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FEDILLENTYWEW – :
1970s eau de joy
Splash 1.5oz reviewed.
Such a beautiful civet/rose configuration of Joy
Civet is working overtime in this giving the rose a full blooming heft with a musky undertone. Im not sure there is a dirty rose better than this. Bal a versailles cologne is a contemporary only Bal runs more civet musk and the florals take a back seat..where here in Joy..the rose blooms with the civet as support. Just old time gorgeous secret pleasure.
bardak2015 – :
Probably because I am the mother of all rescued cats (all the cats in the world can come live with me, honestly! I’ll look after you!)- anything with a high civet content is for me. Like this.
I bought a vintage bottle and I have not stopped wearing it since it arrived. It’s enough like Joy that of course I’m going to love it and enough different that it means I have TWO versions of Joy to wear. What’s not to like!
ijf138intitytek – :
a sweet musky floral, very alluring; I blind bought this on accident thinking it was Joy but I’m not sorry
Vioxbatioff – :
First off, jtd’s review/ memory made me cry. You should read it, it’s beautiful and touching.
Now, to the fragrance at hand:
My bottle of Eau de Joy EDP (splash) was manufactured in 2011 according to the checkfresh website. I’m wearing five drops on pulse points at the moment, having applied the drops about twenty minutes earlier.
I agree that there is less of a jasmine presence in this formulation. For me, the civet grounds the rose-jasmine bouquet and gives it a slightly-edgy depth. I love it! And, I agree with the young woman who said that persons of any age can wear this, provided they have class (and, I’d add, the right chemistry for this beautiful composition).
Straight up class in a bottle, but be careful not to over-apply to avoid headaches and nausea, but that can be said for nearly all perfumes.
Days that are graced by the rich, deep animalic roses of Eau de Joy are among the best days to be alive. Truly, a masterpiece in the truest, deepest sense. The deeply satisfying experience of luxuriating in the warm, delicate cloud of classic French perfume can be yours (barring any chemistry concerns) with this legendary icon of sheer elegance.
alan – :
I must be one of the lucky ones whose skin adores this! I managed to purchase a vintage bottle of this & was instantly transported. I have been a longtime wearer & great lover of “Joy” but for some reason had never got around to sampling this treasure.
The very note that others describe as “urine” is wonderfully deep, warm & sexy on me, the rose clearly evident, jasmine wafts in & out, the chorus of supporting notes develop slowly & last forever. I will now be trying to find more of this beautiful, feminine fragrance…the way this makes me feel is impossible to pass up.
atavis – :
Dear @jdt, what a lovely story!! It is truly those special memories that certain scents evoke. God bless you and your mother, all the best to you! 🙂
APAR – :
I’ve written and mentioned this a few times recently, so I suppose I’m trying to prove a point to myself: I don’t view my life as a narrative. I suppose this is one reason that, although I’m very emotional about perfume, I’m not terribly romantic about it. To call memory a reflection of experience gives memory too much weight. The reflected image suggests a more clarity than memory can offer. Memory is more a filter than a reflection. The perceived jump from experience to memory is quick, yet in that instant so much editing occurs that I can’t call memory anything other than fiction.
When I think of Jean Patou Joy, I think of my mother. When she was a girl, her brother brought her a bottle when he returned from from France and the 2nd World War. She kept it until I suppose we all lost track of it somewhere in the past dozen years. I remember that she wore it very occasionally and that otherwise it sat in a box in a drawer. I loved the scent of that Joy. I imagine I loved it more than my mother did, yet the perfume and the story were both hers.
I have my own vintage bottle of Eau de Joy and despite the fictions of memory, reformulation of perfume, and all the years, I still think of my mother when I open the bottle. This sort of memory is more pensive than visceral yet it’s very important to me. I suppose you never know where you’ll to find the big ‘Rosebud’ moments in your memory, and I never thought the bottle of Joy would sweep me up and carry me away. But I’ll tell you where the moment found me.
My mother is living with very advanced dementia. She hasn’t been able to speak to me in years. Early in her dementia I used to talk with her by phone as often as I could, though we lived on opposites coasts of the US. Most of these phone discussions were about nothing in particular but only as she grew unable to carry on these conversations did I realize how important those small ways of keeping in touch were.
Clearing out some papers last week I found a couple of folded sheets of paper that for god knows what reason I printed out years ago. The contents of these papers were a compilation of four or five emails back and forth between me and my mother where she was asking me about a recipe for tofu that my husband David had. I laughed out loud and knew that Marguerite would have, too. What could be more ridiculous than a decade-old string of emails about tofu? But here she was. I heard her voice, her laugh. I remembered.
So my lesson about memory and how wonderfully little control I have over it is to wear the perfume and relish the emails.
sb11 – :
I tried it at the departments store. I think it was this one or the regular Joy but could be both. As soon as I took a whiff of my wrist I knew I would never want to smell like this. I wanted to wash it off immediately but was able to when I got home. It smelled like male cat spray from being un-neutered. Now I know why- it has Civet in it. I refuse to wear perfumes with civet. Some perfumes have civet but it won’ be in their list of notes.
andreikag – :
I bought a 30ml dab bottle of this, unsure of the year but I would guess some time in the 70s, on EBay, after falling in love with my sample of the current formulation of Joy EDP. Eau de Joy does smell almost identical to the current Joy EDP, but not as strong or full-bodied; it is a bit odd that a current perfume is superior to its older counterpart. I will still buy the current Joy at some point as opposed to looking for another vintage Eau de Joy because of that, but this is a great, affordable fling to tide me over. A super gorgeous classic floral, warmed with animalics, that smells expensive and classy. Liquid gold.
ivan1982 – :
I just picked up a vintage bottle of EDJ because I’d fallen in love with a more recent incarnation of Joy EDT.
I smell the roses in the bottle. The jasmine and ylang ylang have to be in there somewhere. When I put a bit on my wrist, I don’t get french garden but instead french zoo. It’s as though a little furry animal came and sat on my arm.
So this IS the civet that everyone speaks of. My, my, my.
I am trying to figure out how this would have been considered sexy or feminine? I supposed back in the day before PETA when every woman who could afford the luxury wore fur in some capacity…and fur due to it’s naturally tactile surface and it’s correlative and symbolic relationship to the female sex and…well…..let’s just say in the times before Brazilian waxes were common… I guess this might be as sensual to our great grandmothers and fathers as an amber frag would be for us today.
It is luxurious, there is no denying that. I’m sure the top notes have burned off from my bottle so there’s that as well. It quickly becomes a skin scent, so as soon as the little furry creature pops out the garden to say hello, it’s gone again.
Overall, I’d say…meh. I could have been satisfied with a small decanted sample from STC or TPC. I do still have a thing for Joy. As my younger cousins would say:
“That frag is bae!”
Yes, I love Joy so much that I have personified it into a romantic partner.
“…but I thought you were Dominique Ropion’s girl?”
Shhhh. No one else has to know, after all what we do in Paris is secret….
😉
joker94-17 – :
absolutely lovely, all day, all night, delicate, sensuous
cpecial24 – :
I’m currently soaked in it while reading Nightwood (1936), Djuna Barnes’ decadent, modernist tour de force, and it couldn’t be more fitting: both celebrate life through death–in the scent’s case, feline glands, rotting flowers, and plastic. Like Nightwood, Eau de Joy is enigmatic, vaguely offensive, and purposefully oblivious. I’d never have the guts nor the inclination to wear it in public, but home alone with Barnes, Baudelaire, Rimbaud, or Wilde, I find EdJ to be perfection.
JokeRSLR – :
I have a tiny full vintage bottle that I picked up from my grandmother’s house many years ago and have managed to hang onto it all this time.
It is sooooo very far apart from my usual style of gourmands or oriental spices that I simply can’t understand all the love for it.
What is the deal with civet? Lol I have no idea. I only know it doesn’t work with my skin. I don’t enjoy rose so I guess I couldn’t expect it to. My grandmother had VERY particular taste and this suited her to a T.
In any case, if someone in the States would like to trade I’d be glad to hook you up with some lovely vintage juice. 🙂
KabBrarpFeese – :
Sadly, I must join the ranks of those whose skin does not work for this fragrance. It stated with a damp powdery note, vaguely rosey with a stale lemon undertone. As it developed, I too get what others describe as urine; a sweet, organic note. In other scents, civet is fine for me, but not here. It is a meaty-floral note that is rich and fleshy but not pleasant. I think part of it is a very indolic jasmine, not fresh at all. I am glad I was able to sample this, but do not want to wear it again.
quarfanuady – :
On my skin, the rose and civet combine in a urinous note for the opening accord. The urine scent keeps getting clearer, and nothing else develops. After an hour, the rose is dominant to the urine, but the combination is still pretty unpleasant. After 2 hours, I have a pungent rose note, not as dark as I would like, and a faint powdery background, I can’t distinguish the notes, but cat pee lingers faintly. In the dry down, I get soft rose, a green note, a faint iris butter warming the mix, and just a touch of LoV. My skin does not love this scent, and while the dry down is tolerable, that overripe catbox note pretty much ruins it for me. After 4 hours I scrubbed and went for something more joyous.
I strongly recommend testing before buying!
Zangetsu1991 – :
I wore this to my beloved son’s wedding. In fact, I was so nervous that I spilled lthe dupe all over my lap when I was getting ready, so I am pretty sure I was smellable.
I wear the dupe oil version of this by Hayward Enterprises. I will never be without it.
However, I recently bought some Rose oil as I was going to do some blending and I was really shocked when I tried the Rose on my wrist – IT SMELLED JUST LIKE JOY!!
Joy must just be chock full of rose. So if you love roses, you should really try Joy. If you don’t want to spend a fortune on it, maybe try my dupe oil at Hayward.
226611 – :
I have the vintage version of this, and this is one of my favorite perfumes. I am only eighteen, but this is just my scent! Everyone knows it as well, my boyfriend loves it, he bought me another vintage bottle. ((I’m a hoarder :p )) But I just suppose I’m a sucker for the classics.
I also have the vintage EDT and I personally prefer the EDT, it has a lot more jasmine, if you didn’t smell the EDT you wouldn’t know that they were from the same line. They almost smell like two separate perfumes with very similar qualities. I’ve observed that the EDJ is backwards from the EDT. Either way I love them both and hold them very near and dear to me. I think any age woman could pull this scent off, they just need to be classy.
tihon1804 – :
Amazing. Has much the same flavor as the original JOY, but so much better on my skin.
This doesn’t turn skanky, as JOY itself can. The jasmine seems considerably less indolic, while retaining the joyful uplift of the magical Rose and Jasmine notes. I do not specifically smell the other florals or the peach, but they seem to lighten and brighten Eau de Joy’s composition, creating sunshine!
Simply charming….
йййййййййй – :
Most classy as you can imagine. All mixed, yet so harmonious! Leaves you breathless, I think that any fan of classic perfumes loved this.