Reviews of Kouros (1981)
by Yves Saint Laurent

Sweat? I think not, but urinal cake, bathroom cleaner, I think so. I disagree with Turin’s assessment that Kouros is the smell of a gentleman wearing a pre-WWI dandified British concoction. This is one of those some love it, some hate it fragrances. I hate it. Even the pointless flankers like Body Kouros and Kouros Sport are better.

i really cant stand this fragrance .... it represents all what i hate in smells ... i say this with confidence ... i really hate this fragrance ...

it's an extraordinary scent; powerful, durable and quite unmistakable. i find it compellingly repellant and could never wear it. makes me think of brightly lit marble toilets in a five star hotel.

This smells like the kind of soap I would expect THING to hand to me in The Addams Family bathroom. Or find in a Greek prison.

However, according to the positive reviews it would appear that if I simply don't shower for a few weeks, spritz Kourus on very sparingly, and wait 5 hours before I leave the house, then the drydown combined with my own body odor will be da bomb.

I'll take your word for it.

This was a blind buy for me. I honestly thought that if a fragrance was sooo highly rated, that it must be great. So I bought a small bottle of it and I was quite surprised. This fragrance was created for the European consumer in mind. US consumers hate fragrances that create controversy and aren't quite pleasant or clean. Kouros does indeed smell like urinal cakes by US standards and nothing more. I gave this fragrance an honest try....tried to take the higher route in the sake of art and fragrance, but I can't get past the dirty scents that this fragrance creates. I might not be sophisticated enough to appreciate this fragrance, but perception is everything....and the perception I've received from this fragrance is that I smell like an airline bathroom or like urinal cakes. My wife even makes fun of me if I try to wear this fragrance by calling it the urinal cake fragrance.

The US market is just note "sophisticated" enough for this one. Maybe if I was a little more seasoned in the field of fragrances I could appreciate it, but it certainly isn't for me.

Sorry....Thumbs down.

Wow this stuff is nasty - smells like a bunch of bathroom cleaners. Love or hate frag and I bet 90% of the population hate it, can be offensive to many.

I can officially say now that Kouros is borderline chemical warfare. I heard so many boasting reviews on here that I bought a bottle and have worn it at least 10 times now. The last time will be my last. It was one of those experiences that leaves such a mark you'll never go back to relive it ever again. I ended up having to lather in strong soap 4 times before getting it off me and had to wash my bedding in bleach. All from only TWO sprays. To add to that, my little brother gagged and felt sick for the rest of the night because he couldn't get the smell out of his head.

I could lightly spray Kouros on my lower back and put on multiple layers and still feel like I've been pissed on by someone that's eaten garlic, fish, curry, and booze. This is the epitome is sewage.

Hands down, without a doubt, this is the most offensive scent I have ever smelt. Never have I once received a positive comment while wearing this vile liquid.

I can't see why anyone would think of this as true sex appeal. It's flat out nasty and repulsive. A definite chick repellent.

To all the people on here who rave about this bottled piss, either your natural scent already smells of roses, or your just straight up nose deaf and should find another hobby.

Urinal cakes were mentioned constantly...I see why. Atrocious! Women might like it, haven't met such yet. Bottled pee someone said. He was right. I will not judge people who like this, though. De gustibus non est disputandum.

Most disgusting scent I have ever smelled. urinal cake YUK!

Heard good things about this cologne. Tried a spray at the airport just before the final call. Turns out I'm stuck on the plane smelling like I've been living in the bathroom or something

quite simply, the worst scent in the world. like bottled cat pee. ew.

If Satan wore cologne, this would be it. I recently tried this on several times, but couldn't stomach it. It's ridiculously strong and long lasting, and the scent is unique, but in a bad way. I smelled this a lot growing up in the 80's, but I didn't know what it was. (Ben Gay?, hair gel?, hair spray? mixed with b.o.) Whatever it was, I didn't like it. And yes, the drydown does smell like sweaty arm pits where the deodorant has worn off.
Who would want to smell like that on purpose? Could it be.....Satan?!

I remember this mainly from my teenage years and every time I smelled it my conclusion was the same. Just one word - HORRIBLE.

Exalted bathroom spray! An ostentatious guest that will not shut up. Super cloying. I once read that a famous Spanish classical music director wore too much of this stuff to the annoyance of the orchestra members.

this is understandable for me! After reading so many guys receiving compliments on this i had to try it! i already have body kouros which i quite like!
i tried it immediately on my wrist and was prepared to smell something like body kouros just brighter maybe. LOOL u can imagine how i reacted. I almost fell backwards! So strong, cheap and ugly at the same time!! How can u possibly like this and girls even more!?!?! But i was in town so i gave it many minutes alwys sniffing on my wrist excepting t to change. But nothing happened. Even my girlfriend said it was totally nauseating! She was with me that day. on the other wrist i sprayed M7 which i also didnt like. after 30 minutes of shopping i thought: wow sth smells really nice! It wasn Kouros :/
Then we both came to the conclusion it MUST be the after shave bottle of kouros.It smelled like the cheapest after shave i used from my dad in those days. I went back but was assured it really was the frag bottle....so its not working for me!
i dont get it how can someone

over 40's scent. very strong and too masculine. i could only imagine bodybuilders and wrestlers wearing this kinda scent. definately different and strange. probably the weirdest scent most guys under 30 have ever encountered.

Yuck....heavy and synthetic smelling.An ex boss used to wear it at work...you used to think he was always around,....even if he was nowhere near...(maybe it was deliberate!!!) I tried the "fraiche" version...and it smells just as bad....but Body Kouros isn't too bad.

I have to add my 2 cents just to be part of the crowd. I wore this in the 80s as a teen and that was just because people wore it then. I really don't get woodsy. I don't get anything but the same scent....and I tried it for kicks the other day, 20 years later...powdery, old, urine type smell. I'm not here to be mean. I'm not copying and pasting some reviews but it is there. It is a linear, powdery mess that reminds me of a school dance. I can't believe out of all 80s scents out there to love, many people chose this stuff. When I change my daughters diaper and then apply talc, this is what I get.

It's not all bad... but there is something about it that makes me vomit. If you stick your nose in an urinal, you'll smell Kouros. Dreadful! I can't imagine how this is YSL's best selling fragrance...

Kouros....nice name, nice bottle, awesome brand. This fragance have excellent longevity and projection.....Its clean, but unclean. Smells very synthetic.....awful product.....Apologies Yves Saint Laurent, but Im honest. Nothing more to say....Rive Gauche is the option if you want a very nice fragance.

I don't know what note is it in the opening but I hated it from the start, washed it off immediately, I really am surprised at its popularity, I love Body Kouros BTW, as it is a completely different type of perfume.

I envision a futuristic world, like the bubble-domed one in Logan's Run, where Kouros is sold in a novelty store, situated between the rubber chicken and the fake vomit. Or perhaps it will be in a museum, and visitors will be able to actually get a whiff of it, if they dare! By that time, public restrooms will smell much better than they do now (in most nations).

Kouros is a powerful, long-lasting, sickly chemical scent that features no subtlety and no development (on my skin, at least). Keep in mind that I'm not some twenty-something aquatic guy. I like Vermeil, actually, which I'd recommend to anyone who likes this kind of frag over Kouros (it's got powerful animalic notes and also that "fake clean" quality). Or Ungaro II, if you can find it at a reasonable price. I also like Carlo Corinto once in a while, which features strong leather and dark amber notes.

I recently tried Brut (before trying Kouros) and that is similar, in that you get a strong, long-lasting sickly chemical scent that has no subtlety and doesn't develop. It's amazing that these two fragrances are on the opposite ends of the spectrum, in terms of price and prestige. I can only image that if you sweat profusely, somehow Kouros will develop into something that is remotely tolerable. I'd also warn you that this kind of fragrance can cause your sense of smell to change, as Sung Homme did to me. Now I have such sensitivity that I usually can only stand one spray of an EDT, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since it saves me a lot of money, though I don't appreciate the stronger fragrances the way I used to (when I really liked Vermeil and had to wear it once a week).

This isn't my cup of tea. I sprayed some on the back my hand in a department store today. I cannot handle this scent. My guess is that the castoreum oil, taken from the musk glands of beaver and used to set traps by North American Mountain men in the days before westward expansion, could not have been far different from this. I have scrubbed the back of my hand three times with hot water and that strong handwashing liquid commonly found in restrooms. The scent must have penetrated my skin because it will not go away. I asked the ladies in the office what they thought about it and they were all equally repulsed. This after three scrubbings, mind you. So there's a positive. This stuff has BIG TIME staying power! My recommendation is that you test this and allow that special someone in your life to sample it too before buying. Oh yes, spray on a swatch or something and not your skin. From my experience, it will not disappear when you need it to do so. I am headed home now to apply vinegar or ammonia cleaner or whatever else I can find to the back of my hand before taking a hot shower. Different strokes......I guess.

Using Kouros has brought me mixed reactions ranging from:

"Gosh I love your perf" to
"Dont use that incense around me."
Therefore it's a hate it or love it fragrance.

A friend of mine once opined that he felt that kouros would only attract men (gays) to u and adviced me ne'er to wear it again...

Saying that kouros is a strong fragrance is stating the obvious. Hence it's use must be highly tempered.

For me, i think its extremely macho and u need to have a strong stomach to tolerate the stuff.

I dont think i'll be spending my hard-earned Naira on it anymore, as there's no point using something u cant stand just to please other who might.

This is not for everyone. I simply do not at all like this scent. It stinks to me and lasts forever. Others love it, but it's not at all refined. It smells like nothing else I've ever smelled. It is VERY sweet and cloying, gives me headaches whenever I wear (wore) it. It smells so unique that I am having problems describing it. I would imagine it's meant for sex or intimacy. It smells like "love lotion" ala very very sweet, like spicy berries, but then has a hint of spice in it. I do not like this scent at all, but to each his/her own. I can only review this scent based on my opinions.

I was hesitant to try Kouros considering the strong expressions of a considerable minority. But curiousity had to be satisfied and now I am in full fellowship with the anti-Kouros league. Urinal cake opening settles into semen-like odor mingled with cloves. I don't want to smell this on me or anyone else!

Ergh *shudders*.

It has this nice herbaceous-woodiness to it, but behind all that lies a sweaty old greek man, and something that smells like semen. There, I said it.

I tested it on a card strip and my skin, and my gf said:
"it smells like something very nice, but spoiled with animal piss and...I dunno, I guess something that smells like semen. I hate it, wash it off, and put some of your lagerfeld on..."

That ws exactly what I was thinking from first spray.

It can be better. As it is, it smelles like a male Greek porn-star after a 6 hr shoot on a hot, humid day!

Gross!

It is hard to believe this scent is found to be enjoyable. The opening is the smell of a used urinal cake in a large stadium with too few men's rooms after the halftime intermission. It later improves sligthly to something that only makes you feel unwashed.
Like most men I would wear a couple of dead rodents tied around my neck if I thought the smell would attract members of the fairer sex. Even if Korous could do that I don't think I could stand my own aroma regardless of how effective it was at getting the girls

Just awful scent... Flat, boring and troublesome. It really makes me feel sick. Seems to be a sustaining single note played at the early electronic piano.

I can only confirm what many other reviewers have said abot this scent, yet without being influenced by them. It's just that from the very start i felt the same restroom quality, the same filthy, rancid, unclean note. And by dirty i don't mean raunchy or sexualy provocative, i just mean unhygienic. As a common drydown with Boss Number One, Marbert Man and Givenchy Gentleman, but even if these ones have the same carnal, almost ill-smelling leathery note, this one smells far filthier, far more pungent. The final note is, unlike in many good leathery scents, besides fleshy in a sweaty sense, almost gasoline- smelling like Farenheit( tough far better than Kouros) and even a remote touch of dark 80's macho scents- tough much more scents from the decade were much more subtle, less dated , far more elegant. Cluttered, pretentious and ill-smelling. Besides, bewildering mixture unbalanced from the very first notes: the opening is sweet in androgynous way, smelling far more feminine trough an appearantly omnipresent spicy nausea, it unexpectedly shifts into a very wannabe- macho smell, reminding rather of a gathering of unwashed hippies( with no disrespect towards this community intended) or a very dated, hulking, coarse and definately " not-too-clean" old brute, dressed up in musty clothes and decaying, dusty leather. Transition from extreme softie to ( maybe already dead and decomposing) macho at maximum speed...
The name is also mismatched- it has nothing Greek, antique ( except maybe the musty notes) or timeless and the reference to Greek Antiquity is not to be taken seriously.

This is some kind of joke, right? Why on earth would anyone want to smell like an overpopulated men's restroom? Dead ringer for urinal cakes. I think the notes are fabricated, as none of them stand out, they do not waver back and forth as natural ingredients do, nor do they ever depart from their lockstep imitation of mustiness and deodorant. I can see the tiles gleaming in the fluorescent light. The bus is coming. Gotta run. Bye.

This one of only two fragrances that I had to wash off shortly after trying it on(Le Male being the other). This smells exactly like a market in Chinatown with rotting friuts and vegetables out on the street, strange formenting herbs and spices on the shelves, incence burning at the altar behind the cash register and an underlying smell of drains and sewers. In my opinion, only to be worn if you like the smell of decay and drains.

Ironically, hours afterwards I smelled my hand where I had washed off (or attempted to; it never really came off) the Kouros and there was a lovely, lingering drydown that was delicious. Just couldn't live with the first several hours of this! Creed's Orange Spice has similar topnotes without the nasty notes that follow.

This is absolutely vile, it smells like unclean toilets. I really cannot see anything nice about it. I sprayed it on my arm out of curiosity and it wont go away, help!!

This scent definately is manly but so much so that it reminds me of an old mans house. This one lingered on my skin and made me nauseous whenever i smelt my wrist in the hope that the drydown might give it some hope... but it didn't. The scent after repeated smell tests over the hour I beared it on my skin failed to win me over and remains in the back of my wardrobe with all the other reject scents that failed to make the grade.

Makes me physically ill. I smell the animal. Ewwww and not in a sexy way. More like a dirty gross rodent. A giant turn off.

Reminds me of a 'long haired wet dog',Disgusting physical sick effect & it hangs about for bloody ages.

Well, if anything this scent follows in the tradition of standard classic masculine scents of the Old Spice/English Leather kind of tradition. It's very dry smelling. I find absolutely nothing special to it at all. I've heard people mentioned a "piss" kind of note to it, and I can kind of make out a strange sour tinge to the fragrance.
Overall my mind is boggled as to how this can be such a popular scent amongst people on here. To my nose this stuff seems best suited for only someone with several kids only a few years from retirement.
Pretty bad stuff in my opinion.

It is clearly evident from the reviews that opinions on this scent are strongly divided between those who love it, and those who loathe it -- and liken it to feces, body odor, urine, semen, etc.

My point is, regardless whether or not *you* personally like it, why on earth would you risk wearing a scent that some people could (judging by the negative opinions on it) very likely mistake for bad hygeine or feces?

Sure, you may stumble upon a woman who absolutely adores it... but it is guaranteed that you will also cross paths with several who thinks youve soiled yourself or dont bathe. Thats not exactly the image I want to portray. There are many other scents that are attractive to women and wont be mistaken for anything so horrible - by anyone.

I am anxiously awaiting the day that my nose matures and makes me eat my words...until then....whew, no way.

You gotta be strong to wear this, that is true, you also have be ready to get some seriously bad comments from people. Its horrible in my opinion. I don't understand what people like about it.

I had a whiff of this scent and I nearly started coughing. This cologne stinks!

If perfume can be said to have personality, then this Kouros guy is a extremely onoxious arragorant character. I imagine very few people can put up with it, be they be either the wearer themselves or a second hand smeller. The heart note of this perfume, that urine-acidic-sweaty smell, is just way too offensively persistent to the noses. Please do the ones you love a favor by skipping this one.

The filthiest fragrance I've ever smelt. Yuck. Very repulsive. Reminds me of a dirty restroom in the back of a country filling station. Or, better yet, think of the movie 'Trainspotting,' where the Worst Toilet In Scotland is shown.

Uh-uh. No.

Despite how much this scent disgusts me, I still wore it for a whole day thinking that my view of it would change. I'm either a very open-minded person or I'm just very masochistic. I got sick of it after the first two hours but I still endured. I agree that it smells like one of those pink urinal cakes you see in public restrooms. I don't think it smells like piss or body odor, but I also don't think it smells like honey as some claim. I get a very powdery floral note mixed with a strong chemical note similar to bleach. It lasted all day so I'll give it credit for longevity. Other than that, I can't find anything else good to say about it. Unless someone offered to pay me, I doubt I'll ever wear this again.

Ughhh. This stuff brings new meaning to the words "toilet water". It smells like a dirty, poorly disinfected public bathroom. Why, oh why did Mr. Yves Saint Laurent, a man of impeccable taste, greenlight this fragrance? Better yet, why, oh why is it still YSL's best-selling men's fragrance today?

My mother used to sell fragrance at a department store (which at the time of this incident didn't carry YSL.) A new employee came to work and she asked him to please go home and take a shower. He was repremanded for "poor hygeine". Later that day, in a discussion with him, she found out that he didn't have poor hygeine at all - he was wearing Kouros.
This one smells really, really terrible. And obviously has a hint of body odor.

I actually sell men's fragrance, and having said that, I have never been so repulsed by a fragrance in my life. It smells like (excuse the comparison) fresh dog urine. The Kouros sport is mile's better, and I honestly do not understand how this one still smells. After spraying a card the scent lingers perniciously for hours afterword. This one is to be avoided.

ICK!
There's got to be more to life than this foul scent...

Has everyone lost their mind? Kouros is one of the worst fragrances I have ever smelled in my entire life. I am a huge fan of YSL, and I own most of their fragrances. I really wanted to like this one so I could own every YSL fragrance, but this scent is VILE. I can't stop thinking about atrocious this fragrance really is; Its sickningly medicinal and synthetn. I had problems picking out the notes of this fragrance, because my olfactory senses were hit with a big block of stench. I actually had to wash this fragrance off with Alcohol. I really wanted to like this one, but its just beyond awful.