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Esseniode – :
Cacharel Anaïs Anaïs’s green ethereal cousin : a quiet yet noticeable presence. A perfume of tenderness.
Angel_Sveta – :
If you like Murasaki, you may like Silences from Jacomo as well.
Prince_Aza – :
Old Murasaki seems to me very similar to Chanel 19 edp.
Meteel – :
As a Shiseido Zen Lover i was hoping for this ti be even better. It is very musky and would reccomend it to older womens. It is not lively and not really elegant as well. More like mommy parfum
doyouknowthisisdellu – :
like many others, this was a favourite in the 80’s and it sold well in our pharmacy. I too was disappointed when it disappeared but there are many other fragrances to explore in order to find a new favourite.
Murka – :
Used to be addicted to this clean, green floral by Shiseido. Still miss the original bottle, and was devastated when I could no longer find in stores. One mothers day my husband then gave me not one but two bottles!! Purchased from Hawaii. What a delight. A lighter cleaner scent for daytime use. Unlike anything out there, you won’t smell yourself coming and going.
vik154bedyWelty – :
Like other Shiseido’s scents, Murasaki got reformulated in the 90s. New version is much lighter, less mossy or woody. The result, a watery green floral one, is a typical scent that people will mark it with “contemporary Japanese style”, “zen-ish” or maybe “minimal”.
However, when Murasaki first launched in Japanese market in the 60s, it’s a dense woody/mossy floral scent with aldehyde top, sometimes it almost goes balsamic (incensy or leathery in later phrases). “Dark” and “sophisticated” will be the words people use to describe it.
If you compare the scent with fashion trend, the new version will be like a light silk shirt, while the vintage version will be a most elaborated junihitoe.
balrus – :
I discovered Murasaki in the late 1990s thanks to a tipoff from a perfume store owner who lamented that it was her all-time fave and she couldn’t find any. Well, a phone call or two to Hawaii, and my first bottles were on their way. When Ebay came on the scene, I again used that to stockpile more of it. It is a fabulous wet (ie not dry)green floral fragrance using an oakmoss base.
It is not a dark scent as someone above described. It isn’t leathery either, unless the orris note is what someone thinks of as a leather note. I cannot wear leathery perfumes so the fact that this is such a favorite must indicate something. It is not as dry and ascetic as Chanel #19 or Vent Vert.
The only scents to which I could compare it somewhat are Heure Exquise, which has a bit more rosy quality, possibly Goutal’s Passion, minus some thickness in the base (maybe vanilla?), and fragrances probably no one here has ever heard of. Other positives for me about Murasaki are that it does not have a predominant sandalwood or cedar component. Ivoire is somewhat similar, but contains a more elaborate floral note as well as a bit of the pencil-shaving aspect of cedar.
When I wore it to work, people commented that they were sure I was wearing Chanel #5, so perhaps they smelled the aldehydes in the topnote? I don’t like Chanel #5, have never been able to smell anything floral in it at all, for some reason, and have never been able to see what the fuss was about. I’m hoping these comments will help someone with similar skin to find their way to this lovely iris fragrance.
FrernJamnmita – :
My most favorite perfume of all time. I miss it dearly.
Amuncunmabs1985 – :
A floral green fragrance is not normally my style, so I was amazed by how well Murasaki works for me. A lovely Fragrantican bestowed me a sample of this fragrance(thank you scorpiosheep!), and I’m so pleased to wear this. The scent began very vividly, but burnished down into a beautifully clean floral scent. From its initial burst from the atomizer, this seemed a classic fragrance to me with its elegant balance and harmony of a great many disparate accords. Very lovely and very ladylike.
[Update] Well into the latter stage of drydown, I can smell a faint, very refined amber. Beautiful!
DOOFFYizBAGEROVO – :
Okay, I’m a wonk and had to look up the word “murasaki” since perfume has both a deep, almost primitive, sensual appeal and enough chemistry and history to be intellectually interesting. “Murasaki” translates literally as “purple” but also refers to the 11th century royal court figure who wrote “Tale of Ghenj” a complicated love story. Okay, got that out of my system.
This perfume is green, green, green in its opening; razor sharp and cold for a few minutes. After this clears the orris and amber come up, enriching it but still cold. After about half an hour the other flowers, vetiver and musk came in, making this rich, complex and challenging. After two three hours it’s settled into a close powdery floral with some skin warmth. What’s only notionally here is the oakmoss. This is probably what the vintage lovers are mourning. Since I haven’t smelled a good version of the vintage I’ll say my experience with this is: I like it a lot and I generally don’t take to green scents. I’d recommend it to anyone experienced with perfumes. If you’re new to green scents I’d suggest a sample since the ingredients are good and it’s somewhat expensive. (I’m wearing non-vintage EDP after a disappointing go-round with a spoiled vintage bottle.) I now need to go add the lovely watercolors and block prints of the Lady Murasaki I found while looking it up to my Facebook page.
Sillage: initially big, pulls back to skin after an hour
Duration: mediocre, 2-4 hours
Fabulosity: the Northern Lights
Value to price ratio: reasonable
6/10
toxt – :
I had the original version 20 years ago and always got compliments on it. When people asked me what I was wearing I wouldn’t tell. Even though I spritzed the last out of it many years ago, I never parted with the bottle.
I remember the original EDP as a soft, comfortable scent, with not so much sillage, but incredible presence.
The new reformulated scent is weak, watered down, and smelled chemical to me, like all those mass market fragrances. I had lost my signature scent.
Two days ago I ordered a bottle of the vintage on eBay, and I am hoping to fall in love all over again. I wish I could buy the whole stock, but those vintages carry a hefty price tag.
“The colour purple is a harmonious blend of the emotional red (passion) and the intellectual blue (wisdom). This fragrance is mysterious and attractive. The flowers used are some of the most popular Japanese flowers: lily, chrysanthemum and rose, combined with a woody, mossy base. ” (translated by me from the Japanese Shiseido website).
EDIT. I compared the vintage with the new. The top notes are basically the same floral loveliness, it’s in the heart and the drydown that lies the difference. The vintage warms and blends, becomes a skin scent, very soft and comfortable with a faint hint of oakmoss. The new one is a very clean scent, more soapy than warm, where the clean, ethereal note lingers. In the drydown it becomes powdery soapy. It’s not bad, but too clean for me.
WILWIN – :
Beautifully warm and subtle floral oriental perfume – first had this in the late 80s, then briefly again last year. The formula seems a little different to me now, weaker, perhaps or more powdery? Still the same gorgeous essence though. I love Zen edp now as it has a similar heart but still with some strength to it. mmm, Shiseido knows how to turn out a great perfume, that is for sure – not your run of the mill smells…
igor.klikov – :
Where can I buy the ‘old’ bottle from 1980? I had a smal purse spray in violet. A very oriëntal fragrance!
drakula – :
Shiseido MURASAKI is a classic floral chypre perfume with a fairly big dose of oakmoss and galbanum. There is a greenish cast to the whole composition, but it’s dark green, and ultimately the chypre character dominates to my nose.
There are many other perfumes of this type, and I do not think that this one is unique, although it’s good for what it is. If you like Chanel no 19, then you’ll surely like MURASAKI. If, on the other hand, you find dark floral chypres old fashioned (or old ladyish!), then this is not for you.
This is a classically composed perfume with a ton of notes and a fairly imposing presence. No surprise, really, since it was launched in 1980.
For serious perfumistas only!
fuckoff – :
Got this one blindly on a whim…the price was too good to pass it by.
The bottle looks so cute and innocent….but what’s inside the bottle is some serious stuff! Wow, this fragrance had quite an impact on me.
There is something slightly reminiscent of Zen, that mossy note, but to me Murasaki is very along the lines of Niki Saint Phalle, but with it’s own unique personality.
This is a very intriguing and mysterious fragrance, complex and rich. I would say it can be easily worn by men.
Imagine standing in the middle of an Amazonian rainforest early in the morning when everything is enveloped in mysterious mist. You hear the spound of water, some exotic birds and animals in the distance, but you can’t see far through the mist. You feel transfixed,mesmerized and disoriented. You take a deep breath and you get light-headed from the freshness and pureness of the air. That’s how Murasaki smells like to me.
Excellent sillage and longevity!
eam772JeomiWogkig – :
Liked it from the 80’s unique smell, it used to be in a purpleish bottle.
GlurceResee – :
Murasaki intriguered me for a while, for wanting to get my hand on it, as I find older Sheseido perfumes carry a certain type of Asian charm. Thanks scorpiosheep for a lovely sample of it!
Murasaki opens in a really nostalgically light scent, actually I couldn’t smell much except for something slightly dry-aldehyde and like a piece of white soap which has been dried up and has cracks in it. It does not smell anything like the conventional Floral Green to me, but the dryness and quasi-nature quietness in it somehow infers to the Green aspect of this Floral Green. Then the scent comes to life after about 5 seconds, it is more a aldehyde for a while, which really reminds me a lot of aldehyde-soapy perfumes like White Diamond, but much quiter, as if mixed with something powdery, cold, slightly incense-y, like the feel you get from Prada Infusion D’Iris, but in much discreet way. At these stage, a flashing back of Shiseido Zen Original, comes to my mind, both of them has the certain type of calming, centring, meditating feel there, as if it was a type of incense, but not that much a smokey, thick incense; also, Mitsuko comes to my mind too, I guess it’s the peach here, so dry and lovely in a charmingly knowing manner, instead of those sweet peaches high in sugar which I’m so tired of from smelling floral fruity pink perfumes these days.
Similar to Zen Original, Murasaki hits the base notes rather fast, and stays like it, from normally what should be the middle phase of a perfume these days.
It smells of the middle phase plus a swirl of leather, powdery, sweet, and leathery. Somehow it strikes a balance in between a Chanel.19 fermenting to a even more business-like leather version; and Zen original been leatherified.
Murasaki does not have a big sillage, somehow I find it a good thing, as you cannot smell too much of the leather, it wouldn’t bother people that much, and you might be relaxed from a mist of it around, just, you. However, not been a fan of leather, Murasaki is slightly more animalist than my usual taste, I guess I’ll be happily stick to my Zen Original; nevertheless, a beautiful, really Shiseido/Asian scent from Shiseido.
krushandia – :
Murasaki was introduced to me as a seven year old in 1982, Christmas to be exact. My grand”mother” discovered it on a shopping trip to Dallas and absolutely loved it. The purple connection was especially pleasing (she was a big fan of purple). However, the scent was the dominating factor…. the bottle, as I remember it, was originally prettier than later versions. It is an unusual Oriental Floral….. very distinct. I got the second edition bottle for my grand”mother for Christmas a year ago and she was pleasantly surprised. It’s kind of hard to find these days, though, I think it might be discontinued. One caveat, the bottles that are still floating around may have been sitting somewhere for quite a while, so the fragrance is not as fresh as it once was. Still, this is a great addition to any perfume fan’s collection, something that everybody and their sister won’t have.
RarLigerize – :
Murasaki is my favorite perfume ever.
Subtle, gentle yet warm, because in the
heart notes orris root is very felt.
Really beautiful, almost unique scent.
Unfortunately disapperead from the market in Europe.