Yves Saint Laurent
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
Blackcurrant explodes with an almost aggressive sweetness, its jammy character cutting through the bergamot like cordial through sparkling water. There's a brief flash of something verdant—the green notes momentarily suggesting crushed leaves—before the fruit steamrollers everything into sticky, purple submission.
Jasmine arrives with its trousers tucked into its socks, determined to maintain some dignity despite the saccharine surroundings. The lily of the valley adds a soapy, metallic facet that creates momentary breathing room, but vanilla and tonka are already creeping in from the wings, sweetening and softening the florals into something altogether more pliant and powdered.
What remains is essentially a vanilla-tonka cloud with the ghost of white flowers haunting its edges. The woods are polite whispers beneath a dominant sweetness that's gone full gourmand—slightly powdery, thoroughly comforting, and unmistakably dessert-adjacent. It clings to skin with a soft, fuzzy persistence that feels almost edible.
Manifesto smells like someone took the austere white florals of classic haute parfumerie and drowned them in blackcurrant syrup. The opening is a glossy, almost violent sweetness—bergamot barely has time to register before that cassis note barrels through, its sharp berry tang amplified by undefined 'green notes' that read more vegetal than fresh. This isn't a demure floral; it's a floral that knows what it wants and makes no apologies for the sticky-sweet path it takes to get there.
The jasmine and lily of the valley at its heart would be pristine and soapy if they weren't so thoroughly lacquered in sweetness. There's an indolic quality to the jasmine that fights against the sugar, creating an intriguing tension between clean and dirty, polite and provocative. The lily of the valley contributes a metallic, almost ozonic coolness, but it's swiftly absorbed into the vanilla-tonka embrace that defines this fragrance's character.
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3.7/5 (97)