Pour Un Homme Parfum (2024 version)
Caron (2024)

Pour Un Homme Parfum by Caron (2024) as composed by house perfumer Jean Jacques is a different creature from the previous 2017 counterpart created by William Fraysse, a perfumer who sadly had an all too-short tenure with Caron. Whereas Fraysse tried to marry the merits of all the different previous parfum concentrations of Caron Pour Un Homme (1934) there have been, making a rather dark and somewhat ambery vision of Pour Un Homme with the most-natural of lavenders floating atop it, Jacques dispenses with all that tying up of other perfumer's work and just makes his own take on a parfum rendition honoring Ernest Daltroff's original composition. The results of that endeavor yield a fragrance that smells a lot more more the original than any previous version did, but with a clarified and intensified lavender note, among the strongest I've smelled, with a slightly drier base so that the lavender remains in charge despite maintaining a familiar character.

The opening is an absolute blast of this lavender, coming from three different forms of the material as claimed by the market copy. This is achieved by using French lavender alongside the usual lavandin of the original, which was initially chosen in 1934 because it offers a less-floral character than normal lavender and men didn't want florals to remind them of women's perfume. Standard lavender would find its way into many toilet waters that were not exclusively for men, plus also many shaving and grooming products of the era, and I remember a lot of 1950's and 1960's masculines opting for the sweeter, smoother French lavender too. Thus, seeing it rolled into the formula alongside lavandin for this parfum version makes Caron Pour Un Homme feels somewhat more classic than its senior of 90 years. Beyond that, less vanilla, no civet, and a tonka profile that incorporates styrax and opoponax yields a drier, more aromatic feel, albeit still round.

Overall, this composition succeeds in feeling more like a love letter to the components that made Pour Un Homme iconic in the first place, and like a true parfum concentration of Pour Un Homme that wears richer without going overboard on the vanilla, the musk, or some other imbalance that resulted in so many failed limited edition takes on a stronger form of the classic in the first place. By simply letting the lavender be the more-intense part, and adding two varieties of the stuff for depth, and also reigning in the offending base materials that make it so tough to up the concentration of the original, Jean Jacques "solved for X" more efficiently than the poor ejected Fraysse ever could with all his re-equalization and merging of past elements in the 2017 version that wore like a funeral suit in some ways. Best part of all? This doesn't use any obviously modern materials and feels like it could have been released in the 1930's alongside the eau de toilette. Thumbs up

I much prefer it to the EdT...
apart from the overdose of lavender which I adore, unlike the EdT, when drying down, this Parfum seems less cloying and less sweet to me, certainly due to the resins used which give a more "balsamic/smoky" scent (take these words with the pliers, it's just to give you an idea) and less vanilla; furthermore, I don't even smell the musk-like smell that I smell in the less concentrated version, here the musk is much less cloying...
beautiful and well made. obviously it is not a loud perfume, it has a calm and distinct character.
I think I'll take it...

There is a new 2024 Caron Pour un homme parfum... And it is spectacular, even as it breaks some implicit rules of perfumery to not overlap directly with aromatherapy. I am just regretting my investment in a small bottle of Jersey by Chanel, which offers a similar Abbaye de Senanque-type lavender field purple pollinating explosion in the opening notes, but then gets awfully sweet, and then fades. This new Pour un homme parfum comes on like the opening of Jersey or like the opening of the Pour un homme EdT, but it stays exactly there. It doesn't move with a thud to the heavy tonka vanilla ambery musk of the original Pour un homme. It barely moves to musk at all, although it does have notes of vanilla and musk (but not tonka or amber). This 2024 Pour un homme parfum by Jean Jacques is a remake of the limited edition 2017 Pour un Homme de Caron by Richard Fraysse. In a evergreen blue/green bottle, the 2024 Pour un homme is so pure on the lavender that it almost evokes a kind of sugar of Maine Pine--it goes a step beyond the intensification of lavender to something different. It is said to contain notes of wild lavender, lavender, and lavender extract. It adds styrax, oppoponax, and Turkish rose to the pared down 4 notes of the 2017 version: Lavendar, musk, vanilla, and amber. It is linear: it does what it does. I first smelled it when someone in the row behind me on a flight spritzed it on just before landing. I am pretty sure I heard the sprayer give a little sigh of pleasure. It struck me as "osé"--a little outrageous--at first because of that pure, almost sugar of lavender scent, and its impermeability, but I also immediately thought that I had to have it. Maybe it is a little outrageous. (I hope it would not give anyone a headache--lavender, like gardenia, is not for everyone, and this is so concentrated that I almost feel it in the back of my throat if I smell a sprayer too long.) It needs the diversity of human skin and endocrine response--I am eager to wear it while sweating, or in icy cold, to make it stir a bit, see if it will budge. It is delicious. Priced in the low 100 dollar range, I expect to smell this instantly recognizable scent frequently... And not just on my wrists and my pillow..

Caron has recently entered a new era with new leadership, and as part of their new brand strategy we have this Parfum, commemorating the 90th anniversary of Pour Un Homme.

To get the verdict out of the way: this Parfum by Jean Jacques is elegantly done, respectful of the original structure but with the equalizer sliders reconfigured. This Parfum is all about the lavender, rather than the musky vanilla of the original.

Parfum overdoses the lavender to great effect (the notes pyramid boasts four different lavender materials), creating one of the richer, rounder lavender experiences I've found in a perfume. The lavender is less spiky and herbal than that of the original, so you don't get that "freshly plucked lavender" effect, but feels more like a maximalist lavender bouquet.

The original Pour Un Homme is famous for the heavy vanilla and musk that takes over from the lavender, and that vanilla is here, but it's reduced to a whisper. In fact, the entire base of this Parfum is rather subdued. Here, the vanilla functions primarily as a softening agent to smooth out a balsamic combination of resins and musk (and not "clean" musk, either; there's a hint of something animalic if you're looking for it).

As someone who never really liked the original's thick vanilla/musk base, this recalibration is satisfying, and is very reasonably priced given the quality.