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

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.