Every fragrance in the YSL Y line comes from one perfumer, Dominique Ropion. The letter stays the same. The juice does not. Since 2017 the line has grown to four distinct scents, and the differences are bigger than the boxes suggest.
Y EDT (2017) started it. The lightest and sharpest of the family, a fresh aromatic built for daytime. Clean, easy, and the quickest to leave your skin.
Y EDP (2018) is the one that made the line famous. Apple, ginger and bergamot open it, sage, juniper and geranium fill the middle, and amberwood, tonka bean, cedar, vetiver and olibanum hold the base. Ropion took his own EDT and rebuilt it fuller and rounder. It became a default recommendation because it works nearly everywhere, from an office to a wedding.
Y Le Parfum (2021) goes warmer again. The apple gains aldehydes and grapefruit for company, lavender joins the sage and geranium, and patchouli deepens the base. It behaves less like a fresh scent and more like an evening one, and it wears the longest of the three.
Y Elixir (2024) is the odd one out. YSL bills it as a parfum concentré, and the pyramid is stripped right back: lavender and geranium over frankincense and oud. It shares a letter with the EDT and almost nothing else. Treat it as its own fragrance that happens to live in the same box design.
The trap in this line is assuming the letters only mean strength. Elsewhere they often do. Here, each step up also rewrites the formula, so smell before you size up.
The Elixir is the one we build our version of. Elixir Force is our take on Y Elixir, a UK-made spray at 35% concentration. The rest of the line sits in our Yves Saint Laurent inspired collection, with picks in the best YSL dupes in the UK.
