There are perfume houses which are happy to go for a specialized clientele and then there are lines that want more mass appeal but with a bit of luxe thrown in. That market has been called masstige and Jean-Paul Gaultier is a charter member of that class of product. The fragrance line bearing the JPG line has been one of the best masstige fragrance lines as LeMale continues to be a big seller. This is why any news that a new JPG fragrance is coming creates a bit of buzz around it. The latest release Kokorico is currently available in France only and will also be available in the UK later in 2012 with a 2013 release slated for the US.

Kokorico is, according to press materials, the French equivalent to cock-a-doodle-doo. Seems like there are some syllables missing but perhaps French roosters are designed for brevity with their innate wake-up calls. The fragrance is a co-creation between Annick Menardo and Olivier Cresp. Again according to the press materials, “Kokorico is designed as a powerful and explosive aphrodisiac”. Yowzah! That should have some human roosters crowing Kokorico. To achieve this attractive quality the perfume team chose to use “woody and cocoa” notes. The cocoa does add some nice texture but the woody comes in the form of ambrox and whether you will be crowing while wearing Kokorico will depend on your ambrox tolerance.

Kokorico opens with a beautifully realized fig leaf note which tilts the early going firmly into the green. The cocoa adds a freeze-dried sweetness coming out of the green opening. At the interface between the fig leaf and the cocoa is where Kokorico is at its best if not necessarily its boldest. In essence this fragrant Chanticleer is only warming up as the powerhouse notes start to come one syllable after another; patchouli, vetiver, and ambrox add the ko-ri-co to the Ko of the fig and cocoa. These last notes are all power and seem abrupt in intensity from the early going.

Kokorico has excellent longevity and sillage to burn.

Kokorico takes a gentle beginning and, like a cock’s crow at sunrise, trades that subtlety for power through the latter two-thirds of its development. Because the ambrox is such a large part of the end phase of Kokorico it isn’t as appealing to me as it could be. The first half of the development is very good but the ambrox makes the final part less appealing. Whether you like or dislike ambrox will go a long way to how you feel about Kokorico. Me, I’m sticking to an alarm clock to wake me up.

Disclosure: This review was based on a sample purchased from The Perfumed Court.

–Mark Behnke, Managing Editor