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Gucci Made to Measure ~ fragrance review

Posted by Kevin on 6 November 2013 15 Comments

Gucci recently launched Made to Measure for men. “Made to measure” refers to an in-house tailoring service that allows Gucci clients to customize clothing with special textiles and other “details” (baby llama fabric anyone?…why baby llama, Gucci, why?)

The “painstaking attention” that Gucci claims “pours”1 into its Made to Measure service certainly never overflows to fill any Gucci fragrance bottles. Many companies, naming a new perfume after an exclusive and extremely expensive experience, would use that opportunity to make a costly fragrance, full of top-quality ingredients.

Not Gucci.

Made to Measure2 opens with “bergamot” (the chemical-smelling approximation of the real fruit; this bergamot smells flat and rough). Peeking through the bergamot is a hint of pallid orange blossom and some bitter juniper berries (Made to Measure smells inexpensive). The only other scent in Made to Measure that makes an impression on me is a fresh “water” note; this note seeps into almost every mainstream / department store / designer masculine perfume created to SELL! SELL! SELL! (In this case, I assume, the note is named “water lily.”)

Sniffed up close, Made to Measure smells crude, even compared to other masculine Gucci scents I’ve smelled — and disliked (excepting the pleasant Gucci Pour Homme of long, long ago). One accord in Made to Measure, apparent within the first ten minutes of wear, has the off-putting smell of fruit on the verge of rotting (better than laundry-room musk I guess). In the extreme dry down there is a note that reminds me of ginger ale but with the added scent of white onion. (Both of these strange notes dissipate quickly, leaving behind a generic, sweet, water-spice after-scent.)

madetomeasure2

All the fragrance notes that appealed to me while reading the press announcements for Made to Measure — plum, nutmeg, leather — don’t make much of an impression (nutmeg) or ANY impression (plum and leather — unless they account for the overripe “fruit” note). The development (and structure) of Made to Measure is rickety; I would describe Made to Measure as a contemporary, boring, watered-down spice scent. I hated wearing it.3

Gucci Made to Measure Eau de Toilette is available in 50 ml ($68) and 90 ml ($88).

1. Via the Gucci website.

2. Made to Measure includes fragrance notes of bergamot, orange blossom, lavender, aniseed, nutmeg, water lily, juniper berry, plum, cinnamon, cistus labdanum, patchouli, leather and amber.

3. Of course, there are other, more positive, takes on Made to Measure; just look how British GQ reviews a major advertiser’s product!

Possibly of interest

Gucci Guilty Love Edition MMXXI ~ new fragrances
Gucci Bloom Profumo di Fiori ~ new perfume
Gucci A Chant for the Nymph & A Midnight Stroll ~ new fragrances

Filed Under: perfume talk
Tagged With: gucci

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15 Comments

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  1. Omega says:
    6 November 2013 at 2:02 pm

    Made to Measure was two mehs and a blah to me. Too bad. So incredibly boring, so blah…’Made to Pass on By’ imo.

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    • Kevin says:
      6 November 2013 at 3:37 pm

      Omega: no doubt it will still rake in the dough.

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  2. djron91 says:
    6 November 2013 at 4:17 pm

    Tell us how you really feel… just playing, great and honest review.

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    • Kevin says:
      6 November 2013 at 5:13 pm

      Kevin: I always do! HA!

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  3. galbanumgal says:
    6 November 2013 at 4:28 pm

    White onion? Not even Demeter-worthy. Yikes.

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    • Kevin says:
      6 November 2013 at 5:14 pm

      Galbanumgal: yes, a onion-y tang…watery and faint…but detectable on me…but fleeting too.

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  4. relleric says:
    6 November 2013 at 4:46 pm

    The SAs at both Saks and Nordies were pushing this vile juice. Hated sampling it on paper and then when I actually tried it on my skin I immediately scrubbed it.
    So much for MtM…

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    • Kevin says:
      6 November 2013 at 5:16 pm

      relleric: yep, but I never expect much from Gucci these days perfume-wise

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  5. annemarie says:
    6 November 2013 at 5:03 pm

    And yet overripe fruit can be a great note if handled well (Diorella, Calyx). I guess there is a very fine line between overripe and rotting fruit.

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    • Kevin says:
      6 November 2013 at 5:22 pm

      Annemarie: true enough…overripe can be on the verge of intoxicating…”rot”…nauseating! The note I’m talking about in Made to Measure is really neither…too dinky to matter.

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  6. pyramus says:
    6 November 2013 at 8:24 pm

    I have nothing to say about the scent — I haven’t tried it and probably won’t, now — but as for why baby llama, well, it’s the softest, isn’t it? Baby llama usually comes from young animals, and is usually from the first shearing of any given animal, but not always: the term really just refers to the fineness of the individual fibres (about a half to a tenth the thickness of a human hair).

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    • Kevin says:
      6 November 2013 at 10:25 pm

      R, just did some reading…seems BABY is a classification…not related to the age of the llama…hope the shearing is gentle.

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  7. thomkallor says:
    6 November 2013 at 9:25 pm

    You give it way too much credit. Some of my absolute all time favorites – Envy, Rush, and the dry dry dry GPH – are Gucci, but the last interesting thing they did was Gucci Pour Homme II. Everything since then is as you say – completely forgettable and nondescript.

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  8. Rictor07 says:
    7 November 2013 at 10:23 am

    Yes i agree, this stuff is really bad. Gucci really doesnt have any good mens fragrances available right now.

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  9. eminere says:
    5 March 2014 at 9:25 am

    Have we come to expect anything more from Gucci?

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