Monsieur Balmain (new) (1990)
by Pierre Balmain

a great lemon with what i would describe as a very cheap sandalwood dry down, disappointing

8th August, 2011.

at first I felt it as a very dry fragance, but as time went by the citrus aroma came alive and made me love it. good fixer, I could say, a mature mans fragance.

18th July, 2011.

This falls between the light sparkly lemon of most Eau de Colognes, and the musty lemon of something that takes itself too seriously (Boucheron). I really like the top but it just gets too stuffy in the base, and the herbs they've added to it are too pungent.

16th May, 2010.

Incredible, incredible lemon. And thats really all you're going to get; its a very linear scent. Everything about its marketing, from the yellow gold box to the yellow glass bottle, reflects lemon and thats what you'll get from Monsieur Balmain. Its very economical; I received it for around $25 shipped and personally, its a good compliment for layering other sweeter scents.

Admittedly, its very hard to make a citrus that isn't overly sweet, synthetic, and tart. MB is perfect for summer afternoons but longevity is a question; lasts less than two hours on my dry skin.

A good buy if you love love love lemon, but its another good scent that I wouldn't wear on a regular basis.

11th March, 2010.

In the early days of my collection, I excitedly bought this one as I was captivated by its astonishingly bright & genuine lemon top note and its funky yellow bottle. However, this was before I was familiar with the concept of a base note, and by the time I got home, the test patch on my wrist had unexpectedly developed into what I perceived was a stomach-churning blend of musk and amber, with very little of the lemon left. The following day, I took the unused bottle straight back to the shop and exchanged it for my first bottle of the newly launched (and quite wonderful) Jil Sander Feeling Man :)) - and never looked back again.

28th February, 2010.

Issey Miyake's girly, sour lemon is trash compared to this!

I want to thank the basenoters who recommended this; I would have never known about it. It's like squeezing a lemon on your neck! Too bad the juicy lemon morphs into a dark woody scent in an hour. I would have preferred juicy lemon throughout. The sandalwood that cloaks 80% of the initial lemon is also responsible for making this a V E R Y masculine fragrance - so to some extent it's appreciated.

I wanted to wear this year-round, but the lemon hides too much in the cold. If I exhale on the spot where I sprayed, I can still smell the fresh lemon from hours ago, so I'm going to mostly wear this in the heat. Most of my fragrances are dark and sensual; this is the most playful one I own.

17th January, 2010.