Reviews of Gentleman (new) by Givenchy

There is really no Gentleman to purchase these days, just a cheap and vulgar imitation of a timeless classic . The vulgar imitation is in the same old bottle but no perfume really is present inside the bottle.

How long must perfume lovers endure having their favorite perfumes turned into garbage? And the perfumers have the audacity to call it the same name and hike the price up instead of down.

Is a very pleasant smell, a perfume for everyday for me. I choose my SOTD depending on weather, activity, and mood mostly. This one reminds me when I was living in Arizona, I don't know why, but those were good times. A perfume that can make you remember good memories is always good. Nothing complex but is not a basic smell neither. Always give a full try before buying if possible.

Interesting that this little diddy gets savaged. I think it is a pretty good fragrance. There is something a bit off and synthetic about the opening fruity pear thing, but as that dies down they actually did a good job on the mid and base here. That is so rare these days in a mass pleaser. Its got some dry woody vetiver stuff in the mid, that almost feels like a fractured version. It is a clear white woody thing. The iris hold. That pear in the opening mixed with the iris gives that facet a Ultra Male thing, but at an appropriate volume. I like the bottle. I like most things about this one, and think I might pick up one from this line. It does smell masculine, though in a clean way, and not an overly trying to be the sexy man with an upturned collar.

I was given a sample of this by the rep after buying Terre d'Hermes. Gentleman has a fairly strong leather note and sweet citrus almost green notes. It's light and inoffensive and would be a good office frag. Scores a neutral because I won't be buying a full bottle and I think there's better leather fragrances for the money.

For those who grew up on Cuisine perfume - with its naturalistic smells,
this woody-fruity aromatic mush - with too much pepper sauce - is like eating a dessert from a burger joint.
Synthetic and unsatisfying.

This reminds me of something not too pleasant from my British childhood. Dettol disinfectant! Horrendous.

I have been using the original GG more or less since launch, so when I bought this, I assumed it had undergone one of its periodic redesigns.

Frankly, if I had picked this up cheap on a street market, I'd be kicking myself for wasting money, but I would have known the chance I was taking.

This is the "new formula " coke to classic coke, or even a supermarket own brand cola.

I'm not a professional, just a user, but this is an over sweet almost sickly smell that has no relationship whatsoever to original GG.

I must conclude that the oh so subtle switch in the name was deliberately and cynically designed to get mugs like me to boost the sales of this >>> thinking it was the original.

And I'm not alone - having tried and failed a dozen times to get a definitive answer from Givenchy by phone, email and tweet as to whether they were ceasing GG original, I went on an orgy of stockpiling.

Unfortunately, even well established online merchants are still selling and illustrating the new stuff with pictures of the old, so its too subtle for them TOO, and I now have £300 of this dreck to shift on ebay.

If anyone knows of an alternative with similar charachteristics to the original GG please let me know.

Hey now! This one is actually quite pleasant on its own merits, compared to the brash old-school original.

Top notes: pear, cardamom
Heart: iris, lavender
Base: patchouli – leather accord, black vanilla

I find this to be a well-blended wearable tart, spicy-sweet cologne, a youthful retake on the Givenchy Gentleman mystique. Fairly simple in construction and seems to be a "reboot" type scent in Givenchy's collection.

How ironic indeed. This placid fragrance is pathetic but I actually like it...sort of.

Such a boring fragrance. Neither it's classic enough to be strong in scent and character, neither it's modern enough to be wanted by the crowd.

If one wants classic, stick to the classic Gentleman because even the reformulated version is class in itself when compared to this one. If you want a bit of more modern approach, Gentlemen Only and G.O.Absolute are really more than ok.

Who wears it? Boys wannabe men, same thing with YSL "Y"!

Irony is, I'd probably even buy this stuff for the office wear and casual room spraying here and there. Sort of usable, actually.

Scent 5/10
Originality 2/10
Longevity 5/10
Projection 4/10
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40%

First thing's first, this should really be labelled as "Gentleman by Givenchy" and not "Givenchy Gentleman (New)", because Givenchy themselves try to separate this from the original Givenchy Gentleman (1974) in the same way Dior separates Sauvage (2015) from Eau Sauvage (1966), with a little re-arranging of the name. Calvin Klein also recently did this with Obsessed for Men in 2017, separated from Obsession for Men (1986), and so far only Yves Saint Laurent has flat-out reused a name with their new male iteration of Y (1964) in 2017 as well. I feel a lot of the hate and confusion in the fanbase would subside if everyone just referred to this scent the way it's makers do, because most of the problems stem from insisting it's the "New Givenchy Gentleman" when one good sniff clearly shows that it isn't, but rather just another nostalgic take with new juice in a throwback presentation like all the above (save maybe Sauvage). Now that we got all that fracas out of the way, how does it smell? Well average really. Ever since Chanel released Bleu de Chanel (2010), the first latecoming aquatic from the house that re-purposed a name from an old discontinued perfume and using the then cutting-edge ambroxan captive to give it a warm dry down, every other higher-end designer realized they too could release a more mainstream masculine scent capitalizing on heritage with that synthetic base note to bridge the usually more taste-specific world of upper-class male perfume with the demographics-driven median tier (and below) world of "men's cologne". It was only a matter of time before Givenchy jumped on board this craze too, and made Gentleman. The stuff is presented in the "classic" mid-century shouldered "pill bottle" with the wraparound label which all old Givenchy scents used in the beginning, but the similarities to vintage juices end there. This is a squeaky-clean floral for all intents and purposes, which is an interesting turn away from the aquatics, citruses, and barbershop scents other houses imitating the ambroxan-powered freshness of Bleu de Chanel have pursued. It sits somewhere under Bleu de Chanel and Sauvage for me, and it certainly better than the horrible dreck of Y for Men by Yves Saint Laurent, but not by much.

Olivier Cresp and Nathalie Lorson worked on this together, but it doesn't really seem like it to me. Gentleman by Givenchy opens with a pear and cardamom accord, sweet, soft, and a bit powdery, before going into a fairly synthetic iris in the middle, which is touted to be the scent's main accord. A good iris scent is like a good leather scent: usually expensive to pull off convincingly, although designers like Versace have proved that a cheap iris can be done effectively with enough quality flanking notes, like the tobacco iris of Versace the Dreamer (1996), but here it's paired unconvincingly with a rather astringent lavender, making the iris quality (or lack thereof) very evident. I love a good cheapie, as long as it doesn't smell cheap, and this isn't even sold cheaply, so that makes it worse. A bleached-out leather, patchouli and "blackened" vanilla pairing are up next in the base, which is the same combination that Ilias Ermenidas and Christophe Raynaud used in Obsessed for Men, but here it's not committed to as strongly since it's not an oriental, so it ends up just being an irritation sweet powdery stickiness that is carried aloft on musk and ambroxan, making this go from clean to itchy in the finish. Gentleman by Givenchy just doesn't seem like something that a gentleman would actually want to wear, since it is just dialed in so fiercely to what's most abundant in the 2010's on the male side of the fragrance fence. It doesn't come off as a citrus, nor an oriental, nor even a barbershop scent, has no distinction of it's own, even among it's modern peers, and although not a total mess like Y for Men, just is so much filler trying to play itself off as killer that the only enjoyable aspect about it is holding the bottle, and maybe smelling the brief pear and cardamom opening, which is the only part I can see myself really enjoying. It has pretty decent saying power thanks to that Ambroxan, but you'll tire of it long before it fades from skin or shirt. Gentleman by Givenchy feels like a dialed-in and rushed attempt to make a cash cow to fill the coffers, but unlike selections such as Bleu de Chanel or Sauvage, doesn't even try to be -good- at what it does.

There are always going to be people that hate generalist scents whether they are made by Avon or Roja Dove, but even when compared to the merits of other past generalists high or low, Gentleman just comes across as "passable", which is not worthy of a thumbs down for me, but neither a thumbs up. There's just so much better you can do even if the opposite of there being so much worse is also true. No house should really being trying to achieve a state of mediocrity, but whilr houses on much tighter budgets or selling to much larger (and less affluent) crowds can be given a pass because they don't have as much wiggle room to make things truly extraordinary (although they can happen like accident), houses with much more riding on the line like Givenchy, and the proven talent at the wheel has even less excuse. If you absolutely need Givenchy to be the purveyor of your next nine-to-five work scent and it must be something new, this is an okay choice, but you're really boxing yourself in here. The original Givenchy Gentleman which begat this scent was not a whole lot of sophistication in a bottle either, as it was mostly patchouli with some cinnamon, leather, oakmoss, and civet to make it a bit sweet and manly, but at least it was classy and distinct, with a love-it-or-hate-it unflinching stance on how it presented itself, like most gentlemen of quality. This scent is more like "please please please don't notice me as I take the last cup of coffee from the pot" in a bottle. The guy who wears Gentleman by Givenchy doesn't want to be noticed, or complimented, or reprimanded, or anything; he just wants to be there and that's it. Gentleman by Givenchy is literally just "me too" in a bottle, and long after it fades from view, people will still be talking about the original and laughing at this the way they do the initial wave of surviving New Beetles chugging along the main drag in a patina of faded paint, cracked plastic bumpers, and "wash me" written in the caked filth along the running boards. Meh.

I really don't get a lot of iris in this, not like DH or Prada L'Homme anyway. Reminds me of Gentlemen Only, except no ginger, and also Gentlemen Only Intense, except not as spicy. Soft, sweet and very pleasant.

The main accord lasts for 3-4 hours and then you are left with a very soft, generic woody scent that lasts the rest of the workday.

Projection is average.

Don't be fooled. This is nothing remotely comparable to the original Gentleman. This is dank, horrid iris note over synthetic woody calone. Unfortunate performance.

Appalling.

Feeling guilty that
Givenchy Gentleperson
Somehow pleases me,

This fragrance that would
Turn Papa in for toxic
Masculinity

And fire him from his
Precarious retirement
For incorrect thoughts

Like mocking cat pics
Offered as reparations
For dad's civet farms

Or wondering if
Junior has any right to
Turn in Dad's guy patch

For the reward of
Baby's breath and girlfriend's smile
Pears on the table

And other sweeter
Vanities allowed by law
Or righteous fashion.

So should old Habits
Not die soon or hard enough
That new ones flourish

Be that as it may
Under their own tyrannies
Then let them at least

Ride off into some
Gentleman's Collection of
Older Gentlemen.

Where old lady scents
Fill the air most youthfully
In relative time

And youth can forget
History's finest fragrance,
So thusly condemned

Repeat its same Joy,
Discovering new nothings
Under Beauty's sun.

I don't know the original, so I have no basis of comparison.
I don't like this. Brash, too sweet, dense. Initially it smells mostly of wet cardboard (a note I often encounter in inferior modern men's scents). Some spices emerge, although there are none listed in the fragrance notes. No distinguished leather that I can detect, and a very irritating patchouli.

What's with ALL the "Gentleman" fragrances all of the sudden by Givenchy? No, no, no, no, NO!!! Leave the classic Gentleman alone. They could've called it Homme, Baron, Sire, etc. Why do these new perfumers come in and think they can change a classic into something of their own preference. Leave a good thing alone! Givenchy Gentleman is a true classic. If they want to change the formula, then give it a completely different name. The strong and long-lasting leather and patchouli of the original is what those who have worn this for decades LOVE. Please leave the formulation alone, or else market the new creation under a different name. Does Givenchy plan on discontinuing the original Gentleman? If so, I'm stocking up!

Stardate 20171220:

This is irisy woody meh. Nothing to see here. And yes they should have used a different name.
Original Givenchy Gentleman was for real Gentlemen.
This new one is for.., well no one really.

And L'Homme Blanc Individuel explains it the best -

"I can't believe they wasted the Gentleman name on this. I guess Givenchy Irrelevant Nondescript Gentle Person was too long of a name. This stuff is filler. The bottle sure is handsome though, but the juice isn't even as compelling as a good yawn."


http://www.basenotes.net/threads/440480-New-Givenchy-GENTLEMAN-2017/page5?p=4249139&viewfull=1#post4249139

Update: EDP Version 20180626 -
They released an EDP version. I wish they had just given it a different name. EDP is much better than EDT and not like it at all. It is spicy (cloves,pepper, some cinnamon and vanilla). Patchouly and Iris support the spices. Some balsamic resin or amber blends well with vanilla to give it a faint oriental effect. I like this one. Pity the development happens within 30 mins and you are left with a messy base. Still recommended

Since there is just one entry the big Thumbs down of EDT + small Thumbs up of EDP = Neutral rating

Dior Homme revisited and screwed around with.....no way to go Givenchy....insulting to the original legendary predecesor

This was on my testlist. Gentlemen I wore in the 70's and it was simply awesome. If you go here
http://www.basenotes.net/threads/440480-New-Givenchy-GENTLEMAN-2017/page5

entry 130.

A respected Reviewer offers hilarious review
how it compares.

Now on my never try list.

Such harsh reviews.
I like this. Imagine Gucci Guilty's new flanker Absolute, but in a way restrained cologne strength. It is synthetic, yes but still enjoyable.

It is nothing compared to the original 1974 release, nor should it be.

That said, this could have been far more dense/thick/bolder. Perhaps Givenchy is going to flanker it out like Gentlemen Only, in which case a true winner will emerge.

Still, this is an office version of a masculine manly scent. Not in your face offensive, but still in your face in the most polite possible way.

This is a totally new fragrance from Givenchy. From what I understand they are trying to relaunch it as a new Gentleman. The pair behind, Olivier Cresp and Nathalie Lorson, have already collaborated in the New YSL Opium Black and he has done Black XS and she has done Cool Water Deep. The perfume itself is very subtle and discreet, even though it has Iris in the middle notes, which counts a lot. Lavender and Patchouli add to that. The result is very good and pleasant. I just suggest that people maybe need to put a generous splash, when they use it.

Totally raped the original formula. Damn violet (at least in my perception), saltiness and synth harshly medicinal woodiness, an umpteenth sort of Trussardi Uomo new, Gentleman Only or bla bla bla. A pathetic collapse of the original concept. A nightmare.

I sprayed this on with the hope it would smell like the original. No dice on that. I skip this one.

Safe fragrance...

What I think about this one is that it's a safe option. I don't particularly think it's bad in any way, maybe just safe and pleasing. It's not one that would offend and I think it's a perfectly acceptable option for any man out there.

I get that this is an update of an original fragrance, but this smells similar to many offerings out there. I get a great floral composition here. The iris and lavender (two of my favourite notes) are paired with leather - a fantastic combination, and coupled with what I think is hedione (the synthetic jasmine similar to Dior - Eau Sauvage). Other fruity notes may accentuate the composition which remains fresh and sweet.

In summary, there is nothing wrong whatsoever with this fragrance, I find it very agreeable and pleasing, and I think people will like it. Longevity and projection are not great here so bear in mind to apply liberally. I think it's probably a better fragrance than Gentlemen Only however I must admit that the house of Givenchy has seen better days in the past.