Reviews of Eternity for Men by Calvin Klein

you are all wrong...there are only 2 or 3 ingredients...secret

Back in 1990 this fragrance was all the rage as it was Klein's answer to Eternity for women. I didn't really care for it when it first hit the shelves so I never really paid much attention to it personally but I did know that it was hugely successful. I recently picked up a vintage bottle not too long ago and since my scent receptors have since changed, I have since changed my mind about it. As I always say I'll NEVER EVER buy a classic fragrance in it's current form because of many reasons but the main one is that dirty filthy word... Reformulated. Ugh! Anywho the bottle I have unfortunately has turned a bit but it's still wearable but the longevity is disappointing to say the least. I'm not sure if it's because of it's age or not but I've had other bottles in the past and I've had the same problem. Maybe the fragrance never had decent performance no matter which formulation is made. What a shame because the synthetic citrus heavy juice is delightful and I really like it. The design of the bottle is iconic along with the name but I don't think I'll be wasting hard earned cold hard cash on this fragrance anymore because bottle after bottle always gives me the same results, whether it's turned or not. It's just the way it's made.

Opens fresh and metallic with lavender, citrus, and a touch of green. Trying it back in the day must have been my first exposure to the annoying woody amber base that has since become the standard for modern designer fragrances. In the late 80s, Eternity For Men and Davidoff Cool Water set the trend for what we now refer to as generic, fresh, clean, office-friendly perfumes. They changed the landscape of designer perfume... for the worse imho.

This early 2000s version by Calvin Klein Cosmetics projects well and lasts 6-8 hours. The current version by Coty is watered down.

Masculinity Level: The stapler guy from Office Space.

Solidly pleasant. This deserves more thumbs up. Slightly green, slightly clean, and can be had at an amazingly low price point. It falls nicely within the barbershop category, and that most definitely is in my wheelhouse. While performance is only average, just bring a decant with you for refreshing.

1990s nostalgia in a bottle. Calvin Klein Eternity for Men is a fresh, citrusy, aromatic fragrance that is great for daytime, warm weather use and is suitable for for work, school, college, general daytime wear, out with friends etc. So it's reasonably versatile. The scent has been around for awhile but even after 30 years is still an acceptable fresh fragrance. Eternity for Men opens with citrus notes. The dry-down brings out some floral and fruity notes with a hint of woodiness underpinned by a warm musk. A nice green, fresh fragrance with a moderate performance, lasts about 4 hours on my skin and gives arm length projection. Perhaps it is the nostalgic effect but Eternity for Men gives me a vibe of unperturbed confidence while also conveying some carefree abandon. A classic that I'm glad to have in my collection.

Every aspect of this fragrance is fresh, bright and clean. The mandarin, lavender and sage in particular give this a light boisterous freshness and for me that is really all this fragrance has to give. Safe and inoffensive, light and clean. Good for office and gym use. I consider Eternity a progenitor of the genre and to me these types of fresher scents don't really become dated. I realize this led to decades of derivatives both from this house and others yet Eternity deserves credit for being what it was. I enjoy Eternity - I respect it's place in the history of perfumery and for that It absolutely deserves thumbs up even though it's progeny may not.

I'm showing my age, but I wore this back in cologne when it was new, a high school graduation gift from my cousin. It's weird smelling it again now as a perfume snob - I'm having thoughts...

#1. This was SOOOO ahead of its time, like basically the grandfather of the unremarkable fruity aquatic. It's crazy how modern this smells for a 33 year old perfume and how many thousands of copies (and even genres) this has inspired.

#2. But yeah, it's a pretty bad fruity aquatic. Fake melon over salty ambrox devolving into synthetic lavender and metallic chlorine fumes. The ambrox classes things up for a few minutes, but that chlorine "woody amber" drydown is pretty much everything I hate now.

#3. Even though this is responsible for pretty much everything I hate in mass-market men's perfumery, and even though I think it smells bad, I just can't bring myself to vote full-on thumbs down for the true OG, so I'm giving this extra credit for originality and bumping it up to a Neutral rating...

I want to say that this smells like every other inoffensive department store "clean" scent, all designed to imitate the shampoos, soaps, and floor cleaners we associate with the feeling of being clean.

But then I remember this scent is actually from the 1980s, the era of powerhouse fragrances designed to cut through the cigarette and body odours of the era, and I realize this is not imitating other fragrances: other fragrances imitate Eternity.

Like Davidoff's Cool Water, this scent helped to launch an entire genre of fragrance that was prevalent in the 1990s and 2010s, until the niche and oud trends, along with widespread bands on smoking, reduced interest in "clean" scents.

So historically, it's important. And Calvin Klein scents in general are very important, since they are conceptually very strong and tend to be mass market trendsetters, even if they do use cheaper ingredients that lends them a chemically feel. And for sure, you could wear it today. But there are better scents in the genre, so unless you are into nostalgia or get a great deal on it, I wouldn't be in a hurry to add it to your collection.

Upon release, I wore this fragrance in deference to Carlos Benaim, who authored my beloved Polo Green. Ultimately, it never fully resonated with my tastes and the bottle was relegated to under the sink forever more. Despite the annoying, wrecking ball level of mass marketing - this frag deserves its place amongst the best of 1989 releases. 3 stars.


Update (May 2023): Revisiting this one again after purchasing a vintage bottle. I remember why I liked it in the first place and will keep it in the regular rotation.

3.5 stars

My best pal used to have this as his signature scent for years. He's since expanded his cologne collection but I recently bought it myself in a bargain box-set with 100ml edt, 100ml aftershave balm plus the deo stick.

It's very 90s but is one of the iconic classics from Calvin Klein along with Obsession and CK One.

It's very synthetic and best described as a soapy but sweet mix of lavender, citrus and vetiver.

It was popular when I was a kid and I wore it then too - reminds me of playing NBA Jam on Sega whilst listening to Snoop Dogg and Pearl Jam - yep, it's at 90s as that!

Worth picking up for £25 / $30 but that's about it.

This is a hit with the ladies in Kochi, India.

Up there with Boss Bottled as a head turner.

I really like this opening, it's gorgeous. It reminds me of my youth, as I was born around the year this fragrance was created. It's a scent that I always had faint memories of, but not quite sure exactly what cologne I was remembering, and then I smelled it at a store and BINGO! Definitely is a great, clean, safe, everyday fragrance. The first impression is VERY crisp and clean, a bit floral but not feminine in any way, and airy. You get a perfect mixture of fresh greens, florals (the lavender is really nice), citrus, and a slightly woody base (but pretty much ZERO depth).

My biggest complaint is the synthetic dry-down that brings out some bitter and sour/chemically notes... and sometimes straight up makes me want to rub it off. It's like the overall scent of laundered clothes but it can kind of give me a headache as if I'm sniffing chemicals, hard to describe but it's not always pleasant.

However it is a classic and, along with Tommy, the ultimate scent of the 90s in my opinion. Just be aware it's insanely common and to some it's very dated. It's a staple and every man should have a bottle at least once in their life (probably as a teen, high school years), I mean it's not offensive or bad, it's continually a best seller for a reason, it's just a bit cliche and can be synthetic.

I used to love and swear by CK, they were cheap and smelled good, and I really had no idea about any frags with true depth and class, so the more I get to know fragrances, I truly realize why some people label Eternity (and pretty much every single CK frag) as generic, but I don't like to be a snob, so really who cares, if the scent is good for and you enjoy it, go ahead and wear it, I will always keep these around because sometimes, the situation calls for it! :) It will most likely always be a popular, good smelling scent which may have suffered a bit from reformulation (reduced longevity, more synthetic possibly), but it's just too hard not to like it overall, mostly due to nostalgia honestly.

I will say this with the best intentions, I'd definitely encourage exploring more fragrances if you are a fan of Eternity, it's a great place to start! But it would truly be a shame if you stopped there. I truly used to think this was the best scent in the world... until I started really learning and exploring all the others. Dive in!!
Opening: 8.25/10
Dry down: 4/10
Longevity: 5/10

I grew up with my dad wearing Eternity throughout my entire childhood. My mom was highly irritated by most frags however eternity she loved. To this day I always have a bottle on hand. Nobody will ever say eww you smell awful nor will the women be crawling all over you. Eternity is very pleasent and fresh and great for the office or occasions such. I no longer wear it as much however when i do i still get the "oh you smell nice" from someone.

It's going to be hard for me to try and review this objectively, as I wore this stuff as a young teenager and smelling it gives me automatic flashbacks to that time, and as is usual during times of reminiscence, the memories are good.

I first bought this on a cruise ship that was headed to Bermuda when I was thirteen. We were at sea, and looking for things to do, I must have wandered into the clothing shop, and I ended up buying a bottle. This was the first "fragrance" that I really liked and owned. As I got older, I wrote it off as popular dreck -- as people in their twenties and thirties are wont to do when they feel that they have come to know everything -- as I believed that I was above all of that stuff that the uneducated commoners would wear (I was basically believing in the type of pseudo-elitism that Creed and some other niche houses have made a mint on propagating). Now that I'm more mature and have my head screwed on a bit tighter than before, I can appreciate this for what it is and what impact it had.

This is a calone bomb with other supporting actors. A sandalwood base holds it down while lavender and calone take the main stage, with everything else seeming to be set dressing. This fragrance is so indicative of the time period, and so long as you can keep that in mind and appreciate what Eternity for Men is, and just as importantly, when it came out, it all makes sense and it succeeds at what it does. In the '80s you could find guys wearing Bijan for Men (1981), but now that smells like an out of place relic. One that, if still worn today, is the property of a collector who appreciates the past, or somebody woefully trapped in it. Eternity is still very accessible, and though it definitely harkens to a different era, it's still enjoyable to wear and it's still something that can be pulled off today without seeming like you've made a quantum leap into the wrong year.

On it's own, it's okay, but in the fragrance world there are some "reference pieces" that everyone should experience, and this is certainly one of them. Yes, I'm biased to it, but that's the beauty of art; it can transport you to another time and place.

Thumbs up.

I was never really a big fan of Eternity. It was just very fresh and quite nice. There was nothing to really dislike. I just found it kinda boring.

The overarching of Eternity is green and botanical for all eternity, or at least until the end. Additional freshness is provided initially by an infusion of an orangey citrus that is quite pleasant.

Soon a nice lavender arises, and together with a good touch of basil continues the green theme, occasionally with a slightly grassy touch.

The base has a nonspecific woodsy undertone, what seems to have become more generic over the years, and is suspicious of some reformulation over time. There is a slash of a slightly anaemic vetiver evident to brighten up the final stages.

I get moderate sillage, good projection and five hours of longevity on my skin.

Overall an agreeable spring scent, which originally was composed of decent-quality ingredients. Having been a staple of mine for years, I could not fail to note a movement towards becoming blander over time, with the top notes deteriorating the least. 3.5/5 for the original impression, now 3.25/5.

Well, I'm sure this has got worse over time. I remember it being extremely popular back in the 90s, no doubt due to that period of CK marketing when they could do no wrong. And there were some good scents, to be sure. However, this is now the smell of fresh laundry. And to be sure, there's a place for fresh laundry. But ... well, you can fill in the rest for yourselves.

Calvin Klein nearly has the ubiquity and brand appeal of Coca-Cola in the United States, and it's mostly due to this scent, both in it's previously-released original feminine version and this masculine variant called Calvin Klein Eternity for Men (1989) that appeared a few years later. The name "Eternity" has proved apt, particularly for the masculine variety, as it's spawned countless flankers and is one of the most commonly-sniffed-in-public male fragrances around, even nearly 30 years after it's launch. Obsession for Men (1986) might be the romantic standard for the CK masculines, but Eternity is the nine to five workweek staple. Eternity wasn't the first "freshie" as perfume hobbyists like to affectionately call all things in this or it's adjacent categories, but it was the first of it's type with enough mainstream brand power to truly make an impact on the masculine fragrance scene of the late 1980's, setting up what would be a 90's revolution hotly contested on it's merits by collectors and fans of male scent to this day. In short, Eternity was the final push that started the big kill-off of all previous conventions in male-targeted perfumery. Creed's Green Irish Tweet (1985) is probably the first sufficiently-documented example of a "freshie" fragrance, but it was just too exclusive, too expensive, and too niche (at the time), but was followed up some years later by Davidoff's Cool Water (1988), which smelled as the name sounds and became a huge contrast against a backdrop of all the oakmoss and patchouli-heavy "powerhouses" that choked up offices in the decade. Even Cool Water wasn't indeed "for everyone" as some people just weren't ready for an out-and-out aquatic, nor did Davidoff have the star power behind it that CK wielded. Little did anyone realize what kind of a tidal shift in masculine fragrance paradigms this would cause, and that shift would only just start to fade in favor of yet another set of values after 3 decades. The secret to the success of this scent is inarguably it's resurrection of the time-honored lavender and geranium pairing seen countless times throughout the Victorian age, then again in mid-century drugstore cologne or after shave. These two elements became muddled and downright befuddled after the 1960's started heaping aromatics like spice rack greens, rose, carnation, pine, various woods, and musks, giving rise to the much more macho fougères that segued into the very powerhouses that this scent rendered extinct. Funny how it all comes full circle huh?

Eternity for Men entered the mainstream fragrance-buying market like a wrecking ball, with billboard ads and magazine inserts, commercials and samples galore. It wasn't just an aquatic or fresh scent; the third chapter in Calvin's masculine scent story was married to classic fougère notes, yet didn't contain tonka or oakmoss as was previously considered a prerequisite for the genre. Love it or hate it, Eternity is a clever smell made by an equally clever perfumer by the name of Carlos Benaim, whose creations have molded the evolution of the craft. Yes, we're talking the same guy who bequeathed us Ralph Lauren's iconic pine and moss blast known as Polo (1977), and also went on to make 4 more Polo flankers including a remake of the original, the also-iconic Polo Blue (2002), and has for all intents and purposes helped define masculine scent himself. He knew taking something deep-rooted and familiar, then twisting it with new and the daring aromachemicals was the only way to ease the transition for people still clinging to their bottles of YSL Kouros (1981). Eternity opens much as one might expect from this genre by now: a strong whiff of calone (under the guise of "green botantics") carries subtle orange and lavender notes, keying in a telltale sweet astringent feel anchored by just a touch of the familiar to keep it from being repugnant, before melting into layers of commonly-used herbs and florals in the middle, then finalizing with the synthetic sandalwood, vetiveryl acetate, timberol, and rosewood notes buried in heaps of linalool. The high-contrast calone note is the real "eternity" of this one, despite being a top note, as it never goes away thanks to it's binding with lavender in the heart. Anyone familiar with the preceding Aramis take on the genre known as New West (1988) will instantly understand what an enduring calone note is like (even if New West is more melon-y), and can already predict half of this juice's performance. New West was just too sweet and juicy for the mainstream, and despite technically beating Eternity to the punch on the idea, isn't really quite as universally appealing, since it didn't try tying anything familiar into it's fresh formula. All the other ingredients here, whether natural or not, surf on a shimmering wave of said calone and linalool, giving "eternal" longevity. Best use is year-round and as a signature.

There's a lot of sentiment attached to this one, in part due to it's insane popularity, and in part due to the changes in style it caused that made many a man mourn the loss of his previously-favorite fragrance. Like anything that causes a massive changing of the guard, there are those who resent it for abolishing the old ways, and those who embrace it as the start of -their own- set of traditions. For certain, Eternity for Men ranks up there with Armani Acqua di Gio pour Homme (1996) as one of the most-worn masculines ever. The antediluvian types will always throw stones at this as an Antichrist in a bottle (indeed seeing the designer itself as such a devil), since it marked the final days of their favorite aromatics, musks, or powerhouses; it caused a death further asserted by CK's own continued foray into synthetics that started a 90's trend which made heavier scents taboo, then eulogized by 2011 IFRA restrictions on treemoss and oakmoss. The house of Calvin Klein himself would seemingly become obsessed with the artifice on display here for years to come, creating what I jokingly call "The Age of Eternity" and using impressionistic "Kleinisms" in place of real notes going forward. Gen X'ers and Millennials who discovered this first will have the same nostalgia trip out of it that those older dudes get from a bottle of something from Paco Rabanne or Bogart, and I sit squarely in the middle because my tastes are far broader than the lot of them (as they are in most areas). I'll concede that it pushes a lot of the most-common-denominator buttons, and Mr. Benaim was likely intent on having it do just that, but I'm not sure if Eternity was the beginning of some scheme to convince guys "bland was better" even if that seems to be the case these days with designers. I just think it was a back-to-basics kind of scent with no expectation of the revolution it caused, and the trajectory of CK's designs going forward was just as much a reaction to the success of Eternity for Men as designs from any other house in it's wake. Future formulations are actually better than vintage on this one, as the increased synthetics actually bring it more in line with the original concept, which is a rare thing. I see Eternity for Men as more of a reaction to a previous style that was wearing out it's welcome rather than an initiative to something, and after 30 years of ripple here we are, stuck in Eternity. Thumbs up

Just a nice pleasant old school fresh scent, still like it after all these years!

I first wore this 1990 to 1991 and love it.
It has an unusual sweet smell.
I bought it in 2017 out of nostalgia and I secretely kind of like it... I do not know though, whether this has been reformulated since the nineties or I purchased old (out of date) stock because its longevity is poor... I remember ETERNITY lasted for ages
For me 5/10

Back in the day, I remember smelling Eternity as a kid.
Smelling this today, it's as I remember it.
At least the opening.

Everyone describes Eternity as synthetic. I guess it is. It doesn't smell cheap or immature though, like many fragrances targeted towards teens in the late 90s/early 2000s.
It's very classy, sharp, and goes well with formal attire, although casual works well too.

The thing I don't like about it is, after about two hours you lose that sharp, green/citrus opening, and it softens out to this more powdery, white musk scent.
This, I believe is what everyone is referring to when they say it smells generic.

SMELLS LIKE:

Aqua Quorum. Eternity + Cool Water = Aqua Quorum.

Curve and Luck You are the teenage kids of Eternity.

CONCLUSION:
To me, this is one of the most classic fragrances of all time. The scent for the first one or two hours is amazing.
But the dry down to that powdery musk part, which exists for the rest of the fragrances life span is boring and not that good.
If somehow the opening could last the whole time, or the dry down got more interesting, this would be perfection.

And safe and good for any occasion. A bit nostalgic for those of us who were young enough to remember this when it first launched and every popular guy in high school was wearing it.

You can't go wrong with this classic.

I had first tried this in a holiday sampler pack that came bundled with this as well as Obsession, Escape, and CK One. While I liked them all this was probably my third favorite of the bunch behind CK One and Obsession. This one starts out sort of smelling like a glade plugin air freshener. The longer you wear it it gives way to a kind of green and woody scent. This one is kind of a sweet and sour cologne. Some days I can get this one to last longer and on those days it retains it's sweet scent other days it gets a little sour and the scent fades faster. Overall a decent fragrance considering you can get a small bottle at Walmart for under $25. I think it lasts longer and is best suited for warmer days.

Whatever reformulation Coty or whoever owns Calvin Klein fragrances has done willfully and successfully killed this fragrance. Vintage bottles are going over $100 online and I can't stand to pay retail for a true branded bottle that smells like a knock-off. Someone should pay dearly for messing up this fragrance.