Le Male Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Intense

For people who found the lighter releases too polite, Jean Paul Gaultier Le Male Le Parfum Eau de Parfum Intense is the answer the house eventually gave them.

Four materials build it. Cardamom opens, and it is the choice that sets this apart from its siblings: green, slightly soapy, with a dry aromatic heat that is nothing like a kitchen spice rack. Lavender arrives beneath it, herbal and clean, the thread that runs through everything the range does. Iris then turns the middle cool and powdery, a note with a faintly metallic, rooty quality that stops the sweetness taking over too early. Vanilla closes it, thick and warm, and at this strength it is doing far more of the work than it would in a toilette. The interesting part is the gap between that dry, powdery middle and the sweet finish underneath it.

Intense strength means a heavier oil load, slower evaporation and a longer tail. In practice it stays with you through an evening and is still faintly there on a shirt the next morning. It also means restraint is required. One or two sprays, not four, and apply it to skin rather than to clothing if you want the cardamom to show itself properly.

Cold weather suits it. So does night, dinner, and anywhere you want to register without having to say anything about it. It is marketed to men and it sits at the richer end of its own range rather than the everyday end.

The house is French and came out of fashion, with a first womenswear collection in 1976 and a Paris boutique in 1984. Perfume followed in 1993 and has been produced within the business of majority owner Puig since 2016.