Baccarat Rouge 540 review: A gents’ scent that deserves to become a classic

The bouquet

While some fragrances are designed to be an accessory to a smart suit, this is a bit more soft and intimate, a perfume designed to get under your skin so to speak, rather than just doused on as part of a grooming routine. Its seductive jasmine heart note is backed by a warm woody accord of balsam fir and ambergris.

The latter is probably the most expensive raw ingredient on the planet – a pound of this sweet, animalistic smelling stuff will set you back a cool $10k and with Baccarat 540, you can smell every penny of it on your skin, blending beautifully with aromatic hints of saffron and cedar.

Read more: 10 best perfume dupes that smell like the real thing

There’s also a slight confectionary sweetness underscoring the whole thing that will send you on a sugar high and make the wearer’s skin smell somewhat addictive when you get up close and personal.

How it developed over time

While many perfumes announce themselves with a lot of noise and fanfare when you spray them on – only to disappear after a few hours – the clever thing about this perfume is its subtle richness which stays pretty much consistent throughout the day, and warms up beautifully on the skin. After a day of meetings in town, we were still catching whiffs of it on the tube home.

The bottle

Equally decadent, yet wonderfully so, the bottle is almost as fetching as its contents, a stout square flacon with the recognisable MFK gold stopper.

If you were wondering what the “540” in the name is all about, it’s the temperature required to create Baccarat’s signature ruby red crystal, and the label is suitably red to reflect this.

If you turn the bottle around you can glimpse a chandelier on the other side through the glass – a “dressing table dazzler” if ever there was one.