Jean Paul Gaultier Scandal: Worth It?
Article Summary: Jean Paul Gaultier Scandal is an eau de parfum launched in France in June 2017, composed by Daphne Bugey with Fabrice Pellegrin and Christophe Raynaud, and the brand lists only four notes for it: blood orange and gardenia on top, honey in the heart and patchouli at the base. That makes it a honey chypre, a combination almost nobody else sells, and the bottle broke with the house's own tradition by putting a pair of pink legs where the corseted torso used to be. Nine years later the name carries thirteen fragrances, from Scandal by Night in 2018 to Scandal Elixir and Scandal pour Homme Elixir in 2026, which is a flanker rate even Dior does not match. The house behind it has changed completely in the same period: Gaultier himself retired from fashion in January 2020 after fifty years, Puig has owned the fragrance licence since January 2016 and the majority of the fashion house since 2011, and Duran Lantink became the first permanent creative director since the retirement in April 2025. In the UAE Faces lists the 80 ml from AED 470 while Ounass shows the same size at 595 and 655, and a supermarket had it at AED 329. MOJ's reading, Scandal W, is AED 26, 42 and 69, every size available on November 4, 2026.
- Thirteen Scandals exist and four of them arrived in the last two years, so the bottle on the shelf in 2027 may not be the one you smelled in 2024.
- The brand prints four notes; everyone else prints a dozen, and our reading follows the longer list with caramel, beeswax and licorice in it.
- Our 30 ml at AED 26 sits at the bottom of our whole price list, which makes this one of the cheapest ways to find out whether honey is your note.
- Puig, which owns the house, has won repeated court cases in Spain against companies selling equivalence perfumes, though none we can find names a Gaultier fragrance.
What Scandal is
Scandal is an eau de parfum launched in France in June 2017 and in the United States the following year, in 30, 50 and 80 ml with a body line behind it. Its perfumers were Daphne Bugey, with Fabrice Pellegrin and Christophe Raynaud, which is a three-name credit from a single launch report and worth attributing rather than asserting. The brand's own note list is unusually short: blood orange and gardenia on top, honey in the heart and patchouli at the base, and the house calls it a chypre with addictive honey facets, built around the idea of a double life and the spirit of Pigalle. Everyone else prints a longer list, adding mandarin, orange blossom, jasmine, peach, caramel, beeswax and licorice around those four, and that longer list is what most people are actually describing when they talk about Scandal. The honey is the point. It is not the clean honey of a tea shop but the sticky, slightly animal kind, cut with blood orange at the start so it does not sit heavy, and dragged down by patchouli at the end so it does not read as a dessert. Almost no other designer women's fragrance leads with it, which is why the bottle has lasted. The flacon broke with the house's own signature too: Gaultier built his fragrance identity on a corseted torso, and Scandal arrived as a pair of pink legs instead.
Thirteen bottles in nine years
This is the part that matters if you are about to buy one. Scandal (2017), the original. Scandal by Night (2018), the darker eau de parfum. Scandal a Paris (2019), launched first in travel retail, with Irina Shayk announced as its face in April of that year. So Scandal (2020). Scandal pour Homme (2021), the men's eau de toilette by Quentin Bisch, Nathalie Gracia-Cetto and Christophe Raynaud, in refillable 50, 100 and 150 ml. Scandal Le Parfum and Scandal pour Homme Le Parfum (2022), both at eau de parfum intense strength. Scandal Absolu and Scandal pour Homme Absolu (2024), parfum concentration. Scandal Intense and Scandal pour Homme Intense (2025). Scandal Elixir and Scandal pour Homme Elixir (2026), the newest. A Scandal Gold also sits on Gulf shelves and we could not find a launch report for it. Four of the thirteen have arrived since the start of 2025, and the perfumers for the recent tiers are not published anywhere we could reach. The practical consequence: if a friend recommends Scandal, ask which one, because the differences between the Absolu, the Intense and the Elixir are not small and the retailers do not always make the tier obvious on the box. Our Gaultier guide covers the rest of the house.
Who owns it now
Three things changed around this fragrance while it was selling. First the licence: Scandal was launched in 2017 under Puig, which had taken the fragrance licence on January 1, 2016, from Shiseido's Beaute Prestige International, the company that had held it since 1993 and had made Classique and Le Male. Second the ownership: Puig had already bought Hermes's entire forty-five percent stake in the fashion house in May 2011 for sixteen million euros, plus a further holding from the designer, making it the majority shareholder. Third the designer: Jean Paul Gaultier showed his last haute couture collection in Paris in January 2020 and retired after fifty years, after which the house ran on guest designers, among them Olivier Rousteing, Glenn Martens, Haider Ackermann and Simone Rocha, until Puig appointed Duran Lantink as the first permanent creative director on April 15, 2025. Lantink showed ready-to-wear that September, couture in January 2026, and is still in the role. None of this changes the juice, but it explains the pace of the flankers: Puig reported 5.04 billion euros of revenue for 2025, up 7.8 percent on a like-for-like basis, with fragrance and fashion at 3.65 billion of it, and a fragrance that supports four new versions in two years is doing a lot of that work. Puig also says Le Male, the 1995 Francis Kurkdjian composition, remains one of the three best-selling masculine fragrances in the world, which is the company's claim and not an independently published ranking.
A note on Puig and inspired perfumes
We write about this when it applies, and here it does. Puig has gone to court repeatedly in Spain against companies selling equivalence perfumes and won: the Community Trade Mark court in Alicante found against Saphir in 2015 over products packaged as imitations of Carolina Herrera, Paco Rabanne and Nina Ricci, the Spanish Supreme Court rejected the appeal in 2016, and Puig announced four million euros in damages and costs in 2018; a separate ruling against Yodeyma was upheld in 2017, barring that company across the European Union from using Puig brand names commercially, including inside its own site search. What those cases were about is worth being precise on: packaging designed to be mistaken for the original and the commercial use of the brand's name, not the act of composing a fragrance that smells similar. No case we can find names a Jean Paul Gaultier fragrance as the infringed product, and we found nothing at all in the Gulf. We mention it because an honest article about this house should, and because our guide to inspired perfumes sets out where the line sits: our bottles carry our name, our label and our formula.
What it costs in the UAE
The spread on this fragrance is the widest we have seen on a designer bottle. Faces lists the 80 ml eau de parfum from AED 470, with Scandal Le Parfum and Scandal Intense from 515, and Scandal Absolu and Scandal Elixir from 565, and had all twenty-one of its Gaultier lines available on November 4, 2026 except Scandal a Paris in the 80 ml. Ounass prices the 50 ml at 470 and shows the 80 ml at both 595 and 655 depending on the listing. Bloomingdale's starts the original at 470 and the Elixir at 565. And a Carrefour listing had the 80 ml at AED 329 with three left, which is a third under the department stores and the sort of price that is either a clearance or a parallel import. If you want the original rather than a tier, check that the box says only Scandal, because at these prices the Intense and the Elixir sit close enough to be confused. Our sweet guide has the neighbours.
The MOJ reading
Our Scandal W follows the long list rather than the brand's four names. The product page builds it as blood orange and mandarin on top, honey, gardenia, orange blossom, jasmine and peach in the heart and beeswax, caramel, patchouli and licorice at the base. Against the brand's own list every one of the four is there, and against the longer list that everyone else prints it is close to note for note. The honey and the patchouli are the parts that matter and both are present and in proportion; ours is a touch sweeter in the base because of the caramel, which is a difference you will notice at the end of an evening rather than at the first spray. It is our own composition inspired by the original, an eau de parfum in 30, 50 and 100 ml at AED 26, 42 and 69, every size available on November 4, 2026, and the 30 ml sits at the bottom of our entire price list. It belongs to evenings and the cooler months, two sprays and no more, because honey carries; in July it turns syrupy on hot skin, as the original does. It sits in our women's collection and our gourmand guide has its neighbours.
- Top: blood orange, mandarin orange
- Heart: honey, gardenia, orange blossom, jasmine, peach
- Base: beeswax, caramel, patchouli, licorice
Should you buy the original or the reading
If you want the pink legs on the dresser and the name, buy the 80 ml, and buy it from whichever of Faces, Ounass or Bloomingdale's is cheapest that week, because the same bottle moves between 470 and 655 across them. Check the box says Scandal and nothing else unless you specifically want a tier. If you want to find out whether sticky honey over patchouli suits you at all, which is a real question because this fragrance divides people more than most, the MOJ 30 ml at AED 26 is the cheapest answer available anywhere and the base is a shade sweeter than the original. If you already own Scandal and want the next step, Le Parfum is the concentrated one and Absolu the darkest of them. Our romantic guide has the alternatives if honey turns out not to be for you. Stock changes, so the product page is the final word.
Frequently Asked Questions
Honey, and not the clean kind. The brand lists only four notes: blood orange and gardenia on top, honey in the heart and patchouli at the base, which makes it a honey chypre. Everyone else prints a longer list adding mandarin, orange blossom, jasmine, peach, caramel, beeswax and licorice. The blood orange keeps the opening from sitting heavy and the patchouli stops the end reading as a dessert. It launched in France in June 2017 as an eau de parfum by Daphne Bugey with Fabrice Pellegrin and Christophe Raynaud, in a pink bottle shaped like a pair of legs rather than the corseted torso the house is known for.
Thirteen, and four of them arrived in the last two years. Scandal (2017), Scandal by Night (2018), Scandal a Paris (2019, travel retail first), So Scandal (2020), Scandal pour Homme (2021), Scandal Le Parfum and Scandal pour Homme Le Parfum (2022), Scandal Absolu and Scandal pour Homme Absolu (2024), Scandal Intense and Scandal pour Homme Intense (2025), and Scandal Elixir and Scandal pour Homme Elixir (2026). A Scandal Gold also sits on Gulf shelves without a launch report we can find. If someone recommends Scandal, ask which one: the tiers differ noticeably and the box does not always make it obvious.
Between AED 329 and 655 for the same 80 ml, depending where you look, which is the widest spread we have seen on a designer bottle. On November 4, 2026, Faces listed the 80 ml eau de parfum from AED 470, Ounass showed it at both 595 and 655 and the 50 ml at 470, Bloomingdale's started it at 470, and a Carrefour listing had the 80 ml at AED 329 with three left. The Le Parfum and Intense tiers start around 515 and the Absolu and Elixir around 565. MOJ's reading, Scandal W, is AED 26 for 30 ml, 42 for 50 ml and 69 for 100 ml.
Puig, the Spanish group behind Rabanne and Carolina Herrera. It bought Hermes's entire forty-five percent stake in the fashion house in May 2011 for sixteen million euros plus a further holding from the designer, and took the fragrance licence on January 1, 2016, from Shiseido's Beaute Prestige International, which had held it since 1993. Jean Paul Gaultier himself retired after his final couture show in January 2020, the house ran on guest designers for five years, and Duran Lantink became its first permanent creative director in April 2025. Puig reported 5.04 billion euros of revenue for 2025.
No. MOJ Scandal W is our own composition inspired by the original: blood orange and mandarin on top, honey, gardenia, orange blossom, jasmine and peach in the heart, and beeswax, caramel, patchouli and licorice at the base. All four of the notes the brand itself lists are there, and against the longer list most people use it is close to note for note; ours is a shade sweeter at the end because of the caramel. It is an eau de parfum in 30, 50 and 100 ml at AED 26, 42 and 69, every size available on November 4, 2026, and the product page is the final word on stock.
