Samouraï (1995)

Samourai Men is a pleasant surprise! I had previously written off Samourai as some cheap, poor-performing cologne with a cheesy name and only sold locally in Japan. I was wrong. This one is great. Generally, fragrances are hard to find (and thus sample) here in Japan; only exists in Don Quijote and Bic Camera stores (for the most part, besides dept. stores). Samourai and all its flankers are fully stocked there, next to only the most popular Dior, Chanel, Prada and Bvlgari lines (etc.) I happened to get a bottle of this in a Mercari bulk purchase that contained Bvlgari Soir and Versace Eros (as well as RisingWave, which seems to be another local brand I'm going to review). I was really impressed by this juice! For a '95 creation, dare I say it was ahead of its time? Many of the comments below rave about the compliments and performance this gets. I can't attest to that yet, as I have just worn it out for the first time today. I think this can be worn all year round (except freezing temps), in any situation. It's both floral and woody, mass-appealing and fresh. By the way, I have the bottle labeled "Alain Delon". I'm seeing it sold on Amazon Japan for about $22 (100ml). For that price, you could do a lot worse. Recommended. Blind buy safe, unless you're very picky. Update: I still like this a whole lot. I see this as a mix of aromatic and sporty with a touch of rose. The "85% VOL." on the box is the original vintage formula; "75% VOL." are the later bottles. Regardless, Alain Delon branded or not, it's nice.

when i detect this on a man it can easily happen that i will throw myelf on his neck. !! yummy !! i confirm: one of the best men frags ever made. its so crystal clear, refreshing with a sensual warmth lovely blended. the cedar in the top is mortal sexy and the flowers are so soft and precious sandelwood in the base! aw !!! yammmmm! very remarkable outstanding scent, longlasting, good sillage. sometimes i pick it from my husband to surround me with this sooo sexy scent even if its quite masculin, i like to sniff it all the time. :o)

Recently bought this fragrance and i would join the trend of opinions about this one,i like it a lot,it has somerefreshing facets,some sweet woods and elegant rose,and yes,it generates compliment galore!Thanks Lanier and Chris for the honest opinions! NB.I have the recent formulation without the AD label and it smell the same as the old one!

I had this one long time ago and I just bought 100ml of this fragrance from my friend in Japan because I can't find it here in Philippines. I love this fragrance, especially the drydown, it blew my mind away! A complement getter for me! Just try it.

A real rarity! Bitter initially, then very nice floral scent! ........... Unique, elegant, sensual and charming ........ Alain Delon in a bottle features the classic man! I do not find much better than this .............

Simply sweet and pleasant with a romantic side. Easy to wear and makes me happy. Im happy i finally ordered this. I passed on it years ago when i didnt appreciate sweeter scents.

superb perfume. All Alain Delon's fragrances are superb and beautifull perfume

this is one of best perfumes ever created, I would recomend it to everybody

This is where Eros EDT was adapted from...

Nino Rota’s music filled the theater in rolling swells of Italian grandeur. The camera followed a young man though the ornate room of Sicilian palace as he made his way and his goodbyes to the family who lived there. With a final farewell to the dour Concetta he hopped into a buggy and road off as the camera rose high over the gardens of the palace of Prince Don Fabrizio Salina. That was the first time I ever saw him and I knew at thirteen that I had just seen the most beautiful man in the world. The film was Visconti’s masterpiece, “The Leopard” and the young man was Alain Delon. My parents were bored with the epic film and somewhere in the middle of the film we committed movie sacrilege and left the theater, very much against my will because the film and Alain Delon had captured my imagination. I would see him again and very soon. I found him again in the dark of the Fox movie palace in Riverside. He was a gigolo boy toy in the delightful “The Yellow Rolls Royce”, And the following year there he was in the epic war film “Is Paris Burning?” He even did a western, “Texas Across The River”. He was magic in French and Italian but the Americans didn’t know how to use his unique abilities when they turned their cinemascope lenses on him. He was more or less just required to be beautiful as the camera dollied to a heart stopping close-up. So to really enjoy his acting gifts I had to go to the little “Foreign” movie house behind the old Fox Theater. There He was in Antonioni’s haunting “L’eclisse”, He stunned us as the deadly American who stole a rich boy’s identity in “Purple Noon” the first version of “The Talented Mr. Ripley” Then the brilliant and tragic “Rocco and His Brothers” sealed his fate as a talent to be reckoned with. “Borsolano” a gangster film set in 1930’s Marseilles followed and the dangerous and beautifully stylized “Un Flic.” But perhaps his most famous role was as the Parisian hit man Jef Costello in the gorgeous film “Le Samourai” It is no surprise then that in later years when Delon began is foray into fashion and perfume he should create Samourai as his most famous signature scent. The opening of Samourai is so sharp and crisp is seems almost to make the sound of a steel samurai sword as it is pulled in one swift motion from its scabbard. This Oriental perfume has a spare elegance in its notes, almost like a beautiful Japanese flower arrangement. The opening of pink pepper and cedar on paper is soft but on the skin it is sharp wood and a hint of the medicinal. This is almost like a preparation for the skin, a cleansing for what is to follow. Slowly the flowers are arranged and it is indeed a masterful Japanese design of the florals and citrus. A sumptuous rose is the center around which is placed spray of sensuous jasmine and buds of lemon and bergamot. The base of the arrangement is rooted firmly in a bed of dry aromatic vetiver. The entire arrangement is set on a raw unvarnished sandalwood table for solid support. Elegant and pure, not a clean or fresh scent but rather something of a mystery to be explored as it unfolds. This perfume was created in 1995 and holds its age well, there are flankers that followed which I have not tried, and two “women’s” flankers as well. Not a silage bomb in the least. It is too elegant and smart to be so obvious. It casts its net at about a foot or so and trails in subtle tendrils of scent. On my skin it lasts about 6 hours and most certainly can be worn by both men and women. The bottle is really beautiful. A square which on its sides twists from left to right as it moves up from the base. This design makes it fit into the hand very securely. The aqua marine juice contrasts to the silver lettering on the bottle and the stunning silver cap. All together it is a beautiful presentation. Alain Delon was and still is a beautiful man who at 78 is still acting and making magic for us on the screen and in the perfume lab. His lure is so enduring that Dior now uses his face as the face of Eau Savage. FIVE GOLD STARS

Big in Japan. Had a friend who wore Samouraï years ago, and I really liked it. Although this seems to be discontinued elsewhere a version is still readily available and inexpensive in Japan. Not sure how the current version of Samourai (which still says “Parfums Alain Delon” on the box) compares to the original, but I suspect the name is the main reason for its enduring popularity (the movie “Le Samouraï” made Alain Delon an icon in Japan). Great film and a great actor although his legacy has been sadly tainted by his odious political views. The Japanese version I have (manufactured in Switzerland) is linear, sweet, floral and synthetic. Don’t detect any woods and it feels way more unisex than I remember. Samouraï doesn’t smell particularly Japanese or Samurai - I had expected some reference to the “noble arts” of Samurai culture or some uniquely Japanese components. It’s a curious successor to Iquitos and Pharos, which are magnificent men’s fragrances.

I think this is my first try of this cologne that I bought a couple months ago. I just bought it based on the reviews and because Iquitos is one of my loved fragrances and is from Alain Delon, but now it is impossible to get at a decent price. So I wanted at least own a full bottle of this brand, although it does not have anything to do with Iquitos in regards the notes, this one is very subtle and good for summer, while Iquitos is a much more complex perfume and I said perfume because you did not needed to wear much more than you would do in a perfume concentration fragrance to enjoy it all day long. But well this is the review for Samourai, and I think I am going to keep it, and wear during the rest of the summer, and I don't smell it to be synthetic as someone has mention here, and I think it has the 90's signature even though is not as strong of loud as many from those years used to be.

Finally bought a full bottle in Japan - it cost me around 2.500yen (US$23.00) at Bic Camera. For the first 10mins it smells woody & floral quite artificially, then turns nicely after that. The silage isn't strong but the projection & longevity are quite good. It may be very popular in Japan, but it is not available (equal nobody wears this) here in the UK, so I'm quite chffued with the purchase. In addition - although the name of Alain Delon had gone, Samourai is now made by Lalique! Check yours when you buy - if you find either "Alain Delon" or "AF (previous manufacturer)", that''s an old stock.

If I describe this fragrance in one sentence - Value For Money! I tried this on at the discount store called Don Quijote in Tokyo, but it is also available anywhere widely in Japan. It starts with very fresh citrus, then it becomes oriental-warm and a bit sweet. A bit synthetic smell, but the price tag is just over 2.000 yen and the longevity & the sillage are not bad, so I am not splitting hairs. FYI : the contract between Samourai and Alain Delon seems to have expired, so the recent Samourai doesn't carry his name - only the name of Samourai on both the box and the bottle.

How did the price on this stuff go up so much? Full bottles were going for about $10 on ebay four years ago. I got one for $8 back then and I'm just now getting around to wearing it. Up top is nothing special, but the drydown is very pleasant. Soft vanilla and wood. It's very warming, contrary to the color of the juice. The wood smells a bit "cheap" if you focus on it, like particle board to solid oak, but it's pretty nice on a passing whiff. Well worth the $8 I paid, but not the $50+ it's going for now.

I got no idea how to put in words, smells cheap but unique, soapy but somehow elegant. I remember my friend had a cologne form Turkey that smelled exactly like this, now i know what fragrance it was copying i wonder if i should have got that instead, cuz it was way cheaper. Although girls like the smell i would still suggest that it's not a safe blind buy

I'm really surprised that no one compares it to the boss bottled line. My experience with this scent is that it contains ideas of both boss bottled and discontinued boss bottled intense. It is like a scent created from the above 2 scents in a new and more practical way.

Very pleasant and inoffensive. I feel very good wearing it, it's very fresh and puts me in a good mood. At the beginning there is a sharp bitter note which I would prefer there wasn't, but it disappears pretty quickly.

Give this to my father, he like a lot and use it everyday, so gonna buy 2nd bottle for him, i guess. Smell nice too.

This cologne is good Oriental Woody cologne for Summer season

Someone gave this fragrance to me as a gift. It was a while back, and I was in my late teen early twenty. Samourai from Alain Delon was my first full bottle of EdT; the scent in my memory was very sweet and floral. I remembered it did not last long under the heat and humidity in Taipei, but the sillage was fine on a packed bus. I also remembered I later bought CK One and Paco EdT for myself. I can't say now whether I like Samourai or not. I just suddenly thought of this fragrance and felt that I need to write it down in memory of my lost youth.

bluuggghhh :( I blind bought this based on the reviews here. Bad mistake :( couldn't get past the initial synthetic blast, no matter what I tried it just won't pass away. I actually don't know what this fragrance is all about because of this. Don't buy before you try!!!

It's popular in my country and I don't understand fuckin' Y. and there's a vanilla missing from the pyramid btw. White floral, red pepper, and vanilla, whatever. This is something I'd never put on my skin, ever!

Cheap smelling perfume, one of the first perfumes I bought as a kid. Brings back nostalgia, but will never wish to wear again.

Ipanema beach at any hot sunny day, vibrant,elegant and chic. British guys passing by wearing polo shirts with a lifted collar up, french couple in understated clothes but easily recognized, Japaneses interested in the history of the place and taking pictures, Americans worried with their safety, in the sidewalk a tanned guy on his bycicle ignore the environment singing samba, surfers wearing colorful boardshorts and Californian blond hair mid length, palm trees , fresh breeze , easygoing ,at the sand the sellers crack some jokes trying to show their products, rambling words in English :- Oh Yes my friend,just 10 reais!! Not the best place in the world , but with a unique energy and authenticity. The elegant breeze of Ipanema have a direct connection to this perfume on my view. Only for hot weather, is a positive scent, not dark by any means, something about purity , salted air , soda , summer and rose. Don't worth the price asked, sometimes I dislike and think about sell, but in other hand something persists here, something that says for be happy, decided and positive. In a ranking probably will be: Blue soap Soda (sprite) Dirty jasmine(a hint) Rose flower Sandalwood Despite smell cheap , found a way to become elegant. Man this is a different one. Some people told bad and good things about and they are both right, the beginning smells like a cheap soap,very ordinary and this is true, the flower with this soda accord is weird or maybe exotic,not the best blend, if you are seeking a samourai you'll probably not find, I really like but because is humble and elegant in the drydown, perfect combination for white shirt, nothing amazing , just original with a secret appeal that makes me comeback for more, is my secret armor , lightness and kindness towards life with dedication,self reliance and personal effort and no stress. A cool smart-chic fragrance for hot days, visit Búzios with this one!

My wife recently purchased this as an Anniversary gift for my growing fragrance collection. She's a Filipina that lived in Japan for several years when she first found this fragrance. She always loved it and said it was very popular in Japan. Here's my take on it... One of the most unique, freshest, playful scents, and yet masculine despite its floral notes. I will forever remember the first time I smelled it. If you are a collector, you too have fragrances in which you'll never forget the first whiff and/or first wearing. Usually because of something special happened that day which you forever relate to the scent. If you live outside of Japan and want to smell unique and yet attractive enough to draw female attention, check this one out. To me, it's a worldly scent because of its Middle East (Rose/Wood) vibe blended perfectly with Far East Asia (Spicey Floral) and a touch of today's modern citrus/fresh scents currently popular in Europe and America. It's just such as wonderful and interesting fragrance I can see being universally loved. Of course, as with every fragrance, there are haters of this one. But who cares! It's awesome and it will forever be the scent of our 11th Wedding Anniversary. Thus, it will remain in my collection as long as I'm alive.

This I bought years ago, and it has great longevity projection and I think I paid £14. This was steal and I wish I bought more. Stunning. Middle Eastern, people who really love their heavy perfumes kept asking me about what perfume I was wearing. When I said Alain Delon, they did not know who he was, but asked me where is it made. I said Alain Delon was French and they said ahh France they make the best perfumes. I was gobsmacked. I use it with caution as a lot of Persian women are drawn to this, but so are the men too! What surprised me in on an empty bus I got a a women in a full Hijab who sat next to me. I thought what a twit and I asked her this my stop would you mind moving so I can get out. She said only if you tell me what perfume you are wearing. It has a magnetic charm, but dangerous when you are married or when the men start to ask you what perfume you are wearing and even more so when women in Hijabs. Niqabs and Burkas ask you. I got into a taxi once, with a female driver and she even asked what I was wearing. She though who knew who Alain Delon was and said wow that perfume is as good as Alain Delon and Yul Brynner looked.

I adore this fragrance.Its captivating,you can never really put it in a box....I always describe perfumes as personalities,so how do I picture this one ?Its like you meet a stranger in the middle of nowhere in Japan on your work trip or something.You are staying in a hotel and last evening of your trip you go down to a hotel bar to have a drink and just spend those last hours until morning when your flight will leave.And there he is-all you see are those narrow ,sharp eyes seeing right through you.You sense strong,hard to get and disciplined personality,who isnt saying much,but is a good and observing listener..You have your drinks with him,one,two,or more,and of course you end up in a hotel room with him.And then there is that TWIST suddenly-he turns into gentle,soft,comforting,divine and cozy lover.And you will never forget that night you had with him in the middle of nowhere in Japan..... You will never hear from him or see him again,maybe you will even have better than him,but there is no way anything or anybody will ever wipe him out from your heart.Cause Samourai saw you,wanted you and had you. That is Alain Delon Samourai.

All positive comments are right, this is indeed a masterpiece. I think that the nose behind this is actually Christine Nagel who works very well with pepper for example. Its oustanding here as well and the whole blend as well as its sillage and longevity make this a perfect scent. I have a large collection of fragrances but this one is always returning as the real signature scent of mine. Its very vivid, fresh yet manly, not following any trend and therefore stands its time very well. I believe its a top seller in Japan. I read that Monsieur Delon actually uses it himself and thats a statement in itself!

I bought this as it was cheap, I think about £14. I must say it has been one of the fragrances, that has brought in the most compliments. Its longevity I have found to be 8-12 hours. It is particularly a wow scent with people pertaining to the Middle East. I have always been stopped by them asking me what I am wearing. Cannily they know Alain Delon, and say the French make the best perfume. If only I had bought more. Mr Delon, I take my hat off to you, and it seems women want to take their clothes off too!

This is a great perfume... my brother was actually given this by a friend, and I ended up pinching it off him! I know it's for men, but it also can work for women too, especially in summer..

This is my favourite perfume:) Although it is not marketed very much I heard about it from a friend. From first time I've tried it . absolute love it !:)

I must say. I don't like this when I wear it. My nose doesn't stick with it. But SURELY a compliment getter. Ladies love it!

I have to laugh at the dope that says this smells cheap and yet, has Axe as one of his signature scents.

This one is musk straight forward. Minty. Floral. Slightly feminine leaning. Soapy.

This is apparently the scent that Eikosha's Samurai Man is based on

It is a nice one, you have to try it if you havent smelled it yet!

よく言えばはずれない香り。 悪く言えば、なんというか、ドンキとかで売ってそうな安物の香りがした。