Jean Pascal

Jean Pascal is a sadly overlooked 80’s powerhouse type beast. The release date is all over the place. Fragrantica says it was released sometime in the 80’s, Parfumo says in the 2000’s and their marketing ads have an oddly early 90’s feel to them. The real release date is anyone’s guess. That ambiguity sort of suits this fragrance, as it often gets compared to just about all the major 80’s popular fragrances and modern niche. So where does it land? Probably somewhere in the middle. It is a hard to compare scene. It definitely has a little in common with scents like Balenciaga Porto’s feel (animalics and roundness), YSL Kouros (same reason), Roccobarocco Joint Pour Homme, Bogart Furyo, Davidoff Classic, and many others. I guess you could say it was the time. What’s strange is all those fragrances are amazing and worth owning. For those who love those round, animalic, honeyed scent; you’re going to love this. It scratches a lot of those itches. Better yet, you can still find this sold for incredibly low prices. So while I probably haven’t given any real insight into what exactly Jean Pascal smells like, you should still get it, try it, and marinate in it. I think you’ll be glad you did!

For me, this is most similar to Ungaro II, but that may be my skin chemistry. The animalic quality (civet and castoreum, I'd guess) dominates. It has a rich and natural quality (better than U2 for naturalness), but it's thin on complexity (U2 is more complex) and there's not much note separation. Some may call this a "dirty ashtray" smell, for those who do or don't like that quality. I have bottles of similar ones, including U2, which I think I prefer, so if I eventually get around to sampling this a couple more times, I should be able to make a final decision about it. Projection ("sillage" is excellent. After a few hours, however, it really petered out, though this may be because I applied so little. At this point, a subtle musk with hints of wood, etc. emerged. Overall, I don't find this complex enough to consider buying a bottle. It strikes me as somewhat amateurish, to be honest. UPDATE: Smelled up close, you get a sense of the dry spicy/woody quality, with nice moss as counterbalance. The animalic element, which seems to be civet-dominated, is really strong, so for me thjis is just not balanced well, but for those who seek this construction, this may be one to buy. I would compare this to Joint for Men, which tones the animalics down a bit and includes a tobacco note, but it's also very dry. Joint is much better balanced so I don't see a need for this Pascal fragrance.

Killer shirt he's wearing... Where do you think I could track one of those down??