Baccarat Rouge 540 (2014)
by Maison Francis Kurkdjian for Baccarat

I can't believe I am writing a review for this stuff, given how much I hated this when I first tried it. I am no lover or liker of sweet scents, so my initial reaction is unsurprising.

This is really were perfumery breaks the boundaries of harvesting fragrance from flowers or extracting essences from natural sources. Baccarat Rouge 540 is pure and simple synthetic from top to bottom.

There is no development here. The scent is literally a very sweet candy floss note (caramelised brown sugar) with ambrox.

So why am I reviewing this scent? The answer is a very firm "I have no idea!". What I do know is that I just keep coming back to it. I still don't like the sweetness, but it is addictive and if it keeps saying to your mind "come back and smell me" it has to be a good thing.

I am holding back giving it top marks though as it has to be said that there is nothing natural about this. The marketing blurb suggests a note of saffron, but I simply detect a highly sweetened strawberry-like note. That's not saffron. It's a bit like how you get strawberry-flavoured yoghurts, which might well be pleasant, but taste nothing like strawberry, yet you keep wanting more.

That said and not being an oud fan, this is clearly one of the brand's better creations to my nose. Is it worth the asking price? I'll let you be the judge of that.

Do not allow yourselves to be tricked
By this notoriously excellent and highly unorthodox fragrance
That's pretending to be something else.

Second opinion:

Somebody mixed up
Earth, air, fire and water in
The wrong proportions.

Third opinion:

I refuse to buy
Stolen information, this
Tire fire in heaven.

Fourth opinion:

Olfactive psy-op
To make us sympathize with
Burning museums.

Fifth opinion:

Divine trickery
Mixing up good and evil
In new-fangled ways.

Sixth opinion:

We may not need whales or oceans any longer for the sake of perfumery, but this fragrance shows that we owe them both a debt of eternal gratitude.

Seventh opinion:

Repeat after me:
Radical abundance is
Gonna be some fun.

Genre: Woods

Well, this is odd.

I must be anosmic to most of what’s in here, because all I can smell is an enormous blast of undiluted Ambroxan. Take the synthetic "ambergris" base note from Green Irish Tweed, amplify it by the power of ten, and that's what I get from Baccarat Rouge. The extrait smells the same to me, though it might wear slightly closer to the skin. I’m honestly not sure what to think…

Another overhyped dud that has me thinking the fragrance community is nuts.

On my skin anyway, this fragrance is pointless.

I get a very faint, slightlg sweet/medicinal/mint type of scent, that doesn't project much. It's a muted skin scent from the onset and doesn't get much better I'm assuming (washed it off after a couple hours).

Smh @ the hype for this fragrance. I wouldn't pay $2 for this, let alone $200 for 75ml.

Lovely composition. A sweet, crisp, elegant, and satisfying treat to wear.