El

Opening on skin, Él is a throwback to vintage fougères. Upon first spritz, there's a hologram of vintage Kouros, far more realistic than current version. Honestly, closing my eyes I'm smelling Kouros in all its glory minus the bracing aldehydes and bergamot. As soon as it starts to dry down, the spicy core of geranium and bay leaves comes to the front accompanied by what seems like a very healthy dose of castoreum. I can't really smell the slightly pissy and powdery civet, but I get a leathery castoreum in spades with honey sweetening the animal behind. Smelling the flowers showing their spicy side recalls the likes of Paco Rabanne pour Homme, even Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme in all its glory. At this point, Él is more like a barbershop fougere, a bit calmer and less in your face, showing its woody and earthy facets; vetiver predominantly with a slight talcum vibe. The hidden civet appears during the drydown to remind us that the game isn't over. Sillage is quite big, longevity very good. It's strange to find a modern release that has various stages, isn't linear and pays homage to the best of a genre; animalic in a warm way, blending the synthetic civet and castoreum to make it fuse with the skin, modern but decidedly vintage. This tanned hunk starts with a naughty blink in his eye, shows his various facets during development, but at the end of the night when sweaty bodies ask for more action he reminds us that the animal inside is ready to go prowling. It's only just the beginning!

Better than 2017 Kouros. It is similar, but more luxurious and not offputting. I rejected and traded my 2017 bottle of Kouros. I really enjoy EL. There is distinct note separation, compared to a smear of smell in Kouros. EL is spicy and green and animalic with real evolution and progression. The smell is very alive and intimately human. Made in the USA and there is authentic Oak Moss and decent quality animalics. It really stands out in this IFRA era. This is above my usual budget, but I took a chance and am very satisfied. Longevity is better for me than other reviewers, and I consider myself difficult to satisfy with longevity and sillage. Presentation is great. The bottle is class and the sprayer is excellent. The stream is one of the strongest I have seen. Three sprays will be plenty and the bottle will last many years. I am very impressed.

Vintage Kouros, Antaeus, and Polo Green somehow, miraculously, all in the same fragrance with modern quality and ingredients. It sounds too good to be true... and yet here it is. Absolutely fucking gorgeous. Dark, musky, animalic, and bracingly green in a way that's potent and sophisticated all at once. Perfectly straddles the line of being both crassly virile and classy. Something you would get a waft of from underneath a weathered leather jacket on a warm summer night. This scent feels like it deserves mood lighting and a hard drink nearby. It's pricy, but at least we're not looking at Creed or Amouage levels. Also, considering the fact it's several of my all-time favorite frags quite masterfully blended together, AND performs excellently, I'd still say it's well worth it.

Labeled an animalic fougère, ÉL is loaded with the classic smelling mossy notes of oakmoss, vetiver and patchouli and those traditional animalistic base ingredients like castoreum and civet. And when they’re unified they scream, more than they hint, at the idea of available sexuality. There’s a brutish strength and a tenacity to the fougère accord that works wonderfully well with the laurel, sage and rosemary resulting in a very classic smelling, super masculine, musk heavy fragrance that dries down fantastically well.

Kouros may have been the inspiration for this fragrance, but Él is much more herbaceous, aromatic and green, with pronounced mossy notes. Somehow the fragrance seems more clearly structured and the individual notes have more room to breathe. The animalic facets also have sheerer contours, but are perfectly calibrated and incredibly erotic. This is machismo in a bottle, but one that I love to sink into the arms of....

A dive in the past, from head to toe! An herbal bomb in the opening with the animalic armada at the door, which finally enters the scene to give this retro mood but not in a melancholic way, relatively modern. It is definitely well crafted, slightly resembling Antaeus (which is not too bad a thing since the current Antaeus is different from what it used to be).

If you love Kouros, Antaeus, Drakkar, Balenciaga pour Homme etc.... it's like an amalgamation of the best features of all these fragrances. I just wish it was made by a designer because the Arquiste niche price is steep. This one and DesirToxic by Micailef are like neo 80s and 90s powerhouse fragrances. Highly recommend to powerhouse lovers like myself.

je ne peux pas vivre sans sentir cette odeur tout les jours , ça me donne de la force et confiance en moi, si vous aimez kouros et antaeus , voici une interprétation moderne solide luxueuse et durable , très masculine la meilleure fougère de tout les temps un grand merci à monsieur Rodrigo Flores-Roux

This has a very 70s and 80s classic men's fougere feel to it: green and mossy and just a little powdery. Think an updated version of Paco Rabanne but smoother and classier. It's green and burnished silver. The castoreum keeps it just this side of soapy. I LOVE it.

I love this in the heat of summer. Sharp, mineral, civet. Mixes nice with sweat. Also, as an afterthought, I can see that this is referencing Kouros, but I actually prefer the drydown here.

if your a fan of vintage fragrances with some light animalics then this fragrance is for you.give it 10 minutes to settle after spraying and it settles into something special.

The brand just confirmed to me it is not discontinued, which I am very pleased about because this is a fantastic fragrance. Follow me on Instagram: @TheScentiest

Just wow. No problem with rocking this as a female if you are into smelling unique, fresh, bold, and competent. Great quality, long-lasting, perfect for spring.

The drydown is very similar to vintage Kouros. That said, it's amazing. The opening is something in between Kouros and Antaeus for me

Review based on a sample. Man oh man, this is a glorious, masculine juice. I'll even go out on a limb and say it's the tough kid brother who beat the snot out of his older brothers Kouros and Antaeus. It opens with a very strong, pissy, urinal cake and sweaty scent. At this stage, it would be best to avoid your wife or girlfriend for about 20 to 30 minutes until it dries down. If you don't, she'll run screaming from the room anyway. Once it's settled, it's a magnificent woody/herbal scent with a backdrop of clean sweaty male scent. The performance is quite good. I get about 7 to 8 hours of longevity with strong sillage. Can probably be good anytime of the year, day or night. It's cold now by me, but I'll take a guess that El is enhanced or amplified on hot days with sweat. Comparing this to Kouros and Antaeus, the brutal opening reminds me of Kouros's opening but the dry down reminds me of Antaeus. "Reminds" not "same as." If you like either Kouros and/or Antaeus, you'll probably like El. Not a blind buy though; sample first. The notes for El on the Arquiste web site do not list civet, only castoreum. I'm going to have to get me a full bottle and live with it for a while. Who knows? It might usurp the ruling kings Kouros and Antaeus. Or, El might be one of a tripartite of three ruling kings of the masculine fragrance world. Mr. Flores-Roux hit a massive home run here. Hat tip to you sir. Story of El from the Arquiste website: December 1978, Armando’s Le Club, Acapulco, Mexico. Nighttime at Acapulco’s sultriest disco. Revelry on the dance floor. In the heat of the moment, he smiles coyly and motions to the beach outside, hinting at a midnight swim. He unbuttons his shirt, flashing bronzed skin and the scent of his cologne, a virile muskiness loaded with patchouli, oakmoss and elegant woody notes. A masculine impression of a day under the sun, intensified by the thrill of the night.

I heard this described as a "dirty" barbershop fragrance and as an "after-hours fougere," both of which are accurate. This scent conjures up the image and feel of a humid, sweaty night out in Miami. Masculine spices and musk do give this a bit of a throwback vibe, which I really like. This is not a daytime fragrance, though. This fragrance just seems to fit perfectly with the nighttime; with dark dress clothes; with having a late nightcap at the bar in an upscale hotel.

An exquisite bouquet of precious animalic notes with vibrant spices and sparklig herbs with seductive orange blossom on the center. Feels so luxurious I am absolutely in love with this gem from the animalic notes till the resinous musky heart. Smells.simply wonderful with almost illegally high sillage and solid 8 hour longeivity

Pretty damn sexy. Extremely well-blended and not TOO animalic (I never would have known that this has both castoreum AND civet in it - they are mixed at low levels). Has a luxe shaving-cream vibe to it. Would work well as a summertime clubbing scent.

Nice enough fragrance. Very green opening, in fact reminds me quite a lot of beach hut man minus the mint. After a couple of hours we move into the heart and the animalitic nuances play with honey and patchouli on a bed of oak moss. The animalitic notes are very well done, nothing pissy or faecal, just sexy and the right side of carnal. This fragrance is supposed to be a homage to 70s debauchery and decadence. Private Jets, champagne, fur coats cocaine and night clubs. However the performance on me is borderline timid. As a point of reference I had similar performance with this as I did with Sydney Rock Pool and Architects club (though architects lasted longer on my skin). Where it could be forgiven with the other two fragrances as some may prefer that sort of scent to be on the soft side, this should be louder and unapologetic. Unfortunately it just isn't. On me this is a skin scent almost straight out of the gate. After 3 hours I can only smell it with my nose a couple of inches from my wrist and I have to literally press nose to wrist by the 6 hour point. 70s Jet set? This is more a night alone in a budget hotel with the mini bar, a box of kleenex and the adult channel. Some will experience better performance which is why I referenced my experiences with Sydney Rock Pool and Architects club. Sadly this could have been a very good fragrance that I may have been tempted to buy but the performance makes it an easy pass. Anyone looking for a fragrance of this type I'd be more inclined to recommend Dior Jules, or perhaps Rogue Perfumery Chypre Siam.

It would be a great dumb reach for those who don't want to waste their vintage bottles, if it wasn't for the suffocating chemical static suffusing the perfume (I confess I don't know enough to say for certain that it is ambroxan, but it is something like that which cracks through the otherwise lovely composition to give me a headache). Do not make the mistake of overspraying this or the overdose of this ingredient will choke you right out. And yet! Despite the only imagined use for this ingredient, the fragrance has a longevity of about 2 hours and projects for maybe 30 minutes. Overpriced and disappointing, I wanted to like it.

el? hmmm methinks more ella. debauchery? hmmmm, i think a dictionary is needed. the drug that keeps this one going is................... candy, yeah sugar high, here. sex, drugs, rock and roll never smelled so naive. the notes betray any attempt to recreate whiskey, cigarette smoke, sweat, amyl nitrate, musk. (certainly coke is much too elusive.) maybe winnie the pooh is going out for an afternoon stroll in the woods wearing this. but it is not bad. actually pleasantly juvenile with a little hint of grown-up.

two years after my first exposure, i still do not get what most people write about this fragrance. demode women in a small town at bingo. scent date 1970, actual date 2023. i don't dislike it as much as i did, but not a fave. a bit loud in a laundry detergent way. not bad for a sunny spring day. calms down a little.

I should love this... Inspired by vintage 80s masculines, El has all my favorite things: oakmoss, civet, castoreum, and honey! The reviews likened this to a slightly more refined version of Kouros, which I adore in the vintage. However, this was a dud. Something nagged at me from the first spray, but I couldn't quite put a finger on it. Well into the drydown, after 6 hours' wear, there it was: the unmistakable smell of ambroxan. Long after the rest of the notes faded, the ambroxan clung to my skin. I miss the days of yore, when oakmoss had body and was the fixative of choice. The oakmoss in this is decent enough, I guess, as far as modern IFRA-compliant oakmoss analogues can be, though it's a little thin and metallic compared to the real thing, lacking the warmth of the good stuff. It seems that the IFRA-compliant stuff just doesn't have the lasting power of the real thing, so to compensate, the perfumers look to long-lasting aromachemicals pick up the slack. Nice try, Arquiste, but you can't fool this nose. I'd rather a scent be short-lived than dry down to a monotonous, persistent ambroxan note that lingers for several hours beyond the time the rest of the notes have evaporated. A reluctant dislike.

I tested this on a paper strip first, and didn't understand the comparisons to Kouros. I smelled a pleasant green aromatic scent, and none of the animalic notes. But then I tried it on my skin, and immediately smelled that civet smell, reminiscent of a urinal with a broken flush lever, that is so polarizing in Kouros. The green aromatic scent that I appreciated on paper was gone, or perhaps masked by the civet. Now I see why people compare it to Kouros, but unfortunately it's not my thing.

Pleasant... but nothing original or intriguing. At the price point, I would hope for something more than just “pleasant” Well made, good longevity. But it’s like going to a Michelin-starred restaurant and just getting a salad. Sure, it’ll be well made, top quality base ingredients, but there’s no artistry to it. Zero animal notes - civet, castoreum - to my nose.

El : it's an old man's smell. On the positive side, it disappears within an hour or so.

The king of retro animalic fragrances is indeed Kourus. Those that claim El smells like YSL's juggernaut have never smelled Alfred Sung Pour Homme. I can always count on Arquiste to create these era generating liquids. This is a great fragrance from antiquity and when I say antiquity I'm talking 30yrs ago. El is a labdanum note away from being a true chypre. This perfume starts with a generous base of oakmoss paired with accords of damp decaying brush and dry woods. The trio is paired with a host of additional aromatics, musks, and spices. A ramped up geranium note helps flirt with the idea that you might be smelling something close to a chypre. The cinnamon, honey and cardamom is likely used for balancing as their sweet profile is never realized. With all the animalic and verdent notes used to create EL, this is surprisingly not really an animalic fragrance. The musk is also oddly subdued to a low speed where the composition is tolerable in big doses. This fougere lacks the persistence of its predecessors and that can be a good thing for those that don't wish to smell like a 24hr National Forest. In closing, El doesn't transport you DEEP into the forest like Slumberhouse's Norne but it does teleport you right to the entrance and keeps you there.

This a modern, smoky, leathery chypre, with vintage elements. I don’t get the Kourus references, which is a good thing because I’m not a fan of Kourus. However, this does have similar traits to Antaeus. But mostly due to the leather and castoreum vibe. What this really reminds me of though, is R de Capucci which is an underrated beauty. Though this is a polished and refined scent, it has a vintage feel to it which will come across as dated to some. This by the way has nothing to do with Drakkar nor Gucci Nobile, in case anybody is wondering.

Oh my... There's abstract art in the frag community and then there's this. The opening is pretty repulsive and offensive. Oddly enough, the dry down is much more tolerable. I guess good things come to those who wait...but that waiting phase is tough.

Bought it for $190 based on rave reviews here. I was sadly disappointed because it didn't have any animalic quality in my nose's opinion. It is weak as some here have said. Wish i had used the money to buy Hyrax by Zoologist

A more rounded Kouros perhaps but if youre gonna wear heavy animalics such as castoreum, civet and honey, then just go for the Kouros. Its fine but not a replacement and certainly not anything new. 5/10

It definitely deserves a comparison to Kouros. Beautiful and masculine and smells in the same realm as Kouros.

Longevity - 3/10(1- 2 hours) Silage/Projection - 5/10 Age - 25+ Compliments - 2/10 Scent - 8/10

It's at 190$ on its website, better go for kouros, versailles, or another musk alternative.

The "niche-version" of Oscar de la Renta Pour Lui. Excellent!

Very 80s notes of edt for man. I may like.

Kouros Yves Saint Laurent repacked