Paco Rabanne
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The initial blast crackles with citric sharpness—lemon and lavender combining into something nearly medicinal—before that synthetic ozone immediately descends like a cool film across the skin. It's bracing, almost austere, deliberately uninviting in its chemical clarity.
Nagarmotha emerges as a slightly dusty, rooty presence, attempting to anchor the increasingly abstract synthetic accord. The sweetness whispers underneath, never quite flowering into gourmand warmth, instead remaining trapped beneath layers of ozonic detachment and woody abstraction.
Patchouli and woody notes settle into a muted, somewhat powdery finish that feels unexpectedly subdued given the composition's early promise. The fragrance becomes increasingly diffuse and quiet, fading into a faint, earthy whisper.
Black XS L'Excès for Him arrives as a peculiar creature—simultaneously restrained and indulgent, caught between the austere and the decadent. Pellegrin's construction pivots on an unexpected tension: the crisp, almost pharmaceutical brightness of lavender and lemon in the opening gives way to an ozone accord that feels distinctly synthetic, not the ozonic freshness of Heeley Sel Marin, but something more clinical, more architectural. This synthetic backbone becomes the fragrance's defining feature, lending it an almost metallic coolness that prevents the composition from ever becoming truly cosy.
What follows is a peculiar dance between restraint and indulgence. Nagarmotha—that earthy, slightly camphoraceous root—sits uneasily beside this manufactured air, creating an olfactory uncanny valley. The sweetness and fruitiness suggested by the accords feel muted, as though they're being filtered through a veil of chemical haze. There's gourmand potential here, but it never fully materialises into anything indulgent or warm; instead, it hovers as an abstraction.
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3.2/5 (125)