How many times have I mounted my high horse and lectured a friend (my 'fury' barely concealed) when such friend would utter these words after smelling a fragrance: "Old. Lady. Perfume." Nostrils flaring, eyebrows on top of my head, lips pursed...I would commence my lecture: "I hate that phrase! There's nothing OLD about this perfume...it just has ingredients you don't know or like or...UNDERSTAND...ingredients that remind you of the past. Aldehydes! Oak moss! Real musk!" (I could go on...and I won't even broach the subject of ageism!)
Imagine how awful I felt after smelling Acqua di Parma Colonia Club;1 the first words out of my mouth were: "This is an old man perfume!"
I re-read Acqua di Parma's press materials for Colonia Club and the words "refined," "classic," and "aromatic" were apt and true, but other words didn't fit with my experience: "Italian," "cologne," "contemporary," "passion" and "freshness."
Colonia Club smells like Brut, but Brut made with better ingredients. For those of you who have happy associations with vintage Brut or who loved the Brut fragrance...you've got something to look forward to and enjoy! For people like me who think of Brut and visualize Masonic Lodges, old-fashioned He-Men, or a seedy cocktail lounge next to the County Courthouse (I had an interesting childhood) Colonia Club ain't fun, but stifling. Almost every man I interacted with as a child — teachers, grocery clerks, coaches, judges, county sheriffs, fire-breathing preachers and Sunday School dandies, Marines, fishermen and farmers, you name it — wore Brut! (My father, thank you World, never owned a bottle as far as I know.) Brut, and Colonia Club, make me feel "trapped" and sent back in time to a murky, uncomfortable past. (The same thing happens to me with bay rum scents, but that's another story.)
Colonia Club starts off with a brief burst of bergamot and mint; next up is a neroli-geranium-leaf-galbanum accord (with a talc-y-ozonic character). In late mid-development, Colonia Club sweetens as a vanillic lavender leaf accord joins the mix, accompanied by strong ambroxan. (All Colonia Club's notes have a menthol coating, cool and almost astringent.) There does seem to be a moss-like note present (more apparent on some wearings than on others), and it's modern moss (lighter in feel and less intent on domination of others notes than real oak moss). Colonia Club smells conservative — old-school, "dependable," Anglo Saxon and...boring.
Colonia Club wears like an Eau de Toilette rather than an Eau de Cologne, and it has excellent sillage and lasting power; it's (to my nose) firmly in the man camp of perfumes (a woman wearing this would not compute for me). I'll never know, but I assume this scent is geared towards a more mature audience (perhaps Acqua di Parma's main audience?) I can't imagine Colonia Club catching on with men in their 20s, 30s or even 40s.
Next time a friend categorizes a fragrance as "old man" or "old woman," I'll keep my mouth shut; we're all entitled to our opinions. (Please chime in with yours!)
Acqua di Parma Colonia Club Eau de Cologne is available in 50 ml ($100) or 100 ml ($138); matching grooming products are available.
1. With notes of lemon, bergamot, mandarin, petitgrain, mint, neroli, galbanol, geranium, lavender, vetiver, ambergris and musk.
Note: top image [cropped] via Wikimedia Commons.
I got the Brut connection too. I also got that with Penhaligon’s Sartorial, but I think that one is just about ‘weird’ enough to get away with it. This comes off as rather stuffy, sadly.
Lizzy…I was excited about this…since I like so many Acqua di Parma Perfumes.
I haven’t smelled this, and actually recall liking Brut (being 61), but……isn’t that packaging the exact color of the Brut bottles?
Siciliana…yes, the bottle color is very similar to vintage Brut.
And the color of Pinaud Clubman products.
Monkeytoe…think all the Pinauds are in plastic bottles these days…as is Brut.
I get similar PTSD symptoms from the smell of Prell shampoo…. very long stories with that scent…but even writing the word gives me a slight gagging feeling….One person’s nostalgia is another’s flashback…
Oakland Fresca: hahahahHa! My grandmother used prell and Lustre Creme shampoos…went to great lenghts to get the LC, too.
I love the smell of Prell. It’s so much better than ALL those fruit cocktail smelling hair products that have dominated the market for years. And I wish they’d bring the conditioner back.
Earthscent…does Prell still smell the same? It’s been ages since I smelled it.
So sorry to reply so late.
Yes. It still smells the same.
Now, this raises an interesting set of questions.
If you were going to make a perfume and name it Nostalgia, what would it smell like?
If you were going to make a perfume and name it Flashback, what would it smell like?
Meredifay…
NOSTALGIA = good
FLASHBACK = Colonia Club
Ooh,THAT is a good question.
Nostalgia would smell like musk,civet,oakmoss and all those other IFRA hit list ingredients.
So, Kevin. Did this remind you of a barbershop?
Like Profumum Antico Caruso?
Didn’t get a barbershop vibe with this one.
First of all.. I’ve got a new response for my husband when he calls a fragrance I wear “old lady perfume”: “There’s nothing OLD about this perfume…it just has ingredients you don’t know or like or…UNDERSTAND…ingredients that remind you of the past. ” Love it!
And your humor is just what I needed at 5pm on a Wed. afternoon. Thanks for the laugh!
As for the scent.. I ain’t going near it.
Floragal…you’re welcome!
Being foreign brings unexpected joys: I thought Masonic Lodges was the He-Man you were referring to and was just about to google this illustrious guy when it dawned on me that the lodge is not the guy 🙂
Too funny. I’d love to meet Mr Lodges. ????
Bradamante: a character is born
Haven’t smelled this and I don’t recall if I ever knew what Brut smelled like. But my husband recently got himself Penhaligon’s LP No. 9 for men on a trip to England. So far, I haven’t been able to bring myself to tell him I don’t like it and it really smells like an old man (in Old Spice, to be specific, no offense to the Old-Spice-lovers out there). I wish he had gotten Endymion instead, whose notes sound a little better. On the good side of things, he did get me Miller Harris L’air de Rien, so I can’t complain much.
Sapphire: I hope LP No. 9 is not your hubby’s go-to scent? HA! It’s bad when choices are limited…makes you less inclined to complain, especially if he loves it.
I like Old Spice and I love Royall Spyce. Sounds like I need to try LP No. 9!
The sale assistant ashoved this at me, ‘You are young and WILL like this new fragrance’. Typical fresh-then-sweet-aromatic, literally trailblazing scent marketed to men these day. Little tweaks here and there with either spices, fruits, leather… It reminds me of Yves Saint Laurent’s La Nuit de l’Homme, but maybe not as smothering. Good observation of the market!
Nick…true, this is not as overwhelming as La Nuit de l’homme…would love to know how it sells
Your post prompted me to get out a bottle of vintage English Leather that I bought on ebay some time ago and test it again.
I remember guys occasionally smelling fantastic in high school, and I think that was English Leather. This bottle smells plausible, but it doesn’t strike a deep chord like the perfumes that I owned then. I’m not sure if it’s just not the right vintage, or I perhaps I don’t remember it as well because I didn’t actually wear it myself or smell it very often. I also wonder how people would react to it if Chandler Burr sent it out in one of his untitled series. 😉
I wore English Leather for a while in my teens in the 80s (tiny travel-sized bottles from the drugstore). I don’t remember it smelling like leather, though.
It doesn’t smell at all like what I think of as a leather perfume, but I’m not sure what other category it would fall into, either.
Noz…I have an older bottle of English Leather that Angie sent me and it’s delicious…love it.
I tested this last week and I’m completely agreeing with you Kevin. This one is REALLY outdated. I openly made a comment on a fragrance forum that this cologne will not attract opposite sex at all. I hope the guys take the comment seriously, because it’s true!
JW…I always wondered if WOMEN loved Brut…or if it’s a man thing.
When I was a kid, all my brothers would wear Brut (I guess it was the Axe of it’s time). I would wear it but found it so dull I would layer it with my mom’s Fidji, I was 12 by the way!
Peter…wow…I’m trying to imagine that…I knew Fidji well…it was one of my mother’s favorites.
Um, have we met? LOL The way you described Acqua di Parma Colonia Club sounds exactly like the Colonia Country Club in Colonia, NJ where I grew up! The picture at the top of the article is reminiscent of the country club scene back in the day, OMGoodness, this is just to funny!