Having never smelled Phantom EDT, I can’t fully assess the parfum’s place in the lineup, though, to be fair, Rabanne isn’t a brand I have much experience with anyway. (It was once called Paco Rabanne, after its founder, but in today’s world, gendering a company is practically a mortal sin—so begone, first name!) I’ll admit, I underestimated this scent. It’s actually quite pleasant.
The original Phantom, Rabanne’s first openly AI-generated formula, is a slightly bizarre hodgepodge of counterintuitive notes. The parfum, however, is a human-handed flanker, which raises the question: why not go all in? If you’re going to let the algorithm bless us, commit. Instead, Rabanne handed this one over to Dominique Ropion, Anne Flipo, and Juliette Karagueuzoglou, and it shows—Phantom Parfum smells “safe,” meticulously curated to fit every current trend: sweet, warm, soft, and loud. The opening is the same post-Invictus bubblegum top note I’ve smelled a dozen times this year. The transition? Predictably swift—an aromatic jolt of robust lavender, then the inevitable base of patchouli, vanilla, and woods. Familiar to a fault, though it does nod to Thierry Mugler’s A*Men (1996) and a handful of late-’90s and early-2000s gourmands.
Its best feature is the lavender heart, sharpened by what Rabanne claims is rhubarb—though I don’t detect it outright, more as a textural effect. As a starter fougère for men under thirty, it’s solid: well-balanced, versatile, and safely within the bounds of its target audience. Loud and sweet enough for a club night, but not so cloying as to repel anyone past that phase. I enjoyed it, but unsurprisingly, not enough to reach for my wallet.