THE HOUSE OF OUD
L’EXPLICITE
2025
PERFUMER
Cristian Calabro
lemon zest
ylang-ylang
banana
peanut butter
bread
spicy notes
violet
fruity notes
amber
musk
‘L’Explicite is an overwhelming pleasure. Surprising, captivating, and capable of conquering the senses with every olfactive note.’ – The House Of Oud
While I have to give it some points for originality compared to some other 2025 releases that I truly disliked (especially looking at you Juliette Has A Gun Miami Shake), L’Explicite has to be the worst smelling fragrance that I’ve put my nose on in a long time. I’ve seen quite a few (moderately) positive reviews, so surely some people love to wear it, but it makes me question my sanity.
This is one of the sickliest, sweet, plastic smelling fragrances I’ve encountered in almost 2000 fragrances that I’ve reviewed and it frankly made my nauseous every time I put my nose to it. Bordering on a gag-reflex at some points (I only remember Orto Parisi Megamare and Strangers Sombre giving me this type of response in the past years). In a land filled with cloying gourmands, I can’t think of a single fragrance in this realm that I liked less than L’Explicite.
The opening especially, has a strange mix of the most artificial banana flavoring one can imagine. Picture the most unnatural smelling banana taffy or other banana candy, and it multiply it by two. It doesn’t help that it smells as much as the plastic bag it would be in, as it does like the candy (this reminded me a bit of the weird plastic candy smell from Nasomato Fantomas).
What happens after is that it just gets extremely sweet. Candied, sugary, caramelized, but with a constant mix of slightly sour candy and plastic that makes a cloying, simple fragrance, into something admittedly, a tad less basic, but also, worse.
Without question the most off-putting fragrance I’ve worn this year. After several hours and a shower, the sweet, but also very white musky base, is okay, but for the first few hours, there have been few fragrances that I wanted to wash off more than L’Explicite (the notorious Secretions Magnefique doesn’t even come close).