Le Beau
Jean Paul Gaultier (2019)

Changes in men's perfumery happen so slowly they make glaciation look precipitous.

Eau Sauvage was king for 22 years before Cool Water stole his Fresh crown, and it was 17 years before Le Mâle replaced Azzaro pour Homme as the go-to fougère.

Bleu de Chanel has been around for thirteen years, so we may not be stuck with millimetric adjustments to its Spiky Wood formula for that much longer.

However, in the mean time; the flacon of Beau may resemble Le Mâle but the juice inside is pure Bleu.

Am I crazy for liking a sweet coconut and tonka fragrance for hot weather flanker from a line I am sworn to hate? Look, every summer fragrance is roughly the same. They're either grapefruit/citron (Light Blue Intense/Italian Love/Eau Givree), or Aquatic+Fruit(Versace Eau Fraiche)/salt(LB Eau Intense)/pungent shit(AdG Profumo). This is the same tired DNA we have been smelling for almost 20 years that women in reaction videos keep saying something like "it smells nice on a man, but I don't think a man should smell like lemonade".

The two closest things we have to a savior were John Vervatos Artisan Pure, a neroli nuke that despite being very beautiful unfortunately is a note shared by baby bar soap/butt wipes in many other countries. The other is Versace Eau Fraiche, which uses starfruit that's enough to distract you from the weird aquatic note present in every summer freshie. Did you notice these two were tied in the 2022 fragrance awards? There's a good reason ;)

JPG looked at the rest of the market and gave a hard no to tired aquatics, but had to take notice of the success of aventus using the unusual pineapple note. While pineapple is a weird smell on people and no one needs another Aventus clone, coconut is definitely mainstream enough to be safe, especially when blended with coconut meat and tonka. I was afraid this fragrance would smell like cheap american sunscreen, but instead I was surprised by a beautiful vacation scent that won my heart and had me about to purchase a big obnoxious bottle until they sold out, and I heard about le parfum and couldn't decide... and now it's on my to-buy list when I burn up a bottle of something else.

I tend to like unique, extremely powerful scents that you don't have to bathe in. That's what has historically attracted me to JPG fragrances. When I saw Le Male was getting yet another flanker, naturally I had to smell it. Le Beau is great smelling, but I've definitely smelled a smell like this, and trust me, you have too. JPG, where did your creativity go?!

Bottle is pretty much the Le Male bottle given the Lolita Lempicka treatment and gold accents. Overall, cool presentation. I wore a sample of this for awhile. It starts of with a generic tropical, coconut smell reminiscent of a modern day sun tan lotion. The dry down is where the familiarity comes from. You know that typical mall smell? The smell of every single fragrance in the entire world wafting out from any of the 4 Department store anchors, Abercrombie, Hollister, Bath and Body Works, and standalone perfumeries, combined with leather jackets and purses, as well as Cinnabon and Wetzel's... that's Le Beau for better or worse.

Do I like Le Beau? Absolutely. But JPG Will have a hard time convincing me this is anything other than yet another fly-by-night Le Male flanker to milk the La Male/Classique names for all they're worth. Especially when Scandal, which smells similarly, exists.

Personally, this "Le Beau" is a big "Le No", and there isn't much I'd call "handsome" or "boyfriend" material out of it either, but it tries. Jean-Paul Gaultier Le Beau (2019) is another youthful, playful, bubblegum sweet flanker to join the pantheon of beefy torso and bulge bottles that consist of the main money-maker line on the male side of the brand's perfume catalog, ever since the original gay club sensation Jean Paul Gaultier Le Mâle (1995) hit the scene. That game-changing proto-clubber fougère had the added benefit of being composed by a young and earnest Francis Kurkdjian, but this one is another creation by Quentin Bisch, who seems to serve up flankers sometimes in the company of another perfumer when Mr. Kurkdjian is unavailable. No DNA from the original Le Mâle is anywhere to be found here, and the main theme is supposed to be coconut, but more on that in a bit. Methinks the point of Le Beau is not only to be younger, but maybe a bit safer for casual use as denoted by the tongue-in-cheek leaf over the crotch, as if to signify innocence. The tropical overtones and the cranked-up sweetness make this the perfect kind of innocious but gimmicky scent that all the teens would douse themselves in before going to a movie or the mall, so bravo on knowing you target audience.

The opening is massive ethyl maltol blast of sweetened citrus that Gaultier marketing team calls bergamot, but I get very little actual bergamot feeling from this. Closest thing to that is maybe a hint of something like lime, but it's more like sugared limeade at this point than fresh squeezed juice. A coconut note does show up, alongside something that feels like a generic woody amber molecule in the heart instead of the middle, but it's more sugar tonight in my coffee, more sugar tonight in my tea, more sugar to stand beside me, and more sugar to run with me, because like The Guess Who, that's what I get here. The coconut really could have been a star player too if it wasn't buried in synthetic sugary mess and the massive tonka base that finishes this off, but at least Le Beau has the decency to not be too cloying or long-legged, as it fades in about six hours on skin. Yeah, it's uncommon for a Le Mâle flanker to be this mediocre in performance, but I think the idea was kinder, gentler, and younger as I said above, so it makes sense. If anything, this is a more-casual coconut-twisted Ultra Mâle (2015), which isn't something much to be proud of, but again makes sense given the attempt at modernizing the line to carry the torch for the aging original. Best use is in all seasons save summer (which is weird for something with coconut), due to the massive sweetness. and worn among friends especially if you're under 21 and Applebees is your idea of a night out.

I first thought Jean Paul Gaultier Le Beau to be a reintroduction of the limited edition Le Beau Mâle (2013) flanker produced by Kurkdjian for the house, but I couldn't have been more wrong. Granted, those flankers were basically taking the mint aspect of Le Mâle and cranking it up to 11, so they didn't have a lot of fans per se, but I liked them better than most things made under the banner of Le Mâle since Ultra Mâle set the new syrupy standard for the line. Instead, we get something that feels like dropping a few milliliters of Creed Virgin Island Water (2007) into some cheap tonka soup designer clone base, shaking it up, and putting it in a cool bottle that is the only real reason for collectors to pick this up. Le Beau is going to have its fans, and I don't knock any of them for loving this, because I have some pretty dubious choices in my wardrobe too (we all need guilty pleasures), but I don't see this particular flanker really standing the test of time like some others. I kind of feel like this should be limited edition like the marginally better previous ones carrying "Le Beau" in their name, but we wouldn't be so lucky. If sweet and short-lived fragrances with a card up their sleeve sound like fun for you, go ahead and test Le Beau, just don't walk into this thinking it will be a piña colada housed in glass pectorals. Thumbs down.

Close your eyes get your lungs filled with this elixir scent and you're instantly on a white sand beach caressed by turquoise waters under a balmy wind. Delicious! Le Beau whisks you away to summertime breezes on your salty skin. Wear a white shirt, drinking from a coconut. This is what it feels like...a night out, tropical coconut rafaello exotic beach frag. A rush of energy, a bold and daring fragrance dressed in woody and aromatic nuances. A zesty lime note over a sexy coconut and tonka bean base.

What you get when you first speay it's the fresh lime note with the creamy coconut working together with it in the background. That's uplifting and energetic, almost sporty but without making it a sport fragrance. As it reaches the mid the creamy coconut takes over with the lime note dials back but still noticeable. After a few minutes it turns really woody and then tonka bean that gives the composition the depth it needs for being a masculine evening fragrance. That reminds me of those cookies if you know, Rafello! A superb choice and sexy masculine scent.

It's not a masterpiece but it's a sweet sensual fragrance with a bit of tropical wibe.smells like fresh husked coconut and fresh squeezed lime on me. It smells a little synthetic but I'm ok with that. By having those synthetic characteristic this fragrance really performs well in both the longevity and sillage and that makes your every penny worth. Perfect for summer evenings, spring and warm autumn days. Reminds me summer, beaches, linen suits, cool sunsets at the summer sea and cool summer evenings, deliciously sensual!

The idea of the original is in the background, mixed with the strong bergamote and coconut. It's the bergamote that drags the entire composition into appearing as a hybrid of Invictus and slightly even A*Men Ultimate. Overspray this one, you'll sicken yourself and the environment.

The original is a staple, even if destroyed by reformulation. Its more fresh counterparts Popeye and Superman are very good summer flankers. Le Beau is neither here or there. Too heavy for the summer, too tropical for the winter, and with no character for the autumn or spring. I call this one the non-aligned. When I kind of think about it, it's for the "don't touch me, I don't judge or take sides" 15-25 years old crowd.


Originality: 5/10
Scent: 6/10
Longevity: 8/10
Projection: 7/10
________________________
math grade: 65%
subjective grade: 6/10

Besides the Le Mâle DNA that's present, I also get marine notes from Le Beau. A faint ambergris seemed to be present as well the first tries.

It's not gourmand but slightly more so than Le Male and its flankers because of the 'coconut wood'. I got good projection as well from it.

All in all it's enjoyable but a bit too simple for my liking.

Solid fragrance all around both in uniqueness from the coconut mixed with LeMale freshness and very good performance. Excellent compliment ratio, should be liked by most of the normal population. That excludes finicky basenoters, of course.

It does get a little basic into the deep drydown, sticking mostly to a LeMale scent, but that's proven to be a winner of the years, so no worries there.

I got good performance on my skin with good, noticeable projection during the first 4 hours and then a little better than skin scent for 10+ hours.

I do appreciate that unlike the original, this flanker is NOT a cloying nuclear mess. It's doesn't scream, and for me that's a good thing.

I also LOVE coco-nutty tropical fragrances like Virgin Island Water, and Eau de Soleil Blanc. For a crowd pleasing line like Le Male, this is a vast improvement. But, it also doesn't land among my favorite tropical fragrances. The coconut feels a little too light and synthetic, especially to be the star of the show. I mostly get that and tonka, with very little citrus. The perfomance is kinda meh, with the sugary traces of that original Le Male DNA being the only thing that really jumps off the skin. I'd recommend other things before I recommend this, but it's not bad by any stretch of the imagination

Yummy, juicy edible sweet coconut.

It's so simple yet quite good.

There are others before it that have gone down this road: Sean john Unforgiveable Night, and Marc by Marc Jacobs.
Both feature qualities that flirt with coconut, (fig in the case of Marc). Le Beau is unabashedly coconut, and one that you want to sink your teeth into.