Le Mâle
Jean Paul Gaultier (1995)

Repulsive. Smells like Ben-gay or some locker room analgesic balm. I was so proud when I bought this at Nordstroms when it first came out, a few spritzes later and friends and family asked if I had hurt my back again. Returned it next day.

I consider this one of three quintessential 'clubbing' fragrances, along with Paco Rabane's 1 Million, and (my personal preference) Versace Eros.

Sugary sweet, cinnamon and cumin add a spiciness while vanilla, tonka and amber ensure a rich, cozy drydown. I find nothing off-putting about this fragrance as other commenters have, but I also don't find it terribly exceptional or unique. I prefer it to the cloying sweetness of 1 Million, but I think Eros is better-blended overall.

Good for cooler weather, and/or a night on the town. Sexy and youthful.

Lots of problems with this one. Mainstream, well once was I guess. Dudes who wear it, or at least the ones that I’ve experienced it on have no clue about a proper application. The perfume is way too strong for its own good.

There’s a very pleasant and quite interesting blend of notes in the fore front for the entire duration that consists of lavander, cinnamon, orange blossom, cumin and musk but, the serious problem is in the sillage department and in the background. Wearing it is actually very nice if you wear teeny, tiny, minuscule bits. As in one dinky spritz, or a couple of dabs, like 4 drops.

When applied heavily though as in atomized numerous times and smelled from an outside nose on someone else, there’s this seriously nauseating funk, this deep funk like greasy body odor, hangover breath, almost an odor of tooth rot, halitosis and this unexplainable bad hygiene smell that hits you right in the gut, hard. Kind of like if you went out, partied real good and had raunchy, sweaty sex all night after working all day, didn’t sleep or shower and went straight to work still fucked up from the night before, in the same clothes, after slathering on some Lé Male.

It’s a bizarre perfume. There’s something very alluring in its overall accord that’s being violated by dirty sex, but not erotic dirty sex, more like filthy haven’t bathed in a week dirty sex, but with some perfume sprayed on top to freshen it up a bit.

After all these years, I can say with full confidence that I just don't like Le Mâle. It feels good to finally get that off my chest...

I think almost everyone knows what this smells like by now, but if you don't, it's basically a lavendor/tonka fougere, sweetened with vanilla, cinnamon, and coumarin, kind of soapy and powdery, but kept from turning into a gourmand by a mix of exhaust-fume terpines, bleach, plasticky diaper musk, and smegma.

It actually kind of reminds me of Shalimar, but if Shalimar were reimagined by a punky gay weirdo who thought it would be funny to get unsuspecting people to wear a classic musk perfume that uses bleachy dried up sperm instead of musk. As such, I get the joke, and I acknowledge the artistry, and the wink-and-nod to history, and the iconoclasm. But I still think this smells nasty.

Quite sweet and powdery to my nose. A defining metrosexual fragrance. I had Cuba Gold before I got to sample this classic from 1995, but the dry down is very similar. The opening of Le Male is better and so is the performance, but otherwise, you get the same powdery sweet lavender plus vanilla/amber combo that's been working its magic for decades now.

The current formulation has decent projection without being too loud and lasts 7-8 hours.

Started as a teenager and have been wearing it ever since. Le Male has a strong cinnamon vanilla and lavender note, creating a scent to make women weak at the knees. My signature!