Reviews of Jean Pascal
by Jean Pascal

I smell civet, musk, lavender, various herbs, moss. Musty and biting and dry. Imagine Homme de Gres style of dryness. Now, take away all the lemon and woods and add in Ungaro II. There. A close approximation of Jean Pascal. The civet note I smell isn't as agreesive as say, Kouros nor is it as refined and urbane as Ungaro II. This is a well made scent but I'd rather have other like it for the price.

It’s a good thing that I had two different samples of this. I found it was almost like having two different fragrances. The first one seemed to be a traditional lavender / musk / moss quite heavy in something that seemed like a way-too-prominent civet—and not much else to it. It was old and boring and not too well made. The second one, in an actual Jean Pascal sample tube, I found to have a spicy and fiery sub-element to it with highlights of pineapple—both sub-elements done well and presented as a very attractive combination. The ‘civet’ note was much less obvious, and the whole fragrance was understated and kept somewhat close to the skin. Obviously there was something wrong with the first sample, and I liked the second one better.
I find this scent to be something of a enigma—I have a difficult time categorizing it or even understanding it. It has so many characteristics of the old fashioned men’s cologne, but it also presents some things that seem truly new and edgy. I think the newer elements of the fragrance would have worked better over pyramid accords that weren’t so heavy and opaque.

I instinctively hated this at first sniff. It's all the things I hate about vintage scents - sour, sharp, musty, dry, with no detectable notes.
When sniffing it some more I realized there's more to it than that though. It has a spicy, peppery, fiery note I quite enjoy and a hint of creamy sweetness. It also has a hint of contemporary ozone/aquatic men's cologne mixed in, but only a hint, only just enough to actually make it better (I usually don't like that at all). But best of all, it also has a hint of dirty, almost foody/meaty musk like Muscs Koublai Khan.
It's pretty much like a good, interesting scent hiding under a bad, conventional scent. It's such a clash of styles and notes it almost makes it interesting and smell-worthy just because of that. Like someone took a classic vintage cologne, a generic, modern men's cologne and one or two innovative and beautiful niche fragrances and mixed them all together, perhaps with a double dose of the vintage cologne since my overall impresson is vintage-y sour and sharp.