Calvin Klein – Eternity for Men Aqua cologne

There are 22 reviews of Eternity for Men Aqua by Calvin Klein.

Eternity for Men Aqua (2010) is the first non-seasonal flanker to Eternity for Men (1989). The first seasonal variations of Eternity for Men started in the previous decade, which were still about 20 years late to the party even then, but as the first official permanent flanker to a legendary line that was past the two decade mark by the time this hit shelves, Eternity for Men Aqua had big shoes to fill. Unfortunately, there was no way in Hell this was going to live up to the hype of the seminal “fresh fougère” that literally acted as a reset button on the way male perfumes were composed for many years to follow. What makes this more sad, is that Eternity for Men Aqua followed in a very tired semi-dry “second generation aquatic” theme still reliant upon merging fruit with the dihydromyrcenol, laundry musk, and linalool as the base of older aquatics, and was a style that outside of the Nautica label, had almost run its course by 2010. As if things couldn’t be worse, this also got completely steamrolled by Bleu de Chanel (2010), which launched in the same year and added faux ambergris plus a host of woody aromachemicals to the palette. With these new notes powering freshies to make them richer and longer-lasting, what chance did a crisp short-lived and apologetic hold-over from the previous decade have in the market? Well, evidently this had better success than I could have ever expected, and has remained in production, which is a testament to the staying power of the Eternity brand no matter what’s in the bottle. I really do hate ragging on Calvin Klein because I feel a lot of their efforts are misunderstood in the greater scheme of things, but there is nothing saving this vacuous cash-in from criticism, not even its badging.

Eternity Aqua isn’t the worst thing ever, but you could have the same effect for peanuts from Avon or Nautica, and the only thing making this a designer juice is the fact that a designer released it. Calvin Klein never really did have a proper aquatic until cK Free (2009) showed up right on the 20th anniversary of Eternity for Men, signalling the end of Calvin Klein’s obstinate focus on fresh scents for a new decade of diversity among their offerings. They mostly held to that promise but I guess having one successful masculine aquatic opened the floodgates for more, and this flanker came out of the gate the following year smelling of the same old grapefruit and watery indecipherable green notes, florals, and fruit as the rest of the lot. The only thing making Eternity Aqua stand out is a slight cucumber note, but you can get a stronger whiff of that from Kenneth Cole Reaction (2004), so why bother here? The heart has some lavender, which I guess is a slight call back to the original Eternity for Men, but it’s flanked with pepper, fruity galoxide musks, and a bit of plum. The base is the usual cedar and Iso E Super woods infusion with white musk, guiac wood, “white patchouli” (aka bleached of any aroma), and supposedly sandalwood which my nose doesn’t get. I guess if Giorgio Armani Acqua Di Giò Pour Homme (1996) or Ralph Lauren Polo Blue (2002) were your favorite fragrances, you could stand to have this, but by 2010 there was just so much more interesting and diverse fare even in the realm of freshies. This wears thinner on the patience than it does on skin for its obvious lack of anything interesting, so low sillage or longevity is a godsend. Use this in summer, casually, and for the office, but use anywhere else and you might as well be wearing nothing at all.

Eternity Aqua for Men is an utter failure of a flanker, that could have just been called “Calvin Klein Aquatic Man Smell Because the Shareholders Demanded One Pour Homme” and at least retained a modicum of respect for being honest about what it is. Now, there have been several other flankers since then like Eternity Now for Men (2015), Eternity for Men Intense (2016), and Eternity Air for Men (2017), that although not super essential to a connoisseur’s wardrobe, are at least more interesting and well-executed within their budgetary limits. Here with Eternity for Men Aqua, we not only have a super lazy-smelling fragrance for Macy’s and Dillard’s sales people to push onto unsuspecting guys for an easy commission, but also a fragrance so lazily composed that they didn’t bother to list the perfumer, who is probably hoping they’re never found out. If you want a period 2000’s aquatic, get Nautica Blue (2005), which at least has some performance and adds some diversity to the genre even if diversity in aquatic masculines is like diversity in the punk scene of the 80’s when the glut of copycat bands were at their highest. Move along, nothing to waste your money on here unless you need to have every Calvin Klein fragrance ever. Oh well, I guess if you got this as a gift, it wouldn’t make a bad throwaway fresher-upper for after a shower or a day at the poolside, because the aquatic theme is really hard to screw up, even if it is also really hard to hold anyone’s interest anymore, but do not seek this out. Eternity for Men Aqua is the Eternity for Men that really isn’t, and the aquatic flanker to a landmarket fresh fougère that it didn’t really need, because Eternity for Men was one of the original alternatives to aquatics when a guy still wanted something fresh, making the point for this to exist moot. Case closed.