The short version
- Only 1 Million Parfum still follows the original. Citrus top, cinnamon-and-rose heart, leather base — the same skeleton as 2008, and it shares a perfumer with it. Our customers rate it 4.8, the highest in the family.
- The original EDT is rated lowest. 3.9 across 28 reviews. It is also the one we discount hardest, at $2.99.
- Elixir has no citrus at all. Apple and davana on top, vanilla absolute and tonka underneath. It is a gourmand that borrowed a name.
- Lucky is a sweet woody — plum, hazelnut, honey. Closer to a hazelnut dessert than to a spicy leather.
- Royal is the furthest from the original — cardamom, lavender, sage, benzoin — and the lowest-rated flanker at 4.4.
- Every one of them is under $4 to try. There is no version of this comparison worth guessing at.
A customer asked us last month which 1 Million was "the strong one." It is a reasonable question and it does not have a clean answer, because the five bottles carrying that name are not five strengths of one fragrance. They are, for the most part, five different fragrances.
We stock all of them. Here is what our own listings and our own customer ratings say, with the dates and numbers attached.
What the name actually promises
The 2008 original was built by four perfumers — Christian Dussoulier, Christophe Raynaud, Michel Girard and Olivier Pescheux — around a simple, loud idea: bright citrus on top, cinnamon and rose in the middle, leather and patchouli underneath. Spicy, sweet, unmissable.
That structure is what "1 Million" means as a smell. Watch which flankers keep it.
One name recurs. Christophe Raynaud worked on the 2008 original and on the 2020 Parfum. Those are the two that share a shape. The flankers he is not credited on are the ones that wander.
1 Million EDT — the original, and our lowest-rated
2008 · Eau de Toilette · 3.9 from 28 reviews · from $2.99
Blood mandarin, grapefruit and mint. Then cinnamon, spice and rose. Then amber, leather, woods and Indian patchouli. It is the blueprint, and it is the fragrance a whole generation of men wore to a whole generation of nights out.
Our customers rate it 3.9 — the lowest score of any winter fragrance we sell with meaningful review volume, and a full point below the Parfum.
We are not going to pretend to know exactly why, and we would be suspicious of anyone who claimed to. A fair guess is that eighteen years of ubiquity is its own problem: a fragrance that everybody has smelled on somebody else stops reading as a choice. It is also, straightforwardly, the thinnest of the five — an EDT next to three EDPs.
Worth noticing that it is the one we discount hardest, at 33% off. The market is telling us something and we are passing it on.
1 Million Parfum — the only real successor
2020 · Eau de Parfum · 4.8 from 35 reviews · from $3.99
Blood orange, mandarin and grapefruit. Egyptian cinnamon, davana and rose. Leather, woody amber, and a salty note.
Compare that to the 2008 list and the lineage is obvious — the same three-part skeleton, rebuilt in a denser concentration by Quentin Bisch and Christophe Raynaud, with Raynaud carrying over from the original team. The salty accord in the base is the one genuinely new idea, and it is what stops the whole thing reading as a straight remake.
This is the highest-rated 1 Million we sell, and it is the one to buy if you want 1 Million. It is what people remember the original smelling like, which is not quite the same thing as what the original smells like.
1 Million Lucky — the sweet woody
2018 · Eau de Toilette · 4.7 from 29 reviews · from $3.99
Plum, ozonic notes, grapefruit and bergamot. Then hazelnut, honey, cedar, cashmere wood and orange blossom. Then amberwood, patchouli, vetiver and oakmoss.
Hazelnut and honey. There is no cinnamon, no rose, no leather. Natalie Gracia-Cetto built something sweet and woody where the original was spicy and sharp, and the oakmoss in the base gives it a slightly old-fashioned, mossy dryness the rest of the family has nothing like.
It is a good fragrance. It is barely a 1 Million. If you liked the original for its bite, this will feel like a different brand.
1 Million Elixir — the gourmand
2022 · Eau de Parfum · 4.7 from 17 reviews · from $3.99
Apple and davana on top. Damask rose, cedar and osmanthus in the heart. Vanilla absolute, tonka bean and patchouli in the base.
Read that top note again: apple. Not mandarin, not grapefruit, not blood orange. The Elixir is the only member of the family with no citrus opening at all, and its base is vanilla and tonka — the two most recognizable gourmand materials there are.
"Elixir" reads as a concentration, and the marketing describes it as an intensification of the original. Our own listing repeats that framing. Looking at the actual composition, we would put it differently: this is a vanilla gourmand that inherited a name. Rated 4.7 on 17 reviews, so people plainly like it — just do not buy it expecting a stronger version of what you already own.
Our listing gives the perfumer as unknown, and we have not been able to confirm one. We would rather say that than fill the gap.
1 Million Royal — the outlier
Eau de Parfum · 4.4 from 7 reviews · from $3.99
Cardamom, tangerine and bergamot. Lavender, violet leaf and sage. Benzoin, cedar and patchouli.
Lavender and sage put this in aromatic territory — the fougère family, broadly, which is where a great deal of classic men's perfumery lives and where no other 1 Million goes. Benzoin in the base brings a resinous sweetness rather than a leathery one. It is the cleanest and the most conventional of the five, and the furthest from 2008.
At 4.4 it is the lowest-rated flanker, though on only seven reviews — which, by the rule we set ourselves in our winter ranking, is not enough to draw a firm conclusion from. Treat that number as provisional.
All five, side by side
| Version | Conc. | Opens on | Lands on | Rating | Reviews | From |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parfum | EDP | Blood orange, mandarin, grapefruit | Leather, woody amber, salt | 4.8 | 35 | $3.99 |
| Lucky | EDT | Plum, grapefruit, bergamot | Amberwood, patchouli, oakmoss | 4.7 | 29 | $3.99 |
| Elixir | EDP | Apple, davana | Vanilla absolute, tonka, patchouli | 4.7 | 17 | $3.99 |
| Royal | EDP | Cardamom, tangerine, bergamot | Benzoin, cedar, patchouli | 4.4 | 7 | $3.99 |
| 1 Million EDT | EDT | Blood mandarin, grapefruit, mint | Amber, leather, patchouli | 3.9 | 28 | $2.99 |
Four different opening accords across five bottles with one name on them.
Which to sample
If you want 1 Million — the Parfum. Highest rated, keeps the original structure, and the extra density is the thing the 2008 EDT is most often criticized for lacking.
If you already own the original and want something adjacent — Lucky. It is the flanker that changes the most while still feeling like it belongs to the same shelf.
If you want vanilla — the Elixir, and go in knowing that is what you are buying. If gourmand is your direction generally, our sweet and gourmand samples will serve you better than working through this line.
If you want something office-safe — Royal, with the caveat that seven reviews is not much to go on.
If you are buying the original out of nostalgia — buy the sample, not the bottle. At $2.99 it is the cheapest way to find out whether the memory holds up. Frequently it does not, and that is a useful thing to learn for three dollars.
All five together is under $20. That is the entire argument for sampling: a question that would cost several hundred dollars to answer by buying bottles costs less than lunch. If you have not tested fragrance properly before, our three-day method is worth five minutes first.
Questions we get asked
Which 1 Million is the best?
By our own customer ratings, 1 Million Parfum — 4.8 from 35 reviews, the highest in the family. It is also the flanker that stays closest to the 2008 original's structure, and it shares a perfumer with it. The original EDT is rated lowest at 3.9.
What is the difference between 1 Million and 1 Million Elixir?
They are structurally different fragrances. The original opens on blood mandarin, grapefruit and mint over cinnamon, rose and leather. The Elixir has no citrus at all — apple and davana on top, with vanilla absolute and tonka bean in the base. Despite the name, it is a gourmand rather than a more concentrated version of the original.
Is 1 Million Parfum stronger than 1 Million EDT?
It is a higher concentration, an Eau de Parfum against the original's Eau de Toilette, so it generally lasts longer and sits closer to the skin for longer. It also has a denser base — leather and woody amber with a salty note, against the original's amber, leather and patchouli.
Is 1 Million Lucky similar to 1 Million?
Not particularly. Lucky is built on plum, hazelnut and honey over amberwood, patchouli and oakmoss — sweet and woody, with none of the original's cinnamon, rose or leather. It is a good fragrance that shares a name rather than a character.
How many 1 Million flankers are there?
Cologne Curators stocks five versions: the 2008 original EDT, Lucky, Parfum, Elixir and Royal. Paco Rabanne has released others over the years; these are the five currently in the catalogue.
The whole line, under $20
Paco Rabanne's other big pillar behaves the same way — Invictus Parfum is rated 4.9 by our customers while the Invictus Platinum sits at 4.6. If you are choosing between a designer original and its parfum-strength reissue, the reissue is usually the one people keep.
