Cartier’s 1992 mint-and-lavender fougère by Jacques Cavallier, named after the Pasha watch and the root of a long flanker line.
At a glance
Pasha de Cartier is a 1992 eau de toilette composed by Jacques Cavallier and named after Cartier’s Pasha watch. It is a woody aromatic in the fougère tradition: lavender, mint and mandarin over coriander and rosewood, on oakmoss, sandalwood, patchouli and labdanum.
It is still in production and is the root of a long line of Pasha flankers.
Creation and context
Santos de Cartier came first, in 1981, according to the Cartier house profile; Pasha followed eleven years later. Fragrantica, Parfumo and FragranceReview all date it to 1992 and credit Jacques Cavallier (now Cavallier-Belletrud). It was a busy year for him: the same year he composed L’Eau d’Issey for Issey Miyake, a landmark of the opposite, watery style.
The name comes from Cartier’s watch. The modern Pasha de Cartier watch appeared in 1985, according to both Revolution Watch and Fragrantica’s retrospective of the fragrance. Cartier says the name honours the Pasha of Marrakesh, a client of Louis Cartier; Revolution Watch notes that there is little hard evidence the original watch was made for him, and credits the 1985 design to Gérald Genta.
Fragrantica’s retrospective, by Sergey Borisov, describes the launch notes as including golden alyssum, which he calls a decorative flower note, and observes that Cartier’s current description has shrunk to a fougère accord, lavender and patchouli.
The composition
Cartier has not published a full formula. The structure below uses only the materials that Fragrantica and Parfumo both list.
Fragrantica adds anise and caraway; Parfumo and FragranceReview add thyme; Parfumo and Fragrantica’s retrospective both list alyssum. Fragrantica classifies Pasha as a woody aromatic, and Parfumo’s community rates it spicy, woody, fresh and fougère.
Why it matters
Pasha arrived in the same year as L’Eau d’Issey, as fresh aquatics were about to take over mainstream perfumery, and it kept to the older fougère structure. Its mint-and-lavender opening and oakmoss base connect it to the classic aromatic fougères of the 1970s and 1980s, while the cool mint gives it a cleaner top than most of them.
For Cartier it became the base of one of the house’s two main lines of this kind, as the Cartier house profile describes. The other, Déclaration (1998), took a drier, spiced direction. Pasha is also an early work in the career of Cavallier, who spent many years at Firmenich and later moved to Louis Vuitton to create its fragrances, as the Jacques Cavallier profile describes.
Reformulation and editions
The Pasha line has grown through flankers that rework the original rather than replace it: Pasha Édition Noire (2013) and Pasha Édition Noire Sport (2015) among them. Fragrantica lists a Pasha de Cartier Parfum from 2020, and Parfumo lists further variants and an aftershave lotion.
The original eau de toilette remains in production, per Parfumo. As an oakmoss-based fougère it is subject to the IFRA limits on that material; Borisov notes that the official description has been shortened, but Cartier has not published a reformulation history.
Wearing it today
Expect a fresh mint and lavender opening, a dry coriander and rosewood middle and a mossy, woody drydown. Parfumo users rate its longevity and sillage as moderate to good.
It suits the office, cooler weather and anyone who likes classic barbershop fougères with a cleaner finish. Compare it with Édition Noire if you want a more modern, woody-amber take on the same line, and start with a single spray: the mint and lavender are brisk at first.