Habit Rouge
Guerlain (1965)

The opening is a spicy lemony barbershop fragrance, but a bit old fashioned, formal and stuffy. It neither offers of a refreshing clean out-of-the-shower ‘sporty’ vibe, nor a warm, affectionate and inviting vibe. It’s perfect if you want to go around smelling like you e just had an haircut.

After about 4 hours it starts to settle down. The spiciness and lemon fade away into a soapy rose fragrance, not unlike Acqua Di Parma Essenza to my nose, but more powdery with more rose. At this point it’d make a good blousy black tie fragrance or any well-dressed occasion. But it does occasionally teeter on the edge of smelling like grandma’s pot pourri basket.

To me, it’s a bit of a stand-offish scent, but not in an impolite way, just reserved, wary and unwelcoming of any physicality.

The craftsmanship and quality of the fragrance is definitely obvious in tge dry-down. It’s just not my vibe.

This fragrance really does have some nice qualities about it.
It's composition is compelling.
The thing is I've had a dozen wears of this and I've tried really hard to like this,but alas I can't.
It has all the old fashioned barbershop qualities that people rave about,but unfortunately all I can really smell is the sweets I used to eat as a kid.....Cola Cubes.
I have however kept hold of my old bottle as I just can't bring myself to part with it.
I've just got a funny feeling that at some point I will finally like it as I head through my fifties towards my sixties.
So for now it's a solid neutral.....but maybe time will eventually bring that thumbs up rating.

Habit Rouge is not for everyone. It's strong, floral and yes it does remind one of another age. The rose and carnation floral and powder scent are quite pronounced although they are somewhat cheered up by the citrus. The leathery dry down provides some masculinity but not much. The ingredients seem top notch like all Guerlain frags but perhaps there are just too many of them here. Nevertheless, I can't get away from liking the overall effect. There's something intoxicating about it. I use it as an occasional spritz and it makes a wonderful long lasting closet spray.

Vintage - At the risk of repeating what many other esteemed reviewers have noted on BN and elsewhere, this is one of the very best.

Essentially it's a powdery amber - dry vanilla, with hints of resins. There's a noticeable citrus / bergamot note in the beginning, hints of orange, and touches of rose and carnation in the mid phases. There's a slight leathery element, but very much in the background for me. I don't think of it as a leather perfume.

What I love most here is how it wears - rich without being heavy, and a very restrained sweetness. It is distinctly dressy, but would pair equally well with smart casual outfit or even something bohemian but well put together. For what it's worth, I find it more versatile than Heritage.

Over the years I've come to appreciate Habit Rouge even more, because of its airiness, and the fantastic blending. One of my bottles leaked a bit during transit, and the residual scent in the package is one of the best things I've ever smelled.

5/5

Current (circa mid 2010s) - The mid and the base seem to lack a bit of depth as compared to vintage, and there's a pronounced musky element not there in the vintage version. A fine scent on its own if one has never tried the vintage. Also, a bit weaker.

3.5/5

I am sorry but I'm going to join the 'meh' faction here. Habit Rouge is fine. It smells nice. But it's really nothing special even for the time it was first made and certainly not today. Despite being labelled as masculine, it also strikes me as one of the most unisex, in fact sexless, scents I've smelled. It starts off with an almost imperceptible, sneeze-and-you-miss-it touch of lemon, but that's already surrounded by a rose-carnation florality, which is made tolerable by something of a woody undertone. That undertone fades away in favour of a predominantly vanilla accord, leaving a very sweet and soft vanilla-rose scent, with a very polite and shy touch of leather, and that's pretty much how it stays. Now I'm not really a huge fan of rose or really sweet fragrances, and vanilla has to be combined with either more boozy, leather or tobacco notes for me to really love it, so this is not going to be one I wear very often, maybe only occasionally in summer.

If a perfume is great, and you want to write about it, there should be no problem finding something to say. If it's awful, and you can't stand it, you will probably have a few epithets to give vent to.
But what if a perfume does nothing for you: you don't love it, you don't hate it, it's just meh.
What do you do then? What do you say?
It's hard to get worked up about something that doesn't move you:
Nobody writes hymns of praise to plain vanilla.

And that's what this is to me, plain vanilla; sweet, with orange and rose (and a whole lot of other stuff –spices, balsam, blah blah blah)
It isn't bad, or cheap, or clunky, it just that it doesn't say what I want to hear.
I've tried to like it, I‘ve had it for years and it's sat at the back of the shelf.
Even the vintage doesn't float my boat.
It's polite and affable, but complacent; a crashing bore.
There, now I've found something to say about this perfume that doesn't move me...