Y Live

Yves Saint Laurent Y Live Intense opens with a sweet and very pleasant combination of ginger, bergamot, mint, apple, and pineapple. The opening is very sweet, fresh, fruity, and citrusy. The ginger is a clear accord and feels sharp, aromatic, and intensifies the fragrance. The bergamot, lemon, and mint create a sharp citrusy accord that balances the very sweet opening. The apple and pineapple come across as a combined note of fruits with a woody accord similar to the juniper berries. The violet leaf and geranium are just some soft touches. The initial projection is very good; the fragrance feels aromatically potent. As the fragrance commences to dry-down, some of the base accords are noticeable, the cedar adds soft fresh wood accord but nothing prominent. Both, the musk and ambergris create a boosting accord but don’t add themselves as individual accords, similarly, the incense seems to sharpen other accords but not itself. The vetiver is a very distant tone. The transition from the opening to the dry-down is relatively linear, the tones of the opening continue into the dry-down, however, the initial very high sweetness subsides to moderate and a very faint leathery accord develops. Once Y Live Intense has reached its full dry-down, it can be summarized as a sweet and projecting fresh spicy (ginger and mint), fruity (apple and pineapple), and citrusy fragrance with soft woody and faint floral accords. The fragrance feels delectable, diurnal, energizing, fresh, invigorating, inviting, masculine, modern, playful, rich, sharp, sugary, sweet, versatile, woody, young, zesty, and very pleasant. BATCH REVIEWED: 2019 #38S601J. WOW RATING: 10/10. The combination of ginger, mint, citrus, fruity, and woody accords is impressive. DISLIKE RATING: 1/10. The fragrance is very sweet; some people will find it overly sweet. UNIQUENESS: 10/10. The combination of notes creates a unique and distinguishable fragrance. MASS APPEAL: 10/10. This is a crowd-pleasing fragrance. PROJECTION: 4/10. Very good, about 4 feet around the wearer. SILLAGE: 5/10. Very good, about 5 feet around the wearer. APPLICATION: Four atomizations will suffice. LONGEVITY: 4/10. Very good, about 4 hours with 2 of good projection. SEASONS: Any. Its fresh, spicy, and strong accords make it ideal for any season. OCCASIONS: Outdoor gatherings, gym, office, casual, holidays, romantic, dating, clubbing. This is an office-friendly fragrance. VERSATILITY: 9/10. Very versatile. GENDER: Masculine. Its spicy accords lean it to the masculine side but not for much. AGES: Any. RECOMMENDATION: Y Live Intense meets the requirements of a bestselling fragrance, excellent and very pleasant accords, high mass-appeal, excellent performance, and highly versatile. This is a great guy. BLIND-BUY: Yes. SIMILAR: YSL Y Live Intense is a close relative of YSL Y Life Parfum, both are great fragrances. Y Live Intense has a sharper fruity opening with the pineapple being the prominent note, but these fruity tones lose some of their intensity once the fragrance has reached its dry-down, specifically the pineapple. Y Parfum has less fruity tones but the bergamot and apple are well combined with the juniper berry which continues into the dry-down. Y Live Intense has an airy touch, Y Life Parfum does not; Y Live Intense has an intense opening, Y Live Parfum has an intense dry-down. Y Live develops a soft leathery accord once it has reached its dry-down, Y Live Parfum does not. If you must choose one, choose Y Live Parfum. Y Live Intense competes with other bestsellers like Versace Eros, Dior Sauvage, Versace Dylan Blue, Blue de Chanel, and other fragrances known for their excellent mass-appeal and performance; Mandarina Duck Black is a mandarin and tonka bean delicious fragrance; Baldessarini Nautic Spirit is a sweet, passion fruit, mango, and spicy fragrance; Salvatore Ferragamo F Black Pour Homme EDT is a fresh, woody and peppery fragrance with poor performance; Azzaro Pour Homme Ginger Lover is a sweet, fresh, spicy, and pleasant fragrance. SUMMARY: A sweet and projecting fresh spicy (ginger and mint), fruity (apple and pineapple), and citrusy fragrance with soft woody and faint floral accords. The fragrance feels delectable, diurnal, energizing, fresh, invigorating, inviting, masculine, modern, playful, rich, sharp, sugary, sweet, versatile, woody, young, zesty, and very pleasant.

How I came to find this underrated beauty is I basically ordered a load of samples so I could find a sweet but fresh fragrance for spring and early summer, and out of the 5 samples I ordered YSL Y Live came out on top to me! Also I wanted the female input, so 2 female friends whom without my input both also picked this as their favourite, over the likes of ADG Profondo, ADG Profumo, YSL Y EdP and Mr. Burberry Indigo, so of course I brought a big bottle and a backup bottle as I heard rumours at that time that Y Live was getting discontinued, which we now know was true, sadly. I love this fragrance, it is very uplifting, I like wearing it for spring and summer evenings. The smell for some reason from the first sniff it reminded me of swimming in a nice outdoor pool with underwater lights at night during a warm evening of summer, anyone else picture that when smelling this? If you like compliments then this maybe one to think about, as this is my most complimented fragrance on par with Sauvage EdT and Eros EdT which everyone knows, yet Y Live is still unique because nobody I know is wearing this yet it is an absolute crowd pleaser especially with the ladies, whom give me the most compliments when I wear this out.. But YSL discontinued Y Live... Go figure?! If YSL had just maybe marketed it a bit more and produced it for a couple more years I think this could of caught momentum like many classic well known fragrances. This fragrance ticks all the boxes for a likeable fragrance, clean, fresh and sweet. The Y DNA runs through the heart of this fragrance and this gives it a more elegant smell in comparison to your more typical fresh and sweet fragrances. Smell: 10/10 Longevity: 8 hours, with double sprays on each area Projection: Strong for 1+ hours, moderate for 3+ hours after that and then more intimate for the rest of its life on skin

Well this fragrance gets a lot of hate, which in my opinion is totally undeserved. It's a great all rounder which is pleasant in the air and gets great reactions from others. I actually think it's the sweet spot in the line, as really this, the EDP and the EDT have a very similar scent profile (although this does have a bit of Invictus mixed in). Where they differ a lot is in the performance. The EDT is terrible in that category and is gone in an hour. The EDP has enormous performance and although the smell around you is nice, up close on skin it can be rather caustic. This has good performance on my skin (5-7 hours) and great sillage without being too over the top close up. I love YSL scents but the performance of some of them is appalling, however I don't think so here. The scent opens fruity, sweet and a little musty (in a good fougere way) with the bergamot, orange blossom and pear (more pleasant than in JPG Ultra Male). I get zero ginger. Once it's dried down it's all about the aromatics and is dominated by the juniper and sage (I know there is some debate as to whether there is sage in here but I'm sure there is). The mid is dominated by the earthy aromatics and rounded off by the fruity top notes. I think it's a great scent and my favorite of the mass appealing blue scents. Is it synthetic? Yes. But I think it smells more high quality than Invictus and anything from JPG. I think Dolce and Gabbana Light blue intense is more of an aquatic and Versace Dylan Blue is on par with this in the blue category. If you want a versatile and crowd pleasing all rounder that can be used in just about any situation, forget the trolls and give this one a try.

I just got this in since it is going away. I love the Y line, even if it is generic to come (all hail Bleu fragrances haha). This one is becoming a new obsession for me. I found myself wearing it multiple days in a row without even thinking. It just smells like a soapier version of the EDP, but there's something about the toned down power of it that, ironically, I'm liking more than the in-your-face EDP (still a long love of mine). I've worn this both to the office & the gym and it has decent staying power after at least a full 9-5. The notes on here are wrong, though. As the YSL website lists: Head: Orange Blossom, Ginger, Bergamot Heart: Juniper, Sage, Geranium, Lavender Base: Cacao, Fir Balsam, Cedarwood This may sound like a boring combination, especially since sage is everywhere now, but the main items I get in this are the ginger, bergamot, sage, geranium, lavender & cedar. It's soapy & sweet, definitely retains the Y DNA but makes it a little more work-friendly. Not that the EDP doesn't work in most situations, but this is definitely a more summer friendly flanker and I look forward to wearing it then (RIP to Eau Fraiche as well). The Y line introduced me into modern men's perfumery, and this is one Y that I love having now. Shame it's been discontinued, I may need to source another bottle as I'm still wearing this very often...

Okay this isn't what I expected in the slightest. On first spray I was pretty disappointed thinking "oh great, bubblegum. Magic." After about a half hour, I was relieved, because about 70% of the bubblegum departs, and what remains is a sort of musky, woody sweetness that I am insane for. I bought this on hype, because I knew it is being discontinued, and a lot of people were saying it is underrated and a compliment superbeast. I can see why it might be, and a real shame it is going away. When this is the case, if someone is curious, I recommend blind buying, because it is an incredibly safe scent for the office and daily wear, and the worst that could happen is you end up selling it for a lot more money later once it becomes more scarce and expensive. I've smelled all the Y's so many times, but never owned one, so it's hard for me to directly compare. All I know is that this one just smells more appealing to me than any of the others have on my skin. It just has a better mix of the sweetness, blueness, and woods so it just pleases my nose a little more.