Francis Kurkdjian will be remembered as the perfumer who carved his name into the scent world with unmistakable boldness, sometimes too bold. I still recall my first encounter with Le Mâle in 1997. It wasn’t a fragrance; it was a lavender-tonka mushroom cloud, sweet and powdery, detonating across city blocks. It somehow smelled both cheap and expensive, which is Kurkdjian’s signature trick. My best friend wore it exclusively that year. I’ve been in therapy ever since.
Then came Green Tea in 1999, a complete pivot from Gaultier’s chest-thumping style. It was lemony, light, and delicately floral, like a polite ghost asking to be excused. A prelude to the herbal transparency of the 2000s, it became the scent of every frosted-blonde mom on her way to softball drop-off. Green Tea was a shrug in perfume form, but it launched a thousand copycats and eventually became foundational to Kurkdjian’s personal line.
Things stayed quiet until 2015, when he dropped his next bomb: Baccarat Rouge 540. Hard to believe it has been ten years since its launch, eight since the Extrait version arrived. My take? I don’t really have one. I’ve never reviewed it. The first time I smelled it, it was radiating off two Italian-American behavior analysts in Connecticut, glamorous, low-key "It" girls who always seemed perfectly on-trend without trying too hard.
What does BR 540 smell like? A sweet amber. That’s it. Ethyl maltol up front, a faint hit of citrus, then a cloud of safranal and cotton-candy sugars dissolving in the air, trailing into a warmer, still-candied amber. It’s pleasant but ephemeral. You catch it for a second, then it’s gone. Then back again. Then gone again. There’s a resinous green twist in the base, but it’s subtle and transparent, barely holding its own against the persistent sweetness.
Naturally, Armaf joined the clone parade. Their version, Club de Nuit Untold, comes in a flashy iridescent bottle with a reddish base. Easily the best-looking in the line, arguably worth the purchase on looks alone. The scent is nearly a dead ringer for BR 540. Some say it leans toward the Extrait due to its amped-up note concentration, though I haven’t smelled the Extrait to compare. The only real difference is that Untold smells slightly woodier in the drydown.
There is no major quality gap between the two. Performance is strong, though not quite as nuclear as some claim. Even accounting for olfactory fatigue, Untold feels rather restrained. There’s a softness and finesse to it that holds up surprisingly well. The ethyl maltol is there in spades, bringing to mind summer more than fall or winter. But like BR 540, there’s only so much to say. It smells good. It’s sweet. It’s warm, slightly spicy, a bit woody, comfortable, a little sexy, kind of edible, generally safe. It doesn’t blow me away, but it doesn’t bore me either.
As a clone of a Kurkdjian fragrance, it feels like it would shrink in the shadow of the original Le Mâle, as if unworthy by comparison. If I had smelled it in 1996, I might have thought more of it. Today, it’s just a likable modern oriental. You can’t really go wrong wearing it, but it also doesn’t give you much to care about.
I'll end with this: there is barely any quality difference between Untold and BR 540. You can get 105 ml of Untold in its heavy and modern mother-of-pearl bottle for around 35 dollars. BR 540, in a much plainer bottle, costs over 300 for 60 milliliters. Untold is slightly more dynamic, with more prominent jasmine and saffron, along with Ambroxan and Amberwood by Symrise, a kind of postmodern Iso-E-Super with woody accents and a sugar-glazed sheen. Its performance is rumored to beat BR 540’s. So why would anyone still choose the original? In the air, no one can tell them apart. You might as well save your money. Sorry Francis, but your latest masterwork has become a victim of its own success.