Category Archives: Dior

(This is a review of the vintage version of Dune by Dior.)

I have come to the conclusion that Dune is the haunting spirit of my youth. When I was a child my parents had a chauffeur who would escort me back and forth from school. The driver had these really long nails on his thumbs; they were yellow and cakey and I would always notice it whenever he reached over to fasten my seatbelt. His car REEKED of this scent; from the moment I caught whiff of it I am immediately flooded with memories of those creepy fingers.

Despite my negative association, this is still NOT a safe blind purchase–Dune feels inherently masculine to me. It smells very old school, like something that belongs in the eighties. The pencil shavings with spicy woods are quite heavy in concentration and I found the oakmoss and incense combo to be too intense on my skin. It’s strange but I detect no florals whatsoever, Dune is reminiscent of the sun setting over a vast and barren desert.

Top notes are rosewood, aldehydes, patchouli with heavy doses of amber. After a few minutes this transitions into a warm benzoin and sandalwood on a bed of oakmoss; I can sense damp and earthy undertones accommodating the dry down. I don’t know why but I find vintage chypres to smell mildly unpleasant, like Chinese herbs that are stored for way too long in a dank and moist environment.

This perfume made me realize how much I dislike lichen/mossy notes in a fragrance. I always end up smelling like a swamp frog, it’s just not my cup of tea.

Dune certainly smells like its generation: bold, complex, and brazenly confident. This is truly for those with an acquired taste, I wish I can say I like this perfume–but it is simply not for me.

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The queen of white florals in my opinion, it’s very clean, soapy, and elegant; J’adore happens to be the one fragrance in which my husband has constantly praised as “the pretty one”, in light of the fact that he is absolutely finicky about perfumes in general. Therefore I own many variations of this scent in abundance; when it comes to J’adore I would recommend buying the EDP because the sillage and longevity are quite extraordinary.

Despite its popularity, this is a very generic fragrance. There was no love affair for me, no deep infatuation; in fact our relationship seems to be quite proper and amiable thank you. I wear this to please others; when I am quite tired of being agreeable and just let my body roam about at parties, dragging along like a sack of meal. This is the “safe” scent, the “can I please go home and fling my bra across the room” fragrance. It’s forever genteel, and I’ve so often find myself becoming quite bored with its monotony.

A reviewer said this smells like a Stepford Wives perfume and I completely agree, it’s trophy wife in a bottle.

Either way this is my favorite jasmine, but it’s not a complete jasmine as pear and melon notes are quite evident in the opening. Lily of the valley and peaches are mellowed in the background as roses and magnolia blossom into being, citrus notes are subtle but it keeps this scent very clean and fresh in the dry down. This is an almost tropical fragrance, it reminds me of Hawaii during the spring; all that is lacking is a little coconut and benzoin to give this a beachy vibe.

Overall not a love, but still a beautiful scent meant to be a crowd pleaser. I feel J’adore would be the perfect gift for someone unfamiliar with perfumes in general, and are looking for something appropriate for all occasions. It’s a safe blind buy with strong sillage and longevity (if your version is the EDP) and is quite beautiful despite its rather bland and linear personality.

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Poison is a power-house eighties perfume, and in my mind it conjures up images of giant shoulder pads and shiny purple spandex.  This is an extremely nostalgic experience; as a kid I’ve often associated these heavy fragrances with strong, powerful women who often wore grey business suits and had hair that was standing in place by large amounts of Aquanet. Poison often fell into the same territory as Passion by Elizabeth Taylor, and were usually worn by “scary” women who spoke too loudly and always had bright red lipstick to match their sharply painted fingernails.

Wearing any vintage perfume is going to be a blissful olfactory experience, good or bad…products back then were heavy and complex; there is no room for discretion and Poison is not meant for the timid at heart. We live in an age of prudent and linear fragrances; many are comfortable staying within the confines of those enclosed spaces.  A few will toe the line, but most will be repelled by the loudness and outrageous products that used to be the reigning kings and queens of the fragrance world. You may hate it- but you can’t deny that Poison and those of its kind have revolutionized the industry.

That being said, this fragrance has been horribly reformulated. Whatever happened to the intoxicating florals and strong (almost animalic) woodsy notes? This is truly a shadow of its former self- another unfortunate victim of the “dumbing down” of perfumes- it has been commercialized and no longer embodied the notorious character it once was.

The current poison opens up with a strong blast of plum and tuberose, it goes on thick and syrupy…and stays on for the entire duration of approximately 5-6 hours. I don’t sense a lot of changes in the dry down, but honey and amber makes a subtle appearance once the plum starts to soothe through to a manageable level. I am not a huge fan of tuberose but it is delicately masked by the heavy fruit and honey, I don’t sense smokiness but that is because the sweetness pretty much overwhelms any bitterness to this fragrance. Like other reviewers, I can’t easily pick out any of the base notes…it all seems to be a jubilee of different accords exploding in every direction all at once.

Overall Poison carries a sentimental vibe for those who have experienced the highs of its era, there’s a wistful ingenuity with these kinds of things. As time marches on all too swiftly and discarding its memories to the past; I suppose just the sense of being able to savor a piece of history (no matter how diluted) would be considered privilege enough.

Longevity: 10/10  Sillage: 10/10

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If you’re like me and love dual fragrances, then Pure Poison is the animal for you. This perfume is like two conflicting entities in one body; wicked and virtuous, tempestuous and noble, sensuous and innocent. This is a chameleon’s magic potion; an innocuous apple by day and a dangerous poison at night.

Upon first application, there are so many things vying for attention that it is difficult to pick out the individual notes, I sense jasmine and something woodsy, then vanilla and slight amber….but the dry down is creamy gardenia. It seems complex at first but the result is simply beautiful…there are no words to describe how unique this fragrance is on my skin. It smells exactly like its namesake, very sensual and extremely bewitching.

Longevity: 8/10  Sillage: 9/10

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