Reviews of Yatagan (1976)
by Caron

I wish I could warm to this one, but my reactions to Yatagan range on a scale from "grin and bear it" to "please get it off me". The pine and castoreum meet and create an unpleasantly smoky, sweaty accord, unnervingly meaty yet rather human at the same time. I hate to resort to disgusting imagery, but Yatagan is a powerful muse, and smells of rancid, pine-smoked meat crammed up an unwashed anus.

It's unique, well-made, and oh yes, very tenacious, so I want to smell what others do, but my nose just won't let me. Sorry, Yatagan fans - enjoy, but keep a safe distance from me.

I’ve been defeated, but I am still proud of my efforts… After years of trying to wear Yatagan, hoping to some day tolerate its aggressiveness, I’ve given up… I couldn’t do it: The wormwood, artemisia, leather, and castoreum form a combination that is lethal to my nose. I sure would love to smell what other reviewers smell in this, but to me, this is is close to fragrance hell. (Edit of 02 October 2005 review.)

Ok, I cannot give a thump up if I just do not like the smell of a perfume-this is the case with Yatagan-I just don´t like it!
But I know that it is an outstanding composition and a very unique scent in this now so boring world of men´s perfume.
The only problem with Yatagan is that you can´t wear it unless you are e.g. a fat, hairy, (maybe gay) truckdriver,or just a (maybe heterosexual) men who likes to live his weird obsessions somewhere in the dark.
Yatagan can only be worn by a small group of men and I personally don´t want to meet these types of men:
Yatagan smells too wild and savage for me: testosteron, sweat and patchouly with a little bit of ass. If perversion could smell than that would be it.
I´ll pass on this one.

I read the reviews and thought it sounded interesting...unfortunately it's not that interesting..it's actually quite horrid in my opinion. The first thing that struck me was the over-the-topness...followed by a cheap synthetic smell, and something animalistic!!. then, straight after this assault.. burnt wood (which i like around bonfires but not on the skin) and a 1970's male talc smell (hope this is making sense)..which knocks you out with it's macho-ness! The fragrance is too unsubtle for me..way too much fragrance! and not in a good way either!...reminded me of Tabac.Vile!

Quite unusual, and very original. It dries down nicely to something which smells like hay, wood shavings, and celery. It is incredibly masculine. It's not sweet in the slightest, but becomes progressively softer as time goes by. Sillage is reasonable, longevity is good; 6 hours on a bad day. It's reasonably pleasant, and nice, and very safe as an office / day time scent. In fact several people who's opinion i asked said exactly that, its "nice". And that to me, is not far off from people saying it smells bad. To me, that means boring, and it is. There is nothing to this scent which would make me want to move closer to someone who i detected wearing this for a better smell. There's no spark. Safari, by ralph lauren, is another fragrance which makes me feel this way... Yawn.... Perhaps i'll try it again somewhere down the line, but right now Yatagan does nothing for me.

I have tried to like this, but it is what it is and I can't get by the extremely dry and bitter top opening. I have a job distinguishing any notes at all when first sprayed because of the harshness. Someone mentioned smelling 'celery' -- if you really like that note, Grain de Plaisir is the way to go. Yatagan is not touching my skin.

I smelled this today ,I thought it would smell different from all the reviews. It smells like a hippy,although it is better than straight patchoulli which I dislike very much,I have heard the latter to be used to cover up the stench of dead things. If you love the smell of pine and campfires than this ones for you.If you are a tad bit strange and want to smell like a pine tree on steroids, heres your winner. I wonder if I would be attracted to a beautiful woman who had not bathed in months and had been heavily doused in Yatagan, it might be lovely? Then again, It might be horrid. I will never know, however I will say that if you wear this one , be proud of it and strong in your conviction,because I can only imagine how loud it is on. It is as strong a scent, as the sword it was named after. Yatagan is Godzilla and our noses,Tokyo.

For me, four things dominate Yatagan: (1) a potent celery (or celery salt) note, (2) pine, (3) leather and (4) an animalic note (castoreum, I presume). Wearing Yatagan makes me think of rich stew of meat and vegetables, with some leather and pine needles thrown in for good measure! A powerful and unique masculine fragrance, but one I do not enjoy at all.

All I smell is celery, celery, celery. Where are the other notes? If Yatagan were a religion, I would gladly pay the price of heresy. A disturbing fragrance, concocted with a malicious intent. This brew is sour and dour and wears a big frown. Wear it when you go in for a tax audit, or have root canal work done; it will put you in an uncomfortable state of mind. This is what the jaded and gruff guy working the graveyard shift at the liquor store would wear. Take it away and bury it!

Now that's an awful scent! In fact, it's probably one of the worst I've ever tried. Too heavy, too woody, too sour. It could well be a signature fragrance for a sweaty and hairy truck driver or a boor, rough-voiced forester. Since I'm neither of those, needless to say I can't stand it.

I love real "MENS" fragrances. No girly stuff, thanks. Well Yatagan is a problem for me. Maybe it's too much of a good thing. The pine reminds me of kitchen and bathroom floor cleaner. This stuff plain disturbs me. I think it lacks elements of reserve that I also respect and prefer. I imagine if used very sparingly it could be all right, but I just can't do this. This is taking mens' fragrances too far in to the stratosphere of astringency.

A mistery to me. I tried to smell it many times; on stripes, on my arm, I put it on my friend's arm and on my father's neck. I was trying to find out where was the problem; how could I not appreciate this famous, classical "masterpiece" in men fragrances? Actually, I do; I hate it. Each time I smell it (any time I see it in shops I do it, still hoping on a divine enlightment) the same imagine comes suddendly in my eyes; a brown, dirty dog drenched with whisky. I know that this strong, leather-animal line of men fragrances is hard to wear, and maybe I am not able to imagine it on the "right" person. But considering it as it is, smelling it on a neutral white strip without imaging a hypotetical man wearing it, I cant' stand it; all of its notes are on the same tone, a stinking and boring chaos of wet leather, the nightmare of a pub-owner's dog.

What on earth is this? The smell of a sweaty chef after a hot day in the kitchen, chopping up massive quantities of celery, ladel-fulls of chicken soup with parsley and celery salt, and chunks of bloody black pudding. Very carnivorous.

Perfume? Odour of a dubious kind certainly, but I wonder how anyone could want to wear this in any situation? Some things will always remain mysteries I guess.

The weirdest "fragrance" I have yet encountered.

In one word, CHEAP. I sent the bottle back to the company. It was very cheap-smelling and smelled like the inside of particle-board kitchen cupboard in a mobile home. Ugh! Yes, there's also some kind of "celery" scent in there too, kind of like old celery salt that was kept in that old particle-board kitchen cupboard. There are better fragrances out there than this. If you want a woody type of fragrance, go with Gucci pour Homme or Gucci Rush, both are woody and nice. Perhaps Caron was trying to copy M7 by Yves St. Laurent, as there is a slight similarity between the two smelling like particle-board cupboards.