Aztek by Yves Rocher

My dad had this back in the 90s. I remember the bottle and a smaller one, maybe 50ml, very different and simple, with an Aqua di Gio-style finish. Aztek had something amazing; I loved the scent. I hope it’s still around.

No fail: every time Espartaco mentions a fragrance, I note it down and it turns out to be real. So I have an Aztek by Yves Rocher in hand. It’s not the kitschy version from the beginning, but the 2008 reissue with a simpler bottle. But what’s inside doesn’t matter. I think he already gave the clues before. Aztek seems like a crazy idea, but it’s well-executed. Until now, I knew nothing about Yves Rocher perfumes; it sounds strange. I’m glad my first encounter is this one. It’s a luminous oriental with a strong, spicy opening, dominated by caraway, like cumin, giving it a dirty tone that suits the brightness well. It blends caraway, lavender, and cinnamon, leading to tonka and vanilla. It smells like today’s mass-market orientals. It’s an advanced idea for its time. In 1993, there were rare perfumes between old ferns and sinuous aromas without losing freshness. Davidoff Relax is another example, with roots in the past, and Le Male by Gaultier won the prize in its update of those streams that resisted aquatic trends. This Yves Rocher shows its decade-change schizophrenia in name and design; the exotic theme smells like 1984. Anyway, Aztek is glorious, one of the best of the era. It’s still current; it could be a new designer launch, more refined for lacking the soapy distortion that now accompanies every perfume like an ID card. Maybe it was too bold and looked like a “women’s” scent. I’ve been understanding it for several days; at first, you don’t know how to fit it in. It reminds me of Pavarotti, but Aztek is more relaxed, full of spark and vim, with that eternal youth of Harrington jackets. In its vivid rarity, it brings echoes of Moschino Uomo. It has acceptable performance, suitable for the rebellious seduction of a forty-something in a bar. A review I end with: Bravo!

I’ve been missing out-of-fashion perfumes lately; it’s sad to see them abandoned here without a bad review, poor things. This Yves Rocher Aztek was a madness. Imagine a One Million from the early 90s, the same sweet and flashy spark but applied to an aromatic fougere… that was exactly Aztek. An oriental gum of resins and camphorated spices with tips of balsamic green and a classic barbershop touch. An unclassifiable hybrid. Like mixing 90s aromatic sports scents with orientals to show off, in the style of Uomo by Didier Calvo, something between formal, medicinal, childishly sweet, and erotic. When it dried, it had hints of Magno gel. I want to point out that it’s hard to understand outside its era unless you’re a fan of that specific moment. It’s impossible to smell it without thinking of high-waisted jeans, the Alcasser crime, and the fading feathers of Pedro Gómez and Felipe González. They gave it to me as a gift and I was upset, but I don’t doubt it had and can have its followers; Aztek was a fragrance with a lot of personality that at the time would have delighted any teenager for finding it different, quirky, and modern, very distinct from what was sold then… Bofifa, this has your name written on it 🙂