SpookyMonkey's Full Review: Yves Saint Laurent - Kouros - Eau De Toilette Spra...
Yes, let's start another review with references to your various bodily humors, shall we?
This review has been five years in the making. Or just fifteen minutes it takes me to run out of crass things to say.
I'm amazed you ever run out of crass things to say.
Well sometimes I subdue the urge to do crass things rather than say them.
Well could you put the crass on hold long enough to explain why you've chosen to debase this cologne?
Because I used to love this cologne. Kouros by Yves Saint-Laurent is one of those scents that has the subtlety of an axe wound. When you're wearing it, you're effectively punching everyone in a five mile radius in the snout with your pungent aroma. How people take varies based upon what Derrida calls the 'parergon' - the essential interaction between the object and their personal experience which remains an intangible but very real concept.
Bollocks.
Take it up with Derrida. I don't make this stuff up.
I procured this cologne several years ago (nearly a decade) back when I was in the UK for various British reasons. At the tender age that I was at where I wanted to do things to girls other than throw rocks stock up on my Cooties shot, I figured that smelling like puberty and French urinals wouldn't score me 'hot chicks'.
Ha! You coul--
Shut it. Kouros was worn by the paternal unit. I remember walking by the bathroom in the morning after he'd showered and thinking "Jesus, he needs some serious fiber in his diet". And then I'd think "Hey, I wonder what kind of cologne that is." I'd never smelled anything like it before.
No kidding. I'm just a figment of your imagination and even -I- wouldn't follow your pops into the crapper.
Good for you. Kouros is touted as flowery, fresh, earthy and 'clean'.
What kind of clean? Like sterile 'clean' or out of the shower 'clean'?
The second one. A very potent clean that requires less than a quarter of a spritz. It's also one of the longer-lasting colognes I've ever worn.
And what do the ladies think?
Well considering all women on earth that I'm not related to want this sexy Monkey's essential being, it's hard to use me as an impartial party. But I did receive more glowing compliments than usual, mostly due to its unique scent.
So I'm waiting for the downside.
I don't know if this has anything to do with me personally, but something alarming began to happen when wearing Kouros. After the initial period of spraying on too much (like every ignorant teen does when he's trying to get his-self some), I realized that it smelled good. Damned good. So I began wearing it weekly. But every so often, while I was out in a bar, perhaps driving home in the car, I'd get this whiff of something that I can only politely describe as 'earthy'. As in 'good for the garden' or 'that thing that happens' earthy.
Crap?
Yeah. But it would pass so quickly that I would never give it a second thought. I'd blame it on invisible farting dogs in passing cars and move on. But the smell would reappear. I'd be in class. I'd be at the movies. It would tickle my nostrils and be gone. I'd look around in shock, trying to find that stupid invisible dog before he farted on someone else and hope that no one else blamed me for it. But no dog. Nary a canine in sight.
I smell a conspiracy.
Eventually the cologne was abandoned because a woman came along, cleaned me up, made me shave and bought me nice things. Including a cologne that I will review later that I was forced to wear under pain of no nookie.
Such trickery!
But highly effective trickery.
Well after she passed on to other things..
Read: Realized you're a lost cause
...After she passed on to other things, I reverted back to the cologne.
After a long ceremonial burning of photos and crying session, I'll wager.
I'll wager my boot in your backside. The bottle had sat unused for a few months and since I didn't figure smelly stuff would 'go off', I resumed wearing it. Again, I was pleased by the clean and oaky aroma that made you feel like you were calm and crisp even if you'd been sweating up a storm in a crowded bar or grinding against unsavory women at a seedy club. But the flatus aroma resumed.
It was more pronounced now. Kouros, when it was good, was very very good, when it was bad it was like a stale bum taco in a 7-11 dumpster. And no one else seemed to notice this - which was highly unsettling.
I'd receive compliments from co-workers about the complex, oaky cologne I was wearing and how they wanted to know where I'd ordered it from. No one asked if I'd taken a fertilizer bath or no bath at all in the last six months. Surely, it was an inside joke - was I the stinky guy? I looked around the office in hopes that there was a gent stinkier than I. Fortunately there was. And since the law of Office Politics dictates you can't have two stinky guys, I felt better.
Amendment 144.3.2 suggests the existence the overtly and covertly stinky gents co-existing in scented harmony.
I'm not one for reading. So, now effectively paranoid, I did some research on the topic.
Epinions?
No, serious research. And this was, like, before the Internet, man. I went to froo-froo mall stores and asked about Kouros. I spent a lot of time chatting up counter males. More time than I was comfortable with. And a lot of phone numbers that I really don't want and don't intend to call.
You're so deep in the closet that you've just found Narnia.
How topical. But the consensus was the same - the cologne, while clean and earthy, 'reacts to different people in different ways'. I heard the spectrum ranging from 'only appreciated by advanced palates' to 'can make you smell like an airport restroom at 3am'.
So you were making yourself smell like poop on purpose?
No, I was paying $50 for a 3.4oz spray that will make people ask if you grew up in a compost house. After this experience, I truly believed that Yves Saint-Laurent had finally lost his bloody mind and sold an Eau De Toilette spray that was brewed in a real Toilette.
Now I think is the time for an adequate summary.
It smells good spritzed into the air, but I'd spray it on your skin and walk around a bit before dropping the dough on this one. Depending on the 'parergon', you could smell like a million dollars worth of liquid sex or five bucks of liquid yestermeal. You've been warned.
Brand New KOUROS by Yves Saint Laurent - EDT SPRAY 3.3 OZ Condition : : New in original package, 1st Quality Details: YEAR INTRODUCED - 1981 FRAGRANCE...More at eBay
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Launched by the design house of Yves Saint Laurent in 2000, KOUROS BODY by Yves Saint Laurent for MEN posesses a blend of: incense and eucalyptus comb...More at eCOST.com
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