Lacoste
A unique visual signature based on accords, character, and seasonality
The green apple punches immediately with real fruit juice quality, cut through with sharp, almost medicinal arborvitae that feels more botanical than aromatic. It's energetic, slightly salty-green, and reads genuinely fresh rather than chemical.
The florals and woody notes settle into an oddly herbal sweetness—the jasmine blends with cedar leaf and stone pine to create something between a fragrant geranium and a woody candy. The synthetic undertones become evident here, lending a slightly dated, almost powdery quality that shouldn't work but somehow does.
What remains is predominantly white musk and patchouli, though the projection has become whisper-thin by this point. It lingers as a faint, sweet-woody skin scent with the faintest green edge persisting from the pine notes, ultimately forgettable but not unpleasant.
Red Lacoste arrives as a sharp, almost cheeky contradiction—a sport fragrance that refuses the expected aquatic route, instead pivoting toward something greener and more deliberately fruity. Annick Ménardo has constructed a curious beast here: the green apple top note crashes into arborvitae with real botanical crispness, like biting into a Granny Smith whilst walking through a conifer plantation. There's nothing delicate about this opening salvo.
What makes Red Lacoste genuinely interesting is how the fruity sweetness (88% accord) doesn't cloying—it's braced by cedar leaf and the mineral, almost herbal quality of Siberian stone pine in the heart. This middle section feels caught between fresh sportiness and something vaguely aromatic, almost old-fashioned in its refusal to smell modern. The jasmine should soften everything, but instead it acts as a strange sweetener for the woody elements rather than a traditional floral anchor.
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3.6/5 (129)