#fucking vintage dancer dot com

[keepthemacramesecret]

man nothing will remind u the state of search engines these days like trying to look up a simple historical fact and being presented only with shopping results for crappy halloween costumes

[cleolinda]

I.

I texted my sister and asked her if she had any further comments on Mitsouko (current formulation), since "old" was all she said at first. Bear in mind that she’s learning individual notes now; I had gotten out some sandalwood and patchouli for her to smell, and threw Mitsouko in at the end. At the time, "old" was what we were working with. So I texted her after writing my review (see above).

"Baby lotion," she said.

google dot com search "what does baby lotion smell like"

I knew she meant Johnson & Johnson's in particular: "A delicate balance of soft powdery notes, florals and subtle sparkling fresh green and citrus top notes. The heart of the fragrance is built around a trio of Rose, Jasmine and Creamy Iris. The floral notes also work to compliment the […] powdery and classic musky notes that round out our baby lotion fragrance."

There it is: some of the most important notes in the Guerlinade base.

II.

I got a sample of the pre-2007 Mitsouko—I don’t know the precise year, but the Perfumed Court billed it as an older formulation that does, in fact, use the pre-ban oakmoss. And I had read so many angry reviews of how the original was obviously better and richer and more sophisticated that I had to wear it three times before daring to write this.

I don’t like it.

We have to acknowledge that I am not smelling a vial of 2006 Oakmoss Mitsouko in 2006. I am smelling it 17 years later. The product has changed and aged. However, Guerlains tend to age well, and people gush about the vintage perfumes especially.

The oakmoss is extremely forward, and I don’t know if it came out like this when this specific product in this specific vial was manufactured. But now, it has a very strong scent of peppery pencil shavings, and that dominates almost the entire lifespan of the scent on my skin. The fragrance as a whole is very skillfully blended, by which I mean the notes (mostly) sort of blur together into a new species all their own, which is another Guerlain trademark; by contrast, I have several perfume oils where each note is distinguishable unto itself, and they take turns stepping forward, almost like colors in a kaleidoscope. In the Thierry Wasser formulation without oakmoss, this resulted (see above post) in a little bit of both phenomena: two distinct, blended fragrances circling each other. In this original version, I can barely pick out the lilac at all; the fragrance is almost linear on my skin. It sounds wild to say that a 21st century formulation is better, and maybe I only think that because I wore it first. But the original Mitsouko smells like an autumn-colored tapestry on a wall, rich and complex, and that tapestry depicts two dancers. The new version smells like the actual dancers moving in front of you, until the spicy autumn forest peach bows out, and the baby lotion cool lilac floral takes center stage.

I had some business up in the original post about a glass slipper, and that’s not here at all. Finally, I wore both perfumes at the same time, one on each wrist, and the difference was still there. I feel like I must be smelling this wrong. Maybe this heresy just comes from my skin chemistry in the first place. Ultimately, I think that’s why so many people write so much about perfume: it’s fucking weird.

Mitsouko

Guerlain, 1919, Jacques Guerlain. Post-2014 formulation; eau de parfum concentration; 2002 decant from the Perfumed Court.

(To discuss: what it smells like, why it smells like that, and the struggle to describe this legendary heritage throwback.)

Trust me, these specifications make a difference. A year ago, I read reviews of different versions and took notes on what I wanted:

Do not get samples from 2007 - 2013, pre-2007 will have real oakmoss. Every concentration has different focus. EdP is mellower than EdT. Extrait is "truest."

You see, the International Fragrance Association (IFRA) restricted oakmoss in 2001, and then more tightly in 2009, from what I can tell. Mitsouko is considered a "reference chypre," a textbook example of the genre, and chypres are, by definition, citrus (usually bergamot), labdanum, and oakmoss. (The Perfume Society adds patchouli to this trio.) Like, you gotta have those for it to be a chypre. But Mitsouko is not THE chypre:

Bois de Jasmin: Guerlain Mitsouko : Fragrance Review (New and Vintage):

Created by Jacques Guerlain in 1919, Mitsouko was a variation on the avant-garde fragrance of the period–Coty Chypre. Chypre was based on the startling contrast among the bergamot top notes, the jasmine heart and the richness of oakmoss. Though undoubtedly beautiful, Chypre was brutal in its impact. […] Mitsouko is a kiss to Coty Chypre’s slap in the face, and for this reason, its popularity endures to this day.

So when oakmoss was restricted as an allergen in the 2000s, perfumers industry-wide scrambled to come up with a facsimile; for Guerlain, with a fragrance this storied, failure was not an option. Reformulations everybody hated were, though. Edouard Fléchier took a crack at it somewhere around 2007, and in 2013, Thierry Wasser reformulated the whole thing to recapture the scent everyone remembered. People seem to have been satisfied with that version since.

So I've worn that new Mitsouko on and off, when I feel fancy, for about a year now. I put a little on a card for my sister to smell the other week, and she said, "It smells old." (She'll be the first to tell you that she’s learning what individual notes smell like.) Being crushingly literal, I don't understand what "smells old" or "smells like old ladies" means. Powdery, she said, struggling to explain. "Old." Maybe I haven't smelled enough old ladies.

Mitsouko does smell… weird, by modern standards. Generally, people either love it or hate it, and Results May Vary in a big way; it's worth getting a sample just to take it for a spin (kind of like Not A Perfume or Glossier's You, in that one regard), and to see what a piece of history smells like. Expert-of-experts Luca Turin says it's the one perfume he'd take to that proverbial desert island, but I am but a gentle woodland creature, a basic vanilla bitch; I would be more likely to take something that cost $10 instead of $145. But I still kind of love Mitsouko. Users who review it positively often speak of not liking it at first, then going back to it again and again. They also speak of a "pissy" stage in the middle that might be civet or oakmoss (or whatever represents those notes now); I know what they're talking about, but it doesn't read as anything so unpleasant to me. It's not easy to wear like the simple scents I usually go for, but the drydown is absolutely gorgeous. That's one of the things that makes Mitsouko so interesting to me: it's like two completely separate perfumes were mingled, and the first gradually recedes to let the Guerlinade take center stage.

But what’s in it? “La Guerlinade,” for starters, is a complex foundation that the historical Guerlains have—a house accord. (You could buy it unto itself for a while.) The exact formula is super secret, of course, but it's said to (possibly) include bergamot, jasmine, rose, orange blossom, orris, vetiver, tonka bean, vanilla, and lilac. The lilac—a note I didn't even know I would like—is what shows up on me with both Mitsouko and Guerlain's L'Heure Bleue (1912); it's a soft light purple note that peeks through from the very beginning, and gradually becomes the glass slipper that Cinderella leaves behind.

Over on the official Guerlain site, they tell us a bit more about the reformulation:

A masterpiece in balance and originality, Mitsouko combines a fruity peach note with jasmine and rose centifolia (May rose) flowers. Its mysterious base combines spicy notes with notes of undergrowth and vetiver.

Warm spices such as black pepper mingle with cold spices like cardamom and pink [pink pepper?] berries.

Patchouli essence features many vegetal, woody and earthy olfactory facets. Combined with rose, moss, and bergamot, patchouli forms the base of the chypre accord.

Hilariously, Guerlain also straight up tells you what Thierry Wasser actually put in New Mitsouko:

ALCOHOL

PARFUM (FRAGRANCE)

AQUA (WATER)

LIMONENE

LINALOOL

EUGENOL

HYDROXYCITRONELLAL

EVERNIA FURFURACEA (TREEMOSS) EXTRACT

CITRAL

BENZYL BENZOATE

ALPHA-ISOMETHYL IONONE

CITRONELLOL

GERANIOL

BHT

HEXYL CINNAMAL

CINNAMYL ALCOHOL

ISOEUGENOL

BENZYL ALCOHOL

BENZYL SALICYLATE

TOCOPHEROL

CI 14700 (RED 4)

CI 19140 (YELLOW 5)

CI 60730 (EXT. VIOLET 2)

FARNESOL

Yeah. There's the famous Guerlinade… in there somewhere. They gave that secret away, hidden under a tiny link, because it means fuck-all without proportions or a way to separate it from the composition as a whole. Well played.

A Basenotes user posted a suggested Mitsouko formula that's somewhat more indicative of what those chemicals would smell like (deep breath): sweet orange, lemon, bergamot, elemi, celery seed, tarragon (a component of oakmoss reconstitution), coriander, chamomile, lavender, geranium, ylang, jasmine, clove, anise, castoreum, civet, labdanum, tonka, patchouli, cinnamon, peru balsam, benzoin, vanilla, violet, rose, costus, vetiver, musk, and the famous "aldehyde" C-14: a peach-scented lactone from 1908.

Logically, Mitsouko (1919) must not have been the first fragrance to use gamma-undecalactone, but I'm not sure any other has survived the ages like this one. Carter Burr (another top expert) writes that Jacques Guerlain most likely got it from the supplier Firmenich, via their Persicol peach base:

C-14 was a marvel, a fruity, aromatic, delicious scent that gave ripe peach skin. Guerlain plugged C-14 into the equation perfectly (the rumor is, actually, similar to Chanel 5, that he in fact accidentally overdosed the stuff; who knows), and Mitsouko became a thing of subtle opulence, strength and balance and silken twilight.

Sidebar: peach is one of my favorite fragrance notes. It's in Tamora, one of the first BPALs I ever tried twenty years ago; I don't know what the actual peach accord in that oil is, but it's still probably my favorite Black Phoenix. No matter how weird people said Mitsouko was, I was GOING to try it for that landmark peach lactone. And that's what shows up at first for me. I do get that Guerlinade lilac peeking through, but the opening as a whole is a spicy autumnal peach lying on the dead-leafed forest floor, more velvet than flesh, Octoberish and unseelie. That first sequence is intriguing, and then it warms up into that unpleasant stage; then that uneasy note fades and the Guerlinade comes fully out, a soft pale purple-blue siren song floating by on a powdery cloud. Those are the two perfumes that seem to be twined: bewitchingly different, each one blended so smoothly that I can't distinguish all the notes within them, yet not quite blended together.

And that's just my own reaction. Watching Fragrantica reviewers describe Mitsouko is a pastime unto itself. It smells like power, sex, domination, old money, "strangely nutty," depressing, elegant, fascinating, bitter, ripe, like oil paint, "an old medicine cabinet," pungent, tangy, moldy, intoxicating, alienating, feminine, masculine, unisex—to quote frugally:

User Aerides: "Mitsouko is gloomy Sundays, walks in the woods after it rains, and empty auction rooms. […] It's incense and burning candles, and waxy floor polish. It's cinnamon peach jam. It's a bouquet of lilacs on the dining room table. It lasts so long it's like a ghost in the room."

User Amararata: "There is something vampire-like about this fragrance. It's the sort of scent a woman leaves behind after she's conquered a man, or a kind of lascivious tryst in the middle of the day."

User querty988: "For some reason, those stinky little [camphor-clove] whiffs endeared it to me. It was like the baby from Eraserhead whispering in my ear, 'yes, I am the most revolting thing you've ever smelled, but I'm here with you in public today, and it's our little secret that I belong to you.'"

User KingRidesBy96: "Can't explain it. Don't want to. She's a witch, it's magic."

Mitsouko is weird as hell, and yet, thanks to the “waxy floor polish” review, and (I swear) a review someone wrote that I can't find now that mentioned linseed oil, furniture, paint, and his wife, I knew exactly what Mitsouko was going to smell like. And I was right. And I think that the mental preparation is incredibly important here. Not to be snooty about what it takes to "appreciate" a perfume like this, but to frame for you where this being of times past is, at least, coming from. Mitsouko is Aslan, present when the Deep Magic was written in 1919, whether the Deep Magic smells good on you or not.

Further reading linkspam

Bois de Jasmin: What Does The Word Mitsouko Mean?

It’s the French spelling of a female Japanese character’s name (Mitsuko, “child of light,” “shining child”) from the 1909 French novel La bataille (“The Battle”); Jacques Guerlain was friends with the author, Claude Farrère, so this is thought to be the most likely namesake. Wikipedia:

The novel is set in Japan during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, and chronicles a fictional amour fou between a British Navy Officer and one "Mitsouko", the wife of Fleet Admiral Marquis Yorisaka. Both Yorisaka and the British officer sail to war, and Mitsouko awaits with reserve to see which of the two will return alive to her.

Maybe this is reflected in the duality I’m getting from the perfume, I don’t know.

Isn’t all this very orientalist? Why, yes! Our antique faves are as problematic as ever!

Ayala Moriel: Olfactory Orientalism

Arts of the Working Class: Journey with Mitsouko and Mitsuko

More technical discussion:

Persolaise Review: Mitsouko from Guerlain (Jacques Guerlain; 1919 [and Thierry Wasser; 2013/14]):

Suffice it to say that whether it’s because [Wasser] increased the dosage of vetivert in the base, or he revitalised the citruses at the top, or, most interestingly, he created a special ‘oakmoss-like’ accord to compensate for the shortcomings of synthetic substitutes, the result is that the current Mitsouko feels like it has just emerged from the fountain of youth.

The Empress of Moss: Mitsouko

A look at the current state of the chypre: IFRA, Oakmoss, Chypres & Perfume Houses (2022)

Late breaking news: right after I fell down the stairs and injured myself ratter thoroughly yesterday, my vintage pre-oakmoss-ban Mitsouko sample arrived in the mail. I’ll update once I can smell it. I also have a 2022 decant of L'Heure Bleue and, uh, about three drops of Samsara from around 1989, so stay tuned for more Guerlain at some point.