Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme Van Cleef & Arpels for men

Definitely a great classic imho! Starts out as rather soapy and develops into a dark and mysterious scent which I find pleasant.
A real plus for this perfume is its longevity - on my skin is last easily for a whole day and more, so to be used sparingly!

one word to describe it, if I had to...Opulent. Unapologetically old school and a total class scent. Its Studio 54 meets 'A Night with Bobby Short @ The Carlyle Hotel".

I wish I could smell all the notes you other reviewers get out of this one. I don't get leather at all - and I especially don't smell Antaeus (which I love)!

After a really interesting, dark and complex initial spray I get a dreadful, overpowering SOAP smell. It caused both my wife and daughter-in-law to make stink faces.

A total scrubber, I am sorry to report. I had high hopes for it.

There are different fragrances, but none better on the planet.
Just see Kaze and Roldan, below.

My first impression was: "I wear something so old-fashioned" !?! Hmm Such a fool!, I clearly underestimated this wonderful creation leaving it on the shelf for a long time. Once I took a risk again. WOW! Now, I fall in love each time I'm wear this fragrance. I love the dry-down when a whole bunch is completely opened. Stars sparkling in the dark night-sky. Clock already struck midnight hour. Imagine huge cabinet with antique leather furniture and shelves full of old books. Gentleman dressed in a suit smoking a cigar and sitting at a massive desk with some gold accessories. Expensive cognac sits hidden in a crystal decanter. Light dulled and the atmosphere is full of mystery and Sherlock Holmes adventures. Pure dark elegance. Oh Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme!

Classy,elegant,dark.Better to wear it in winter,and if you want to drink the coffee alone go to a classy coffee in a cold winter morning with a newspaper and enjoy it.

''You cannot see me, hear me, or touch me. I lie behind the stars and alter what is real, I am what you really fear. Close your eyes and I come near. What am I?''

Darkness.

There's something goth-like about VCA PH. Something dark and mysterious. It's a powerful fragrance with the substantial amount of passion regarding it's notes as it builds.

Van Cleef & Arpels Pour Homme is a true gem. It evokes everything that is dark, elusive and complex. The opening to this fragrance is very exotic with a fresh-soapy floral and herbaceous note which after a while transitions into a very warm, dark and sensual leather musk.

The Patchouli, deep rose, amber, oak moss, lavender, artemesia, and leather like a symphony orchestra, create nothing other than excellence.

1 spray on each pulse point (be gentle with the trigger) and you're in for a romantic journey. If not, a journey to the unknown.

I get 10+ hours. Great longevity, great silage. Compliment galore.

Wow, definitely not what I was expecting-scent wise. Yes, it's deep and dark, a bit mysterious and very 70's. VC&A is both cool and warm simultaneously. Quite bitter-green in the opening, then dives into a herbal-floral mix with warm spicy nuances. Transitions very smoothly into the base, where slightly dirty leather, moss and cool powdery musk appear. I wouldn't say this is a beast in terms of projection, likely a result of reformulation; longevity is quite good.

No leather, no rose, just a regular piece of... soap. Pass.

3/10

This is great stuff, right here. The top notes smell very exotic; like Opium, but for men. The herby, spicy scent comes across as a very expensive soap, and the rosy basenotes bring this whole fragrance to a wonderful finish. The entire effect is very formal and exotic, and lasts a good long time besides. The only downside is that you have to be at least 35 years old to pull this off (I'm a 38 year old man). If you're under 21, you shouldn't wear this, as you'll come off as a try-hard. Great for all times and all seasons when you want to smell great. HIGHLY recommended!

What follows is purely my opinion: I've only tried the most recent formulation (brown leaves on black background box) and thought it was awful, similar to the terrible Zino reformulation,. That is, loaded up with strong top notes (soapy/herbal lavender and "laundry musk") and with cheap, generic base notes. Supposedly, Leonard Pour Homme (vintage) was very similar, and since I have that I haven't tried to track down the vintage version of this one. I've also got vintage Oscar Pour Lui, which is similar to the Leonard. I'm not sure who these nasty reformulations are meant to appeal to, but I'm surprised they even bother, considering that even if they recreated the original perfectly it is a very formal, "out of date" scent. The original must have been superb!

Sexy stuff! Blends well with cigarette smell.

I love this fragance.My favorite for men.

a trully classic leather fragrance.it's a masculine scent and a very elegant one.it's for a man that he is simple,elegant and knows what he wants.long lasting and good sillage

I blind bought this rare treasure upon saintlunaire's suggestion. Thank you, mon ami! So many comments below are so accurate. Thank you, gentlemen!

I was lucky to find a vintage original and I am so impressed with it in every way. Van Cleef & Arpels was the first jeweler to offer fine fragrance. This is one of the finest. It shimmers like a radiant diamond.

This is another example of perfume perfection. Its youthful, yet for men only. Its not dated, like I expected. Its a timeless classic in all respects. The nose created a masterpiece. Lightning never strikes twice.

Since it was released in 1978, Antaeus and Oscar de Larenta PL attempted to imitate its magic. Indeed, they both resemble it in their own beauty. This was obviously a trendsetter that introduced the dense, heavy, elegant leathery floral that are now lost in time...Nothing really can compare to the original VCA.

Its dark, complexity is hard to describe-leather, rose, oakmoss, jasmine, vetiver, patcholi and artemesia all blend together so well. It is very clean-NO animalic notes at all. The florals come forward, like no other for men. Perhaps that why I love it so.

It luscious texture, gently flirts. It is very formal and artistic. Perfect to wear to the opera, museum or a fine restaurant. Due to its rarity, I only would use it on very special occasions. If you are curious, by all means try VCA PH!!!

With a great pleasure i found yesterday VCA homme that i wore on the 80's.
I m surprise to see a confidential parfume without marketing campaign still sells in the traditional network. Thank you Van Cleef !
The jus seems unchanged, bipolar, bright and dark both.
A beautiful floral Fougeres on smoked woods. Always very up to date, and less more connoted 80's than the animalistic Kouros.
Monsieur Louis Monnet made an original masterpiece,do you know others Parfumes created by him ? Any suggestions are welcome.

Poderoso, embriagante cuan bebida alicorada ... fuerte, potente, un golpe embriagador, solo en noches de invierno...

Absolutely gets my stamp of approval. Just about everything has already been said about this. A wonderful dry masculine fragrance. Classic is the word for this. I would suggest trying to find the vintage so you get the intended amount of oakmoss with this, otherwise for the price, this is a definite for those who like old school masculines. Has all the markers.

Ok, let me catch my breath, what a CLASSIC! Woody, floral, dry, manly...and I mean MASCULINE scent for a man, a confident man. It resembles a lot to Antaeus or even Azzaro Pour Homme. A really A+ fragrance for men, you don't have this kind of high quality perfume anymore these days, so go and get it before it's too late.

This one is very very similar to Lagerfeld (the original one), seems in fact to be a copy of it, smells very much of powdery (iris) patchouly, but I find Lagerfeld more wearable, although I think this one is a very good perfume, dense and complex, as you do not find many these days.

Well,
Its safe to say that i dont like leathers. This cologne smells like i literally took ashes out of a bonfire and rubbed it on myself. I dont think this is a desirable fragrance personally. I am really REALLY trying to get away from my clean and fresh, typical, boring stuff but this is the wrong direction for me.

Maybe one of the best leather fragrance, classic, elegant and distinguished from others. Well in the family with Trussardi Uomo, OscardeLaRenta Pour Loui the VCL is the best, specially compared of modern citrus-sweet fragrances. A must have.

I'm afraid that I agree with leecher88 in that there is a note that is really not pleasant! From the bottle it smells vaguely similar to Antaeus, (and this is the vintage VC&A I'm talking about) but in the drydown, it smells cheap and very dated, like Azzaro! Very strident and not pleasant. Luckily I only bought a small 7ml bottle with which to test it...

Am quite surprised by some of the rave reviews here... and even more surprised that such a classy perfume house as VC&A could have produced this fragrance, given they have also produced such a fab, and very sadly discontinued, fragrance like Zanzibar!

I road tested this fragrance with a couple of female colleagues and they felt similarly... do NOT blind buy this fragrance as I did!

Anybody know how the different formulations are marked? I´d presume both the boxes and the bottles are different.

I love this one, it smells so leathery,manly,clean, this is a jewel.
My wife love it.very sexy and lady killer.
یک کار قدیمی مربوط به زمانیکه عطرهای چرمی و جاذب پرطرفدار بودند.آدم یاد دوران گذشته و فیلمهائی مثل کازابلانکا و هنرپیشه فقید همفری بوگارت می افتد

I was able to acquire a bottle of the original Leonard Pour Homme before this one. I read that the two are very similar, so I didn't pursue getting a bottle of this one with much zeal. Eventually, someone offered a swap so because I didn't like that other fragrance I agreed. My first impression was, this is not a fragrance that could have been made in 1978. It has a powerful "laundry musk" quality. It is mostly a "blob" and it's obnoxious. Yes, you can tell lavender is in here, but that and the laundry musk really dominate. I consider it an absolute disgrace to "the art of perfume." The one I had was in a box with a brown leafy design (fortunately, I found someone who wanted this specific formulation, and I swapped it). If the original was very similar to vintage Leonard Pour Homme, though, I can understand why people like it. LPH is "formal" but quite rich and interesting.

this is one of those fragrances that you love somedays and hate on others! very masculine and strong. some similarities with paco rabbane's classic green bottled homme fragrance. but for me it sometimes has this strong "sweaty, armpit-y" note that really puts me off!! sorry if i'm being gross!! its definitely very dated...

For a long time I read people referring to this in discussions about powerhouse fragrances. It is not available in my local area and so I had to buy it blind off the internet. I am glad I did.

There are a number of fragrances jostling for top ten positions in my wardrobe and in walks VCA and procedes to strut towards the front of the cue. I like the fragrance so much I am prepared to anthropomorphise!

Leather, artemisia and rose are the main players in this opera and they are supported by a large cast of floral and herbaceous notes. To me the simplest way to describe this is: it's like a floral version of Polo. I have the most recent reformulation, which apparently is better than its predecessor.

This is a much more robust fragrance than its stablemate Tsar and in my opinion is far superior to it.

Van Cleef and Arpels pour homme, brings all his years and are 33, then this fragrance has been a must, but today I just can not hear, the predominant note is the leather that reveals the flowers almost any way you look out the 'shutter a camera that has a dark and ancient, remember when the cave men to defend themselves from wild beasts lit the fires?
Will be smoking in the fire, but this scent evokes the wild, and then all this ...... if I take a leather scent I definitely old style of Cartier Santos on this is that it is really great.

Classic!! My father used to wear it, and then i wore it too. This is a powerful fragrance that lasts all day on my skin. This is suitable to wear on cold nights.

I am on the second bottle of this and truly I love this scent it is very classy .

i smelled it today now i can say some things

first i dont like leather perfumes !

and second it has a note which i hate but i dont know which !

and its classic for men +40

Reading the descriptions, I wonder if it is the same scent that so knocked me out in the early 1980s... I'd never smelled anything that dark, complex, and un-perfume-like before. At that time, all the young men around me were wearing syrupy things like Paco Rabanne and Polo (apologies if you like these..), and the VC&A was a revelation. I guess in some ways it was a precursor to the things that Comme des Garcons have done since. Maybe if I smelled it again 30 years later I might not have the same reaction...

Update: I got a bottle and, no... it's been reformulated. Definitely.. a shadow of its former self --- a couple of ghostly echoes of the robust original, with strange new notes added and an offputting soapiness covering the whole thing. How depressing. I know it's been years since I smelled it, and you might say my nose has changed, but it used to be my everyday standard and it was imprinted in my brain. Other smells, even from childhood, I can pinpoint with accuracy, so I'm certain it has been changed, and not for the better.

A masculine soapy-herbal-rose fragrance with animalic hints (castoreum?) and leather in the middle phase . Nice, well crafted but IMO not as much compelling as other perfumes of the same family.

Rating: 7/10

it is a good fragrance...it is well done

Not for me though

this has something in common with Guerlain's L'instant edp.it's not as rich and doesnt project as much as L'instant.i guess it being an edt accounts for that but if you miss out on one you can substitute with the other and u will still achieve ur mission.If I get one going for a song I guess I will grab one.will love one as a gift too...It's clearly for the oldies and yes,I love it.mature,cool,classy and refined.Get it!!

A royal and deep virile disciplined overpowering serious perfume ever with completely classic mood. It's a leather group perfume for sure, but could be aromatic fougere too; so near to that cases.
What links it to classic perfumes is not its date, it's the great touch of leather and labdanum and the pure and transparent quality which makes this scent frank an serious.
Definitely a masterpiece for formal dresses but not necessarily for formal times. An autumnal coat and shawl and support this perfume marvelously and present a manly and kind safe sense of trust.
Sharp and herbal, luxe and chic, a 70's dandy.

longevity 10/10
sillage 8/10
scent 10/10

i love this one, it smells so leathery,manly,clean, this is a jewel

classic smell, no feminine at all. definately not for younger crowd.

Come on! It's not a leather scent! Please! This is one of the best mens rose/herbs perfumes out there. A little like high class rose soap. I like it very much. Great for bed :-) Really!

If you want real leather, take Knize Ten.

special and unique
with class but not too formal

I love when it dry down very slowly gentle and warm

Cloves and compact opulent darkness with initial slightly offputting soapiness.

It's for a city milieu that does not exist anymore.

A slower paced life in dusty silent places.

But it shall forever suit graveyard poets who never smile.

Overpowering. It smells of deep, dank woods with a kind of petrol scent lurking underneath. Perhaps it's just bad chemistry with me but I could not wear this again after the first experience with it. If I wanted to smell like this I would go swim in the Gulf Oil Slick and then roll around in pine needles and moss. No Thanks.

I used to hv this one back in 80's its a great joy wearing this,.

This is soooooooo good!!! This is NOT an unbearable leather fragrance at all!!! It's soapy-powdery-flowery, not too much powder though, but still worth a try!!! Never thought i'd be ever raving so much about a fragrance that was released back in 1978.

I must say ...
I like alpasha66 review...
I had it ... back in the 80's
I also was young and full of ideas or dreams ...
Notions of what I thought made me feel RICH Sophiticated and ELEGANT...
Van Cleef & Arpels pour Homme along with Santos Cartier...created that illusion for me...
wow.... who knew that a
long-lasting, deep-down leather/smokey/tar-like chords
would make me long for those youthful days .. now!

Great scent rank it along with Santos and Van Gils Classic.

VERY ROMANTIC AND ELEGANT,LATE FALL TO WINTER IS THE BEST TIME TO WEAR.I AND THE WIFE FIND THIS TO BE MORE OF A GOURMAND FRAGRANCE.THE DRY DOWN REMINDS HER OF GENUINE PANCAKE SYRUP.

After cruising along the webside i saw this perfume passing by i remebered having a bottle in the past somewhere . I looked and i still had it , allthough it is probably 15 years old a gave it a try again .
I do have to say ... not bad , not bad at all , only not for me . I think it is a winter time perfume for romantic people . A lot of flowers present in a very strong perfume .

i used it in the beginning of 1980`s, it was great, to a young man it was a dream come true; only holding it made eyes look it you. to me its more like a Spring time perfume.

A great classic!

That holds a leather note against a deep rose floral note.