Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme (1978)
by Van Cleef & Arpels

I have a love-hate relationship with the classic VC&A fragrance. It's a big, heavy and loud beast which reeks of quality and status, but it's also incredibly easy to over-do. Of all the fragrances I've tried and bought over the years, this one more than any other seems to react strongly to everything - weather, body temperature, atmosphere...hell, it probably even reacts to the mood you're in. Applied at the right time and in the right quantity, then VC&A is a lovely spicy and festive frag with hints of berries, citrus and woods which smells like nothing else on the market and will pleasantly stay with you for most of the day. Apply too much however (and, with this, literally one spray can make the difference between just right and WAY too much, it's that sensitive) and the castoreum and musk take over and you will pick up all sorts of other things you'd not noticed before which are less welcome - worn socks, sweat, a rancid note and the stereotypical "over powering stinky cologne" note. What's worse is that if it does get to this stage, you're stuck with the smell for 24 hours or more and even a shower won't completely get rid of it. Very good juice which needs to be handled with lots of care.

Edgar Allan Poe would have loved this one - dark, sweet, yet kind of nice. I just sprayed it all around my little redoubt, and it smells just perfect. It's great if you're in a goth mood - but do spare application, please, or you'll choke everyone.

[EDIT 30DEC2009] I'm writing this at the end of my first day with this juice, and I have to say it worked quite well. I sprayed it on all my pulse points at 7AM this morning, and it's still going strong on my wrists now at 9PM. No reason to reapply during the day, I assure you this stuff will last all day. I can surely understand why you'd want to dunk your noggin in a bucket of 4711 after encountering this one, but it's really very good, if sweetly dark.

This is one bad mother of a frag. It is not for everybody.

It'll get where you're going before you do, and it's going to hang for a few after you leave.

I suppose that kind of strength makes it dated to a degree, but sometimes I'm in the mood for that. I find it similar to Anteus, but with a touch more muscle and leather.

I hope they keep making it....I like the way this one makes me feel. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat!

Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme’s conventional bergamot and lavender top notes are deceptively subtle given the power this scent unleashes after a half an hour on the skin. By that point Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme has arrayed cedar, leather, patchouli, and vetiver atop a dry mossy wood foundation. It’s the vetiver and patchouli that dominate for some time, placing Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme firmly within the realm of “gentleman’s club” scents, epitomized by “Vintage” Tabarome, but also occupied by Macassar, Baladin, and Équipage.

This whole genre is unfashionable right now, but even so, I don’t think Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme offers the best of its type. “Vintage” Tabarome occupies the same territory with far greater conviction and finesse, while scents like Jules and Lauder for Men exhibit a similar gravity, but with more conspicuous animalic accents that make them less staid and stodgy. In its favor, I can say of Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme that it avoids the belching, buttcrack showing crudeness of Macassar. On the other hand, it really is more than a little dull. As it ages, Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme bounces back and forth indecisively between leather chypre and heavy fougère before settling into a comfortable, but hardly distinctive moss, cedar, and patchouli drydown. OK I suppose, but no match for the finest in its class.

Complex, weird and poetic. Oh, you want more? Difficult scent to break down, especially the beautiful and unusual opening that shrouds what is to come. I find the heart to be a bit intimidating at first thanks to its exploding soapiness that almost veers into feminine territory but just pulls back in time and becomes intriguing bittersweet. Very seventies and somehow very reassuring (memories of childhood, that whole Proustian thing.) Yet calling it outdated is meaningless. Unless one means VC&A belongs to an era with better taste, in which case I have to agree (looking at the great fragrances released just in the year 1978 is quite humbling.)

It reads as an intelligent macho scent (there is just something…horny yet bookish about it) but because of its force, style and play between male and female it is also another fragrance that could have been named Le Dandy. Longevity is really good, in the 10+ hour range. Should be tested before purchase by most (although a certain kind of fraghead with experience in the Azzaro Pour Homme – Jules – Paco Rabanne Pour Homme triangle will know what to expect…and love this.) I’m off writing poems about the ghosts of dead children and some evil flowers.

Spray a little bit more and you can easily suffocate everyone around you. This is the very opposite of freshness. It just makes the air heavy. Well the beginning is beautiful, flowery, classic in many ways. Then it turns into an almost visible heavy aura. I'm not quite sure about all the "expensive suit" implications: a cloak would be more suitable. In fact you can wear the fragrance itself like a heavy cloak.
I think most of the reviews of Etro's Messe de MInuit are applicable here: basements, rotten matter, cellars etc., except that this fragrance relies on heaviness of flowers, moss, castoreum and leather instead of incense. A true gothic scent, once you stop thinking of mature, rich people, luxury and the likes. It's actually unbelievable how it can poison the air. Yet this is sweet suffocation. A complex masterpiece from a different era. Every fragrance explorer should smell it just to make sure such power can actually exist.