Friday, December 12, 2008

Mitsouko, at last

At last, I get it. You know the holidays are magic when the consumate vintage lover actually falls for the new formulation of Mitsouko edt. I mean yeah, I knew Mitsouko was *important*, yeah I knew it was originally created in 1919, yeah I knew it defined the chypre, yeah I knew it was named after an tragic opera heroine, all that. All those things certainly should have guaranteed instant love from me. They didn't, but I kept trying it over the last couple years.

This winter, though, my skin soaks in Mitsouko like it's thirsty for it, smelling like sex on a bed of moss combined with the yeasty, smoky, nectared smell of... peach pit. It's not fruity, though. It has an earthy quality halfway between bread and wine. It'll sustain you in hard times, this will. In fact, I think of Mitsouko as having vintages like wine does. I'm sure earlier vintages (say a bottle of the 1944 extrait) have greater complexity, I'm sure all you lucky perfume geeks out there who have bottles of vintage juice are scoffing at me, but this one still smoulders with the noble rot and delicious tragedy of great French perfumery.

Does that mean I'm going to stop stalking vintage Mitsouko on the fleabay? Hell no. The vintage juice will be mine eventually. It will be mine.

If you've tried Mitsouko and didn't like it, all I can say is: keep trying. It's been around for almost 100 years now, and there's a formulation for everybody. No pressure, don't feel like you have to love it now, but take it from me, it's inexorable. It'll get you eventually. Other reviews of Mitsouko that you might find as fascinating as I do:

Ode to Mitsouko, Perfume Posse
Mitsouko, Scentzilla
Perfume Memories: Mitsouko, GlassPetalSmoke

Speaking of fleabay, I've recently scored bottles of two jasmine favorites: Joy parfum and La Fuite des Heures parfum. I've written about my love of La Fuite des Heures, but Joy will probably get a review very soon.

First image my own watercolor, Snakes in Trees. Second image is a Mitsouko ad originally uploaded by Scented Salamander.

6 comments:

ScentScelf said...

Hey, congratulations on your scores.

I couldn't agree more about revisiting scents, just to take a pulse on the relationship. Things CAN change. Heck, I even had a good time with Kingdom. Once.

It's so funny you write about Mitsouko today...I just was looking through set-aside samples, and came across the "treasure bag": it includes Mitsouko in edp, Bois des Iles in edp, Chanel Gardenia edp, Baghari, and a few others. Precious vials. And I had decided that it was time to go around the dance floor with Mitsouko again. Am very curious to see what comes of it.

Caitlin Shortell said...

I love your watercolor. Is it available for sale? My email is shortellc@yahoo.com

Aimée L'Ondée said...

ScentSelf, that's great! I love little synchronicities like that.

Aimée L'Ondée said...

Cait, that's a really lovely compliment that you're even interested in that watercolor, thanks so much.

That particular picture has some... well let's just say it's got sentimental value to me, and I can't sell it, I'm sorry to say. But I've been doing more paintings lately, and the snakes are a theme I've been working on. I may do the etsy.com thing at some point soon. I'll post it on my blog if I do the etsy thing.

Caitlin Shortell said...

How do you like Austin? We're eternally trying to think of somewhere to move.

Aimée L'Ondée said...

Hey Cait,
I love Austin! It's definately worth checking out, if you're looking for someplace new. Feel free to email me if you want to ask me any questions or anything. I'm quipus72 at yahoo.