Le Beau Narcisse Eau de Parfum 75ml

If you want the same fragrance in a bottle you will realistically finish, Jean Paul Gaultier Le Beau Narcisse Eau de Parfum 75ml is the size to buy, and at this concentration 75ml is a great deal of scent. Three materials carry it. Bergamot opens things up with a clean, slightly bitter citrus brightness that lasts a few minutes rather than an hour. Powdery musk follows and stays, and powder is the honest word for it: soft, warm, faintly sweet and very close to skin, the register that people describe as smelling freshly showered. Tonka bean underneath gives the base its body, a soft brown sweetness with a dry edge to it, something like the inside of a biscuit tin.

There is no hidden complexity to discover. A three material build announces itself quickly and then holds, so the pleasure is in the quality of the materials rather than in any evolution. That is a fair trade at this price and it makes the fragrance very easy to wear badly, by which we mean it is hard to overdo.

Two sprays on the chest will last a working day. Projection is modest after the opening, so this is office, lecture hall and restaurant territory rather than a scent for making an entrance, and it is as useful in January as in June. Against the rest of Le Beau this is the softest and the most conventional, less fruit and less sharpness, more skin. If the brighter bottles in the line have always felt like too much, start here. Composed by Quentin Bisch.

Gaultier the designer came to perfume in 1993, bringing a corset shaped flacon that has outlived most of the clothes it was designed to accompany. The fragrances have been developed in house by the owner, Puig, since 2016.