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

From October, 2016:

Baccarat Rouge seems almost too simple at first. You get a light whiff of something sweet--a vague cotton candy note over a nondescript synthetic woods, and an odd off-note that smells strangely like glue and...that's it. It seems unfinished. Incomplete and empty. Flat. But then you wear it again a couple more times and suddenly it opens itself up to you. The sweetness becomes addicting, bolder and harder to label. It's not like cotton candy at all really. The woodiness holding it together develops a fuzzy texture and you notice its tenaciousness on your skin and that its deeper than you first perceived. The fir resin becomes the star of the show, presenting something more in line with the sweet sap of a pine tree than an artificial candy. Beneath it there is a warm, alluring nuttiness that permeates the scent. It jumps out even more on fabric causing your shirt to smell wonderful. It blends with the sweet and I'm reminded of Boston Baked Beans.The next time you wear Baccarat Rouge the jasmine shows up, adding a new dimension to the opening, a pretty touch of florals to help balance the sweet woody aroma that dominates. Suddenly, the fragrance is not as simple as you'd first thought. This is an addictive smell that gets better and better the more you wear it. It's a compliment magnet. I haven't met one person who dislikes it on me and in fact I've received positive comments from complete strangers (which almost never happens to me). It seems to genuinely make people happy and draw them in. When you wear this, you'll catch wafts of it throughout the day, and you'll think "mmmm...something smells really good," and at first you might not even realize it's you. The same happened to me when I began wearing Amyris Homme. But then you realize that indeed, the smell is coming from you, and more specifically, from Baccarat Rouge. Then you're hooked. It's been chided for being cloying and overly-sweet and synthetic, but I actually find the composition to be on the subtle side. It's no shrinking violet but it's not loud in any way, and it's not obnoxious. Its different aspects reveal themselves patiently, everything's not upfront and in your face. Sample this, to see if it has the same effect on you, but be sure to wear it at least two times. I recommend three. Baccarat Rouge is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It's a pleasure to wear and it seems to be received remarkably well. Thumbs up!

UPDATE: It's August, 2019, and I still love this stuff. Even more, in fact.

I am more on the side of like for Baccarat Rouge 540. I disagree with the hospital or dentist vibe which many have claimed, but I do agree with what others have said about the funfair aura this fragrance emits. When smelling Baccarat Rouge 540 I immediately think of the funfair: toffee apples and candy floss, surrounded by traditional Gypsy caravans immobile on the cobbled streets. I get the feeling of being outdoors on a cold evening encompassed by wood, stone and confectioneries: yes, the funfair!

A very light fragrance, to start. It's more like a whisper. The most noticeable notes are saffron and marigold. It's a lovely combo. Then, only the lightest hint of jasmine.

This frag stays light. The middle is a cross between vague, outdoorsy, country aromas and a delicate flower vibe... It then turns almost sickeningly sweet but, still light and airy. It's like burnt sugar and burned leaves... Is this supposed to be so vague and "airy"? It's like the mysterious, floor-level mist that surrounds and partly obscures, the nefarious eggs, in the movie Alien. It's there - then it moves as I move.

The burnt sugar / leaf thing settles down and I'm left smelling sweet, wooden piles of woodchips. The scent is still light, hazy, hovering. A slight balsamic buzz occurs, too. It's a ghost of a fragrance... It lasts only four hours, too.

Baccarat Rouge 540 (2014) is a fairly divisive and hyped perfume made by Francis Kurkdijan for the house of Baccarat, a revered glassmaker that unlike Lalique, never really tangled much with perfume outside a brief stint in the 1990's. Kurkdijan's creation was originally paraded around in a special coffret and sold directly by Baccarat until 2015 when Kurkdijan was allowed to release it under his Maison Francis Kurkdijan vanity label. Baccarat Rouge 540 is a purely synthetic creation, with all notes implied rather than denoting ingredients, and smells like a lot of different things at different times. The key to it's controversy among fragrance enthusiasts is the wildly variable performance due to these synthetics, which with their purity combined with the olfactory sensitivity or stamina of the wearer, can result in day-long enjoyment or evaporation in minutes.

If you look past the extremely high potential of anosmia Baccarat Rouge 540 has, it is a rather novel perfume, being a "sweet nothing whispered in ear" but in scent form. The opening is best described as a candied floral, with jasmine and saffron tones adding some dirty indolic spice to the yellow flowery sweetness of blood orange and tagetes. The heart is pure ambrox super and evernyl, each being an isolate molecule of ambergris and oakmoss respectively, imparting a rounded buttery warmth that causes much of the olfactory fatigue users complain about. The base is vanilla and woody amber molecules from norlimbanol and an old-school amber compound base whipped up with a wizardly number of captives with chemical names I'm not pedantic enough to list. You get a "rouge" tone throughout the scent's unstable life, and will catch whiffs of it all day without any steady throbbing sillage to enjoy. I'd imagine this is discreet enough for a signature but I find it too sweet for hot weather.

I don't love nor hate Baccarat Rouge 540, but fall into the group of people who can't perceive it for long due to the intensity of the aromachemicals at play. It's an enjoyable floral gourmand oriental experiment while it lasts, but then all goes poof, and for the price of $300USD for 75ml to own a fragrance that I could only tangibly enjoy for the first 15 minutes, I'm not sold. That doesn't mean MFK as a luxury house is without value, as there are a good number of inventive scents made by the "Maestro of Le Mâle", I just count this one as more show than go. If you're one of the lucky people with whom this clicks, power to you and I have no complaints, but if I wanted to wear disappearing ink, I'd just get some from the magic shop for a lot less than MFK wants for this. Solid neutral.

Don't understand the hype about this fragrance. It smells like bubblegum with smoke or something with it. Way too sweet and cloying. I prefer Grand Soir and especially the wonderful and beautiful Oud Satin Mood to this.

3.5/5