Reviews of Versailles pour Homme (1980)
by Jean Desprez

Edited review :
Lush and very dense with a set of balls that would make Antaeus cringe.

Even the bottle has an elegance mingled with testosterone. This is a heavy hitter from days gone by and NOTHING, I repeat NOTHING smells like Versailles Pour Homme.

Pimento is what I believe is off-putting to those who can't stand this fragrance. It's a love it or basically hate it scent. I am in the love it camp. This fragrance truly is NOT for males of the younger persuasion. It's rare I pidgeon-hole a scent into an age group, but I'd be remiss if I led members to believe that the modern era could pull this one off.

Versailles PH needs to be sampled......and you will either really like it....or you will not.

Aside from a crisp, bergamot opening, there's nothing else I get out of this that I like. The drydown reminds me of a stale bottle of Stetson. Versailles is a floriental with a bitter drydown that smells old. Yes I'm using a subjective term so let me define it. Old as in stale and expired. It just sits there on the skin and doesn't develop into anything other than a bitter resinous accord with too many base notes.

Hate to compare it to something I can only remember but it smells like the backstage of my university's auditorium where the practice rooms were. Needless to say, I never wanted to practice there ever.

Urrrggh! This ‘80s creation is way too much for me. It belongs to a previous generation that I was never a part of and am, therefore, not able to appreciate its ‘qualities’. Don’t ask me about notes because I was more concerned about scrubbing this stuff off my skin. If you like and appreciate, say, Quorum then this may appeal to you. However, chances are, you were old enough to wear fragrances when both of these were at the peak of their popularity.

I’m probably just too young to understand…

[Original submission date: 01 July 2008]

This truly is a scent who's time has come and gone. To wear it now in this modern day and age makes no sense or the thought of resurrecting it on the sales shelf again would be like man going back to writing in hieroglyphics.

Let it rest in peace -

This was the lecture that the Baron de Charlus delivered to the Society of Perfumes in Paris concerning Versailles Pour Homme: "Messieurs and mesdames, this is not so much a rare and discontinued gem, more a case of the Emperor wearing no clothes. It is sad that I, such a kindly man, should find myself forced to prick the bubble of misguided rapture which so many souls have been deluded into adopting towards this fragrance.
There is about Versailles Pour Homme a certain off-note, a sort of vegetal distemper, possibly belonging to the dusty kitchen garden dreams of pimento or capsicum, that renders it utterly unsuited for more than a median ranking in the realms of fine, spicy gentleman's colognes. Why, in this regard it is surpassed by so many other scents, including the much-maligned Quorum and even, quite possibly, by the brown ruminations of Marbert Man (with which Versailles Pour Homme shares definite affinities).
You may choose to think that my judgement merely reflects the subjective waywardness of a fractious dilettante. I assure you it does not. What I have just told you is an objective truth about perfumery!"
The Baron's address so astonished and angered his audience that he was obliged to hurriedly leave the building under a police escort.

You Have Got To Be Kidding! They discontinued this? And I thought the think tank at Aramis was comprised of total twits for discontinuing Havana.

Damn! I don't even own a full bottle.

Well, it's all been corroborated by independant witnesses, judge. It's sophisticated, warm, elegant, sexy and distinctive. I rest my case.

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These are the notes:

Top--bergamot and clary sage oils, green note, lemon, pimento.

Middle-carnation, cedarwood oil, cinammon, fruit notes, geranium, jasmine, patchouli, pine needle, sandalwood.

Base--amber, labdanum, leather, moss, musk, oilbanum, styrax, vanilla.

Now, there are survivors of the 80's--but why kill this masterpiece yet keep alive pedestrian ones?

Well, my guess is that, as in the case of the defunct Jean Patou PH, most acqua-androgynous wearing teens would--if they ever got a chance to smell it, dub it an 'old man's cologne'

*sigh*

Now let's see, would I rather drive a modern Sports Utility (contradiction in terms!) Vehicle or an old man's Phantom V Rolls Royce?

Boy, now there's a tough choice. . .

this colgone was my favorite when it came out in the 80's cant believe the company will not bring this awsome cologne back. i did find a bottle on ebay but it was very very expensive. i find it on there off and on but be prepared to pay almost twice the price if not more. if anyone knows of the email address to write to the company please let me know. i would love to write them and beg them to bring it back. i treasure the bottle. i always get compliments when i wear it.

I cant begin to describe the scent, warm, sensual, elegant. It smells like the difference between nouveau riche and the real deal. I just reviewed Patou Homme as the greatest scent and then went to my closet and pulled this out for a whiff. Two different scents for two different moods and, after a resniff, this one works with most moods and compliments them all.

Any guesses why they don't still make this stuff?

When I was a freshman in college the "older", gorgeous woman down the hall commented repeatedly that Versailles Homme was the sexiest and most intoxicating male fragrance in the world.

When, that same year, I went to the Virgin Islands with my family I found a bottle of the hard to find juice. Over many years I used it sparingly and held onto the bottle for years knowing that I would probably never find another bottle of the stuff and the scent still permeated the bottle.

I recently found two boxed bottles and everytime I wear it I get a sense of well being... and lots of comments.

Rich, warm, gentlemanly. Still can't believe that Desprez would ever have yanked this lovely stuff off the shelves. Let us all pray litanies loud and long to the Great Perfume God/Goddess that he/she persuade the folks at Desprez to bring this gem back into production!

This a great scent and it would be great if they would bring this back on the market!!! I have a bottlle that I bought in 1982 and still smells great, but I want more!!!
Honorio

Such warm notes to relish in-it's a shame they didn't share the recipe with us!

My all time favourite - a most unusual and lasting fragrance, something so rare and precious, I with they'd bring it back!
I think is was not very popular on the commercial men's market because it was too genteel, sexy, refined and sophisticated for the younger man.
It is definitely a scent for high-flyers who understand what ot means to be on top and with a cutting-edge.