Pour Lui Oscar de la Renta 1980 Eau de Toilette

Pour Lui (Eau de Toilette) by Oscar de la Renta

Bottle Design Serge Mansau

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Pour Lui (Eau de Toilette) (Oscar de la Renta)

8.2 / 10255 Ratings

Pour Lui (Eau de Toilette) is a popular perfume by Oscar de la Renta for men and was released in 1980. The scent is spicy-woody. The longevity is above-average. The production was apparently discontinued. Pronunciation

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Top Notes	Aldehydes Aniseed Basil Bergamot Galbanum Caraway Lavender Sage Juniper berry
Heart Notes	Cyclamen Carnation Geranium Patchouli Vetiver Cedar Cinnamon
Base Notes	Oakmoss Labdanum Leather Musk Sandalwood

Ratings

Scent

8.2255 Ratings

Longevity

8.1208 Ratings

Sillage

7.5209 Ratings

Bottle

7.0216 Ratings

Value for money

8.739 Ratings

Submitted by Easyfish, last update on 23.05.2022.

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Reviews

10/21/2021

8.5
Scent 9
Longevity 8
Sillage 7
Bottle 9
Pricing

PedroCabral
79 Reviews

PedroCabral

Dark Horse

After reading so many wonderful reviews about this perfume, even though some of them are in a negative tone, I see an enormous wealth of details and sensations that this fragrance awakens in people and, consequently, the detailed descriptions of the reviews are extended.

Sometimes even a negative description can instigate a desire to taste and have a certain scent. And that's what occurred to me!

I decided to incorporate a character with a "dark", melancholic, gothic and mysterious facet to dive into this perfume and draw my conclusions.

After reading several reviews that related this perfume to something dark, I decided that this olfactory experience could only lead me to paths I had never walked before.

When spraying this perfume, the aldehydes together with basil and galbanum give it a green, bitter, pungent air, which I notice a slightly "chemical" tone, which perhaps makes many people abhor this long perfume when they feel this exit. But I also feel a light sweet and spicy touch that breaks a little of the harshness of the starting notes. The lavender here is wild, aromatic, but with a vibe of industrialized lavender in the form of some disinfectant product, not that the perfume itself feels like a cleaning product, but this opening is like opening a heavy, dark door, that squeaks as you pull it. This is Oscar pour Lui's welcome.

After a couple of minutes this unfriendly opening reveals another denser phase, and this is where the magic of this perfume happens. Walk around a forest in mid-autumn, leaves fallen to the ground, a cold night, thick fog and a mysterious aroma of woods and leaves being swept by a mysterious breeze.

After a few minutes, the middle notes take over the aroma, pulling a little of the base notes with them, at this stage I feel a musky, dense and somewhat "dusty" floral touch, as if they picked up some flowers still without blooming and slowly their petals lost the liveliness and smell of the fullness of your existence. This gloomy floral carries with it a woody feel that resembles rustic furniture made with some hardwood. Cinnamon is notable, giving it a spicy, dry and slightly sweet air, very slightly. And along with this profusion of notes, the leather and moss notes stand out, giving all the strength and personality of this perfume. The leather in this perfume escapes the feeling of polished and polished leather so common in contemporary fragrances, this is a leather that reminds me of an old shoe shop, where the leather still had an animalic and acrid smell, as well as the moss that mixes with the leather leaving it with a dense, greenish and woody aroma, something almost "botanical".

Wonderful descriptions have already been drawn about the dark character of this fragrance, but to contribute from another perspective to this imagery, I cite some other fictional or real characters who would delight in using such essence, such as the villain Hannibal Lecter, Colonel Hans Landa of movie Inglourious Bastards, the psychoanalyst physician Sigmund Freud or Michael Corleone of the Godfather.

I also see a scene where men are in a club, playing and drinking, dressed in pinstripe suits, smoking cigars, sitting on leather armchairs listening to Blues or Jazz.

Having and using the Oscar Pour Lui is an act of resistance, a breath that embodies the antithesis of everything that is launched and desired today.

09/29/2021

9
Scent 9
Longevity 7
Sillage 7
Bottle 8
Pricing

ChicoRoch1
89 Reviews

ChicoRoch1

Versatile giant

Like so many masculine leather fragrances of the 70s and 80s you can count on applying a scent and then go about your day with a pleasant whiff here and there. Also you can bet it'll give u at least 8hrs of longevity. Pour Lui from Oscar De La Renta is no different. Launched in 1980, an aromatic leather fragrance that is very masculine and it delivers in a lot of areas. From the longevity to the scent itself to the sillage and also for the price, this product can't be beat. There's nothing earth shattering about this but just know it's a safe and dependable option for any man's grooming arsenal. I have a vintage version (of course) from 1984 and this morning i applied it around 4am. At close to noon i can still smell it and it's beautiful but not overpowering. 5 sprays should do the trick. You should get many compliments from different people throughout the day too which is always nice. I'm not sure if this is discontinued but look for a vintage bottle anyway. There is just something about fragrances made in the 70s and 80s that just pull me in every single time as 80% of my collection is from that era. Pick up this fragrance, you won't break the bank.

11/28/2020

8
Scent 6
Longevity 6
Sillage 4
Bottle

PicSniper

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PicSniper

Helpful Review 2

Versatile

After the first application, the idea of the typical 70-80s, powerful fragrance with the freshness, almost soapy, shower gel-like, that is so familiar from that time comes spontaneously. But then after a few minutes it comes - it becomes softer, a little leather and cinnamon join in. It turns into a real gentleman's outgoing fragrance, which comes across as really elegant, clean and masculine. He can never hide the 70-80s vibe, on the contrary, but it's exactly this mixture that makes this fragrance so special.

The bottle is unfortunately not of very high quality. The cap doesn't fit right, and the whole thing looks cheap. But it's not so important to me personally, as long as the content fits
Concerning Sillage one can say that it is well perceptible for 3 hours, but then it is pretty soon over. Longer on the skin, of course, but after all you want to be noticed in your surroundings. It's never bombastic but it's nice and discreetly present in the first hours.

The hammer in terms of price, of course, which is why you can also spray it once :-).

11/28/2020

7
Scent 6
Longevity 10
Sillage 6
Bottle 7
Pricing

ThomC

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ThomC

Soapy 70s firecracker with quirks

It came out in 1980, and is thus in the grey zone between the dark and spicy 70s style and the upbeat and eye-catching 80s - although it would like to place it clearly stylistically in the 70s. In retrospect, releasing a fragrance like this in 1980 was not exactly innovative, let alone style-forming - it was simply made to play it safe, exploiting the olfactory zeitgeist of the past 70s. Olay, let's leave it at that, others were no better I'm surprised by the rather high ratings here on Parfumo - the only thing I'm going along with is silliage and durability - which is kindly said to be room filling to flashy to annoying, but always worth the little money. It sticks to the skin like eagle owl. But what use is it to me if the scent is only moderately presentable to socially acceptable. Don't get me wrong: I really like these typical anachronistic 70s scents, these classic soapy oakmoss leather scents, which were so common and so rare for today's perfumes. Only they were and are available from other manufacturers more beautiful, better, more elegant. Probably reformulated a lot, but fuck it.
Pour Lui by Oscar de la Renta appears brute to clumsy, bordering on a headache in the top note, but this subsides. Only certain subtleties do not emerge here, it remains relatively one-dimensional. Others in this style can do this much better: the Bogart as an example, five years earlier and thus fitting in perfectly with the times. It has that certain something that the Renta always lacks in its rugged rumbliness. Or the Bogart One Man Show, which was also released in 1980, he can also do better, although more floral and accessible. And as a reference class of such fragrances, the 1978 Ted Lapidus Pour Homme shows where the soap-leather hammer hangs. Not to mention Caron's supernatural Yatagan. All of them - and some more - put Renta in its place. Not a fragrance from that time that you have to have, but you can if you want to go on a historical journey through time and have 20 loops too many on your account.

* for noses that also love Lagerfeld Classic
* the music to the fragrance ---> "Born to Be Alive" by Patrick Hernandez

5 Replies

11/27/2018

4.5
Scent 10
Longevity 10
Sillage 7
Bottle

Stinki

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Stinki

Less helpful Review 2

there's something else going on,

but not with me. It begins beautiful and green and foamy and comfortable. Then, after a certain time, remains a typical rip-off scent that says nothing but attention please. What remains is a stabbing synthetic nausea-causing mixture of backvanilla, baked cinnamon with some galligem (galbanum) and fir tree. Maybe too hard comment, but for me Playboy late reading fragrance with headache guarantee. You can't even get him down with acetone for this

6 Replies

03/28/2018

9
Scent 9
Longevity 8
Sillage 7
Bottle

Carlitos01
347 Reviews

Carlitos01

Very helpful Review 10

An 80's postcard

From 'Dalida's GiGi L'Amoroso' song:
"Here comes Gigi l'Amoroso! Master of love, with a velvet eye like a caress, Gigi l'Amoroso always a winner, sometimes a bit heartless, but never without a tender touch.
Everywhere, it was a feast when he sang 'Zazà', 'Luna Caprese', or 'O sole mio'.
Gigi Giuseppe, but everyone called him Gigi l'Amoroso and women were crazy about him, all of them! The wife of the baker, who closed her shop every Tuesday to go... The wife of the notary who was a real saint, and who had never cheated on her husband beforehand... And the colonel's widow! The colonel's widow no longer in mourning because he didn't like black. All of them, I say, even myself, but I... Gigi liked his freedom so much, until the day when..."

Like Gigi, Oscar de la Renta Pour Lui is gorgeous, complex, fantastic and masculine.
Great for almost any occasion but not really for hot sunny days.
I love it, my wife loves it... so I can only consider it a "must have" masterpiece.
Upon initial spray, it comes on quite bold and masculine. The opening is dominated by lavender and aldehydes, with nuances of piney juniper.
The heart notes will sustain the fragrance complexity. You receive another accords avalanche including florals and earthy patchouli and vetiver. The scent becomes a bit sweeter without losing the masculine vibe.
The base notes stress the manly pace of this perfume. You get a very lovable dry down with a strong leather and oakmoss - notes of the 80's - plus s hint of amber to civilize the scent a bit.
Woods are perceived all through the development.
In terms of longevity it's kind of beasty. Longevity is good enough for 12~14 hours with 3 sprays. You may over spray a bit - not more than 4 sprays - for a bigger sillage.
This EDT smells expensive and manly - like the archetype of a handsome Italian man that we may picture in fancy Amalfi or Positano. It is indeed a very nice juice and one of a kind with its proper individuality.
Note: My bottle batch dates from 2015.

How confident can you be with "Pour Lui"?:
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
- Opening: 8.5 (the masculine trend is set with a clean and soapy whiff of lavender, aldehydes, a bit of juniper and a warm spices feeling)
- Drydown : 9.0 (a party of oakmoss, leather and earthy notes; very "gentleman")
- Longevity: 9.0 (it does perform differently in different type of skins; my bottle dates from two batches ago and lasts more than 12 hours in my skin with 3 sprays)
- Sillage: 8.0 (6 to 8 feet radius, 2.5 hours projection, with 3 sprays)
- Exclusivity: 8.0 (VC&A Pour Homme, Antaeus, Kouros, Bogart for Men, Quorum and Patou are fragrances all in the same trail of "Pour Lui"; They don't need to be similar, but they evoque the same feelings; Nevertheless "Pour Lui" is still very unique)
- Usability: 7.0 (It's preferable to use it in winter and at night time; you may use in colder fall and spring occasions as well)
- Versatility: 8.5 (If the image you seek is of a confident and handsome male, you may use in any occasion; Gym and beach are out of the question)
- Praise: 8.0 (You will catch the ladies attention for sure)
- Quality: 8.5 (my batch is better than some more recent batches i tried)
- Presentation: 8.5 (simple and effective: very 80's style)
- Price: 10,0 (I bought mine for 18 Euros.... a real bargain)
___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___
Overall rating: 8.45/10,00
- between 7 and 8 = above average;
- between 8 and 9 = recommended;
- greater than 9 = don't hesitate;

Recommendation: This is one perfume I don't want to miss in my closet (yes, I have a backup). There will exist always some occasions where you want to scent like the smart alfa male of the evening, in a discrete and elegant way.
Blind shopping? Yes, due to its current price, but only if you like manly old school fragrances.
I love this fragrance.

Music: Dalida - "Gigi L`Amoroso"

2 Replies

09/21/2013

9
Scent 10
Longevity

Silverfire
130 Reviews

Silverfire

Top Review 10

A Gothic Masterpiece

Prior to my blind buy, all I knew about Oscar de la Renta pour Lui (ODLRPL) I learned from reviews. First, this was an 80's powerhouse scent. Then, it must be somewhat gothic, for another reviewer claimed it was something that a vampiric lord would wear. I was certain, however, that it wasn't pronounced like it read -- "Poor Louie." I thought of an unfortunate Hungarian worker, fingers mangled by a meat grinder.

I applied two sprays to my skin. The first word that came to my lips was "seductive" -- and I almost never use that word in connection with fragrances. The initial scent is a sweet wine mingled with spices. Then the carnation shows up to complete the picture. The prominent note for me was carnation, but a carnation dirtied in time by spices, by soap, by wine, by sweat. It is only the second floral note I've experienced that doesn't come across as pretty and feminine; this is the scent of ancient power, and the class of violence.

As a powerhouse scent, two sprays is too much, and as you might expect from the notes, it's a real scent-shifter. At any time, I can pick out at least five different notes ranging from the animalic, to the sweaty, the soapy, the fresh, and always, the carnation. I can see how this is beguiling and hypnotizing to women if worn by a man.

ODLRPL became an animalic floral by hour six, and there it remained as a skin scent for over twenty-four hours. Initially it filled my car, but no-one at work complained, so silage doesn't cross into the red zone.

This fragrance strikes me as a formal scent, probably best with business clothes up to tuxedos with tails. You can go business casual with it -- I did -- but formal clothes would prove a more fitting visual accompaniment to this serious, powerful, classy, manly fragrance.

Highly recommended.

05/19/2013

8
Scent 2.5
Longevity 7.5
Sillage 5
Bottle

Drseid
818 Reviews

Drseid

Helpful Review 9

One of The Best Mens Fragrances From The Great 80s Era...

*This is a review of the vintage Oscar pour Lui.

Oscar pour Lui (vintage) opens with a combination of bergamot citrus and subdued aldehydes, mixing with patchouli and cinnamon from its heart. At this point the fragrance leans on the sweet side of the spectrum with an almost honey-like underlying accord permeating its early development. As the fragrance enters its early heart the aldehydes and citrus die while the cinnamon and patchouli join carnation and cyclamen florals supported by oakmoss and soft leather from the base as the fragrance gradually turns less sweet. During the late dry-down the oakmoss remains though is just detectable, while slightly sweet sandalwood and clean musk send off the scent. Projection is very good and longevity is below average to average at about 5-6 hours on skin.

Oscar pour Lui (vintage) is a great example of all the best things fragrance-wise of the 80s. It projects quite well though never coming off as harsh or repellant, sharing more than glancing similarities at times (especially early) with the exceptional vintage Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme. I can see Oscar pour Lui (vintage) working all-year round in just about any situation imaginable with its smooth and at times sweet cinnamon spiced leather and patchouli driven overall heart accord over a mossy woody backbone. It smells great and offers superb value even at its current after-market prices for vintage bottles, earning an "excellent" and highly recommended rating of 4 stars out of 5.

12/28/2012

Krmarich
24 Reviews

Krmarich

Helpful Review 6

Winter in a bottle.

I have revisited my 20 year old splash bottle and decanted some in a travel sprayer. The splash always kept it under control. Spraying it activates all of the aldehydes and stirs up the oakmoss. The galbanum jumps up too. Atomized, it is a totally different fragrance.

It hovers over the skin and really projects its refined elegance. With so many notes, it becomes a perfect composition that will never be matched. There has always been a contradictory frosty evening warmth associated with it, lending to its beauty.

ODLPL and its female counterpart are the most glamorous couple at the party, dripping in diamonds and fur(before it became wrong). Its formal evening wear bottled to perfection. I will always have a special place in my memory for Oscar De La Renta, and visting his disco in Paris circa 1987 at the Palais Royal. It was frosty the night of my visit, yet steamy inside, just like ODLPL.

It is a starlit, snowy night riding in a troika in Moscow circa 1900. It the end of the silent ride You arrive at a snowbound dacha that has a roaring fire blazing at the hearth.

11/16/2012

7
Scent 7.5
Longevity 5
Sillage 7.5
Bottle

Apicius
220 Reviews

Apicius

Very helpful Review 5

Days Past - Still Available!

Back to the eighties, the decade of strong and complex perfumes, of Aromatic Fougère and other, leathery powerhouses: Oscar de la Renta's Pour Lui is a child of that times, and it is still available. So, let's get back, and don't care about today's customs!

Pour Lui is complex, dark, noble and spicy. It dwells in the realms of the more popular Trussardi Uomo, whose vintage version sadly has been discontinued. So, it is all about leather – black leather! In both cases this does not mean that a clear leather aroma is being provided – it is all too complex for that. It is rather that leather clothes will fit perfectly to such a fragrance. Leather jeans and jackets will loose some of their natural scent and take over the odour of the wearer. Although jasmine is not listed in the enumeration of scent notes, I nevertheless get a hint of an indolic note.

The complexness of Pour Lui makes it a bit difficult to comment on single notes. From today's view, it is quite a hubbub. Beautifullly old-fashioned are the florals, and with the noticeable carnation Pour Lui draws an ark to the famous Kouros that was released a short time after.

Anyway, Pour Lui is nearer to the beautiful Trussardi fragrance and its special leather appeal. Pour Lui goes even further: the floral side is more perceptible and additionally, there are warm spices – cinnamon! This transfers Pour Lui a little bit into the direction of the Halston gents' perfumes.

This is all quite much, and for me, Pour Lui cannot replace the Trussardi role model. Especially the Christmas-like cinnamon spiciness is something I wouldn't like having around me that often. Best of Pour Lui is its base notes, when the spiciness disappears it comes nearest to Trussardi.

Be that as it may, with Pour Lui, Oscar de la Renta gives us an opportunity for time-travel. And who knows – maybe this style will come back? In the end, there is a similar notion for ponderosity and expression behind some contemporary “dark” releases like Eau Sauvage Eau de Parfum, or the many fragrances with oud-note. Whoever goes for that today might have loved Oscar de la Renta's Pour Lui thirty years ago!

This noble, spicy fragrance should only be worn in the evening and in the colder seasons. At a night out at the theatre or opera house, you can place a scent mark against the Zeitgeist with Oscar de la Renta's Pour Lui!