Kenzo Homme Eau de Toilette Intense
Kenzo (2021)

Absolutely lovely fragrance from kenzo, loved it from first whiff.

Seems to be a love or hate for many people, I can understand that, but at the same time I really also can not understand how it's possible not to like this, I guess because of it's nature beeing a very strong sweet blue/aqua, some people I guess it's to mutch for the nose.

My nose appreciate everything about this, it's blue, it's sweet, it's fresh, it's different, it's unique (for 2023), it's got power and it last, what's not to like?

It kind of brings me back to the late 90s erlie 00s when perfumes dared!
Dared to have some creative mikses of ingredients and it defiently wasn't quiet about it when you had it on, it's was often a hit or miss, but when it hit, omg was it delicious! Kinda like this, it hit the spot, it's just delicious.

As for the notes:

It's more sweet then aqua in the opening and middel, but also the opening and middel is very very good, the fig really shines for me, projects alot the first hours.

It's also more blue then aqua in the opening and middel, in the heart of it after a few hours it's more aqua then blue, a sweet quiet metro aqua with hint of slightly cold blue that I guess could only be a kenzo, bravo for all stages of the perfumes on my skin, and bravo kenzo for a lovely release.

I liked it that much that I had to take a decant with me while going on holidays.

My opinion might be different than most written here but Kenzo Homme Intense to me is a beautiful salty aquatic with salty notes masterfully blended within. I can’t smell any fruity notes at all but that’s not a bad thing at all. All I can smell is a modern take on the salty aquatic, kind of homage to legendary Kenzo Pour Homme from 1991. It is fairly linear on my skin but that’s okay as well.

Longevity and sillage are outstanding.

Really a masterpiece to me. I am going to buy a bottle soon.

Kenzo Homme Intense is a woody marine fragrance with a salty yet slightly sweet aroma from the fig accord. Very long-lasting, with good projection.

When it came out, last year, i liked it but it didn't convinced me. I tried multiple times at stores during last summer but i found it not interesting enough. I never get the "pickle" facet that many do, but it smelled weird.

During this year, i came across a good deal on a small bottle and i ended up buying it. After trying it for the first time as a full wear experience, everything made sense to me. The fresh and salty woody accord with the fruity fig aroma turned to be a refreshing and even sensual experience.

Quentin Bisch is becoming the Alberto Morillas for the 21st century. With an interesting vision of the modern perfumery, making use of good synthetic materials and creating some of the best fragrances out there, but also some of the most forgettable. Some of the new JPG flankers are very redundant and the same applies to 1 Million flankers that he did. The Parfum version was a potential good fragrance if it was created with more budget. But things like Scandal pour homme or even CH Bad Boy aren't that bad. Actually, i thing that those fragrances are great for young guys with good twists on massive market ideas. But the highlights to me are the fragrances that he's doing for Marc-Antoine Barrois. B683 is fantastic, Ganymede is also excellent and I'm really intersted to try Encelade. He utilizes woody-patchouli synthetic molecules to give substance, modernity and intersting nuances to a fragrance. Bois Imperial follows the same path.

This Kenzo is a ode to the original (and one of my all-time favorites) fragrance that came out in 1991. A woody aromatic and marine scent. With lots of pine needles and a sandalwood base. Super relaxed, growned up and avant-garde. It was the second fragrance utilizing Calone, after Aramis New West. It was Quentin's signature at some point in his life and he took that woody marine idea and made it modern and fun.

It is modern in the way that it's a new twist of something more classic, not in the way of being a copy cat of other new masculines that goes in a sweet direction or in the Sauvage trend. It feels strange, weird but fun, like the PR robot bottle. Thankfully is a much better creation than Phantom is. Fig is a note that i really appreciate, specially when it's used the leaf or woody aspect. Philosykos, Hermès Un Jardin En Mediterranée or even Atelier Cologne Figuier Ardent are some of my favorite of this genre. But here, the fig is a fruity accord, giving brightness, sweetness and a young relaxed / laid back experience.

It's a very recomendable fragrance with a good price, good performance, and nice smell. Wear it during summer time and you'll find joice.

4/5

The sea note in this fragrance isn't as aquatic as the original, which is great if you didn't like the plasticky aquatic note, but I kind of wish they kept some of the original elements. I find this fragrance very boring, and the fig feels mushed in with generic spices and bland sandalwood.

In a few words, I would describe this fragrance as "bland watery fig.

The scent itself seems mild, however it's emotionally extremely heavy. Instigates emotions of sorrow, coming not from the heart area, but plexus solaris, the so called "second brain" where human subconscious supposedly resides.

Whoever made this scent, definitely has some crude knowledge about confronting blockades in the deeper realms of the human mind and emotions. Kenzo Homme EdT Intense is damp and strangely warm on and off the skin, but characterly cold, sad and disinterested.

This fragrance is not mainstream and made to be liked by everyone. It shares some characterstics of retro/blue nineties pushed down the throat of japanese-zen 21. century idea. Unique frag in fact, not copying any other directly, but touching and exploring styles of Issey Miyake and some older, discontinued scents by Kenzo such as Kenzo Homme Boisee.

Kenzo Homme EdT Intense is a bit of taste to acquire and that can take some time. There is always a simple explanation to things as well, that being you simply don't like the fragrance and that's it. No philosophy.

There are no sea notes here, no aquatic aromatic feel in vein of Bvlgari Aqva or Acqua di Gio. My perception of this scent is something similar to swamp area, a lake of some sort and there's a lot of fog. Vetiver and fig are prominent notes on my skin paired with that feel of lake water. This scent could be unisex.

Conclusion: introspective, distant, cold, lonely.


Originality: 6,5/10
Scent: 6/10 objectively, 3/10 subjectively-instigates negative emotions in me.
Longevity: 8/10
Projection: 7/10 surprisingly good for this type of scent.

Truly an excellent fougère ozonic-marine little gem (for all the lovers of the infamous salty genre). A quite figgy dark ozonic-marine. The serenity of oceanic breeze, a fresh-warm salty/mild peppery virile embrace, definitely a sensual romantic fragrance full of western dynamism and eastern silent mystery (with a landmark japanese assertive soul) inspired by the intensity of bamboo (aqueous, silent, enchanted). Kenzo Homme features the same woodsy genes as the great Kenzo Pour Homme and a quite "juicy-fat" (in this case figgy/honeyed) marine note a la Bond n.9 Coney Island (where the seaweeds-dominant marine presence is anyway more experimentally chocolatey and gourmandish) . A quite dark deeply oceanic impenetrable aura a la Guy Laroche Horizon (my favorite among hundreds calonic-ozonics along with the great Kenzo Pour Homme). This juice shares with the great ancestor (Kenzo Pour Homme 1991, revolutionary in its capacity to combine marine patterns and dark mossy-coniferous elements with a weird spicy/nutty vaguely honeyed mildness almost tasty in its sort of yummy "edible" attractiveness for our senses) this dark impenetrable aura (vetiver, moss, sandalwood, patchouli, a tad of coniferous resins, piquant spices, rosewood) and an intense woody-salty soul but while Kenzo Pour Homme used to turn out in to something spicier, milder and almost edible (with its sort of spicy/nutty quite "edible" dustiness) Kenzo Homme remains typically marine and intensely woodsy-salty despite a soothing figgy note "civilizing" the marine saltiness and taming each angular-metallic spark. This figgy presence is (along with ozonic-marine patterns) the fragrance's hallmark and is throughout romantically waving in the air as marvellously combined with intense saltiness and woods (mostly rosewood and peppery synth akigalawood). Dry down is wonderfully intese, kind of salty-figgy and still peppery (pink peppercorn and akigalawood). Appalling mountains loom threatening over the sea, some smoke can be seen distant over there, little ships disappear sucked by fogs, where are you my disappeared angels of the youth? I'm losing myself in to such a grey-dazzling immensity.