but I would love to smell it on a woman. Good longevity and nice projection / sillage for the firs hour, than it sits on the skin, i would say adeguate for these kind of fragrance.

Hate it or love it, but you can't dismiss its august pedigree. This is a masterpiece, plain and simple. However, this doesn't mean its meant for everyone! This is an extremely polarizing scent particularly in the current fragrance climate of gourmands and aquatics and weak crowd pleasers flooding the shelves. This is alpha male powerhouse stuff. If you haven't tried a perfume with real sandalwood or civet try a sniff of this juice in the vintage bottle if you can get a sample, you'll be blown away by the sheer intensity and high quality and the pristine blending and depth of this majestic edt. But no point in breaking the bank for a vintage either, if you could get it at a reasonable price go for it otherwise get the current formulation as many keen reviews mention that even the current version is pretty decent.
(I have a 20 ml left in a 2000's bottle pre
Ingredients-on the-box era, I got it from a online seller at the regular Retail price of the time).