Vintage Swap Perfume Sample Round Up; Patou Lasso, Dana Emir, Ciro Oh La La etc

(image: mes-parfums.com)

I'm finally digging into my vintage sample drawer accumulations from last year and I pulled out a small blue bag of goodies, all tied up like a pretty Christmas package, sent to me from a fellow vintage perfume lover. It's a mixed assortment that includes a few things I haven't tried before. The past few days have been dedicated to test wearing a new acquisition of mine, another chypre for the collection. I've been working on a review of it but since it's from a rare old perfume house, my research isn't going so well. So today I'm taking a break from that project to do a quick sample sniffa- I just wish I'd thought to stick a little note inside the bag so I'd know who to thank (again) for sending me this particular package!

First up is Ciro's Oh La La parfum. This opens as a bright and full sweet floral, very universal and flattering but it quickly morphs beyond the pretty but common into a very French, tight green chypre with lemony soapy tones. Very womanly, enticing but neat as a pin; I really like this one. Next is Emir parfum, from one of my favorite old houses, Dana. This one is very spicy and almost medicinal with some animal notes but it stays somewhat sour/flat on my skin. It recalls Youth Dew but with less of a warm-sweet dry-down. Flair by Yardley is next, also a parfum strength. I want to say it has a scotch and lavander thing going, sort of a soft cologne style perfume with touches of aldehydes. Nice but not really my style. Lasso by Patou is one I've really wanted to smell. This sample is labeled an EDT but it has a richness, similar to one of these other parfums. It is my favorite of the whole bunch, with contrasting juicy tropical notes and herbal, hay-grass notes, a most original and satisfying perfume. There is an edc version of Shocking by Schiaparelli- this one I do have in parfum form. From what I can tell, the edc is very different than that version...I smell the herbal opening notes but the honey is nowhere to my nose and there is none of the complex layers and chewyness I find in the parfum. Possibly the edc is a newer reformulation, as all of my other Shocking examples have been quite a dark color and this juice is much paler gold color. Lastly, I spy a newer spray vial of Joy tucked into my package. As familiar as this one is, I sprayed on a little, just for fun. It's as narcotic and indolic as ever, a feast of jasmine and white florals. I like the edt, formula, it has a green qualityand sharpness that the vintage parfum lacks, but that makes it more modern (in a good way) and more wearable for daytime. Overall this has been a fun, if short and sweet, diversion. But now I have a serious hankering to procure myself some more of both of the Ciro and Patou scents. Oy vey!

The Vintage Perfume Vault, where the scent of yesterday's vogue lives.