10/6/13

Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme (VC&A)



Van Cleef and Arpels Pour Homme has been reformulated, but it's cool. My new bottle smells good, and reasonably natural. I won't go crazy seeking out vintage bottles, because the difference between the old and new is negligible, by most accounts. When it comes to reformulations, my position couldn't be clearer: change is a part of life, so just roll with it.

Although I've never smelled the original formula, I think this one is complex and natural enough to convince me that VC&A PH has been reformulated well. Shamu1 wrote of this scent in 2010:

"I sampled the current formulation of VC&A, and the only difference I can tell is that the top notes are a bit subdued compared to the old version. The top notes in the old version were harsh green, and they practically jumped out of the bottle at you from the get-go. The new one doesn't do that, and the top notes are softer. However, after about 20 minutes, all of the old magic comes right back. Great job reformulating this scent."

With a drop on my wrist, it seems as though there's too much laundry musk in it, but when I give it full wearings, the oakmoss, juniper berry, lavender, tobacco, and cedar coalesce into a fruity complexity that is very rewarding, and laundry musk doesn't factor in. I guess it is an olfactory illusion based on brief, small-dosage samplings. I'm beginning to think that soapy fragrances can pull this olfactory trick, where many relatively natural-smelling notes are bundled together and smoothed-out, to the point where they collectively take on a specific tangential characteristic. 

In this case, that characteristic, due to the soapiness, may be one of laundry-muskiness. Some (myself included) have even likened VC&A PH to Dial Gold bar soap, and I definitely get the comparison, but I think the fragrance also resembles an Edwardian-era Turkish Hammam soap of some kind. There's something stodgy and "fusty" about how carnation, rose, and lavender are rendered, but it doesn't really smell dated, just old-school. It's like Penhaligon's Hammam Bouquet without the sentimentality. I like it.