ggns – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

If there’s any perfume I mourn the discontinuation of, this is it. I’ve loved Ambush since I was a toddler and my mom had a large colored bottle of this on her dresser. This was one of her date night perfumes, so I got to watch as she spritzed it on after she’d gotten all dressed up. It was probably the first perfume I ever smelled and loved. It was the only perfume I had during my first year of college and I had no idea then how much I’d love it today. Now I have my own vintage bottle because I never want to be without it. It’s one of my very favorite perfumes I’ve ever worn, very few smell better on me than this. It’s like a slightly spicy and more floral version of Canoe, which I also have and make comparisons with from time to time. I miss perfumes like this that were simple, yet beautiful and could make a statement without being overbearing.

aaaaaaaaaa – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

I thought I had arrived at the doorstep of womanhood wearing sexy Ambush perfume, my Farrah Fawcett hairdo, my Maybelline Great Lash eyes, and my “lip potion” kissing gloss lips. Having my whole life in front of me with endless possibilities and NO FEAR. Ahhh, the sweet, sweet memories. I LOVE AMBUSH!

lfxecify – 2022-06-09:

5 out of 5

spicy soft floral opening that dries down powdery and smells like nothing else; light, young, innocent, sexy, pretty

diggers912 – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

Such a wonderfully nostalgic scent this is: an aldehydic floral head, rich with heliotrope and bergamot descends into its signature smell: a delicately spicy, sandy beach-y, baby powder smell with a pronounced musk base. It is the “sister” scent to that other great 1950’s masculine, CANOÉ, and both smell very similar indeed. AMBUSH smells like the suntanned nape-of-neck of a 1950’s teenaged boy who has just had a flat-top haircut done. Like a barber’s powder with an oily, slightly unctuous musk underpinning that reminds me of that 1950’s brilliantine: Wildroot Oil by Mennen… a smell that used to telegraph: wholesome, sunshiny masculinity. A very 1950’s technicolor-warm picture of collegiate American youth. I feel like Tab Hunter or Troy Donahue when I wear this, with white buckskin shoes, blindingly white smile, and a pink carnation in my lapel. It smells, synesthetically, like those “fleshtone pink-beige” colors that were popular in the 1950’s/early-60’s.
This is the original 1955 AMBUSH, not to be confused with the new monstrosity that was launched in 1997.
TÊTE: aldehydes, bergamot, lavender, anisic note
COEUR: heliotrope, carnation, geranium, cinnamon
FOND: musk, amber, vanilla, oakmoss, sandalwood

Mr.k1nn – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

Ambush is a bit of a gender-fuck. It was a perfume for women, based on a perfume first designed for women but then marketed to men, Dana Canoe. Both were composed by perfumer Jean Carles.
Canoe was a fougère initially marketed to women. It turned out that Canoe fit the masculine barbershop style that was taking shape in the USA between the World Wars, so it was repurposed for men, who bought it in droves from 1932 to the present. There’s no record that it was reformulated at the time, just repackaged.
Canoe fits the classic American take on the fougère. It was launched at the end of the Depression and though it was initially produced in France, WW II brought production to the USA, where it became a huge success. It was herbal and floral like the classic fougère but less angular, more harmonious. It emphasized the musky-sweet side of the fougère formula with an oily-powdery quality and would come to define the barbershop sensibility. It became the definitive American fougère.
After the Depression and WW II, American gender lines were drawn in bold and the fougère landed squarely on the masculine side. It became masculinity coded in scent. Carles pulled off an interesting trick in designing Ambush as a women’s perfume. He took a men’s ‘grooming’ scent, touched it up with notes from women’s cosmetics, and called it feminine. Madison Avenue knew how to sell gender with an underlying threat of ridicule, so hygienic/grooming products were marketed with strong gender markers. Carles’s repurposing of the fougère for feminine use should have shown the gender line to be akin to the Emperor’s Clothes. But who in 1955 America would have been tactless enough to point this out?
Ambush’s compositional trick was a heliotrope accord. Heliotropin was a well know material and its vanillic-almond range of tones could be shifted one way and another depending on the context. It gave a matte quality to floral perfumes and a marzipan note to vanilla-orientals. It was also a common component of cosmetics at the time. In Ambush it gives a plasticene quality that fits both the sweet, musky base of the perfume and the aesthetics of the era. It lends Ambush a stiff, molded character appropriate to mid- century fashion and design style, leaving Ambush the furthest thing from a ‘skin scent’. No Jean Carles formula was ever simple and heliotrope is one note among many in Ambush, but it’s a pivotal component. It creates a distance between Ambush and Canoe at the same time that it harmonizes with the fougère accord. It marked the fougère as feminine.
The marketing for Ambush was centered on the suggestive name of the fragrance. It equated gender and sexuality, a largely unquestioned pairing in the mid-’50s. It phrased femininity as predatory heterosexuality. Men were objects to be stalked and taken down. The ads over the years riffed on images of coy women hiding behind palm fronds, peacock feathers, spider webs, etc. with copy such as, “A Romance in Every Bottle. Ambush…The Tender Trap.” and “Take Him Completely by Surprise.” Stereotype? Camp? Yes. There’s even a bit of homoeroticism. An ‘ambush’ implies deception. The unseen man of the ads is caught unawares, taken from behind as it were. Was the predator a woman in wearing Ambush or a man in Canoe? Which would he prefer?
Dana perfumes changed ownership more times than you can shake a stick at, leaving the lasting impression that Dana was a drug store brand pulled out for father’s/mother’s day-Christmas gift packs. The last bit of gender irony is that the company that currently owns Dana (but no longer produces Ambush) is Patriarch Partners, a company named and owned by a woman.

tmnV8 – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

Ambush is a fragrance my mother wore in the 60’s a few times. She didn’t care for it and thought it was too soft and “girly” at age 20. A girlfriend of mine in the UK wears this fragrance, the original vintage that is. She let me borrow it. After wearing it a whole day I decided to buy it for myself. I searched for a vintage on ebay. Heliotrope is the dominant floral note in this perfume and heliotrope is my favorite flower. This has the perfect harmony of heliotrope and lavender. It’s very perfumy, old fashioned but absolutely beautiful. It’s not too strong and as someone pointed out it has a resemblance to Old Spice for Men. This wears like Old Spice for Women. It has a soft floral delicacy and coziness. It smells so good and I use it to scent my pillows with and the air in my bedroom. It’s also a suitable office friendly scent to wear to work in public. The oak moss becomes very prominent toward the dry down and yet it’s not too woodsy. It’s such a nice well balanced well behaved and lovely perfume. I haven’t tried the reformulation and don’t want to. This one is perfect.

rygkov.an – 2022-06-09:

5 out of 5

I found a vintage bottle, looks to be 1960s, and it reminds me of Early American Old Spice, actually (in the drydown). It’s not exactly the same, certainly missing the strong spices, but otherwise isn’t too far off. I’ll likely keep my EAOS bottle so this one is likely to be moved out, but it has a little “bite” to it, along with depth, so don’t think it’s just a “baby powder scent.”

annoumsAdagma – 2022-06-09:

5 out of 5

As a special treat for my sister, I was able to find a vintage bottle from circa 1966. Its rubber coated in hot pink and has fluorocarbon gas. I immediately remembered this as my sister played her Beatles and Dave Clark 5 records on the Hi Fi and danced around the living room with this liberally sprayed.
Its a little like Love’s Baby Soft with a very youthful appeal. Several notes are missing from the above tree. It opens with BIG aldehydes, bergamot lemon, lavender and green notes. Then it turns very pink with geranium, rose, carnation, geranium, iris? and orchid. It closes perfectly with vanilla, musk oakmoss, patchouli, vetiver, heliotrope and soft sandalwood.
Indeed, you can tell it has the classic Dana accent. They had control of the market in the day. Tabu is what your mom would wear, Canoe for your dad, my gran wore 20 Carats and your little sister would wear Ambush.
Ambush is flirty and young. Its innocent, yet somehow sexy. You might expect a “go-go” dancer to wear this. Yes, before Nikki Manage, there was a youthful sexiness and it was Ambush! Its so diametrically opposed to the raspberry caramel “fruit-cholis” of today.

nzl026bedyWelty – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

Original Ambush was truly exquisite. It was re-formulated in the 1990s and sales dropped “through the floor”. Instead of bringing back the original formula Dana simply stopped making all Ambush. Please, please Dana bring back the original Ambush! It was probably the best overall women’s perfume ever made in the United States. A revival would be absolutely wonderful!

zahvatoff – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

My review is that I still have my little bottle,
Which I only put on in the winter and for
another one that I think is close is Hypnose by
Lancome.

monomon – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

I do not know what it is about this combination that makes me feel butterflies in my tummy, and makes me totally giddy and happy.
It`s quite like falling in a new love for me, and always has been for… hmmm… I have to say 30+ years? Boy, that really dates me !
I had received miniature bottles of Ambush, Chantilly, and Anais Anais ( all still loves of mine ) as a gift when I was about 14 years old – and back then,I thought Ambush to be a grown up version of Loves Baby Soft and akin to Chantilly.
There seems to be so many twists in this juice… cool minty lavender combined with those florals and oakmoss , to me, is to die for !
Very retro, yet fresh, and nothing else like it that is being produced that I can find.
Yes, Canoe by Dana for Men is similar. But it does not have the punch.
It was always on my Christmas Wish List, and back in the middle `90`s, my mother presented me with a bottle.
To my horror, it was not the same scent, and I thought it had been from a bad batch.
When I went to exchange it for a ‘fresh’ bottle, I had found it had been reformulated.
I resorted to scouring through catalogs and clearance counters for testers and discounted bottles( the old days before internet online shopping ).
How can Dana call it Ambush without any of the former attributes?
I am awaiting the day that Dana reissues the Real Ambush.

buriy-01 – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

For a drugstore-chain scent, this one smelled surprisingly good – not a typical “cheap” perfume smell. Shame they changed the modern formula, since the original was quite nice.

iv.serg – 2022-06-09:

5 out of 5

Ambush: Teased hair & Cleopatra eyes,innocence and hopefulness, a “grown-up” fragrance for young baby-boomer girls. A one-of-a-kind fragrance for a one-of-a-kind time.
It was a joyous fragrance in the original compliation. And probably started my love affair with a powdery dry-down with lingering jasmine. Pure romance.
Today I think it’d be a unisex fragrance IF one could find an original. Interestingly, for me, Zizanie for men(also re-popular at that time) WAS very similar. It, too underwent reformulation and is now a disappointment.
I’ve never found anything like Ambush; and probably it should remain frozen in time. Iconic.

Artem890 – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

One of the smells of my adolescence. I also remember the wonderful Montag stationery that was scented with ambush; there was also a very faint sketch of a woman looking through a bush on the paper.

newkiller0071 – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

I just got a mini-bottle of Canoe, and it does smell a lot like I remember my old Ambush, in the pink bottle, smelling, back in the ‘sixties, when I was in High School.

Geos7777 – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

This was a perfume that my mother and her mother wore. I remember sniffing this as a child and thinking it was very magical. There is also something amazing about the packaging (the three-sectioned glass bottle is a classic design,) and the name itself has always fascinated me. I saw an ad from a 50’s magazine that shows a gorgeous woman waiting behind a palm branch, the shadows of the thin leaves falling mysteriously over her face, waiting to ‘abmush’ the man that was coming along the path – really showed the animalistic side to the perfume more than I had thought of before.
I just bought a vintage bottle of this from a seller on ebay because I’d like to relive the memory, and I’m starting to collect vintage scents, and I know this is still held by many to be a classic.

urok1569 – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

People who can’t find this perfume-I’m a very nice person. i know where you can get an original! 😀 Iv’e never tried it before,but the way commenters describe and the bottle looks you need to check it out! go to perfumespot.com You can buy it there. To get free shipping you need to spend 79.00. So if you enjoy certain perfumes make sure you get the best deals. Compare them to ebay -lol.I hope this was usefull-for 12.00 and shipping 5dollars by itself, thts pretty good for a 7.75oz bottle. 😀

taras13031993 – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

Don’t be fooled. The new one smells nothing like the original. Such a shame – I wore it for years and can’t seem to find anything else I like as much.

kat-ka46 – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

In my youth, I liked this so much too!

princcc33 – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

I would love to know if anyone can tell me if the original is still around. I wore this as a teenage in the ’50’s & ’60s and loved it. A very nostolgic scent, but only if it is the orig. Anyone know???

vipleARORSRip – 2022-06-09:

5 out of 5

oh i love this scent. spicy, warm, woody. i want this again and have to find it. who didn’t love this???

nik_nika81 – 2022-06-09:

5 out of 5

My vintage perfume collection could not be complete until I found the original Dana Ambush. It had to be the spray in the pink poly-like rubenesque bottle with the gold tone cap and label. Well at last my search is over for this throw back to the 60’s sentimental scent, as it arrived yesterday. The thrill of the first spritz was a blast of good memories. It overflowed with it’s floral woody essence just as I remembered. Laced with lavender and just enough jasmine with a pop of orchid, but it’s solely the musk that works this baby! When wearing this scent the soothing and casual qualities of the sweet yet some what powdery musk performs in full force that lingers on leaving you in a state of satisfaction. No case of anosmia in this blend of musk choices. Following close behind and wrapping up this composition is a pinch of patchouli which warms up the the ending phase to perfection. This nostalgic baby boomer favorite will forever and ever amen be one of my all time cherished treasures.

SagsFiegree – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

THIS HAS BEEN AROUND FOREVER!!! Nice scent but I would never ware it again. It’s along the lines of Ciara, that type of woodsy scent and this one is sweet too.

wain – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

Soft and powdery. What a “lady” would wear. Not something typically sexy, but quietly flirty I think.

Kingere – 2022-06-09:

3 out of 5

I used to love this as a child. It’s soft and pretty, with a slightly dusty dry down similar to scents of this era.

maxik5555 – 2022-06-09:

4 out of 5

This one I got when I was maybe 10? I kinda forgot what it smelled like but remember using it so I must of liked it.