Jules (1980)
by Christian Dior

One of Dior's great men's scents. Relatively unknown for a while, it dropped below the radar until Dior began to offer it more widely for sale again in the U. S. a couple of years ago. This is a woody, leather (and tobacco?) scent with some unusual green notes in the top. Florals in the heart are kept in low profile by the more assertive notes, but are definitely there and eventually revealed for what they are. The base is woody, mossy, leather, a touch of oriental, and the impression of tobacco. I suspect this is a scent made to please a man. Don't think it would appeal much to many women, though they might grudgingly tolerate on a man they really liked...

I bought a sample of Dior's Jules to try after one of the leading perfume blogs termed it a "holy grail", "must-smell", etc.. fragrance. I am also a huge fan of older Dior perfumes such as Diorling, Diorama, etc.. so I was pretty confident I would like Jules. Well, let just say that I am extremely underwhelmed and a bit disappointed. To be completely honest, Jules smelled like an elderly man to me and honestly, it had a "cheap-smelling" aspect to it. If I had smelled this blind and someone had told me it came from the sale bin at Marshall's I would have believed them. There are so many great men fragrances available today (Guerlain Vetiver, Creed Silver Mountain Water, FM Bigarade Concentree, Cristiano Fissore Cashmere for Men- just to name a few) that I could never imagine wanting any man to wear Jules. In fact, it turns me off in a major way.

From what I've been able to glean on the internet, here are Jules' notes: galbanum, black pepper, cedarwood, sandalwood, and Russian leather.

Jules is one of the few resolutely masculine fragrances of any real quality. A previous reviewer described it as “raunchy”, and it definitely is. But this is a good thing. What do human beings smell like? Nice and clean? No. Should perfume smell that way? I hope it's not heading that way. Mama's boys…

Jules is a little dark and raunchy, but it’s also some of the most sublime and uplifting nose-candy imaginable. It’s a leather chypre gone lively. Full of sexy cool-warm notes, it falls firmly in the aromatic fougère category. It manages to disguise some minor structural poverty behind an abundance of mystery, melancholy, and some of the most distinguished top notes in all of perfumery. It’s amazing stuff, full of galbanum, sage, black caraway, black pepper, Russian leather, castoreum, and other goods. It’s deep and woody, full of good greens, lively herbs and spices (the less affable ones), and the appropriate florals to amplify and keep it even darker. Almost all great men’s fragrances contain a solid floral component in their heart notes, and Jules does the same. But the raunch in Jules doesn’t come from indolic florals. It comes more from an accord involving sage, cedar, black caraway, castoreum, and who knows what else, that creates something faintly urinous, sweaty, and flesh-like. And like any good fougère should do, it’s reminiscent of all the good smells on the forest floor.

But that’s too much detail. What it actually does is paint bold dark tones, using accents of rising green to highlight its umbra theme. And more than anything else, it just smells great…and a bit raunchy.

It is a pleasure to finally add my comments to this one-of-a-kind website. Hello world from Turkey. After selling a bunch of Jules we have in stock to clients in England, Spain, and the US, I recollect some thoughts about this rare fragrance. A clear scent of tobacco or leather gives a full exposure of maturity. Not recommended for a young clientele, but perfect scent for the rest. Very different from today's men cologne. Most men cologne (except Creed, etc.) are very fresh, not much perfume. Jules is like wine, the more it is preserved, the better it smells. BTW - We have Jules in stock, I hope it is OK to give our website name. www.ebesten.net

Jules smells like generic Man Juice. Not like today's bland, aquatic colognes, but like an old school harsh, bitter, heavy, spicy, leathery concoction. I could appreciate the woody dryness of it if it wasn't for a certain cool or metallic note that feels very generic men's cologney and annoyingly aggressive - almost like mosquito repellant. Yeah, Jules has a lot in common with insect repellant, only a little nicer and deeper and more smoky/leathery

This is one of the fragrances which is carved in my mind. I guess it was 1982 and I became very interested in fragrances because I have discovered that girls were more interested in nice smelling guys. I can remember that there were girls inlove with me just because of the scent of my Arrid deodorant. Anyhow, my father had bought Jules at that time; one for him and one for me. One of the things that I can remember is that he used to shave every morning and most of the times he was before me or was already left the house. Most of the times when I was awake I could smell the scent of this fragrance and it always made me happy. Even now time to time when I wake up I can still smell this fragrance, but it is pity that they don't produce it anymore. But what I have just read here is that they still should sell it in France. I'll give it a try. It is not far away from The Netherlands.