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Blind Buy: Caron pour homme

post #1 of 29
5/3/12 at 8:23pm
Thread Starter 
I am enjoying Caron's Third Man so much that I just pulled the trigger on a bottle of CPH! If CPH is only half as good as 3rd Man, I'll be delighted.

Does my love for these "old man" fragrances mean that I am entering my dotage?

I'm slowly working up the courage to get a bottle of Yatagan. . .the pine needle note worries me a lot.

P.
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post #2 of 29
5/3/12 at 8:25pm
Caron pour Homme is great and Yatagan is even greater. The Carons are really beyond time.
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post #3 of 29
5/3/12 at 8:28pm
Thread Starter 
Burgundy, could you tell me why you like Yatagan? Is the pine too much?

P.
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post #4 of 29
5/3/12 at 8:30pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by BurgundyMarsh View Post

Caron pour Homme is great and Yatagan is even greater. The Carons are really beyond time.

Agree.
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post #5 of 29
5/3/12 at 8:31pm
Yatagan! I know that one, the aftershave was beautiful. I actually used to have a bottle of Yatagan that I accidentally purchased in a box at a yard sale. wish I still had it!
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post #6 of 29
5/3/12 at 8:57pm
Yes to both. Caron pour un homme is so classic and smooth, it may not be love, but it's hard to dislike.

Yatagan is at the opposite end of the spectrum, kind of strange and unsettling. I don't get pine per se, but rather green veggies (celery and what else). The opening is like being hit in the head by a bunch of mixed greens at the farmers market. But the controversial part is the drydown, when the greens have gone. To me it's woody with some animalics, but other people perceive it as extremely animalic.

caio
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post #7 of 29
5/3/12 at 9:41pm
CPH has a great lavender opening and a very vanilla drydown, the middle smells rather like PlayDoh, or just plain dough, but it's a nice simple comforting scent. Yatagan smells just like celery seed, if you have some in your kitchen go smell it, it's just about dead on. It does have some other things going on, but it's very dry and herbal, certainly sample first. Not sure it's something I want to smell like, but certainly unique.
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post #8 of 29
5/3/12 at 11:13pm
Unfortunately you will not get the magical drydown of CPH. The reformulation only covers the top notes. The magic was in the drydown that floored people across the room. Those days are over.

However just having the top notes would be better than several fragrances on the market. You might want to sample jicky if you like CPH. There might be more to it for you.

My recent Yatagan purchase was a bomb....very little of anything to it.

Right now in Mexico there is a vendor selling VINTAGE LE 3 MAN in the original packaging for $40. I am already loaded down with 600 ML of fragrance...no more room in my bag.
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post #9 of 29
5/3/12 at 11:15pm
I love the Yat, while I'm not a fan of PuH. I definitely get that play-doh thing. Later, it smells like cheap drug store vanilla ice cream.

The pine in Yat is a supporting note to the bergamot, wormwood, lavender, celery, castoreum and styrax which form the basic structure. Great stuff
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post #10 of 29
5/3/12 at 11:18pm
hopefully the hype slows down before price increases or reformulation under the carpet happens.
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post #11 of 29
5/4/12 at 12:17am
I have my own bottle of Caroun Pour Un Homme, but I rarely use it. I really should give it more love...
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post #12 of 29
5/4/12 at 3:11am
A lot of people love CPH and if you like lavender and vanille there is a good chance you will be joining the club.
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post #13 of 29
5/4/12 at 3:18am
Pour Un Homme is most certainly a safe blind buy, while Yatagan might be a bit of a leap of faith Yatagan is a bit brash, I'd suggest you to sample it first.
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post #14 of 29
5/4/12 at 4:04am
Pour un Homme is an interesting comfort scent in that it was composed in the darkest years of the Great Depression, when I imagine that comfort was really needed. I once encountered a noir-ish police officer wearing it on a particularly violent night beat, and the effect was so contradictory (the most soothing of scents worn in the most gritty of circumstances) but worked so very well. Still, it is fairly controversial - so old-school that it is rather radical for a man to wear it today. You will find some who dislike it, or who criticise its lack of note separation, simplicity, or who call it cloying. I think it is a very good scent, but that it needs to be approached with low-key expectations. Experiments with how much you apply can actually make quite a difference to how it wears. This sounds obvious, but I think it particularly true with this fragrance. If I would criticise any element of CPuH, it is the vanilla. It is not nearly of the quality that Guerlain uses. The lavender, you may be interested to know, is an absolute, rather than just the oil.
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post #15 of 29
5/4/12 at 7:13am
Get Yatagan....DO IT!
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post #16 of 29
5/4/12 at 8:48am
Quote:
Originally Posted by thatmakesscents View Post

Right now in Mexico there is a vendor selling VINTAGE LE 3 MAN in the original packaging for $40. I am already loaded down with 600 ML of fragrance...no more room in my bag.

Buy another bag!!!!
Cheers,
Renato
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post #17 of 29
5/4/12 at 8:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by cacio View Post

Yes to both. Caron pour un homme is so classic and smooth, it may not be love, but it's hard to dislike.

Yatagan is at the opposite end of the spectrum, kind of strange and unsettling. I don't get pine per se, but rather green veggies (celery and what else). The opening is like being hit in the head by a bunch of mixed greens at the farmers market. But the controversial part is the drydown, when the greens have gone. To me it's woody with some animalics, but other people perceive it as extremely animalic.

caio

Weird. I get MASSIVE pine with Yatigan. Really wood shop pine, a day of chopping firewood pine. And the greens are gently rotted, like after the farmers market has closed and the vendors have ditched the stuff too far gone to sell. Otherwise like a dry day in the Rockies. One of my absolute favorites.

Caron is a great house. People complain about reformulations but the ones I have smell just exactly like the descriptions of the classic versions and nothing like what people describe as the reformulations. Strange. The ones I have do seem to be shape-shifters though and may just strike different people in very different ways, as above.
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post #18 of 29
5/4/12 at 10:16am
On me, PuH is more powerful than third man. The strange herbal lavender opening pass by in few minutes and what i get is a caramel-rum like smell. If i apply over hot sites (neck, jugular) the lavender stays pounding but now, smoothly. If i apply over cold sites (wrists) the lavender stays subdued and the smell is just sweet vanillic. I don´t like sweet scents, but here, its not a sugar smell, or candy smell... but a caramel with rum, and i feel so confortable with it. It took me some time to love pour un homme, more than third man, which was so easy to love.
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post #19 of 29
5/4/12 at 11:24am
Caron PuH is classy and mature, but in a way ahead of its time (to my nose at least, it exudes a gourmand smoothness which makes me thin: "wow, how come they had such innovative scents back in the 1930s")
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post #20 of 29
5/4/12 at 5:37pm
Thread Starter 
@#$% Now I want to get Yatagan! You guys are a BIG problem for my meager budget! :-)

P.
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post #21 of 29
5/4/12 at 11:54pm
i think is worth mentioning that female labeled Caron´s may have some great scents that can fits on men. I am curious about Parfum Sacré.
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post #22 of 29
5/5/12 at 12:02am
Caron's perfumes(both femme's and male's) are worth buying...
Parfum Sacre....vintage is a wonderful unisex..
Latest release Parfum Sacre Intense is also worth trying ...
Nuit de Noel extrait is my all time favorite by Caron ..
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post #23 of 29
5/5/12 at 12:17am
Yatagan was my first blind buy and the fragrance that basically opened up my eyeballs to a whole new world of fragrance beyond Gucci PHII


I describe the opening as wet carrots and pepper... almost a compost/garbage smell. It's one of the strangest and best things I've smelled. That's gone in ~30 seconds for me and then it smells like thanksgiving yams. Kind of an odd, savory/sweet that leads into the peppery, piney sap/lumber department smell. So odd and so good.


Also an oddity in that when people smell my bottles, it's almost always the favorite. CPuH generally gets an "ew... it smells like chemical cleaner"


I firmly believe that even if you don't like Yatagan, it's worth having and smelling just as an exercise in learning to pick out and appreciate individual notes.
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post #24 of 29
5/5/12 at 12:18am
I'm tempted to layer it with Marc Jacobs Bang! and see what happens...


I might sprout mustaches on my chest/neck/wrists...
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post #25 of 29
5/8/12 at 4:46am
Thread Starter 
Sophi, thanks for the suggestions, re: Caron's femme line. I am intrigued by Parfum Sacre. Rose, spice, incense. . .perfect. Many have said that it is not so overwhelmingly floral that a man couldn't wear it. Gender markers in fragrances don't really register with me, but there is a certain kind of floral note that I can't wear. Wish I could articulate better, but my BN vocab isn't up to snuff.

I've successfully worn Carnal Flower and Portrait of a Lady (from samples). Is PS's floral note comparable?

Mille grazie for any help you can give me!

P.
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post #26 of 29
5/10/12 at 5:00am
Thread Starter 
The Caron PH arrived yesterday. It is a beautiful scent!

Though I have to admit that the opening is a little strange. I have the same problem with the opening of 3rd Man. Maybe it's the bergamot that hits my nose sideways.

With the CPH it's definitely the bergamot/rosemary combo that gives me pause.

The drydown is worth the wait, however!

P.
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post #27 of 29
5/10/12 at 9:58am
Quote:
Originally Posted by franeri View Post


Does my love for these "old man" fragrances mean that I am entering my dotage?

P.

Chances are that considerably younger men wore Pour un Homme and Yatagan when they originally came out. If we must be "old" before we can wear great fragrances, then we all better dye our hair gray and affect a cane!!!!!!!!

Yatagan's pine is not overwhelming, in my opinion. If you like herbal fragrances such as Agua Brava or Aramis, you probably can pull off Yatagan.
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post #28 of 29
5/10/12 at 11:11am
Yatagan is like Aramis through maple syrup. Dark and unsettling, but also quite fun!
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post #29 of 29
5/10/12 at 11:32am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Swanky View Post

Yatagan's pine is not overwhelming, in my opinion. If you like herbal fragrances such as Agua Brava or Aramis, you probably can pull off Yatagan.

Agreed, the pine dose in Yatagan is nowhere near Agua Brava's.

Quote:
Originally Posted by lovingthealien View Post

Yatagan is like Aramis through maple syrup. Dark and unsettling, but also quite fun!

I don't see much of a connection between these two. I got cumin and tons of birch tar in Aramis, both of which are absent from Yatagan's crisper celery and styrax.
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