The best David Beckham cologne overall is David Beckham Instinct.
It delivers a sophisticated blend of bright citrus, warm heart notes, and a masculine woody base. Honestly, the scent rivals those that cost three times as much, making it fantastic value. It’s become a staple in my daily rotation due to its versatility and enduring appeal.
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Mature Masculinity
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Top Pick
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Best for Date Night
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4.2
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4.8
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4.5
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$26.16
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$19.18
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- A spicier fragrance packed with Sichuan pepper and zesty ginger, resting on a softer base of cashmeran and woods.
- Perfect for a Gent in his 30s for casual masculinity.
- A modern, masculine fragrance with a fresh citrus opening and warm cardamom heart.
- Perfect for young professionals who want to project confidence on a budget.
- A seductive scent that evolves from refreshing citrus and nutmeg to a softer woodsy/creamy base.
- Great performance for the price with up to 6 hours of longevity.
For those seeking a more romantic fragrance, Intimately Beckham is an excellent choice. This cologne is perfect for date night, featuring a woodsy and floral profile that is both warm and oriental. It comes in stylish packaging, making it a great gift as well.
David Beckham Homme is another standout. This cologne appeals to a broad audience with its fresh, spicy, and manly scent. It’s surprisingly long-lasting, providing about 6 to 7 hours of wear. Women particularly love this fragrance, making it a fantastic choice for daily wear and social gatherings.
Just make sure you steer clear of David Beckham Respect. It doesn’t deserve any – let’s put it that way…
Here’s my full recommendations for David Beckham fragrances. I’ll cover their note profiles, longevity, projection, value for money, and suitable occasions to help you choose your perfect scent.
Best-Smelling David Beckham Scents for Men
- Best Overall: David Beckham Instinct
- Best for Date Night: Intimately Beckham
- Best for Men in their 30’s: David Beckham Homme
- Best for Men in Their 40’s: David Beckham Classic
- An Instinct Alternative: David Beckham The Essence
- Best Blue David Beckham Cologne: David Beckham Classic Blue
And 1 to Avoid…
- A David Beckham Cologne to Avoid: David Beckham Respect
1. Instinct – Best Overall
A modern, masculine fragrance with a fresh citrus opening and warm cardamom heart.
Perfect for young professionals who want to project confidence on a budget.
David Beckham Instinct is a modern, masculine fragrance that punches well above its price point.
This budget cologne delivers the perfect balance between freshness and warmth, with a bright citrussy opening resting on a warming cardamom heart.
It’s all tied together on top of a clean vetiver base which hammers home a brand of slick professionalism and projects plenty of confidence.
This fragrance is for a younger gent who might have some budget restrictions and wants to smell like a gentleman without smelling like a grandfather.
David Beckham Instinct lasts for between 4 and 5 hours, which is an excellent effort for a cologne at this price. It’s easily on par with mid-range choices like Nautica Voyage which can cost over twice as much.
In terms of projection, you’ll be kicking out an arms-length scent bubble for at least a couple of hours – but if you want to keep collecting compliments, you’ll have to be prepared to reapply during the day.
| Instinct EDT Spray | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Bergamot, Mandarin Orange |
| Middle Notes: | Star Anise, Pimento, Cardamom |
| Base Notes: | Vetiver, Patchouli, White Amber |
2. Intimately Beckham – Best for Date Night
A seductive scent that evolves from refreshing citrus and nutmeg to a softer woodsy/creamy base.
Great performance for the price with up to 6 hours of longevity.
This warm, aromatic fragrance smells as expensive as designer fragrances that cost three times as much.
Intimately opens with refreshing citrus and nutmeg, before moving into a warmer amber and star anise heart. It’s soft yet masculine, and the sort of scent that’s going to collect plenty of compliments from girls.
It dries down to a creamy, woodsy base that lasts a long time compared to other Beckham colognes. If you’re liberal with the sprays, you’ll crank out six hours of fragrance with Intimately.
This masculine fragrance is perfect for date night, feeling powdery and sophisticated but with enough “edge” to it from the spiced elements.
For the price, you really can’t go wrong. If you’re looking for an evening scent that can go the distance, Intimately is a great bet.
- For more seductive date night scents, check the full guide
| Intimately For Men by David Beckham | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Cardamom, Bergamot and Grapefruit |
| Middle Notes: | Nutmeg, Violet and Star Anise |
| Base Notes: | Sandalwood, Amber and Patchouli |
3. David Beckham Homme – Best for Men in their 30’s
A spicier fragrance packed with Sichuan pepper and zesty ginger, resting on a softer base of cashmeran and woods.
Perfect for a Gent in his 30s for casual masculinity.
David Beckham Homme is a spicier fragrance that delivers the prickle of Sichuan pepper on a woodsy base. It’s perfect for casual masculinity – this is the sort of fragrance a handsome and fit gentleman in his mid-30s would wear.
The opening is a bright burst of citrus and zingy ginger, but within 15 minutes it makes way for that warm heart. Cashmeran rounds everything out, adding a softer texture to the composition.
It’s a subtle yet striking blend that could be described as manly-woody soapiness.
The only drawback is that the longevity here sucks. David Beckham Homme is a beautiful fragrance, but it only sticks around for a couple of hours.
For that reason, I’d recommend it as a burst of masculinity to apply before you head out for dinner with a lady. It will keep you smelling your best for short sojourns, and the quality is high enough to justify the lack of firepower.
| Homme EDT by David Beckham | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Sichuan Pepper, Ginger and Citruses |
| Middle Notes: | Cashmere Wood, Leather and Rosemary |
| Base Notes: | Mahogany, Musk and Patchouli |
4. David Beckham Classic – Best for Men in Their 40’s
David Beckham Classic EDT is a mature, distinct scent that would be perfect for a trendy dad.
Right off the bat, it gives out a lovely, warming, woodsy amber vibe. I don’t pick up any of the gin or lime mentioned in the notes – I get powdered ginger rather than a refreshing lime cocktail.
It’s a similar story in the dry down, with nutmeg and cypress leading the charge, joined by a rather unique Texas Cedar note.
Texas Cedar is a soft, balsamic wood scent that smells a little similar to juniper berry, and lends David Beckham Classic a pretty distinctive element. While mature, this is not a boring scent by any stretch of the imagination.
Longevity is pretty similar to Intimately at just a couple of hours, but while it’s here Classic EDT kicks out fragrance. I wore it on a quite warm day and I was kicking out fragrance, picking up compliments left right and centre.
| Classic EDT by David Beckham | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Lime, Gin and Galbanum |
| Middle Notes: | Mint, Cypress and Nutmeg |
| Base Notes: | Amber, Texas Cedar and Vetiver |
5. David Beckham The Essence – An Instinct Alternative
The Essence is pretty similar to Instinct, opening up with fresh citrus fruits before moving into a warmer heart.
The main difference is that the sweet, fruity sense is a little more powerful – it’s more of an easy-going fragrance that’s suited for spring and summer sunshine.
Over the four-hour lifetime, the fresh fruitiness dries down it a clean, green woodiness.
Overall it’s a bright and natural-smelling fragrance – maybe a little generic, but a solid cologne that is a great option to throw in your gym bag to keep you feeling shower fresh throughout the day.
| The Essence EDT Spray | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Grapefruit, Violet Leaf and Lavender |
| Middle Notes: | Apple, Pineapple and Cardamom |
| Base Notes: | Kashmir wood, Patchouli and Tonka Bean |
6. David Beckham Classic Blue – Best Blue David Beckham Cologne
Classic Blue is a fresh, aquatic fragrance that can hand with mid-range blue fragrances like Nautica Voyage and Versace Man Eau Fraiche.
It opens with a wonderfully citrussy grapefruit and lemon pairing, slowly revealing softer notes of white musk and well-developed violet.
I also noticed a little cucumber in the first 15 minutes, which isn’t one of my favorite notes, but I thankfully found that to dissipate with the emergence of some herbal roughness from clary sage.
As the drydown develops, things get more floral and woodsy, adding a little warmth in the base.
Like Intimately, Classic Blue is another Beckham fragrance with surprisingly good longevity. It projects really well for 3 – 4 hours, and lingers on as a warm and mild scent for another 2 – 3 that people will still detect if they get up close. Very impressive for a budget cologne.
| Classic Blue EDT for Men | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Pineapple, Violet Leaf and Grapefruit |
| Middle Notes: | Apple, Clary Sage and Geranium |
| Base Notes: | Cashmere Wood, Moss and Patchouli |
7. David Beckham Respect – A David Beckham Cologne to Avoid
Some of the David Beckham colognes I’ve recommended on this list don’t have the best longevity, but still justify themselves in terms of scent. Unfortunately, David Beckham Respect takes it too far. It barely lasts an hour.
This citrus-led scent is just too weak, and suffers from a nasty, synthetic alcohol element that I can’t stand. It just smells cheap to me.
You can tell the effort here is for a citrussy, melon-influenced aquatic, but it just gets overpowered by a lack of quality. Think Bleu de Chanel but far, far worse.
Sure, it’s cheap, but I’d rather put that money towards one of the other fragrances on this list for sure. Avoid.
| Respect EDT Spray by David Beckham | Fragrance Notes |
|---|---|
| Top Notes: | Grapefruit, Pink Pepper and Watermelon |
| Middle Notes: | Lavender, Basil and Cardamom |
| Base Notes: | Patchouli, Oakmoss and Vetiver |
What Cologne Does David Beckham Wear?
David Beckham does claim to wear his own colognes, but Esquire also report that he wears Creed Aventus.
It’s a very masculine (and expensive) scent that is equally at home in the boardroom as a 5-star hotel lobby.
The opening is nice and juicy, packed full of blackcurrant and pineapple. This fruity sense lasts for around 2/3 hours, before moving into a smokey, woody birch heart.
The dry down is mysterious and musky, a little like the fruit from the opening but with some oakmoss sprinkled in. The whole ride lasts around 10 hours, so you get plenty of bang for your considerable buck.
If Creed Aventus is a little out of your price range bottle, check out our guide to the best Aventus alternatives for some more affordable options.
What’s Changed?
We updated this guide in January 2024 to reflect the most recent pricing information.
25th June 2024: This guide was overhauled with changes to our recommendations, latest reviews, and was re-fact checked to make sure our reviews are as up to date as possible.
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