Babe is Back!

by: Jodi Battershell

I have fond memories of the original Babe cologne. I remember a bottle of it gracing the dresser top of a beloved aunt in the late 1970s—my mother's youngest sister who was already a beautiful, chic, sophisticated and well-traveled woman in her late 20s. When my older sister reached her teen years a few years later, the fragrance was still going strong in retail and she received a bottle as a gift.

My recollections of the original scent are mostly about the musk (it was launched in the 70s, after all!) and the iconic advertisements featuring the late Margaux Hemingway, showing us that an empowered woman could still be sexy, elegant and romantic. Here is the lovely Ms. Hemingway in an original advertisement from that period:

Originally launched by Fabergé in 1976, the fragrance was at the height of its popularity in the 1980s and was discontinued in 1992. But just as renewed interest in 1970s clothing designs inspires the fashionistas of today and evokes nostalgia amongst those of us who wore these styles the first time around, it seems the perfumes of the past are coming around again, delighting longtime fans and with hopes of charming a new generation. Recent examples include Norell New York, Gloria Vanderbilt Minuit à New York, and now the mass market classic from the 1970s, Babe.

UK-based Beauty Brand Development  is proud to announce that the fabulous Babe is back!  Recreated with the help of renowned French perfumer Givaudan and devotees of the original fragrance to ensure the fragrance is recognizable to all Babe fans, the fragrance opens with a fresh burst of lavender, aldehydes and hyacinth offering radiance and energy. An exquisite and elegant flloral bouquet (rose, ylang, violet, orris and lily) exhales vitality and color in the heart. The base notes offer a refined woody scent of warm sandalwood rounded by sensual solar accord, moss and ambrette that promise to leave a gracious and delightful trail on the skin.

Today's Babe is available in perfume concentration as a 50 ml atomizer spray (thank goodness! is anyone else woefully clumsy with those big splash bottles?), in packaging whose colors and logo echo one of the incarnations of the original scent. An affordable mass market/drugstore scent in its original release, the 2015 version is still easy on the pocketbook as well, at £24.99.  The fragrance is available at select stockists in the UK as well as from the official website of Babe Perfume, with international shipping available!

Source and product images: Beauty Brand Development