Givenchy Xeryus Eau de Toilette Spray For Him, 100 ml

Product Information

As for the reformulation - eh, it's fine. It smells clean. It still has dozens of notes that your nose will have fun trying to differentiate, it interestingly straddles a fence between fougere and chypre - but it's not as intoxicating and addictive as the original. The thing that made it special was something in the base, something that sat on your skin and drew people in and was truly rich and mysterious. That's gone. Givenchy Xeryus (1986) is the men's counterpart to Givenchy Ysatis (1984) by a young Dominique Ropion, and was originally intended to be called "Keryus" until Yves Saint Laurent squawked about it sounding too similar to their then-hit Kouros (1981). Like Kouros, Xeryus is a powerhouse fougère, but unlike Kouros you won't find animalics or anything particularly confrontational about the stuff (despite the domineering art deco bottle), and that's because Givenchy played it safe. A lot of people who were around then and fell in love with Xeryus have strong and defensive opinions about it and rightly so, as anything creating a positive emotional reaction or developing good memory associations is worthy of some defense, but people who weren't really "there" or wore other things then tend see Xeryus as pleasant but redundant alongside similar 80's fougères. This makes Xeryus something of a "me too" scent of the 80's in the same way may Avons of the time were, or something that could be seen as the 80's version of the myriad designers borrowing "Invictus DNA" or "Aventus DNA" from Paco Rabanne Invictus (2013) or Creed Aventus (2010) respectively. Like all things with quality components but derivative design, that can sometimes make Xeryus feel a bit forgettable, albeit unintentionally. It's also worth mentioning that the flanker Xeryus Rouge (1995) would ultimately overshadow this in regards to hype within the fragrance community, and it would see reformulation then placement in a Les Parfums Mythiques bottle.

To say the aromatic fougère was supplanted by the aquatic fougère doesn’t sound like much, but the the newer, more tailored aromatic fougères had just started to surpass the dominance of the 70s big boys like Paco Rabanne Pour Homme and Azzaro Pour Homme. It was the greatest height of the fougère since the release of Fougère Royale in 1882. Musky fougères (YSL Kouros, Paco Rabanne Ténéré, Dior Jules) floral fougères (Caron’s Troisième Homme, Xeryus) spiced fougères (YSL Jazz, Jacomo Anthracite, Laroche Drakkar Noir) were taking the genre in exciting new directions. The fougère is structurally tied to both the oriental (tonka, balsam) and the chypre (oakmoss and coumarin tethering more effusive floral and spiced notes). It is an inherently rich genre and many perfumers were using the fougère structure to find new ideas. It’s worth considering that Michael Edward’s, the most authoritative figure in the nomenclature of perfumery, placed the fougère at the center of the wheel he created as a visual analogy for categorizing perfumes. It is the ur-perfume. The opening of Xeryus is very familiar to wearers of everything from Guy Laroche Drakkar Noir (1982) through to scents like Gucci Nobile (1988), and in fact sits somewhere between those two extremes of soapiness and aromatics. Scents like Alain Delon Plus/AD Plus by Alain Delon (1987) also spring to mind, and even the massive bergamot and lemon verbena wash of Houbigant Duc de Vervins (1985) or the discount entry Lomani pour Homme (1987), with Xeryus sitting in the crux between all that. lavender, lemon, artemisia, bergamot, and a half dozen other citrus and floral notes are all listed, but you won't get half of them. The heart is also the typical clean aromatic fougère treatment, full of juniper berry, geranium, carnation, jasmine hedione, cyclamen, cinnamon, and tarragon among others. Again, a dozen things are listed, and you'll smell maybe three of them. The base is where things pull closer to something like Nobile or AD Plus and away from Drakkar or Duc de Vervins, with balsam fir, amber, vetiver, cedar, olibanum, plus tonka and oakmoss playing a particularly dominant role in the finish. The soapy citrus dimetol combination and the clean hedione florals remain of course, but that piney mossy aromatic finish will be the thing that finally sets Xeryus just a bit apart from its peers. Is it enough? Probably not, but you'll like it if you enjoy the style. Wear time is 10 hours, with good projection and sillage, plus soapy clean aromatics like this can be worn whenever or wherever; a true 80's versatile generalist.The specifics of how the men’s market changed in the 1980s differ in some respects from the changes in the feminine market, but the parallels and simultaneity of the changes make the similarities more important than the differences. Davidoff Cool Water was the masculine counterpart to Angel.