Escape for Men
Calvin Klein (1993)

This is a 90s era fragrance from top to synthetic bottom. The very very fruity beginning is actually very pleasant. It has that Melon scent wafting through the air but make sure you wear it when it's hot outside because this will get lost in the cold. It's light and delicate and perhaps not for the younger crowd so take that as you may. The wear time is moderate at best so be sure to carry a decent with you if you're gonna be gone all day and anyone who knows anything at all about fragrances will know that this is a Calvin Klein scent, for better or for worse.

7/10

CK Escape is worth checking out. There is indeed some melon in there, but it's surrounded by a 'mist'-like effect of white-musk and eucalyptus and has other fruit notes the make appearances from time to time throughout the wearing. I adore this fragrance when the mood strikes. It has an almost 'damp' fruit effect with little to no piercing qualities. I think Escape would appeal to anyone with a sensitivity to citrus or wood sharpness/dryness because it's pretty much the opposite of that and IMO is a very tolerable and soft fragrance.

It really works well in the summer and, as I said, for me it's a 'mood' fragrance and it fills a wonderful niche for my collection. It's not 'watermelon' to my nose but rather 'melon', kind of like canteloup'ish in genre with other fruits joining in separately and seem to appear in and out of the musky/eucalypus-ey 'mist' for hours. It's a "pleasantly mysterious" fragrance. That's my best description of the style it's perfumed with.

There is a sweetness to it, so be aware of that when you sample, but I don't think it gets into 'sickly sweet' territory. It stays in a nice range of sweetness. The scent lasts many hours on my skin and sometimes it lasts all day.

**Edit July 29th, 2022 - After being on the shelf for 3-4 years now, the eucalyptus is very faded and I smell a dominant tobacco flower note throughout the opening and especially in the drydown. I like how this aged very much. It became more and more masculine the longer it aged on the shelf. I recommend this even more now than when it was a fresh bottle. So, if you want to make a cheap long-term investment, buy a new bottle and just let it sit for 3-4 years. It gets better.

The reputation of Calvin Klein Escape for Men (1993) is a case of near-blind brand malignment within the fragrance community, but unlike Bond No. 9 products that take heat because of the price, eccentricity and dubious morality of the house's owner, this scent takes an unfair amount of heat for being a prominent example from a house that practically invented the synthetic minimalism which dominated designers in the 90's and still haunts current designer perfumery, when the scent itself is really rather well put together. Escape for Men was fresh on the heels of Eternity for Men (1989), which revitalized a genre that had taken a backseat to powerhouses and musky floral chypres throughout the 80's. Escape was the "sophomore" to Eternity in regards to it having to follow up such a drastically different and ascetic game-changing masculine, which alongside Davidoff Cool Water (1988) was reshaping masculine perfumery into cleaner and more abstract lines. The "Age of Eternity" as I affectionately call it, would last a little over 20 years with few exceptions to this aforementioned synthetic minimalism being made by CK, and Escape asserted that direction. Like most CK scents, the reception to Escape online depends on where you go looking for reviews: customer input from shopping sites or casual hangouts online range from mostly indifferent to glowingly positive even if a bit of nostalgia informs those reactions. Elsewhere that more uppity or hobby-centric crowds gather, it's practically set on fire with criticism without actually unpacking what the scent offers, which is a great disservice. I'm not telling anyone they have to like this because I say so, but like most vintage scents regardless of decade, there is context that needs to be considered when trying to wear it.

For starters, calone-1951 was to the late 80's through mid 90's freshies what Iso E Super would be in the 2000's, and woody-ambers or ambroxan would be post 2010. Calone-1951 was the wonder chemical of most mainstream perfumers at the time and although mostly used subtly by other designers, in Escape for Men it's cranked to 11. We actually have Aramis New West (1988) to thank for this "calone overdose" as it appears in Escape for Men, because New West was the first masculine to use melon-derived calone-1951 in these doses, and it's also very prominent in that scent since it's actually one of the focal points around which New West is built. However, since Aramis as a house has a good reputation among vintage enthusiasts, everyone in the echo chamber heaps praise onto New West as the freshie "it's okay to like", which in and of itself is a form of peer-induced bias. Escape has a very similar vibe, and that isn't to say Escape is a New West clone, as it's actually a woodsier and drier alternative while Romeo Gigli Sud Est (1995) goes more herbal within the same stylistic pattern. For those who haven't sniffed Aramis New West and can't do the comparisons, I'll describe Escape as follows: Birch leaf, grapefruit, bergamot, juniper, eucalyptus, mango and calone from melon open it, with the latter dominating the other notes which only seem to be present to keep the calone from being too harsh, since there is just so much of it. The middle is balsam fir, a salty "marine note" and dihydromyrcenol, rosemary, clary sage, and vetiveryl acetate, which when the latter is combined with the oakmoss base, actually almost makes Escape a chypre itself (Sud Est goes further in this direction). The aforementioned oakmoss is joined by sandalwood, a slight amber, and even slighter patchouli. The final sandalwood stage of the dry down is very reminiscent of Chanel Égoïste (1990), which is quite the compliment for any CK fragrance to be sure. Wear time is average and projection/sillage adequate, but this is no "banger".

At the end of the day, what we have is a fairly misunderstood scent that blends a fruity melon-powered top with greens and aquatic chemicals before settling into a dry chypre hybrid base. It's still synthetic in many ways, but no more so than Eternity, and doesn't even have the fake "Kleinisms" fantasy notes found in later releases, yet it gets raked over the coals worse than some of these inferior follow-ups for the inclusion of a single blackballed aromachemical that is treated like poison by perfume snobs, when in fact it should draw criticism for being a quality rip-off of New West's primary beach bum theme. The stuff is still very painfully 90's so there's also the point of contention of whether or not you want to smell like a period regardless of the performance or style, but that's where the context I mentioned earlier comes into play. Escape is a casual warm-weather scent, as even the name implies some kind of tropical getaway, and unlike Eternity or even Obsession for Men (1986), has no place in an office or indoor setting. Even it's older Aramis-made cousin New West had more luck as a generalist due to a richer balance, but Calvin Klein Escape for Men is so bright and fruity in the top, then dry and sharp at the bottom, it would just be too tacky in an air-conditioned environment. On a hot glistening summer day, this stuff is actually amazing to behold. If you can forget the fact that this is a Calvin Klein scent or that it riffs on a competitor like so many things do nowadays, you'll see what's presented by perfumer Steve Demercado is a nice casual summer weekend in a bottle, with a cold beer by the poolside. If you can't stand calone or melon notes I can totally understand; the melon note is really going to be this juice's biggest deal breaker. Might I also add that this is likely the only CK masculine to not come in a bottle with stunning design? It's just a cylinder! Master bottle designer Pierre Dinand must have borrowed one of his old designs from his Jacomo days, that's all I'm saying. When there's trouble in paradise, wear Escape! Thumbs up.

This scent is somewhat a long the lines of Aramis New West, Claiborne for Men, and Horizon by Guy la Roche. It seems like the very early '90s experimented with this fresh/dry approach. I get a freshness here mixed with a dry aspect the brings to mind eucalyptus.

I think this comes across as sophisticated, unique, and an easy wear in any weather for those that don't want the typical fresh-fragrance.

Reviewing a fragrance from the house of Calvin Klein can be a little tricky at times because they try and play with one note which i have found common in 3 fragrances from that house and CK1 being one of them.
This smells too cosmetic and flowery and is more toned to the feminine side.
The scent falls linear after 45 minutes and its gone after 90.
This is something i would definitely not spend my money on.
Do not expect great results out of this bottle. An aftershower fragrance for the night time during winters is what CK Escape really is.
This scent is targeted toward the consumers who would like keeping only 1 fragrance in their closet for the sake of having one. Yes, the scent is very general.

I wont be giving this a thumbs down as there are really terrible fragrances out there and some really good designers too which have been reformulated and actually smell worse. But i cant give this a thumbs up either as this does not fetch something special for me and nor does it appeal to my fragrance likes.

The atomizer is really bad.

An inadequate orange-and-amber effort, not too far removed from Boss Orange. Not unpleasant, but does not do anything that a decent shower gel would not in terms of imparting scent to the wearer. Dull, and really rather pointless.