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briz1962 – :
Perfect for Autumn, Winter and Early Cool Springtime -Vintage Style
This perfume is shockingly super strong, filling a room for about one and a half hours before settling into the dry down. The dry down lasts well over 10 hours on my skin, projecting consistently 12 inches. One or two sprays is all you need.
This beauty begins with an extremely sweet bouquet of very thick heavy flowers, ylang, rose, and orange blossom, with sharp jasmine, sandalwood, basil and narcissus adding a hint of crispiness to the powdery feeling of dense osmanthus. A touch of sharp patchouli blends with oakmoss to give this scent a definite vintage flair. Rich deep honey and amber in the base combine to add lasting power and a bit of smoothness to the blend. Citrus here is mild and uplifting, adding an airy feel.
Historie D’Amour belongs in the same genre as Ysatis , Cacharel Anais , Arpege, Madame Rochas, and Amarige. All of them have heady thick old fashioned flower bouquets blended with sharp, airy woods, citrus and spices. All have a very retro, vintage feel.
For me, these kinds of perfumes work best on rainy days when the air is moist and breezes are cool. That’s when these heady bouquets smell the most rich and beautiful.
Дмитрик – :
Hopelessly old-fashioned and charming as a Marie-Antoinette la robe à l’anglaise. And a powerhouse too.
kilton – :
Very powdery and clean, a perfect and non-offending fragrance for being out and about. This is very warm on me and slightly sweet. I get a good deal of the oakmoss, but I mainly get this wonderful smell of a sort of complex baby powder with a little spice. This smells wonderful and lasts a good deal of time for an eau de toilette.
antavi – :
WOW! I’m a vintage lover (esp oldie chypres, aldehydes, animalics, and leathers) and I had not heard of this! I happened to see it on the Right of the Fragrantica page (recently reviewed) and I found the name and bottle charming, so I checked it out. Turns out, it’s MY kind of scent– and…. it’s so AFFORDABLE! WAHOOOO!
So I quickly scanned the reviews, and ordered the 100 ml for $15 blindly.
Today it came. While this isn’t really unique to my collection because it smells like Givenchy III EDT (which I have a vintage stockpile of), I love it!
Amazing sillage/potency for an EDT. One starter squirt from a new bottle on a tissue filled up my office!
Citrus, woods, yellow flowers, mossy. Pretty simple recipe but done so well/smoothly, and so pleasing! My vintage Givenchy III EDT collection is bought from ebay– so knowing this is still for sale (new) for a low price is AWESOME. It does not have leather, smoke, or animalics in it, so it’s simpler/easier than Bandit, Cabochard, Azuree, etc.
And…. 0.25 parfums are on ebay from an outlet for $9.25 each– so I bought 2 of those! I can’t wait!
My EDT was from Fragrancenet, the Florida version, code 7299P.
Next day drydown– lovely citrus wood powder. Mmmmmm. Wonderful!
lmb982Unlogrere – :
I’m enjoying this mossy beauty while the crispy leaves are falling all around me. However, I’d like to brighten it up a bit by layering it with some other fragrance. Any suggestions welcome ¿♧♡♡♧¿
CANNIBAL – :
I have to agree with another poster, that the beauty in this scent is to be found in the drydown. In fact the initial spray can be a bit offputting. Strong, cheap drugstore….but then it starts to bloom, as the topnotes and alcohol wear off. I do think its better in the cooler months.
The patchouli kicks in, and its glorious.
drozd8998 – :
Lovely and long lasting…can’t ask for anything more.
Alex76 – :
Pretty botles.. a must for…vintage collectors 🙂
oleg000 – :
Seductive mossy Oakmoss rules at first then, like a curtain being raised, the flowers start to insinuate themselves. So subtle, yet intriguing. Like a woman you want to discover. No wonder the bottle top has that shape! Might have been subliminal on the designers part, but its perfect. This is a perfume for a private party. Sexy.
delial – :
Bloody hell! This stuff is fantastic!
Oak moss heaven on me! Truly amazing. This is really under appreciated, this scent rivals some of the best Chypres I’ve worn. Very, very impressed and I recommend it with confidence. Longevity is excellent and sillage moderate to heavy on me.
puzatik345 – :
Best ever.
DlackBlood – :
The dry down is everything in this. (I think other commenters have said this as well.) Don’t be fooled by the first spritz which seems a very common powder scent! This scent is unlike anything I have smelt, and I am seriously in heaven wearing this right now.
God bless this world made better by heavenly scents!
Love.
spk2 – :
I am wearing this amazing fragrance right now and I absolutely love it. The honey, oakmoss and patch are foremost for me and perfectly balanced (so sorry fragaria I accidentally red thumbed you by mistake getting used to a very small tablet with my big clumsy fingers lol).
Anybody who calls this incredible fragrance old lady can kiss my ash. It is gorgeous, timeless, classy as hell and I wear it anytime and everywhere just to revel in its’ beauty. I got it so cheap online I almost feel like I stole it. Lasts SO long on my fragrance gobbling skin it’s like a miracle! LOVE, LOVE. Will always have this.
ONTARIO – :
This has killer strength! If you spray too heavily, then you will never know how lovely this is. It’s clean, it’s soap, it’s snowy whiteness in a bottle. If you want skanky, it ain’t here.
This is from the 80’s eh? Smells more like 1800’s to me. It’s got personality. It’s like a Victorian home that has been through many families. There is birth, love, dreams, death, a flurry of memories…happy, sad, painful. This perfume is the breath you draw in.
Old lady? I am sure that is what everyone will say when I wear this. I see/smell life in the past. It’s a black and white movie in my head, with color accents.
I’m closed minded. I don’t give much of a chance to anything I don’t love immediately, including people.
There’s an inner-sense one has, some stronger than others. Mine is strong. I thought when I first sprayed it, GRAMMA! And she wasn’t a lovely, kind, gentle grandmother. She was bitter, cold, and joyless, from a hard life. I now can appreciate her, and this scent.
You can’t know miserable unless you’ve experienced a very bad flu with activity north and south at the same time. You can’t know the feeling or even be empathetic. This perfume is the feeling, empathy, memory of all a person can hold dear…or not. It’s joy and fear, it’s just so special to me.
The bottle is lovely. If there is a way you can give this a chance, please do try. Close your eyes and let your mind experience and imagine another world. You might be glad you did!
This is a library of hand cranked music in a scary world of heavy metal. Go back…enjoy!
vados1 – :
Thank you to the reviewer somewhere here who mentioned Historie D’Amour as having similarities to Rochas Femme! Based on that comment, I blind bought this at TJMaxx in the set with the lotion and shower gel and went back the next day to get the last of the set.
There is something about Historie that immediately reminds me of vintage Femme for sure, but it stands as its own beautiful (and somewhat moody) perfume, a little drier than what I’d typically like. It is definitely a chypre on my skin but with all the components blending so well I had to look up exactly what was making it at once sweet, spicy, and woodsy.
It has GREAT longevity and projection. When I wear it with the shower gel and lotion, my husband can smell it on his way up the stairs. It projects well on its own and is still hovering above a skin scent 10+ hours later.
Projection= very generous – proceed with caution
Longevity= this is a work horse!
Wear= for vintage perfume lovers, probably best for evening, very nice to spray on clothing as it hangs around like Youth Dew does
rbh634JeomiWogkig – :
Histoire d’Amour is a real classic perfume. Very elegant, morbid, deep, and placid. I think this is more oriental than chypre. Between juicy flowers I feel a strong presence of patchouli but I smell a lot of tangerine also that lift it up.
The bottle is gorgeous and match with the retrò juice, very 20s.
Histoire d’Amour maybe is not the appropriate name, this do not make me think about love. This is just pure class and it is a bit a fur-fragrance. A light Autumn fur.
Akira – :
Usually I steer away from EDT’s but this was a blind buy for me and I come home with it to read all the great reviews and discovered it was in fact an EDT. I was hesitate about opening it, or should I just return it? I read on and then seen all the fragrances that it said I would like if I liked this one. I noticed several scents that I have and love the most. So, I opened it. I am loving it! It does not strike me as an old lady scent, nor would I classify it to any era in time. I find it lovely and very well blended. I am wearing it right now and I cannot stop smelling myself. It is too soon to see how long it last and I have not worn it long enough to discover the delightful dry down all have talked about. I will edit my review if anything changes but for now, WOW! I got a great deal and it came with the shower gel and lotion. The bottle is exquisite all in itself and I love the etched glass. What a wonderful find!
tarasbacsale – :
PS one more comment… “old lady” insults fine fragrances AND the elderly! I prefer to call uber-classic fragrances as reminding me of myself… a GROWN woman
guf96 – :
I am wearing this scent for the first time and am delighted! As the dry down occurs I will be very impressed. Luxury at a very modest price. And excellent for a Chypre lover like myself. I enjoy all types of fragrances but chypre is special for me. It likes me!!! Thanks to my fragrantica acquaintance who called it to my attention! It’s a treasure.
deldJuigree – :
I love this perfume! A gorgeous old style chypre that smells much more expensive than it is. Lovely green oakmoss opening dries down to a lovely mossy powdery cloud, and lasts a good 8 hours!
I can imagine sitting under some very old mossy trees on an old plantation in the south with a warm breeze blowing powdery woody wisps…so lovely I can only imagine what the vintage is like, I will be searching for…
So happy for it in my collection…
SLAVA-UNEHA – :
Old library.It is quiet and mysterious and old.Strong impression the scent of moss.I love this.
i.ivan1979 – :
I first bought this perfume as a mini, strictly for the bottle, back in the 1980’s—it was not at ALL my style back then, but I collected minis. A year or so ago I found a large spray of it, going for nothing at TJ Maxx–now being produced somewhere in Palm Beach FLA. I figured I’d check it out–and lo and behold–I really like it! Of course, it’s a reformulation, but it somehow works better on me now and it’s warm, woodsy. mossy-ness makes it a perfect scent for fall. Boy–does it LAST!! I recently did a play at a local college and I chose this scent for my character. The play was “School For Lies” by David Ives, a re-work of Moliere’s “The Misenthrope” –still written in rhyming couplets, but in modern vernacular, full of sex talk and F bombs–My character, Arsinoe, is a nasty, jealous hypocrite, who back stabs the heroine, Celemene—Celemene describes her as ” A spider dipped in talcum!”—and this was the perfect scent for her!
Aaron2000 – :
Underestimated lovely magical juice! Forgoten perfume from another era… Pitty because is just LOVELY!!
dimon969 – :
This perfume has a great quality : it lasts for a couple of days, which is good cause it’s not a bad scent :o)
zapadlodj – :
I got this on Amazon for 18 bucks, the parfum version in the black bottle, mainly because I thought the bottle looked charming and vintage. Well, it’s a cheaply made bottle, of course (I wasn’t expecting much for $18!), and I had to pry the top off because part of it was stuck inside the bottle, and it couldn’t be opened. Cheap, cheap.
As to the perfume, it’s an obvious reformulation that has had the oakmoss removed. I think all that remains to make it a chypre would be some patchouli. I get very little ylang-ylang and mainly osmanthus. It has some charm when first applied, and smells almost like a vintage perfume, but then sinks into abysmal drug store quality banality and poor quality. Well, the bottle is still cute. The perfume has been ruined.
icednk – :
Histoire d’Amour… Oui, mais quel sorte d’amour est-il? It’s strange, but this is one of the most ambiguous perfumes I have ever smelled. At first it looks and smells like it comes right out of the pages of a Victorian horror novel. This is how a theatre dressing room would smell back then. But whoever would be waiting for the young thespian outside, could be nothing less than Jack the Ripper. So the poor beatiful thing would meet her doom-laden fate, but smelling divinely nevertheless.
On the other hand it smells of something a firebrand would wear. Tough and hard-boiled, but straight and honest to the extreme. I don’t know, how can be something romantic and cynical at the same time? Oakmoss battling narcissus and osmanthus quarrelling with basil? I love to watch such fights taking place! Their outcome is usually a mess, except some messes are unique and stunning.
And concerning its “gender”, this one’s feminine and (I’m Francisco “Paco” Rabaneda Cuervo and I’ve made) 1 Million (in a month) is masculine? Right… O tempora o mores!
Now, I can already hear the Old Lady Alert screaming, and see youngsters pointing at its “outmoded” bottle in sheer horror. So, do we have an old lady here? Of course we do! The youngsters are right, but also so wrong. She is an old lady indeed. Only this one packs a pair of knucledusters inside her old lady bag. And after flooring any arrogant and pompous brat, she’ll kickstart her old lady motorcycle and vanish into the sunset. The very kind of an old lady who can use this gorgeous bottle to spray a mesmerising shroud around her, but can also bludgeon every hater to submission, before (s)he’ll be able to say: “Hey, it smells like old la…” Bang! You’re down! Now, be smart enough to stay down and kowtow before her prodigious awesomeness! It’s so much fun being an old lady sometimes! Especially when embarassing clueless newbies is the name of your game.
I can’t stress enough how much I miss smelling perfumes of this magnitude and quality in public nowadays. So, ladies, please, wear this and go somewhere. In a club, to a ball, it doesn’t matter; somewhere. If there’s any gallant and fine gentleman there, rest asured he’ll come directly to you, like drawn by a magnet, tossing every fruity-candy-sweety girl aside in his wake. And pehaps your Histoire D’Amour will be born…
КИНО-МАН – :
I owned this one several years ago, and although I liked it, especially it’s multi-faceted quality and beautiful, deliberately old-fashioned bottle (it’s a copy of an actual antique bottle), it was too leathery for me, so I gave it to a dear friend on whom leather is a beautiful soft powdery cloud instead of the rancid grass clippings it becomes on me.
It surprises me that anyone would call it “old lady”, unless floral mixtures with leather have that connotation. A few other perfumes that it shares some similarities with are Rochas’ Femme, Guerlain’s Parure and some other floral-fruity chypreish juices with leather notes.
BiziK – :
I’m sure this won’t give out the same vibes on everyone, yet it’s definately worth a try! I agree with another member that the bottle alone is worth the price. 🙂
My impression remains the same as it was on first acquaintance, that Histoire is a high quality fragrance of beautiful construction.
FIVE stars
SHEDOW – :
What the??? I just bought this for $16. Read the reviews, thought why not??
Wow…that was a wonderful call!!
This stuff is …remarkable. Warm green, sweet, but tempered by the green. Creamy, beautifully balanced.. not an expert, but I can’t call the notes because it is all so well blended. What I can say is it has that singing, joyous chypre thing going on, and it’s divine.
And what’s the deal with the way these oldies actually smell…modern perfume strength sillage and longevity in an eau de toilette??? Remarkable composition.
I highly recommend this to anyone who loves, Miss Balmain, Ma Griffe, and so on. Honestly, this is behaving like a class act such as Chanel Number 5….without the price tag!
I’m ordering three more bottles today….
Enough said!!
NBVUDGYTCX – :
Histoire D’Amour is a deep and complex Chypre. A little top heavy on the floral for my taste. Still the oakmoss and patchouli in the base give the drydown a nice fullness.
aragorns – :
I received this lovely fragrance in a swap so I have no idea what vintage I have but despite “granny” status (which offends me)…this is a lovely spicy floral. The jasmine and the oak moss are warmed up by the galbaumn. HDA is a very wearable feminine chypre. Seems like some chypres are very masculine (which is what I love about them). This perfume is deep with many layers folded together in the most attractive way. I really love it!❤️
Happy Perfuming!
Barentsis – :
I’ve only tried the vintage version. I could see a niche company market this as a “masculine floral” (as it doesn’t come across as “old” or “granny”), and agree that there is something incense-like in the base, probably a combination of galbanum (no, it’s not especially “green”) and oakmoss (the patchouli is not strong). The florals are not assertive but they are a bit powdery. From what I remember, Lyric Man was more floral than this, and a bit too “big.” By contrast, this one has excellent balance, though projection (“sillage”) seems to come in wafts, so sometimes it seems to disappear for a while. What’s interesting is that it has rich and aromatic qualities without going too far in either direction (orientals can be very rich, for example). As you might expect, it doesn’t come across as “synthetic” in any way (it’s a bit dry, but not sweet or creamy, and certainly not syrupy). You can still get lucky and find a vintage bottle on ebay at low prices, so don’t pass it up if you think it might work for you.
SSS-001 – :
First: I’m glad to see that some folks can appreciate the new version. I CAN NOT. This has to be one of the most heinous reformulations ever inflicted on a perfume. (yes! I know there are a lot of those) Maybe I’m touchy about it because its one of my most beloved fragrances. Anyway, my review for the latest version is “Its HORRIBLE!”
Ok, now that that’s out of the way….. the older version Edt is simply enchanting. Wonderfully composed. The basil note at the opening has just the right amount of bite to it. The florals have a vintage vibe that is beyond charming. Then the ylang ylang and galbanum melt together creating a resinous incense that seeps into the pores of every other note! One of the best woody chypres out there.
The Edp is, of course, richer and a tad more smoky.
The Parfum is magnificent! Starts out with a smooth yet intense note that reminds me of a chunk of aged firewood. Blackened by flames. The charred wood still retaining the scent of the tree itself. That note mingles with the oakmoss and creates a perfect chypre base for the rich florals. If you find the parfum…. treat yourself!
htcchtcc – :
I’ve got the Cherie version of Histoire d’Amour. The opening isn’t much to speak of, kind of harsh. Notes of the Cherie version are:
Top: peach nectar, white pepper, magnolia
Middle: jasmine sambac, midnight tuberose, water lily
Base: sandalwood, tonka, musk, leather (notes taken from a cosmetics site that sells the juice)
The peach is a more tangy, natural smelling peach, not caramelized or sugary. Mixed with the tuberose and other florals, however, there’s a sort of strange smell to it that I’m not really liking too much.
As it dries down and the notes begin to harmonize a bit better, Histoire d’Amour Cherie begins to remind me of the opening stages of Fujiyama Mon Amour, which is a pleasant fruity floral that I enjoy quite a bit. However, what I love best about Mon Amour is the dry-down, where the peachy notes blend seamlessly with the florals to create a soft, creamy scent, though not as deep, of the same texture or character as that of Coco or Feerie.
Still, while not the creamy kind of scent I tend to enjoy most, Cherie’s later dry-down is fresh and floral, fruity but not overly sweet, with a hint of spice (likely pepper combined with the tuberose) and a slight allusion to depth lurking in the background. Because it takes quite a while to get to this stage, I’m not sure I’ll wear it too often.
Priced at $8 on discount at my local TJ Maxx, it’s not a bad buy for an occasional wear on crisp, breezy, sunny days, but I probably won’t replace it if I ever manage to finish the bottle.
Pava – :
I’m finding all these reviews very interesting–long ago, back in the 80’s I picked up a mini of the Original of this scent and liked it a lot–and loved the bottle! So, when I saw this 3.4 oz spray at T.J.Maxx, for about $7, I said, what the hey! I strongly suspect this has been reformulated–(the packaging says Palm Beach FLA)–but I rather like it! There were a lot of good Chypre scents that were big in the 80’s–Knowing, Bill Blass Black, etc and this takes me back to that decade, where wearing a strong dressy fragrance wasn’t considered obnoxious at all! I found the comparison to the Original Norell interesting–I always got a lot more azalea from Norell, so it seemed a lot sweeter to me than this does, but the mossy greenness is right on! And–I still love the bottle!
ivankrugloff10 – :
I can’t get enough of this scent! For the price, it’s amazing to me. I picked it up at TJMaxx for under $10, a blind buy based on reviews, and this has to be one of my happiest purchases I’ve made that way. I’ve been wearing it for awhile and I absolutely love this.
The ylang-ylang and bergamot, soft and dancing around the patchouli and oakmoss make a heavy incense that lasts for hours. This is a scent for a wearer that enjoys mature, full-bodied fragrances that are earthy and full-scented. Wearing it, I am transported to a haven of trees, where Spanish Moss hangs, perhaps, where it is cool and damp and the air is heavy with the scents of the woods around me. I am inhaling all the scents the forest has to offer and feeling the Earth’s spiritualness from within. If this is what a Chypre is all about, then I want to bask in its scents of the woods. Absolutely fulfilling as fragrance, this will not leave you wanting for more.
For the price point, you will be pleasantly pleased and able to taste the woods for yourself.
The bottle is surprisingly huge. It’s also very pretty. Simple, timeless and Victorian in style. An excellent Fall and Winter fragrance to wear on those chillier days and nights.
pupsagent – :
I agree this is a classic , I found it at TJMax at a very low price. It reminds me of another scent but I forget which one.In any case as most french perfumes it lacks any kind of artificial essences, which is great.It’s strong and sensuall
and I’m so happy to heve found it.:o)
Анютик – :
ATTENTION: This review is for Cherie (not cataloged).
Cherie comes in the same bottle, but is purple. I bought it because it was really cheap. I didn’t luck out this time. This fragrance smells like a Micheal Kors, Tease, Radiance wanabe mixed with the smell of dog ears. I’m not joking. It has a really nasty base of some kind. Too bad, the bottle’s kind of pretty.
Manswirqxy, – :
Smooth as silk with galbanum and ylang ylang yielding (eventually) to a dry neroli and osmanthus with just a hint of fougere character. The dry down is a woody and sweet skin scent, about 8 hours later. I’m delighted by the sophistication and longevity of Histoire D`Amour. A lucky find in a retro bottle.
Rzldcxtnq – :
OK, I ordered this 3.4 oz and it was horrible! After checking out most of these reviews, I figured out that the first bottle that I purchased just HAD to be OLD and stale. I am so happy that I exchanged it and tried a second bottle. Frag Net did a quality check and the second bottle I received was truly a masterpiece and smelled nothing like the first! This is NOT a shy fragrance but what an elegant amazing beautiful chype. It is such a classic beauty and I am thrilled that I recognized the first bottle was “off”. It definitely has a creamy woodiness and sweet dry down and the staying power is just off the charts! If you get a bad bottle, it really has a sharp, sour, stale, musty smell that actually burns the nose so I can see where some would think OL or Walgreens, but consider that you may have a stale bottle also…..I think this one may be a treasured secret. WOW I am so thrilled I gave it a second chance.
ExtestYpepmox – :
Norell was my signature fragrance for over 30 years. Then they reformulated it and it lost it’s charm. Those top notes still make you say “Oh wow!” at first and then it quickly fades to nothingness.
I have been searching for something similar and Historie d amour is it. Very similar to the old Norell.
lion1630 – :
There are far worse things than old drug store chypres. Especially ones that have been sold for decade after decade, because they…smell so good! I agree this has some Tabu quality, some Royal Secret-ness. I wore a older bottle of edt today and it made me seriously happy. (A contradiction? Who cares!) The sillage is now gone, but I can still smell it on my skin 12+ hours later. Wowee. But I so love an older scent and now that I know I want a great big bottle, I wonder if a newer one will smell as fabulous? I guess at these prices, it is worth the risk. Anyone know if this has been reformulated?
гермес – :
After testing so many fragrances, I must admit, I have become very discerning about cheap perfumes….but wow, this fragrance still managed to captivate my senses! This is a real classic beauty, and I don’t mean it is just good for its price….this is really beautiful regardless of how much it costs.
Histoire D`Amour is one of those timeless golden classic chypres….glamorous and alluring. It is very similar to vintage Galanos and Ombre D’ in style. The composition is EXTREMELY smooth, not a hint of chemical whiff to my nose.This under-priced little gem is definitely worth having in my collection.
agibreTiera – :
I have a little bottle of this in a drawer I’ve somehow managed to keep for at least 15-18 years and several moves later. I was fascinated by the bottle and my babysitter gave it to me. Struggling to read the font on the bottom as it is veryyy faded, I discovered “Histoire Amour” and the rest is history. I’m happy I finally know what it is, and I thought I’d be able to appreciate it but I don’t think I can. The only scent I detect on my skin is a rich, musty, incense, it reminds me of the incense used during mass on Sunday and of the oils they annointed us in. I don’t hate it, it’s mildly comforting because of the memories, but I wish I could detect some of the other ingredients as they are some of my favorite. It is definitely a CLASSIC perfume. I guess back in the drawer it goes.
sawa12379 – :
WONDERFUL perfume! Smells classy and elegant. Fresh chypre opening melts down with roses and deep woody even smoky like scent.
This kind of perfumes are not on the top buying list nowdays, but I like it very much. Type of signature fragrance, kind of classy timeless scent. Elegant and sophisticated.
TheSkull – :
I have to say that I’m surprised to learn that Aubusson HISTOIRE D’AMOUR was launched in 1984. I’d have guessed closer to 1884. Even the bottle looks as though it might well have been blown in the nineteenth century. One thing is clear: this perfume could be used quite effectively to define the expression “old lady perfume” by ostension. HISTOIRE D’AMOUR is the very essence of all that people hate or love about “old lady perfumes.” Ponderous, introspective, dusty, even musty. The drydown of this perfume is a joyous old-school chypre to be cherished. But, to be perfectly frank (quoi d’autre?), spraying this stuff on initially evokes in my mind instantaneous images of grandmothers meandering about Walgreens drugstore.
Yes, as is true of all things, finer distinctions can be made within the broader category of “old lady perfumes”—of which, I should clarify, I own quite a few. There are old lady perfumes, and then there are old lady perfumes. CHANEL NO 5, FIRST, CALECHE, WHITE LINEN, among others, stand on one side of the thin white line, while somewhat less noble old ladies are found on the other. Dare I say “YOUTH DEW”, the perversely named Platonic Form of “old lady perfume,” to which all others can only aspire?
Drugstore cheap chypre is the bottom line here. This is not the perfume of the Carmen Dell’Orefice featured in the doubly embarrassing “Class is forever” ad. (Is she unaware that the advertisers are implying that she is *infinitely* old? Is she unaware that people who talk about “class” are usually those conspicuously devoid of the same?) No, HISTOIRE D’AMOUR is more the speed of the nonagenarian with wrinkles on top of wrinkles who, when asked to reveal her secret to longevity, smiles, baring dark yellow teeth and crinkling the skin around her eyes even more, as she replies: “I’ve smoked a pack of Camel straights everyday now for sixty years.”
Eventually, after drying down, the wafts of “old lady at the drugstore” from the opening of HISTOIRE D’AMOUR (apparently also ironically named…) dissipate considerably, but they still beat their way back now and then, like the woman who obstinately refuses to renounce her Camel straights or the deadwood professor who will not retire before his cold corpse must be pried from his desk.
Yes, lest anyone misinterpret my colorful examples: I respect HISTOIRE D’AMOUR, and I have every intention of holding on to this bottle until death do us part—in spite of the intermittent wisps of old lady whispers in my ears.
gorbuss – :
The bottle alone is worth the price I paid for this. When I saw the juice, I thought, “uh-oh this might be too ‘old-fashioned’ for me”. But! I judged too quickly. It is not heavy or too ‘dusty’ or ‘old’ smelling. I am still sniffing my wrist over an hour after first spray, and loving it.
mmar3 – :
I feel challenged in some way after reading these favorable reviews and then trying this perfume. What am I missing? All I smell is stale, ordinary, old-fashioned drugstore quality perfume.
And I consider myself vintage-friendly (after all, my all-time favorite is 40 years old).
I am learning that some types of perfume are not immediately accessible, and in the same way that dry wines are an acquired taste, I’m thinking maybe some perfumes are too. I’m just not motivated to try on this one.
Or maybe I got a bad bottle.
nikel007 – :
What a masterpiece!!! Very elegant but strong green perfume, goes in the manner of Lancetti Suspense or a VERY strong Silences! The price is UNBELIEVABLE too!!!
pbmp – :
It is winter now minus 5 outside and snowing! Right weather for this frag. Still pondering buying a big bottle.
astyk – :
Similar to L`arte di Gucci.A very good perfume for chypre lovers
Frinuirublima – :
I wish I was much older, or at least to have winter now to wear this perfume, sommer or not I shall try it tomorrow for the first time and decide to purchase a full bottle or not.
At first glance it is a warm cuddly chypre.
slada – :
Jasper called it death by ylang-ylang but the opening note on me was a veritable sledgehammer made of patchouli held together by benzoin. My initial thought was to wash my wrist, but the phone rang. So, as I talked to my friend on the phone with the offending wrist held away from me I began to notice a mysterious, rather seductive “enchanted woods” quality. I am going to wait and see what develops next. It feels like being lured into
a forest where you know danger lurks, but, you are going anyway.
Demento03 – :
I imagine Histoire D’Amour is what the forest’s randy little elves and gnomes wear to spark their intendeds’ desire to make whoopee in dark, moist bowers lined with oakmoss and rose petal bedding.
The herbal tang of the basil and bergamot opening is sweetened by the juicy syrup of mandarin oranges that leads strai