Paco Rabanne Phantom is a fragrance for men released in 2021. So when I initially saw pictures of this fragrance online, I didn't think it was real.
However, I now have the bottle in my hand, and I've spent some quality time with it.
In this blog post, I'll share my thoughts and insights on this intriguing fragrance and provide you with a glimpse of what to expect from Paco Rabanne Phantom.
This brand-new fragrance was a collaborative effort among perfumers Juliette Karagueuzoglou, Dominique Ropion, Anne Flipo, and Loc Dong.
I looked at the note breakdown, and you have apple, lavender, vanilla, lemon, and patchouli. It's a very interesting note breakdown and, a pretty cool presentation as well. I know what a lot of people think regarding a lot of Paco Rabanne presentations.
What does Paco Rabanne Phantom smell like?
Let's first unveil Paco Rabanne Phantom notes:
Top notes: Lavender, Lemon Zest, and Amalfi Lemon.
Middle notes: Lavender, Earthy Notes, Smoke, Apple, and Patchouli.
Base notes: Vanilla, Lavender, and Vetiver.
So when you first spray this on, you get hit with a creamy lavender, and that's how Paco Rabanne describes it, creamy lavender. That's pretty well accurate.
There's also lemon in the opening. The lemon here doesn't come across as really sharp, you know, sometimes lemony fragrances can be very sharp, very bright, piercing almost.
Here it takes on more of a sweet scent profile. At times, it reminds me more of an orange than it does a lemon, maybe even slightly pineapply as compared to a lemon.
So it has this fruity kind of sweetness initially melding together with that creamy lavender, and sweetness is going to be kind of the name of the game here.
You get that sweetness initially from the fruitiness, as it dries down, it's from vanilla.
So basically, the vanilla comes in and takes the part of that fruity sweetness in the opening and then carries the sweetness on through into the base.
You can pick up the vanilla pretty much right away as well, I'd say, but it kind of sits underneath everything else initially before it comes out more as it dries through the mid.
There's this little faint kind of nuance of patchouli along the edges, which I like decently well. And into the base, you get this amber woody kind of feeling that all the other notes play off of.
The lavender, I would say, is what carries on through the fragrance for the majority of the lifespan here. It's the focal point. I mean, it's like lavender and fruity sweetness, and then lavender and vanilla, a touch of patchouli, a touch of amber wood, but that lavender carries from the opening into the mid into the dry down.
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Does Paco Rabanne Phantom smell synthetic?
Now, the fragrance does come across how most people would describe it as synthetic, and by that I mean when you smell it, it doesn't smell like something you would find in nature, like the way the citrus comes across doesn't smell like an actual lemon or orange, the way the lavender comes across doesn't smell like you went out and smelled a lavender or lavender plant, the vanilla doesn't smell like you would expect real vanilla to smell.
It's all like this synthetic kind of futuristic version of the notes, but this is sweet, synthetically sweet in the opening.
However, it did come across more like a sledgehammer of sweetness after I've worn it more.
You know, there are little pockets of time where it doesn't come across as cloyingly sweet, but then it kind of settles into its next act, and then it smells glowingly sweet once again.
So yeah, it's like glowingly sweet in the opening, a little bit in the middle where it's not so bad, and then pretty sweet again.
What is the target audience for Paco Rabanne Phantom?
So on the whole, most people that are hardcore fragrance guys, you know, ones that have big collections or have smelled a whole bunch of things or who are a little bit older, you know, middle-aged and up, this is not a fragrance for them, and the majority of those people are not gonna like it.
Personally. I don't want to wear it. I don't like it very much. That being said, for younger guys, teens, guys in their early 20s, mid-20s, I'm sure this thing rocks because it's got a lot of sweetness, it's gonna command attention, the bottle is flashy, you know, again, that's gonna get people's attention.
If you're in a store, really, the whole packaging, everything is geared toward younger guys. I mean, you can't tell me that this bottle was made to appeal to people, you know, 35 and up that work in an office or something like that.
You know, most of them are not going to see that and be like, “Hell yeah, that looks like a great office fragrance.”
So yeah, the whole thing is made for younger guys, and in that aspect, I think it works actually. It's no more in your face than the original Invictus was, in my opinion.
So why couldn't it work just as well? And I've run this by a bunch of different people, and, on the whole, the reaction's pretty good.
Yeah, some people don't like it, but on the whole, most people do. Again, we're just talking about your average everyday person, your average everyday guy or girl.
So on the whole, it's accomplishing what Paco Rabanne probably wants to accomplish, which is appealing to younger people and having a sweet, compliment-puller kind of scent. That's what it does.
But a lot of guys like myself are going to smell it and just go, “No, I hate that.” But I understand who it's made for, and it does that well.
How Long Does Paco Rabanne Phantom Last?
Now, in terms of performance, it's not bad, which is not a surprise, I guess.
Paco Rabanne, a lot of times, has strong, strong scents. This one, though, is not as strong as you might expect.
It lasts over 8 hours, so that's good. It's just that projection starts to wane, for me anyway, about an hour and a half, two hours in, and at that point, it sits pretty close to the skin, so you can still pick it up, even like I said, 8+ hours in, but you're gonna have to be pretty close at that point.
When To Wear Paco Rabanne Phantom?
As far as seasons go, it's more neutral weather, spring, and fall.
You could pull it off in winter as well. In the middle of summer, I'd probably go something else just because of that sweetness.
You don't want it to be overwhelmingly cloying, and if it's really hot, you're sweating, moving around, especially a lot of people, that one is going to be a bit too much, I'd feel.
Conclusion:
So Paco Rabanne Phantom, is gonna be one of those fragrances that people have loved to hate for a long time because of the name, the childish-looking bottle, the gimmicks with it, and then that overwhelming sweetness done with AI and four perfumers that just kind of smells, frankly, synthetically sweet and generically boring to an extent for somebody like me.
So yeah, it's gonna get a lot of hate, and I can't say that it doesn't deserve some of that. But if I were 18 years old, then this would probably be toward the top of my list of something I'd want.
So you just have to kind of understand who it's made for.
