Reviews of Cravache (1963)
by Robert Piguet

This review is for the reissued Cravache. The original, as I’m told, had a definite leather note while this one doesn’t. My first sniff of Cravache brought to mind a more sedate Chanel Pour Monsieur – I don’t know why I thought that because they are not really alike. Cravache is missing the warmth of Monsieur and it is a little more formal, but there’s a certain dignity, a certain masculinity, a certain distance, and a certain history about it that that tie it to the classics and make it one of the more intriguing fragrances I’ve tried in a long time. Caltha mentions aldehydes and powder and I don’t get those, although I do get the mentioned freshness. I don’t get an overload of spices because I find the sage, lavender, and nutmeg quite reticent, very smooth, and superbly balanced. The dry down is just plain graceful: a soft cushion of patchouli and vetiver surrounding that cool core of dignified and softly fresh masculinity. Yet all the while the fragrance holds in the far background something that is a tiny bit out of place – it has just enough offness that I never surrender completely to the siren song of the fragrance; I keep half alert listening to, hesitating about that distance drum beat… In other words, it is a very masculine scent.

A powdery, aldehydic, soapy, slightly nose-tickling citrus with lavender. In the "fresh" category, not the butch woody/spicy/musky one, yet dry and warm instead of cool and aquatic like most men's colognes nowadays. Original by today's standards! Might remind me a little bit of classic citrusy/herbal scents like Eau Savage, but much more powdery and aldehydic than most of them. Not unisex though, something in it makes it feel very masculine, gentlemanly. I like it!

An old-school spicy floral chypre mixing notes of basil, lavender, bergamot, rosemary, patchouli, iris, jasmine, geranium, vanilla, tonka, musk, leather, benzoin and amber. Too musty, motley, floral and characterless to be relevant today.