Personal Tales of a Vintage Collector I,II and III

Personal Tales of a Vintage Collector

05/13/14 16:26:10 (67 comments)

by: Miguel Matos

So many of us vintage perfume collectors gather not only bottles and their juices. We collect feeling, memories, stories ... And in the activity of hunting and collecting we go through some strange or funny processes. Whether it's a ridiculus bargain, a bad deal, a free treasure, or even a juice turned bad, we all have stories to tell, especially the obsessed ones like me. So I thought I could share some of my stories and bottles with you. And I had the help of a cute furry cat model ...

MYRURGIA MAJA

More than 10 years ago I was travelling though Spain in a business trip. I had some meetings in Barcelona and I had a free day to explore the nearby cities. I went to Girona, a charming medieval town full of history and memories of long gone centuries. As I strolled up and down the streets, I saw a souvenir shop and I entered it. Among the usual paraphernalia, there were lots of boxes of art deco-style perfumes and soaps.

So I bought one of them, red with flowers and a spanish woman wearing a flamenco dress. At that time I didn't collect vintage perfume, so this was mainly for decorating purposes. I think I didn't even open the bottle, but it was so beautiful, with the wonderful soaps and the red velvet box ... I just had to have it. It sat for years on display in my bedroom until I eventually put it in a drawer and forgot about it. Until very recently, already an avid perfume collector, I was searching through the database in Fragrantica for Myrurgia perfumes and I suddently saw this name: Maja. I started investigating on the net and got really interested in it. Days passed and my brain still wasn't connecting the dots, inexplicably. I don't know how, but finally the neurons sparked. “Yes, I think I have a bottle of this and two soaps!!!”

And there they were, still in that drawer. I was thrilled and puzzled at my nonchalant attitude regarding this gem from the past. I opened the box and smelled the bottle. God, that is a rich scent, old-fashioned and woody with lots of patchouli, a bit sharp and intense. Carnation and cloves playing the main theme in a rather simple but interesting composition that unfortunately fades out very quickly.

But this was made to be a very cheap scent, affordable to everyone. Where I come from, Portugal, we had a lot of Myrurgia perfumes, mostly sold at drugstores and all the grandmothers wore Maja or Maderas de Oriente, side by side with another one of this kind, Dana's Tabu.

SCHIAPARELLI S

Before this, I could never find a Schiaparelli perfume that I would wear and enjoy. I have my secret store where I can buy—for a cheap price—vintage Shocking and Zut! But I just can't stand them. They are typical scrubbers on my skin, even though I absolutely love the bottles. But I just can't keep perfumes only for the bottles.

My collection is made solely of perfumes I love and wear. I consider this a living collection. I always see bottle collectors (the ones that never open nor wear the juice) as sextons keeping glass coffins or jailkeepers with their prisoners inside glass cages. But one day I was browsing through a charity shop under a church near the place where my office is, never hoping to find any perfume as I never saw one single bottle there. And all of a sudden I found two small boxes in a corner, marked 2.5€ each. Can you believe they were Esteé Lauder's Youth Dew vintage cologne (maybe from the 1960s—can you tell me if I'm right?) and the other one I had never seen before: Schiaparelli S.

Well, needless to say I got both, even though Youth Dew can be a migraine bomb for me. Now, S by Schiaparelli is a treasure and I would pay a lot more for it. The bottle is simple and it already has the female figure, with a white label in the middle. The box is very cute, pink with gold details. When I opened the bottle, I was in heaven. An initial burst of fresh and soft aldehydes that develop in a hyacinth-lily-vanilla note and a subtle animalic tone. It's sexy and fresh, but also sweet in an apparently complicated composition, going from bright to sweet, dry and powdery, being always cheerful and gentle. I can't seem to find any information on this, but it surely deserves more attention. I've heard that this was relaunched in the 60s and I think both bottles—Youth Dew and Schiaparelli S—belonged to the same person. I wonder who she was? That's a question I think about sometimes when looking at my vintage bottles.

PRINCE MATCHABELLI GOLDEN AUTUMN

I have a friend who is the pioneer in vintage clothing boutiques in Portugal. Her name is Carla Belchior and she has some shops in Lisbon, one of them is the most famous in the whole country, called A Outra Face da Lua. She has a small empire of beautiful items from the past and she just opened a new shop based on the upcycling concept, called New Waste. Now, one day I was chatting with her and I confessed my love and obsession with vintage perfumes. I saw her admiration as she had never thought about it before. She is truly a vintage fanatic—I mean, she lives for it—but somehow she was never interested in vintage perfumes and so she told me she had a box that she had been given by a friend. I guess it belonged to an old woman who had died years before. The box was full of old perfumes and she had kept it for quite a long time. She is not a huge fan of perfume, so she wanted to give me the box. I was hysterical, of course, but I restrained my enthusiasm.

photo from princematchabelli.blogspot.com

So, a couple days after, I met her at one of her shops and she took me to the warehouse/atelier where the box was stored. She put it on a table and said, "Now open it." Well, my hands were trembling at the sight of dozens of bottles. Some of them completely empty and others were full. Some ruined, some still in perfect shape. All in all, and after a long screening with very rancid smells, I finally could separate some great bottles with pristine juices. I'll tell you some of them: Myrurgia Joya, CotyParis and Emeraude, Avon Occur!, Jade East Coral, Jovan Musk Oil, Anjou Side Glance, a beautiful jasmine in Elizabeth Arden's Blue Grass Flower Mist, etc. ... All of them vintage treasures and some are extremely rare. I suppose she was an American woman living in Lisbon, because a lot of these fragrances were American and they were never sold on this side of the ocean in the time of our dictatorship. The list is huge but I want to highlight this one: Prince Matchabelli Golden Autumn. I had heard about this brand but had never smelled any of their perfumes so this is the only reference I have. And boy this is a strangely beautiful fragrance. A perfume of moist moss in a forest under warm sun.

It was a bit hard for me to start enjoying this, since the aldehydes explode violently in the first minutes. It is very, very intense with very, very harsh aldehydes. Then there comes a piney note that can be a bit off-putting too. Only after this comes a very warm and cozy amber with woods. I think I really dislike the opening notes and I try not to smell them until the middle notes start to emerge. Then it turns into a creamy woody fresh scent still infused in aldehydes in an unmistakeably vintage mood. It lasts forever and it came in a full 96 ml rubber-coated black bottle with a golden metal cap.

A beauty of the past that I find strange to be for women, since it is so piney, mossy and woody. But hey, those were different times. Just think of Bandit and Cabochard ...

PIERRE CARDIN BLEU MARINE

I think this was one of my first good fragrances, way back in the 90s. I loved the dark blue bottle with that strange form and the smell was very grown-up for a teenage boy. I suppose I had over three bottles of Bleu Marine until I finally started wearing other fragrances like Yves Rocher Samarkande, Tuscany or Kenzo Pour Homme. More than 20 years later, I had a sudden need to smell Bleu Marine again, since I never stopped loving it. So I looked for it and I found some bottles in the supermarket, in a slightly different and cheaper bottle and packaging. I smelled it and it was horrible, a hot mess that only mimicked the original in the worst materials. Revolting, having in mind the original. Well, no wonder: the fragrance is now produced by Coty and they always seem to ruin whatever they put their hands on. I decided to just mourn my beloved Bleu Marine and get over it ...

Until some months ago when I was in Paris and I visited the Pierre Cardin Boutique in Faubourg St Honoré. It was the first time I had been there but I was very warmly received by a beautiful woman who was Cardin's muse and model in the 1960s—Marise Gaspard, who now runs the Haute Couture store. She was showing me the boutique and at one point I stared at a shelf with lots and lots of vintage Pierre Cardin perfume bottles, new and unopened, for sale. As she saw my eyes sparkle in excitement she wanted to offer me a whole bottle. And I have a policy of never saying no to free perfume! As soon as I smelled it I immediately saw my bedroom at my parents house, the bedside table with the bottle ... everything came back in memories.

And the smell... This unique amber/marine/woody perfume that can be so elegant and sexy. Why did Coty destroy this? Well, later on I came back to the boutique, climbed the stairs to the office and got to meet and interview Pierre Cardin himself, at the age of 92. A very nice man, old and tired but still very passionate about his brand and his creations. And when we talked about his perfumes I could see stars in his eyes. Such a charming man. I'll never forget this experience and I now have an added memory to associate with this scent.

GOOD DEALS / BAD DEALS

Every now and then we, the avid collectors, find amazind things at low prices or even bring home risky choices for the sake of discovery. Along the way we are bound to make some errors. Let me share some good and bad decisions with you. Starting with these two bottles at the left, both bought in the Marché aux Puces (the French flea market) in Paris. Well, this is a bad place to find bargains, since they have there a strong perfume culture. There are small shops entirely dedicated to vintage perfumes where I was gobsmacked both by the treasures and the high prices. However, I found this seller who was dealing mostly with commercial collectibles like stamps, key holders and pins. Somewhere on the floor there was this small basket full of trinkets where I found two things for which I had been searching a long time: Lanvin Eau Arpège 30 ml (it was full at the time) and 15 ml Nina Ricci's Nina. The price bor both? 6 euros!!! The downside of that: I was stupid to hesitate when I found a 50 ml bottle ofYves Saint Laurent Champagne (yes, not Yvresse) pure parfum for 40 euros.

When I went back the bottle was gone ... In another flea market, this time in Portugal, in Aveiro, I found this guy selling a bunch of old bottles. I remember I had 5 euros in my pocket and each bottle was being sold by 5 euros. What I found: vintage Magie Noire, Samsara, Paloma Picasso, Le Roy Soleil ... I didn't know what to do, so I chose Samsara. A year has passed and I never wore Samsara and I cry whenever I remember those bottles of Magie Noire and Paloma Picasso, which I know I would wear very often. Well, collecting is a thing of chance, isn't it?

Let me just tell you about the bottle of Patou Eau de Joy that I was chasing for two weeks in Lisbon. When I finally decided to buy it, the price decreased from 20 to 10 euros—a real bargain but still I was suspicious that this dark juice was already rancid. Turns out it smells great!

Finally, I have to refer to the swaps, also a hit or miss experience. In this case I waited for two months for this gorgeous bottle of Shalimar Secret de Parfum to come from Israel. When it finally came, I had to go to customs where I was asked to explain why the hell was I receiving mail from Israel. Next, I had to see the employees of the customs office unbox the various items and comment on them. “Oh, this bottle is almost empty, is this guy crazy? What do you want this junk for?” They even wanted me to pay a tax even though this was not a commercial trade. Revolting and humiliating. But it smells heavenly now ...

KEEPING MEMORIES ALIVE

I have to add to this article mentioning another dimension of collecting vintages: the memory aspect of fragrances. Everyone remembers someone by their scent. Everyone has in their memory the smell of a special place. So I have some perfumes that I may not use personally, but I keep tkem because they evoke some cherished memories from the past. Like Calandre, the perfume my beloved aunt used to wear in the 80s. I think she is responsible for my love of perfume. I have the same taste for strong perfumes as her and back then she was into the floral andehydes like this andRive Gauche. I even remember being eight years old and seeing this strange minimalistic glass and metal bottle of Calandre (not like the one in the picture below).

She was always walking in a cloud of strong perfumes, like L'Insolent, for example. Whenever I want to recall her cheerful spirit, I smell Calandre. Another memory from childhood was Marlene, a forgotten perfume that nobody seems to remember. I used to think I had just imagined this until I finally found a bottle of it. It was produced by a Portuguese company, MBB Teixeira, as an hommage to Marlene Dietrich and the TV commercial was ricidulous! My mother had bottles of this, but even she can't remember that. It's a floral fresh green chypre with woods and a very powdery drydown. Finally, I want to talk about this bottle of Diorella.

I always wanted to find vintage Diorella and I did in a website. I made arrangements to meet the seller in a mall, so there I was waiting for some stranger to hand me a bottle in exchange of 5 euros. A woman came and we exchanged items. She explained to me that this perfume belonged to her 90-year-old mother but she never liked it, so it sat on her dressing table for 30 years. I loved this story so when I look at it, I imagine how this woman was like.

WHAT TO DO WITH THE TURNED AND EMPTY ONES?

Here's a suggestion. Very recently I was at the IKEA store and I found this acrylic light box. I took it home and filled it with all the empty or turned bottles I was keeping God knows why. It is now a beautiful lamp in my living room.

Lamp with turned and empty perfume bottles

Dear readers, I feel many of you will identify with these stories. Our endless search for vintage treasures is a source for small anecdotes like these, so would you share them with the rest of us?

 

Personal Tales of a Vintage Collector II - Fulfilling my Teenage Cravings

03/03/16 04:26:36 (21 comments)

by: Miguel Matos

It's been a while since the last time I told you some stories about my vintage collecting and the drive one has to have to porsue this obsession. If you didn't read my first chapter, you can check it HERE.

Pac-Man was one of my obsessions. I was a computer/arcade game freak in the 80's.

In this article I want to welcome you to my time capsule back to the late 80's and 90's. Growing up I always loved perfume. In my family there was only one other person that shared this passion and I think I got my tastes for vintage perfume from her - my aunt Helena. She has had Alzheimers for almost 10 years now but she sure left a mark on me then. She used to wear Calandre and Rive Gauche and L'Insolenton special occasions. I think one of her everyday scents was Avon Tasha. So aldehydes are a thing that makes me go back into my childhood.

1988 Guilty Pleasure: I was a Roxette fan!

When I was a teenager, I didn't have much money. I came from a very modest family background. I was actually the first person in my family to have a college degree and I know my mother used to be extremely poor when she was young. So, I never had much money to invest in perfume until I had my first job at 19 years old. Until then I had to wear things like Old Spice (nothing wrong with that), Don Algodon, Crossmenand Insignia. But my nose craved for things that were out of my reach. When I finally got my first paychecks I started to buy better perfumes. My first expensive perfume was Aramis Tuscany (bought in Spain in a school trip), followed by Aramis New West,Kenzo pour Homme and Pierre Cardin Bleu Marine.

1990: everyone watched Beverly Hills 90210

Recently I started hunting for those fragrances I so wanted to have as a teenager. Having them is now like a trophy to me. They remind me of the 90's and the bittersweet years of the world before Internet and smartphones (I was a depressed teen but always had a smile on my face). They are also objects and smells that tell me: “work hard and someday you will get there”. So I decided to share some of these perfumes, along with others that were later cravings but have only now made their way into my collection.

1992: my favourite TV series was Twin Peaks

Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche (1970)

Rive Gauche was one of my founding aromas in terms of my taste for perfume. Even though I never wear it, it represents an example of the first high end perfume I had smelled in the beginning of the 1980's. My favourite aunt used to wear this and I wanted to have it to remind me of how she used to be. They are also like going back to my first scent awakenings.

I got a bottle of vintage Calandre a couple years ago, but it turned and I had to throw it out weeks ago. Interesting fact is that days later, after I had quit looking for it, I found an almost full bottle of vintage Rive Gauche for only 5 euros at the local flea market. It smells fresh and it is indeed a cerebral perfume, one of these intellectual scent combinations that deserves applause. Even though the modern reformulation isn't that good, it is still interesting. Vintage bottles are the ones that have the name Rive Gauche in bigger font and Yves Saint Laurent in smaller one. This bottle is made of glass, not metal like the modern ones. To me Rive Gauche has a motherly smell (because of family associations) but it surely has an edgy twist: Metallic rose and industrial aldehydes. It was modern then and cool now.

Dior Poison (1985)

This is another big icon for me. It stands for everything I love in a perfume: loudness, sensuality, strength, innovation, uniqueness, deepness... I could go on for days praising Poison. This bottle I got in the same flea market a couple years ago. It's a full 50ml pressurized spray bottle. It's beautiful and it cost only 10 euros. Poison is crucial in my teen years. I was only 8 when it was lauched and I remember that it was like witchcraft. Wherever I went, if some woman passed me by wearing Poison I would follow her, like I was hypnotized. I couldn't resist it. I wanted to eat it, I felt absolutely overwhelmed by it. I remember being fascinated by the sight of the adverts. The bottle and the marketing imagery kept me hooked. I had a darkness inside even at that time and I could identify perfectly with Poison. I would never dare to wear it if I had it, but I wanted to. I had absolutely no financial possibility of having it, so I would sniff the air and follow its trail. In school I had an English teacher who wore Poison. For months I sat at the front row just to experience this bewitching fragrance, feeling hazy, almost high. Then one day this treacher started to wear Tresor and my heart was crushed. Anyway, I always wanted to have it.

After I got the vintage eau de toilette (much stronger and sweeter than the modern reformulation which is a bit softer and smoky, and actually nice, too), I also bought a bottle of Esprit de Parfum, for 5 euros online. This is the most intoxicating thing ever. Delicious. You almost don't have to apply it on the skin. Just open the bottle and you are scented. Anyway I wear Poison sometimes, especially for a night out clubbing when I like to be smelled everywhere. The young boys and girls don't even know what that is and they go crazy over it. Once I took 4 sprays of Poison eau de toilette on the neck (which is too much for the common mortal) but decided that I could survive an extra layer, so I dabbed some extrait behind my ears. Needless to say I was a walking scent bomb and I loved it.

Kenzo Ça Sent Beau (1989)

This one I don't have a big story to tell you about. I only recall seeing this bottle in a friend's house and thinking that it was so beautiful. I remember smelling it and falling in love. 25 years have passed and I got it from a swap with a member from Fragrantica.

What a wonderful way of making a tuberose scent, combined with citrus, green notes and patchouli. I love to wear it and especially nowadays that my tastes are leaning more towards the florals. It is one of the best tuberose perfumes I have smelled so far. And I not only got one bottle in a swap, now that it is so hard to find, but I recently got another one as a gift from a friend who found it at home and decided that it could have a better owner. So after so many years I now have a backup bottle of Ça Sent Beau. Isn't life crazy?

Trussardi Action (1990)

Now this one was the greatest love of all at 15. I wanted this bottle more than anything else at that time. It was utterly expensive but I loved the crazy bottle and the fact that nobody else was wearing it. In fact, I obtained a couple of samples and I kept them in a drawer in the bedside table just to smell it before going to bed. It smelled fresh but luxurious and I loved the spicy notes mixed with the greens. This was a big basil scent, full of aromatic herbs, green explosions and an abstract musk that enveloped everything in a sophisticated way. I didn't buy it then but I started collecting money. 

At the time I was crazy for 2 Unlimited... And wore (fake) Jimmy Doyle boots.

When I finally had the money to buy it, it was discontinued. And this was always an under the radar scent, or so it seems. The decades passed and I gave up on it, finding one bottle very rarely on ebay at stupid prices. Until one day, two years ago, when I went to my hometown for Christmas and accidentaly passed by the old perfumery where I used to go ask for samples. The perfumery was about to close down and they were selling their stock for less than half price. And there it was a bottle of Trussardi Action, a tester, maybe the very same I used to covet in the window. I got it for 25 euros and it seemed like entering a time capsule. Again, the love persisted. I still think this is one of the best aromatic herbals I have ever smelled. The composition is complex with basil dominating and it survived 20 years of storage, still smelling original, crisp and invigorating. This is a truly underrated treasure.

Robert Beaulieu Vison Noir (1991)

What if I told you that I know an old perfume shop that still has a stock of Vison Noir and it smells just as seductive as back then? This is a forgotten gem full of orchids and castoreum. This was first spotted by me as a young boy at the house of another friend. I was captivated by the fur cap of the black bottle and kept this smell in my memory all these years until I found this shop where I bought a bunch of bottles. If you never smelled Vison Noir, I can tell you it seems like a Black Orchid avant la lettre in a softer and more animalic version. I also got the even rarer Vison, which is a very different citrus-floral composition.

First time I heard Ru Paul.

Estée Lauder Spellbound (1991)

Another perfume I wanted to wear but didn't have the courage was Estée Lauder's Spellbound. At that time I didn't know that a man could pull off perfumes marketed for women. Well, at this point I was no longer a teenager, this happened in my mid-twenties. I loved Spellbound and wasn't sure of myself to wear it. A long time passed and now I wear whatever I like.

Spellbound became hard to find. Now after swapping with my Italian friend Giusi, I indulge myself in it to go out at night. Thanks Giusi, I hope I will see you in Florence again this year!

Etienne Aigner Private Number (1992)

Ab Fab: Major fan!

When I started visiting perfume shops to smell and ask for samples (which I rarely was given). I remember that in those days I had a small want list composed of Trussardi Action, Romeo Gigli Uomo, Aubusson Homme (loved the cinnamnon note in it), Versus Uomo (still craving it for my trophy shelf), Chevignon and Etienne Aigner Private Number. This one was just something I smelled at the store and really liked. I was in a blue phase and the blue box seduced me, I think. It was a sweet fougere with great sillage. Again, another unfulfilled desire until a year ago when I saw it in an old perfumery in Lisbon where I found some treasures from time to time. It cost about 13 euros and I had to get it. Finally I never wore it and I cannot figure out what I had seen in it because I always detested fougeres. But I keep it as another symbol of my youthful perfume wishes.

I apologize if this post was too personal, but I felt like writing this to have the final closure on the subject of vintage perfume trophies. Those of you who had the patience of reading until the end, I would love to read your stories. Do you search for long desired bottles that you couldn't buy when you were young?

Personal Tales of a Vintage Collector III - Fulfilling my Teenage Cravings

Thank you for following my Personal Tales of a Vintage Collector. In the PREVIOUS ARTICLE I decided to share with you how I finally got the perfumes I wanted to have when I was a teenager. The tale continues here and we are already in the 1990's.by: Miguel Matos

By the way, one of the perfumes I mentioned in the previous article was Avon Tasha. This is a particular smell from my childhood and teen years since at least my grandmother, mother, ans especially my favourite aunt wore it. It belongs to the same family of Rive Gauche and Calandre and they are part of the reason I love aldehydes. So here is the bottle I found a couple of weeks ago: Deep Forest's 1994 album was a revelation for me (left)

Avon Tasha (1979)

I found this in a flea market by the beach and it only cost 1 euro for a 50ml bottle, almost full. The scent is in perfect condition. I really dislike the tacky bottle, but it is a good example of the crazy bottle collections Avon makes. The perfume is a floral aldehyde with prominent rose and a motherly smell, in my opinion. I do not actually wear it but it represents a time of my life, the perfume awakening and a smell from the family (even though I am not a family guy). I wanted to have it as a reference in my collection but I confess this and Tabu are the only perfumes that I can categorize as "old lady".

Enigma was everywhere in Europe and I was a huge fan. Snap's song Rhythm is a Dancer is still one of my favourite things of the dance music age.

But back to the time table of perfume cravings: the 90's. Even though I always liked my orientals, I confess I had a crush for a couple of aquatics. Well, at the time they were all the rage. And of course, one can never fully escape the trend... 

How can anyone remember the 90's without mentioning the supermodel phenomenon?

Guy Laroche Horizon (1993)

Well, I can only say that I had very different tastes when I was young. An aquatic? Yes, Guy Laroche's Horizon was another of my teen wishes. This one wasn't such a crush, it was more of an interest. I always loved the bottle, deep blue with textures. And the scent was actually quite original within the aromatic green category. The mix of green prominent features with aldehydes and an aquatic character felt intriguing and comfortable at the time. There is a bitter edge that makes it unique. It seems I wasn't always an aquatic hater. In fact I still find Horizon quite original and strange. I am happy to have found it in another old perfumery, very cheap. And it isn't so hard to find, still. I reccomend this gem to everyone who seeks a fresh male perfume with a twist.

Givenchy Fleur d'Interdit (1994)

What a strange perfume, and what a strange thing for me to enjoy. But I do enjoy it very much.I remember liking it when it came out. This watermelon floral aquatic has everything to go wrong but it's just amazing. The strange composition was not a commercial success, but that just proves that I am a terrible advisor and could never have my own brand, since I always like the underdogs. I wear it now in warm days since I found it at the flea market for just 2 euros!

Givenchy Insensé Ultramarine (1995)

In my regular visit to the old perfume shops in Lisbon I stumbled with another oddity from the great time of quircky scents. Insensé Ultramarine was a flanker of Givenchy's Insensé and it had a spicy take on marine which I always liked. Discontinued too soon, it only arrived to my perfume wardrobe last year. I remember that a colleague from school always wore this and even though I thought the guy was totally obnoxious, he smelled good in it. And now I do too when I wear it after the gym. I find some similarities between Insensé Ultramarine and Bentley Azure.

Madonna in the 90's: my Icon

Guerlain Habit Rouge (1965 but I first wore it in 1996)

To me Habit Rouge smells of cold mornings and suburban trains. This was the perfume I wore during the first year of university. I had to wake up at 5.30am to have classes at 8 and I felt miserable. I always hated to wake up early, I still do. This was maybe too mature for me at the time and the 90's formulation was a lot stronger than it is now, so I remember choking all the way to the train. Recently I made a swap to get it, because I felt like revisiting it. It's not a fulfillment of an unsatisfied craving in this case, but a throwback to the student times. And this modern version of Habit Rouge (it's a limited edition bottle) is a bit calmer which makes me wear it without choking. Or maybe I got more and more addicted to hardcore fragrances and this seems tame comparing to other scents in my collection. Either way, it's a gorgeous masculine oriental full of vanilla, citrus and leather explosions.

I used to be obsessed about Icelandic singer Björk. Not anymore.

Le Feu d'Issey (1998)

This is a work of art that I always felt like overripe fruit (persimon to my nose) with rose jam, milk and sandalwood. A friend of mine wore it in the summer in 1999 and to me it always reminds me of hot weather. I love it and had to buy it when I saw it online for just 25 euros. I can't wear it but I do love to take a sniff every now and then. (Left: Trip Hop sorcerers Portishead. One of the best bands of the late 1990's)

Now that I finally closed this issue of teenage perfume lust I would love to read your stories. Do you search for long desired bottles that you couldn't buy when you were younger?