Y Eau de Parfum Intense
Yves Saint Laurent (2023)

In over 40 years of collecting perfumes, this is the worst fragrance I have ever smelled. Harsh, chemical/foul-smelling drugstore abomination. Like those $1.50 bodysprays that schoolboys douse themselves in to cover up bacteria and supposedly impress the girls.
In the past YSL has produced some of my favourite perfumes, including M7/ Kouros/ Rive Gauche pour Homme/ NU / Manifesto/ YSL Pour Homme.
What an earth has gone wrong ??? This stuff is pure SHITE, downright offensive and STINKS !!!

A bog-standard "bleue" aquatic with the addition of a slight milk/butter richness and a weird artificial herbal note. I suppose it's supposed to be the ginger, but it could just as easily be turmeric or nutmeg. For something called an Eau de Parfum Intense, it doesn't last very long or have a very strong base.

Intentionally unremarkable and clearly designed to be sold cheap at the discounters.

Y Eau de Parfum Intense by Yves Saint Laurent (2023) really proves that L'Oréal has absolutely zero respect for the legacy of the brands it completely owns. No doubt, the only reason Ralph Lauren fragrances still come out halfway decent through them is they bought up a company that had a preexisting agreement in perpetuity that they couldn't break (Cosmair), and in the case of Giorgio Armani, L'Oréal's Luxury Products division just holds a license to produce the products, rather than owning owning an entire spun-off brand of cosmetics and its holdings like they do with Yves Saint Laurent. After literally trashing 90% of the brand's coveted fragrances made before 2010, they went about sticking the remaining lines out on the street corner like a pimp who is owned money, making endless inane flankers of the Opium by Yves Saint Laurent (1977) range, and the L'Homme by Yves Saint Laurent (2006) range, respectively. The Y Eau de Toilette by Yves Saint Laurent (2017) range was to be their great new masculine pillar, and originally thought as an ostensible men's version of Y by Yves Saint Laurent (1964), they debut perfume by the house; but nope, they discontinued that too! Nothing is sacred, all is disposable.

So here we have yet another "intense" flanker-of-flanker situation, like the Europe-only Y Live Eau de Toilette Intense (2019), appending the Y Eau de Parfum by Yves Saint Laurent (2018) release that was in my eyes, the "intense" version of the original pillar. Hell, they even completely tweaked and re-launched that too in 2022 to be more like the EdP because that one ended up outselling it. All in all, I'm just tired of these redundant barely-different flankers that all seem to have a higher price tag as their only reason to exist. The EdP was the perfect balance between the "blue fragrance" shower gel thing most designer mens launches were doing, and something a bit more unto itself, with a heavy mineralic salty ambergris vibe borrowed from Paco Rabanne Invictus (2013) minus all the bubblegum. That "sweet spot" could not and has thus not been topped, even through parfums and "Eau Fraîche" further-aquatic takes, now up to seven "unique" entries in the line, all just more blue than you, or each other. Well frankly, I'm blue in the face at having to inhale all this stuff, with the only real point of difference with this "intense" eau de parfum being a bigger slug of cedarwood and some pink pepper, biting into territory already staked out by Burberry Hero (2021) and K by DOlce & Gabbana (2019).

This isn't more intense or longer lasting, because the original Y Eau de Parfum was already an atomic bomb; and I swear if any jock-for-brains meathead in a Men's Warehouse business suit and YouTube channel pops up with Penzoil hair cocaine circles under his eyes to give me his Dollar Store Lothario crap about how Y EdP has bad performance now due to reformulation, I might just go nuclear myself. Seriously, this is just Y EdP with all of Dominique Ropion's previous work gutted out and replaced with two-bit plagiarism of flavor-of-the-week base materials nicked from more-recent releases. I wouldn't even be surprised if this was mostly an AI exercise despite his name being attached to it, and the fact they want $150 for this just makes me feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Clearly, I am not living in the same universe as the people for whom this product was intended, but I'd at least think those people could smell around the counter where they are trying fragrances a bit more, so they can at least walk away with some that least feels like it was created with purpose, rather than as a reaction to something else or as manifestation of a shareholder's nocturnal emissions. Holy cow Batman, this stuff is bad! Thumbs down

This fragrance is the embodiment of the laziness poisoning modern perfumery. YSL, the same house behind Live Jazz, L'Homme, and La Nuit de L'Homme pushed out this Walmart Great Value body wash tier fragrance. On clothes, this smells like a wood table sprayed with bergamot scented wood cleaner and wiped down. It just reeks of patchouli and dirty moss on skin, but thankfully the stench is short lived.