Scandal Le Parfum
Salted caramel is the material that gets Jean Paul Gaultier Scandal Le Parfum Eau de Parfum talked about, and it is also the one that will decide whether you buy it, because there is no mistaking it for anything else.
It is sweet, obviously, but the salt is doing real work. It gives the caramel a savoury edge that keeps it from reading as dessert, and in combination with the jasmine above it the effect is less confectionery than you would expect. That jasmine is the richest kind, heady and slightly animal beneath its sweetness, and it adds a grown up weight that the fruit led fragrances in this category never manage. Vanilla finishes everything, smooth and dark, binding the flower to the caramel so the fragrance ends up as one continuous idea rather than two.
Three materials in all, so it is a short composition built for impact rather than intricacy. What arrives in the first five minutes is what you are buying. The concentration makes it dense and long lasting, easily a full day, with a trail that lingers in a room after you have left it. This is a fragrance that needs a light hand: one spray is often enough, and three is too many. Heat makes it heavier still, so it belongs to autumn, winter and the evening.
It is sold to women and will suit anyone who likes a sweet fragrance with some salt and depth to it. Within the Scandal family it sits between the honeyed original and the spiced Intense, sweeter than either and the most immediately seductive of the three. Ane Ayo, Daphné Bugey and Fabrice Pellegrin composed it, in 2022.
Gaultier the fashion house arrived first and the perfumes followed in 1993, since when the corset bottle has done as much for the brand as any garment; Puig has been the controlling shareholder since 2011.
Please note: images are a guide only. Packaging and bottle design may occasionally differ from those shown due to manufacturer updates or promotions.
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