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the great article of Elena Vosnaki invited me further in what I already intended to do. writing a review for the perfume I have known since 1974, so fifty years ! it was love at first sight. from what I guess is the x-th bottle of Youth Dew but again also a somewhat older one, for that is the result if you have a large collection of perfumes, I am now enveloped in a warm and cozy Clôche of Her Perfume. when I started to wear her again for this review and spritzed the spritz the first thing I smelled was an unmistakable piss smell. I had the feeling but also irrevocable sensation that this was yet civet for what else could have produced such infringing but for me acceptable and even desired component which was very quickly taken over by the irrefutable founding characteristic of Madame Youth Dew: the Spiciness. if there was civet it isn't listed and they also have civetone but it shall be if a central, then also submerged in a great variety of other components, with this furry sensation rounded, perfume. the perfume is rather specific in her Oriental Amber Spiciness. inmidst a lot of other 'co-perfumes' I realised, also with the help of Elena's article, that Youth Dew actually always got to be judged retro-actively, as being one of the girls: Cinnabar, Obsession, Giorgio, Poison, Must, Coco, Opium, Karl Lagerfelds name-perfume from the 1980s. so she has become one of the 1980s unbelievably intoxicating, lush, flowery, dense, presentiste, alarmiste, nuclear hooker perfumes which made the 1980s unsafe for aquiline allergological endeavours. (and lovely and fabulous for me.) but as this is also understandable, it is also a bit unjustified because Youth Dew made her own headlines thirthy years before these witches appeared. so I now try to get her own Character which also Elena did. by inserting Elizabeth Arden's Blue Grass in her text, with even the resemblance of its bottle with the first rendition of the one for Youth Dew, in a misleading Baby Blue Coloured Bathy-Accessoires Flacon, we finally got a glimpse from her beginnings. she also begun as bath oil which bottle I evenly also acquired once. and applied it as perfume. it was scentsational but also the doublure of the perfume. then I have the feeling Blue Grass is something really out of the 1950s, rather more in a catfight with for instance Helena Rubinsteins Apple Blossom (but that was a 1930-er) where Helena after all still had Barynia (1985) but if there ever were two women fighting for world-hegemonia, then these were it. [Rubinstein & Arden] yet Estée was no wallflower. of course all these Madames (Chanel) were Great Personalities and they fought like Alexis and Krystel (if I am not misstaken her name was spelled, or Crystel, Krystelle or Crystal), like Helena and Elizabeth Arden, Chanel and Schiaparelli, finally perhaps Nancy Reagan with Mme Raisa Gorbatchov (had to peek) and it was spelled Krystle who got her own perfume via I guess it was Charles Revson (Revlon) (Forever Krystle Charles of the Ritz) and Alexis as Joan Collins launched Fabulous... ('Spectacular') Mme Estée Lauder was rather the Personality to reckon with. so I have thought in which setting I needed to see the Arrival of Youth Dew in her then (early 1950s) misleading baby Blue coloured softly sculpted flacon and prissy name, while she appeared to be a Lady Leopard with (Chanel Nail Lacquer Vendetta) Vendetta Lacquered Fangs. (although Estée Lauder certainly had her own lacquers to cover Fangs with. (I remember Parallel Red as a Heralding and Scathing Red from the 1980s.) I was thinking the Launch of Youth Dew was unrivalled with as Ms Lauder threw a bottle of Bath Oil to the Entrance Floor of Bloomingdales (if it wasn't Saks). but these histrionics had all been done before and after. yet not so much after the 1980s. Youth Dew came as a Meteor with her Spicy Amber with Ample Flowers, Spices which kept her in the pure feminine, if Boudoir athmosphere. with Flowers to match. Narcissus, Lavender, Ylang-Ylang, Rose, Jasmine, Lily of the Valley, Orchid. these were all smothered in Spices whereas the Spices were smothered in Flowers. this was sort of the opus moderandi for all the Witches Brews that followed.

this again is such unbelievably powerful chypre. the perfume shall have seasoned in the sense that I bought it around 2000, and in the sense that it ripened, macerated further in vitro, in the meanwhile also as legendary known artefect of a 'Creed's Woman Perfume', in such ladylike bottle which they were keen now to all replace them with a singular model. I do not have special feelings with that. even if it is more economical and less ideosyncratic and feminine as the unique and elegant flacon. I am still able to enjoy the strong Irisia perfume and strong it is. what I keep wondering is what it is I smell in the sense that I smell a development of notes or I smell this Monolith Wall of Chypric, Mossy, Ambergris and Patchouli or, and, the sheer violence of the used Iris, Violet, Mimosa and Tuberose. if you spray this perfume it immediately hits you in the face much as the (in)famous heavy and heady 1980s perfumes did. I remember smelling it in the late 1990s when Creed suddenly bursted on the scene in (sparse) Niche Perfumeries with already then 'wilthed boxes', so, older as that they were just delivered new. I was totally aghast, even if my favorite perfume decade is the 1980s, I remember where and when in the Hague, I smelled (and bought) first Irisia and Fleur de Bulgarie, then Jasmal and Jasmin d'Impératrice Eugénie and later on still Vanisia, Tuberose Indiana, etc. from Irisia and Fleur de Bulgarie I bought them in, luckily. this perfume had me stopped in my tracks and I also remember looking at the fascinating and very posh packagings, also those of the Men's perfumes. with Irisia you smell suddenly all, all at once. it was that way also in the (late) 1990s. and it befell me hugely. I guess it is a Woody, Flowery, Mossy and Patchouli, but especially rounded with the Ambergris uniquely sophisticated and present perfume. I immediately feel me like myself and then, more. it is as with those other chypres that stand like skyscrapers: Y, No19, Knowing, Estée, Ivoire, Cabochard, Eau du Soir, Soir de Lune, Eau de Campagne (Sisley, all), Mitsouko, Caléche, etcetera etcetera. they possess a coldness as well as an inimpenetrability and this last quality is perhaps best incorporated within this very perfume Irisia. Peach as one of the few fruits I can detect in perfumes, plus the Amber (next to Ambergris), the Patchouli, Sandelwood and Cedar lend both austerity as a heavenly Clôche of perfume so dense and asphyxiating I revel every microsecond in it.

thank you for the memories Patric ! (Rhys) .you have described the 40 years celebrating lady very well. as I am from 1957 and started visiting perfumeries in 1974, as the gay half of a twin with my Straight brother I started sniffing men's colognes and immediately decided they were not for me (I remember Jules, Pour Monsieur, a Givenchy Pour Monsieur, which were lovely but not for me) I came to Chanel No5, I would say closer still to the original with civet and that was a heavenly perfume. the Guerlains especially Shalimar and L'Heure Bleue which coveted my attention. these were all pre-IFRA and I fysically remember (in retrograde) how these perfumes smelled. little did I know what was to come... yet since I also started to read Vogue US & Vogue Paris (and Harpers Bazaar US) I always had a preview of what was to come. first it was 'Giorgio Beverly Hills' in 1981 and I was absolutely smitten while the whole Avenue in Rotterdam was asphyxiated by its unbelievably heady and hefty perfume. all those (clashing) ingredients and thousands of stupendously mixed and waveringly emitting notes were luring me into their realms. as with Poison (1985 but I always have the memory of somewhat earlier) there is tuberose and jasmine but also Roses. and of course these are all flowers fighting for attention. inbetween came still Obsession which I also immediately closed in my heart (where it didn't stayed but escaped [not alluding to Calvin klein's perfume]) onto Clôches of perfume around the wearer (ess). I can vividly remember the launch of Giorgio, where the whole boulevard was intoxicated, then Obsession and then still Poison. in my memories these three evil sisters are forever connected. particularly with Poison which I had in esprit de parfum 30ml in dab flaconettes. (I still have the empty bottles) it isn't only an Apple, but also a Flacon with Poison ! I try to remember what struck me the most. yes the Tuberose, the Plum (I am a bad sniffer in fruits, often they glide along me but with plums I have a special sensorium I think). Plums were also in Boucheron Jaipur which I also immediately embraced. also with Apricots and Peaches I am inclined to pick these out. Mitsouko's peach, which I forgot to mention. so the Plum, the Tuberose but also the Rose and Jasmine. then Quentin Bisch-like, also immediately the Incense, (I guess) the Cloves, Cinnamon and Pepper did interfere with the opening notes. with especially these perfumes it was the immediate Blast, Thermo Nuclear Aroma Troposphere Beam, which cleared and etched the nostrils and much to my mom's and mine, pleasure and well, Lust. Poison had a particular pinch, where Edouard Fléchier had mingled all those ingredients (and I have learned at Fragrantica that this is a complex event, not at all linear or in addition with each other plus the aromachemical supports [to which I am amnostic but have learned that they can support and push the more 'natural' ingredients forward and make the whole billowing and meteorological]), now, all these ingredients were somehow concentrated in a Super Hefty Emission straight upward from your pulsepoints. as was the case with all the 1980s Hooker Perfumes which I all acquired and double, also for my mom. in 1985 Chanel came with Coco - what a phenomenal, oriental (but Karl Lagerfeld said it was an Oriental perfume from off Venice) and also a Rose and Incense and Peach, Cloves and Civet centered perfume. Poison then still had Honey, Coriander, Anise (L'Heure Bleue), Amber and Heliotrope, contributing to its powderiness as also a White Flowers' 'wilthedness' quality which note I absolutely crave for. I also mention Knowing, Moschino Parfum de toilette, Christian Lacroix' C'Est la Vie, indeed Opium (1977) and Paris which was absolutely sharp but so lovely 'parisiennely' abundant with roses, roses, roses. Bijan 273 Beverly Hills, 'Giorgio Beverly Hills RED' and Beautiful. (Cartiers Must and Panthere) but it was the infamy and blasfemy which connected the trias Obsession - Poison - Giorgio. these were so loud alarmist and presentist than it was fabulous to have contributed to it and in hindsight, have such dear 375x500.5225.jpg Giorgio Beverly Hills Red 375x500.5225.jpg Giorgio Beverly Hills Red memories of this perfumial stratoscape. v.Cleef&Arpels First, Gem, Guerlains Nahéma, Fleur de Bulgarie, Irisia and Jasmin d'Impératrice Eugénie but also Jasmal from Creed. these were my cup of tea and since, they are the golden standard against which (witch) I measure a perfume. thereafter came the 1990s and as a perfume decade it meant nothing to me except that some of the most vile and heady perfumes were also launched. Vivienne Westwoods Boudoir, Donna Karan by Donna Karan, Gale Hayman Beverly Hills (I guess these were all launched ca 1990). then around 2000 Mahora from Guerlain. and then, in 2003, Montale came into my life, and Oud. but to not digress (while all digressions were related to Poison) this was an

The most gorgeous deep dark vanilla. Bring her back please