Dior Homme Intense UPDATE 2014.

(please note: this is a review of  "year 2014" batches only.
If you want know what happened during years 2007-2013, read HERE ) 

Since so many friends asked me to investigate about Dior Homme Intense "Year 2014" batches, I had quick calls with a professionally-involved friend. He collected DHI "year-2014- labelled" bottles (actually, a few testers). Then we met inside his perfume shop, and I performed the blind test in the back room, away from the main hall (the classic perfume shop is one of the worst places where to perform tests, indeed).

Smelling more, smelling better.

Luigi Russolo, "Profumo", year 1910

We are used to smelling paper strips for convenience, reliability, and practical purposes.
Unfortunately, paper is NOT the best material to smell. There is something better. It's the heavy, complex, "winter-season" fabric. Your heavy coat, for example. Or a "furry" synthetic coat.
Why? for a simple reason: complexity in structure. It's not "flat", but almost three-dimensional.
Fabric is not flat as paper is, but it's thick and with complicate structure. When you spray perfumes all over fabric, a bigger amount of perfume will be trapped. Perfume molecules will adhere on every point of the fabric 3D surface.

How to smell a perfume?

This discussion can make you smile: "How to smell a perfume?"
In facts, the discussion is not so weird. Just walk into a perfume shop and look at the "horror show". 

Guerlain LIDGE analysis (2005-2013)

Since there are so many rumors about possible discontinuation / reformulation / watering down, I got three different L'Instant De Guerlain Extreme pour Homme (LIDGE) bottles, from three different ages. The beginning (batch 5H01 = year 2005), the last one before "discontinuation" rumors came out (2T01 = year 2012) and the last on shelves (batch 3X01, late 2013): I made a blind test, confronting these three samples (see pictures).

YSL KOUROS: 5-batches blind test (year 2013)

Don't waste so many words. KOUROS is one of the Myths: unique, hated and loved, beyond any measure.
About Kouros reformulations, volumes have been written, but this is not the place to talk about it. In this test we want to compare the last decade of Kouros editions, from 2003 to 2013, to check if the heavy perfume reformulations occurred during recent years, ruined or improved, or didn't have effect at all, on this superb scent.

Low-cost perfumes, anyone?

So many, many discussions about it, just take a trip on Google to find a lot of infos. We are speaking about the famous-infamous "supermarket perfumes beating designer scents".

In summary, a well-known supermarket brand decided to produce their own scents, with only one rule: producing a perfume with a final price "less than five Euros" (4 UK pounds, or 7 US dollars), all inclusive, and on-par (same quality) with well-known designer scents.

Dior Homme Intense: updates.

I'm in France, and this afternoon I entered in a Dior boutique, where I find on the shelves both Dior Homme and Dior Homme Intense testers, just arrived, unboxed, batched 3X02 (October 2013).
( about "batch-numbers", see here  for "Christian Dior")
I was a bit perplexed:  the Homme Intense juice seemed significantly lighter than the Homme.
I asked permission to shot a few pictures with a whiter background, a neutral, and a darker background.
Dior Homme Intense appears very clear, almost transparent.
Dior Homme is Green-Yellow.
I'm concerned by the DHI color.
*apparently* smell like the previous "year 2013" batches, i.e very good.
Unfotunately I coudn't have an accurate test inside the boutique, so I'll prepare a thorogh review soon. I'm only a bit perplexed with all these variations.

Guerlain LIDGE: reformulated? A 5-samples blind test.

L' Instant De Guerlain Extreme pour Homme (i.e. LIDGE), is the "Eau de Parfum
 version" of L'Instant de Guerlain (LIDG), two men's fragrances contending the "Trophy of Rivalry" with "Dior Homme" highly-acclaimed twins. But let's face it, both Dior and Guerlain are excellent, and none is better than the other.
What we want to investigate about, however, is the (alleged) "LIDGE reformulation", which (allegedly) took place at an unspecified time, around 2011 or 2012. True or false ?

DIOR HOMME : 9-batches blind test

For the DIOR HOMME INTENSE tests see here
For the batch-numbers code ("Christian Dior"), see here
For the "Year 2014" update, see here.


Dior Homme, the Eau de Toilette launched in 2005, had a lot of controversies similarly to its bigger brother EdP "Homme Intense", because of a "reformulation" that took place during previous years (as in the "Intense" version) and sparked speculations of all kinds (and hoarding, and obviously price increases).

In this article, an analysis of the alleged differences between the various years of "Dior Homme" will occur, using a total of NINE different bottles from 2005 up to 2013.

DIOR HOMME INTENSE : 4-batches review.

Dior Homme, in the EDP ("Intense") version, launched in 2007, had a lot of controversies in the past two years , when it was said that this perfume had been "drastically reformulated".
The fact took place in second half of 2011: in that year there were slightly changes in outer packages, and some details of the bottles changed, too.
The "reformulation" news sparked a wave of frenzy and rushes to buy bottles of  "vintage" Dior Homme Intense ("vintage" is an unusual term here, since we're talking about a perfume launched in 2007... ), resulting in increased prices and speculations of all kinds.
In this article, a possibly accurate analysis of the alleged differences between the various "vintages" of Dior Homme Intense will occur, using two bottles for the period alleged "pre-reformulation ", and two for the same period post-reformulation .