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Azad118 – :
Oh my. I purchased a vintage cologne bottle last year and it was jammed. I desperately wanted to access the fragrance within, so I prayed and broke the bottle in a container, and then decanted it into a vintage glass perfume bottle. This is…heavenly. It’s spicy, fruity, and extremely…modern for the era. My bottle was likely from the 40’s and the contents have kept beautifully.
This is decadent, sinful, and heady. I’ve heard that it’s similar to YSL’s Opium, or rather, Opium is similar to 20 Carats–whatever the comparison, this is sublime. The cologne has excellent sillage and longevity and dries down to a spicy, yet sweet musk. Anyone can wear this if they’re brave enough. I love this perfume–can’t wait to sample Dana’s other offerings!
ArturZont – :
A 20 Carats EDP is actually quite different. While the cologne wears EXACTLY like vintage Opium, the EDP of 20 C is very layered and long lasting. Starts out fruity like a cherry pipe tobacco, a bit of “hay”, boozy, and then a floral powder middle, and Opium-like drydown. Oh I love this! This EDP is soooo worth having and I love it!
Daxx63 – :
Vintage cologne spray, yellow “metal/plastic” bottle with an aerosol spray nozzle (constant stream until you let go). I dated these in the 60s when I got the same bottle for Tabu. A website with vintage ads showed 1967 for these styles.
Whoa. Another vintage win! I hit the jackpot lately with vintage “unicorns” on ebay for affordable prices. I’m so happy!
First spritz. This is good… it’s like Tabu (and all it’s thick resiny goodness) mixed with the floral/powder of something like L’Heure Bleue. It’s opens with a creamy fruit and vintage smelling “old” (which I love), and then it’s a thick boozy-sweet-dark-incense-spicy mixed with ladylike floral/powder/soap. The best of both worlds! What a treat this is! Has a play-doh-like middle creamy part that I often hear said about LHB. Spicy too- now I understand why people compare this to Opium! What an interesting, layered gem! I can’t wait to wear this proper! (Tissue test)
Drydown- yes very Opium, but I still get something vintage/animal/skanky which always makes me happy. Even further into the drydown- powdery musk.
I would say this is:
50% Opium
25% Tabu
25% L’Heure Bleue
sounds crazy, but this perfume is amazing!
asg324 – :
20 Carats
Dana
Year
1933
*Splash Cologne & Cologne Spray Purchased on eBay
“I’m oh so glad my sapphire is a star! I rather like a 20 carat earring! If I’m not pure at least my jewels are!” – Cunegonde, Candide, Leonard Bernstein
Splash Cologne & Cologne Spray Purchased on eBay
What an interesting perfume!
I have a very old used bottle in golden amber yellow liquid color and a similarly colored bottle showing it’s age but I was going antique fragrance shopping a week ago and the order came in time. This is a perfect fall and winter fragrance to wear in cold New York winters which I have to deal with living in Manhattan. The furs leathers boots gloves scarves and hats have their own scent, particularly leather, but this fragrance has an aroma that seems tailor made for wearing with fur coats and leather fabrics. This is absolutely fantastic! Nothing like it out there today.
It was launched in 1933 at the height of the Great Depression and it could only have been worn by the wealthiest of ladies whose husbands were billionaire bankers whose lives and finances WERE NOT affected by the Depression! This perfume speaks of high society ladies in 20 carat diamond jewelry, fur coats, mink stoles, pearls, the most elegant evening gowns, their own box seat at the opera, their own chauffeur, their own butler and maid service. You know. Think Daddy Warbucks if he had a wife!
The splash is more to my taste because it’s more delicate and though strong it can be applied more like a powder on the skin rather than the spray which can be difficult and tricky. Both editions are the same as they are both cologne concentrations. This opens with old fashioned aldehydes and they are quite potent in the vein of Chanel No 5 but due to the intensity of the florals which far exceed the rose and jasmine of No 5, it’s more like Patou’s Joy with a ‘night’ theme or more like Lanvin MY SIN. It’s also remarkably similar to a later 80s fragrance by Giorgio of Beverly Hills – RED which I’ve worn and can compare to.
This is a sublime boozy spicy floral musk scent. Once you get past the ocean of aldehydes you’re swimming in sweet fruity scents of cherry and citrus like a Cherry Coke but in a pleasant perfumy sense. It’s fizzy and aldehydic champagne with a cherry flavor, cherry wine. The whiskey note is also quite obvious from the start, like a combination of fruit and whiskey.
As far as florals go this one seems to be a dominant carnation scent, typical of the period, with equal parts rose, jasmine and iris with a slight powdery touch. It never goes into a super feminine sweet floral aroma because the theme here is booze, cigarettes, and jewelry. It is not a young maiden who receives floral bouquets but a mature older grand dame of high society who is a diva and who gets her way most of the time. This woman smokes cigarettes nonchalantly or has a long cigarette holder stick. She goes to parties and is not the center of attention but she is the hostess who prefers to observe the party’s progress. If this lady does wear perfume, it’s Shalimar or Tabu also by Dana. Her preference is for exotic boozy and spicy scents. The spices are front and center.
The spicy notes of cinnamon, nutmeg, star anise and herbs are beautifully paired up with the dry down of incense, benzoin, myrrh and frankincense, balsams and resins. This is a deep complex rich opulent Oriental. Balsamic and smoky, but also green at the same time with aromatic herbs, oak moss patchouli and vetiver. All these notes are strong, my God are they strong. They give the fragrance an incredibly long life. I splashed it on one night and it lasted through the entire night. I had to put my clothes in the wash that same night. Must be worn only at night with formal wear and with warm clothing in winter.
By today’s standards this powerful volcanic perfume is out of touch and outdated but for vintage fans this is a Holy Grail perfume. Extremely rare to find but can be found on eBay if you are lucky enough to find one. The cologne spray is not always easy to use. The smallest amount must be used in order not to cause your own cough and so as not to offend people who smell it on you. This one’s not a stinker but it is pretty heavy duty perfume. I wear it with caution and prefer to lightly dab or splash it on me rather than spray it on me. This starts off sweet and boozy but ends up smoky, spicy, musky, one might even say unisex/masculine. The tobacco and musky notes are totally unisex. I can see a grown older man wearing this. This is divine perfume. It’s personality is like the Countess de Lave played by Mary Boland in the 1939 classic George Cukor movie THE WOMEN. She’s had several husbands and been divorced many times over but does she care? No she has her 20 carats jewelry furs and her perfume that smells as magnificent as this one.
dry – :
Dana 20 Carats vintage cologne splash.
A beautiful citrus with feminine whiskey cherry tobacco opening. Tobacco these days is so masculine. Here it definitely has a foreign feminine floral edge. This is a fragrance for a DAME!
An opulent release to help soothe the women coming out of the austerity of the great depression and WWII. I can see its cache in the swinging 60s, but 20Carats belongs back in the 40s. Its well put together, structured and quality. Today, if you bottled it differently, it would be an exotic niche.
Top notes: bergamot, cherry, orange, cinnamon, nutmeg, clove and aldehydes
Middle notes: heliotrope, carnation, rose, jasmine, lavender, herbs, fern, myrrh, frankincense
Base notes: sandalwood, ambergris, oakmoss, tonka, musk, balsam, tobacco, patchouli, vanilla, benzoin and vetiver
Just to note for collectors/time travelers : There is a lotion that was made in mexico with a white bakelite cap. It is very smooth and mild. The cologne made in the USA is stronger with the silver cap. Both have gold flakes in the formulation. Later editions (1980s) do not have the gold leaf.
It was marketed as a female fourgere. Males can rock this easily. Complete contraband according to the current IFRA standards. And how sweet it is to wear.
viktorkorleone – :
Fragrance Review For 20 Carats By Dana
Notes: Orange cherry tobacco whiskey nutmeg myrrh star anise spices carnation cinnamon tonka patchouli musk resins oakmoss vetiver.
20 Carats must have been the Tom Ford Black Orchid of it’s day or Angel or Alien of it’s day. This is an exotic powerful bomb detonating whenever you wear it. It’s quite bold and very hard to wear. My first thought was that it was probably worn by the same type of woman who could pull off Bandit or Shalimar. This is an Oriental with a lot of resins, patchouli, oak moss and vetiver. All of these scents are strong on their own terms and pairing them up together results in an epic concoction. 20 Carats opens with a Shalimar style citrus and there’s something that blew my mind: whiskey. Very noticeable and boozy. There’s no fruit or flowers to speak of (one carnation) so its not sweet. This is saucy, sexy, aromatic. My nose picked up on so many scents it threw up: tobacco, musk, cinnamon and a touch of cherry. It’s dark, unisex, and makes me feel confident. It’s a fragrance for older women? Is that right? Well they must know something everyone else doesn’t know. This is beautiful. Very sexy. It’s totally unisex but unfortunately discontinued and hard to find so if you really want to experience this epic fragrance you need to go and hunt for it on ebay.
autorem79 – :
I was very fortunate to obtain a sample of this beautiful perfume! It is so rich and really does remind me of Opium and Yves Saint Laurent Champagne perfume. It is rich and really worth giving it a try.
ermek – :
20 CARATS
DANA
GROUP AROMATIC FRUITY CHYPRE
NOTES
orange, cherry, tobacco, whiskey, nutmeg, myrrh, star anise, spicy notes, carnation, cinnamon, tonka bean, patchouli, musk, resins, oakmoss vetiver
SILLAGE: Heavy Radiates Within 6 Feet
LONGEVITY: Very long lasting 7 to 12 hours
REMINDS ME OF: MAJA MYRURGIA OPIUM YVES SAINT LAURENT
This is a gorgeous exotic perfume. I was fortunate to buy this by outbidding someone on ebay. I have the 1933 vintage cologne splash bottle. This fragrance instantly reminded me of Opium by Yves Saint Laurent and one can make the argument that Opium is the dupe for 20 Carats. it also smells a bit like Maja by Myrurgia. This is an aromatic chypre. It has ingredients that make me swoon: patchouli, herbal and incensed, myrrh, spices, resins, tobacco. I found it rather strong and heavy like an old fashioned men’s cologne. It’s unisex and that makes sense because Opium is also unisex. There is a delicious orange as it starts but it fades away fast and becomes booze! This is a whiskey and rum type of scent very boozy. I wonder how they could have recreated whiskey in 1933. It really has more of an aldehydic tendency but the liquor gives it an intoxicating kick. Then I smelled from within the depths of this fragrance a little vanilla. That vanilla and the cherry give the booze a sort of cherry wine smell. Delicious. The only flower I could smell was a carnation and it was rather faint. This is an evening cologne, bold, saucy, sassy, naughty, and yet very elegant. Mae West must have worn this. This smells of Mae West and when she says to Cary Grant “come up and see me sometime” he smelled this on her and of course he went up to see her. This is a sexy evening fragrance. Perfect for evening affairs, dinners, and parties. It’s a party perfume. Because it is from the past no one else is wearing this and I feel like I’ve traveled back in time and returned to 2016 wearing this cologne. It’s a gift from the days of the exotic Orientals, aldehydes and spectacular fragrances. They had it so much better then. Beautiful. If you love vintage classic fragrances check this out. It’s on ebay. There is no way of sampling it so just keep in mind that the notes in this are mostly spices, resins, patchouli, and whiskey. If you have experienced spicy fragrances like that and you like Opium you will have no problem wearing this. I don’t wear it too often as already a woman over 70 years old smelled it on me as I returned home from work and she said “where the hell did you get my old perfume!”. This fragrance takes me back to the early days of Hollywood when movies had transitioned from silent to sound. It’s Gloria Swanson’s perfume, Mae West. This is a sexy grand dame of a fragrance.
molokada – :
I was given an aged sample of this and could still smell it’s astonishing quality. One of those rare people who actually like slightly off perfume, I found this one had a memorable heart that continued to resemble only the best in old perfumery. The aldehydes, the genteel smoke, everything, yet it is unusually unique.
The notes are like many modern scents, and yet the blend is rich in depth and powdery warmth. This is Exactly what I look for in any really good vintage. Nutmeg, anise, myrrh, cherries, resin, whiskey, and tobacco meld equally well into either an evening at the opera or an intimate one at the fireside.
Although this seems particularly feminine to me, I’m sure that it’s deep, mysterious base would enable an amazing man to carry it off.
Elegance itself. Good sillage and longevity. Moderate weather.
Mezera – :
WOW – thank you for adding this one, Fragrantica staff. We love you!
Penaidedgenop – :
OK, I am sitting here wearing my long OOP bottle of 20 Carats. This contains all of my memories of my grandmother. It was her signature. In fact this was her bottle from the day. She has been gone since 1976, yet somehow she is still around when I sniff my wrist. It strange how scent affects the memory.
Dana was once larger than life. Tabu, 20 Carats, Bolero, Emir, Platine, Canoe and the 1960s hit Ambush were everywhere. Somehow, the house lost its touch and didn’t make it through the 1970s. These lost classics were as large as Guerlain, Chanel or Lanvin in the postwar perfume boom. Only Tabu has survived.
With 20 Carats, there is an echo of Tabu. Indeed Dana had its own “Guerlainade”. There is this tactile, “boozy” accent that runs though these classics. Looking at the notes, this would be marketed as unisex today. Its a rich oriental with lots of spice and ambery resins. I get little to no flowers. They saved those for Platine and Ambush.
My grandmother had no evening gowns, diamonds or furs, yet when she wore this, she seemed like a “million bucks”. This was from the time when women could wear anything they wished and never get criticized. Allergies didn’t come from perfume in the 1960s.
A re-launch of this classic is unthinkable as most of the formula is contraband within the current market safety standards. There are a few bottles floating around on e-bay, replete with the golden flecks in them for the curious.
Helper_new – :
Thank you for adding this! 20 Carats eau de cologne was my mother’s signature fragrance for as long as I can remember. I think she wore it starting in her teenage years, and she always had a bottle with the gold flakes floating in it (it looked just like the one pictured above), and the bath powder as well, on her vanity. For the longest time, that was the only fragrance she wore, the 20 Carats and cigarette smoke (this was in the 1960s, before women were told not to smoke during pregnancy) aura that wrapped around her, day and night. She once told me that when she was pregnant with my brother, her cravings were not for a type of food but for saturating herself in 20 Carats, and incessant smoking of cigarettes. The consequences of this are that my brother has had asthma and allergies all of his life, and my mother, feisty though she is, has emphysema and carries portable oxygen with her, always. She no longer smokes, but she also no longer wears fragrance because she is scared that she might not be able to breathe. On the good side, her sense of taste came back. She was and is as mysterious (and often as frustrating) as her zodiac sign, which is Pisces. The beautiful, ornamental fish tempts and calls you to come closer to adore and contemplate its cold beauty, and then as you draw near to exclaim how fascinating it is to behold, it splashes you in the face with water from a powerful swish of its tail, and it swims away, taunting you. My mother is very much like her zodiac sign! I digress. She still doesn’t know that when I was wee little, I would reach up for her bottle of 20 Carats and take the occasional tiny sip. I never wore it, but I have tasted it. 20 carats was a spicy, slightly floral scent and the only way that I can describe it (from memory) is that 20 Carats is the stepping stone to Ispahan, and then from Ispahan to Opium. Picture a lady from 1963, with a teased, bouffant-y type hairdo holding a daiquiri in one hand and a cigarette in the other, with the music of Antonio Carlos Jobim playing on the Heathkit Hi-Fi. And she is NOT giving out her secrets! This is a 20 Carats woman, and this is my mother. It smelled heavenly on her, rich yet light, alluring and compelling you to come closer, yet at the same time demanding that you admire her from a distance. The first fragrance that she gave me was a cute little bottle of Ambush, and she instructed me on how to dab it behind my ears, and to keep it out of sunlight. She told me “you’re a floral girl” whereas she was an Oriental (perfume type) because she could wear easily the heavier, spicier scents. In the 1970s she decided to branch out a bit, and occasionally wore the original Zen by Shiseido, Shalimar (absolutely stunning on her), and the Germaine Monteil fragrance (Royal Secret), along with her beloved 20 Carats. 20 Carats underwent a reformulation, either in the late 1970s or early 1980s (My memory is fuzzy on that. But after that reformulation, it soon disappeared forever). The sales ladies at Abraham & Straus told her that it had been “modernized” and oh was she upset! Opium had recently debuted and she decided that Opium would from then on be her signature (you would laugh if you heard both of us grumbling about how our signatures were ruined; her beloved 20 Carats and my beloved Anais Anais). I think she had a brief flirtation with Hypnotic Poison, too. I’m sorry that I can’t give more insight into how this perfume actually smells, it has literally been around 40 years or so since I’ve smelled it, but I came pretty close the other day when I received a bottle of Ispahan (I think it’s the original formula) and sampled that. 20 Carats would have been a bit lighter, with just a tiny bit more floral and with the vetiver and whiskey notes. Very similar sensations,at least to me. Well, I need to get back to my studies, and my dogs are patiently waiting to be fed. Thanks for reading my ramblings, and thanks again for adding this lovely perfume to the database!