I was called low life among other things by the good bishop and NJS for misspelling words, but come on, if you can't spell Savile Row, don't start a thread with it in the title.

Here's the secret European Chanel Pour Monsieur:
http://us.strawberrynet.com/mens-fragrances/chanel/pour-monsieur-eau-de-toilette-spray/25550/#DETAIL

Strawberrynet is some kind of Asian perfume-mongery and they are completely trustworthy, although in this case they are making you pay far out the ass for some reason. The story with the two Pour Monsieurs is: in America Chanel sells only Pour Monsieur Concentree, which is not exactly a concentrated version of Pour Monsieur. It's a different formulation, much sweeter and simpler than Pour Monsieur non-Concentree. Both versions are very good, really, but the European one is slightly better. Luca Turin gets into a tizzy and claims that the American version is foul-smelling slop for fat stupid babies with bad taste, but I think on this particular point he's overstating things.

fxh, the original Kouros is the one to go for, in the white bottle. Some find it totally repulsive and claim that it smells like a sweaty public bathroom in, like, Jakarta, but I am not one of these people. It is very strong and comes on with a weird, dense blast of incense and honey that sometimes does smell like a urinal cake, but this subsides. There are also millions of weird spinoff editions of Kouros, like Kouros Summer Fun Explosion or Kouros Tattoo Edition (this one actually exists), and these are OK but not as good as the main line (some people prefer them because they are lighter and fresher). There's also Body Kouros, an extremely sweet anise-based cologne that has almost nothing to do with the original. It's not bad either.

One thing I have found in my career in weirdo perfume-fondling is that it's almost always smarter to get a small bottle. Usually they offer 50ml and 100ml bottles, and the 100ml almost never costs twice as much as the 50ml. But it takes a normal person a year or longer to go through 50ml of cologne, if he uses it every day.

^We can always count on Gilgamesh to give erudite and interesting responses.

Penhaligon's offer a 500ml bottle Blenheim Bouquet, that's well over a decade of use, if it stays fresh for that long. I've a couple of 100ml's of the Penhaligon's Hammam and English Fern which are still three quarters full and I've had them in use for around three years now.

The Basenotes demographic never fails in their delivery of staid synthetic critiques totally devoid of literary pretenses. One would think their forum would be sprayed liberally with gushing if not gutsy dandy wordsmiths just oozing with flowery peacock librettos ascending to Wagnerian heights in eulogy to their favourite vetivers and extract of West Indian limes. If ever there was a forum that would benefit from an extra splash or two of high camp and a bottle of Capote prose style and umpa-lumpa joie de vivre, then Basenotes is it. This is the caliber of most of the postings, just some good old boys who would be more at home having a Bud and discussing First Blood Part II:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89DDue6s8Kc

If I was a perfumer, I would have hoped for a different kind of appreciative audience for my art and craft. In saying that, as a shareholder, I would want these kind of dudes buying my product.

Penhaligon's play on being traditionally English and the original founder's heritage, and as per Creed, there is some marketing spin in this, as its really just a name revived, although they did have the original scent notes of William Penhaligon. But it was a never a company in continual operation. They do some classics though, and the Blenheim Bouquet has been part of my cologne collection since aroud '87 and as soon as I run out, I always miss it and want somemore. It is the cologne for all seasons.