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slon1983 – :
Wearing different perfumes is like having countless lovers without the guilt, heartbreak or disease! It lets you explore all the complexities of your own personality, it takes away inhibitions and lets you play.
Well I had the luxury of a small windfall, so I bought 3 things a laptop, a scooter and perfume! In order of expense you can reverse that order! Never has money been better put to better use! The laptops also a tax deduction, the scooter for health and fun, and perfume for my soul!
Michelle came uninvited to my party but I’m so glad she did, to describe this perfumes top notes in a single word..’Juicy!’ So deliciously familiar yet exotic, it’s quite intoxicating. Then it mellows down to a sophisticated powdery garden of glorious beauty, but the juice is still there always peeking provocatively through, youthful and totally captivating. She’s a nature sprite this one, who lives in the dark part of the forest but plays in the garden of delights.
Thank you dear ebayer who so generously tucked this little bottle of golden elixir in because I paid too much postage!
dentim4 – :
Michelle is your older sister from the 80’s!
She was an adolescent between 1984 and 1987, while you were still just a kid playing with Barbie or My Little Ponies, coloring books and that fun and (for the time) expensive gift your daddy bought you, that the Power Wheels miniature car! You never wore perfume, couldn’t stand the smell on your mother when she wore perfume, but your sister was already wearing fragrances, cosmetics, driving her own car, going out on dates, holding down a job, buying clothes that made her look more grown-up, and gearing up for Senior Prom. This is such a nostalgic treasure! It’s from 1979 but I smelled it on ‘older’ girls in the 80’s. The fragrance matches up with those very adult business formal blazer jackets, flower print blouses with long sleeves and skirts worn by Shannon Doherty and Wynona Ryder in the movie HEATHERS. Michelle is a popular high school Senior with the pick of any boyfriend and with big hair, and ‘adult perfume’ to match up with the adult look she sports.
Opens with aldehydes which provides this fragrance with a terribly old fashioned flair. Quite grown up. The aldehydes are quite cold and fresh, and they are immediately followed by green and floral notes. I don’t get fruit out of the opening though a peach and coconut note are supposed to be in it. At times I get a little bit of coconut but it’s coconut milk or water with a sweet slightly tropical summery quality. This is designed to get attention in the day time in the summer. As the aldehydes settle down, the florals develop, a bouquet of beautiful flowers. I get a distinct gardenia and carnation, tuberose, ylang, orchid and jasmine, and lastly, a rose. This is a tad on the soapy floral side but not like weak or fleeting floral toilet water scents. It has staying power and becomes powdery but the kind of powder that lingers and begins to blend with your skin. Cleanly floral. Finally the dry down is warmer, huskier, with a green moss and vetiver which become the dominant aroma. It’s like a green garden scent, graphic, big and mossy, grassy.
The more I smell the dry notes in the end the more I keep getting visions of walking around a garden, spacious enough to throw a party in, with lovely flowers and rosebushes, jasmine bushes, and people, beautifully dressed people, are having a dinner party. In this way it does fit with the 80’s as a soiree summer elegant perfume for a young woman who is just starting off her life. She is Michelle and she’s already making quite the impression at her debutante party. The aromatized sandalwood is distinctively woodsy with a polish and a touch of vanilla and musk conclude the performance of this luxurious and rich perfume.
Michelle is a real winner, a vintage that unfortunately is underrated and doesn’t get much attention but will get you attention if you wear it. I can’t compare it to any other fragrance but it is very classic in it’s composition and quite sophisticated and lady-like, expensive old money in it’s aura, and glamorous without being over the top or extravagant. This has a European and French or Spanish air. The Balenciaga line is Spanish-European so it totally makes sense. Michelle is not an American teenager from Chicago or even Manhattan. She is the daughter of Ambassadors and Prime Ministers in Europe who has the highest education, the finest clothes, the best of everything. And she knows it too. This perfume has been missing from my life and I embrace it whole heartedly. I am so in love with it and I feel it matches up with who I am today. This is going to be my new signature!
zrv – :
It caught me by surprise when I first encountered it. I have already prepared myself that it wasn’t a typical white flower and coconut perfume. Thanks to the great reviews on the perfume page. I was still blown away by the darker powerful opening. Then it settled to an intoxicating creamy tuberose/gardenia scent. Its benzoin, sandalwood and oak moss base makes it a sophisticated summer perfume.
igorek5335 – :
Michelle! The mother and father of Carnal Flower and even Tubereuse Criminelle, it sways differently from the other tuberoses of the era, even though there are common elements with Chloe, launched a bit earlier.
Michelle isn’t in the same ballpark as Poison, Giorgio or Ysatis.
There’s an ethereal feel, just like in Chloe, that echoes the last days of the 70’s, moving from greener floral chypres, to the ‘Hey, I’m here’ gorgeous 80’s powerhouses, but it also has some guts.
The main notes that hold Michelle together is coconut and a camphorous tuberose, with the other notes playing along. The coconut gives the creamy/buttery feel and the tuberose shows it’s wintergreen aspect. Both enhance/balance each other, in a hot and cold interplay that recalls Chloe. But the difference is the lack of softness. Michelle has a bite from the carnation, the Iris isn’t extremely powdery and the oakmoss is more prominent as it dries down. There’s more creaminess from the ylang ylang at the heart and drydown and something more that has been described as cinnamon but that I can’t pinpoint. The musk also feels warmer, more animalic, and the vetiver gives it a dryness that helps ground the sweetness. Is it a chypre? An oriental? Just beautiful!
Michelle feels expensive, well made, and joyous. Like I said there’s a certain feel that evokes the end of an era and the beginning of an other. I can picture it on someone early morning in spring walking in Manhattan in a suit and later going to dinner in a shoulder padded dress. It’s not extremely powerful, but splash or spray generously and it can take you through an entire day.
It’s tuberose alright, but not so innocent anymore. And it needs spring and summer to be herself, when the warmth brings her to life.
So if you enjoy tuberose and it’s less delicate side, try Michelle. It’s been discontinued but still available online and on eBay.
Review based on original black box splash edt, with red stripes and gold semi circles.
t0mat1k – :
This is one glam fragrance.
This could be Carnal Flowers mother and Daughter to Jungle Gardenia. Its a earthy well done white flower scent. Aldehyde opening, then gardenia, green notes and coconut with a creamy sometimes camphorous tuberose is on display until the spicy carnation brings the realistic tuberose down again.
It takes a long time to evolve thru her stages. Shes one of a kind, much more affordable than CF and more complex. Id say shes the most complex out of the three. Shes strong done in 80s fashion but not in an intrusive way like you think of when someone mentions Giorgio. Michelle is very high class. I remember a lot of very wealthy ladies I knew wear Michelle back in the 80s. Epitome of class and style. My significant other kept commenting on how beautiful I smelled. He rarely compliments. This is a stunner. Signature worthy.
Uninasleern – :
Fragrance Review For Michelle Balenciaga
Top Notes: Aldehydes Gardenia Coconut Green Leaves Peach
Middle Notes: Carnation Tuberose Iris Orchid Jasmine Ylang Ylang Rose
Base Notes: Sandalwood Musk Benzoin Oak Moss Vanilla Vetiver
1979-1980 Michelle is a luxurious and elegant but youthful fragrant floral chypre. But it has such a flexibility as to turn into other categories of perfume. I see it as a young girl named Michelle who is just graduating from college and so she has the potential to be whatever the hell she wants to be in life. She is an aldehydic floral, fruity floral and a chypre. There are moments when this gem of a perfume becomes quietly reminiscent of other beloved perfumes. It’s like she’s tried other classic perfumes for herself and is now coming up with her own take on them. It smells like No. 5 it smells like Arpege it smells like Fidji it smells like First. It smells like L’air du Temps. These are classic aldehydic florals and this is how it begins. The aldehydes are fresh and old fashioned but not old lady ish. They are lovely aldehydes which also contain some green notes. They are not harsh and they are like little leaves falling from trees. The scent then turns fruity and sweet with scents I enjoy like peach and coconut. Surprisingly there are no citrus notes. It’s mainly peach and that coconut water. The fruit enters and exits. As the fragrance enters it’s second phase it becomes a floral beauty. I could smell the powdery iris and the rose which also turned into sweet rose powder. Then I could smell the white floral scents of jasmine and tuberose. This is probably best described as being a tuberose but to me the other flowers were very noticeable and it was nice to be able to make them out. There’s a vanilla-scented silky sexy carnation that reminds me of L’Air du Temps. If I had to pick one classic fragrance it most reminds me of it’s L’air du Temps. But you gotta try this for yourself. It’s like other well known vintage favorites are making cameos. It also really does resemble Arpege. But in no way is it a dupe for any of these fragrances. She is a youthful fresher more subtle and powdery scent that has more in common with the 70’s chypres and 80’s fruity florals. It’s sweet but still very grown up. It has a sophistication and refinement that can only come with experience. Beautiful and highly recommended. Get your hands on this baby if you like vintages. It sells as miniature dab on battles, larger splash bottles and spray on ebay. I am enjoying the dab on and love to scent myself behind my ears and on my wrists and forearms with this lovely aldehyde floral creation. The dry down is soapy and a little bit woodsy with sandalwood. Wear this if you like fragrances like:
Chanel No. 5
Arpege Lanvin
L’air du Temps Nina Ricci
Fidji Guy LaRoche
First Van Cleef and Arpels
kopeich – :
Testing today a mini original EDT. Lovely. White floral, and well done in my mind. This is a classic floral. Jasmine seems to be a main note. I smell gardenia, tuberose and rose also. It is quite realistic and quite sweet. Seems a fairly even and unilateral scent. The quality seems good and it is not cloying although somewhat sweet. It also does not project too much which is nice. To me, this is a good white floral blend. You can tell it is made of quality ingredients. This scent would be pleasing to most people. It is classic and has no odd edges. This would make a nice bridal perfume. The dry down is even nicer, much softer and without a heavy musk…slight… to soften but not heavy.
amm77 – :
Question more than a review. I love Rumba, Talisman but when I purchased one of what I thought was vintage it smelled wrong, just wrong. Can any one here tell me the difference in the vintage (in the black?) or the clear bottles? I NEED ALL OF YOUR HELP PLEASE. Oh so many perfumes, so many to love.
Please help.
aziks – :
I was having a quick look through my box of summer perfumes before putting it away, and had to sniff this again.
I do love the smell of coconut, as many others. But somehow, I feel that Bronze Goddess and similar scents are just a little too tropical for wearing up here in the north where I live. Our beach is not long and white with palm trees, but small, rocky and surrounded by pine and fir trees.
Perhaps that is why I like Michelle. Although it’s a coconut scent, it also has oakmoss, which is what lifts it from being just a nice, sweet coconut-tuberose to a darker, tropical chypre, making it very well suited for the melancholy Nordic summer.
I have minis of edt and pure perfume, if I can find a full bottle, I will probably buy it.
BMP88 – :
Many thanks to the lovely Bajar for the most gracious swap to me of this beauty. Michelle is to me the most natural Tuberose based fragrance I’ve ever smelled. In my opinion Michelle leaves Fracas and others behind as Michelle is smoooooth, sophisticated and yet has a touch of innocence.
The notes listed are distinguished easily. Michelle could be worn for almost any occasion, causing people around the wearer to feel happy through smelling the air. This is a feel GREAT fragrance. If you like Tuberose, you will love Michelle. If you don’t like Tuberose, you will probably still love Michelle.
After wearing this one for some time, I’ve come to realize that maybe the reason that it is SO good and why I love it so, is that it really has more Gardenia than Tuberose!
ponka – :
Também amei este perfume, sou brasileira o comprei-o aqui em minha cidade (Americana-SP)… no entanto nunca mais o encontrei… sinto muita, muita saudade dele… maravilhoso, meu grande amor. Nunca vou esqueçe-lo.
corjow – :
I happened upon michelle because of a frag “what is your name, what is your perfume” thread ages ago. I wondered what it was like, and I would probably have never known had it not been for a sample from the lovely smelling_gr8. I was never a great fan of tuberose.. the whole luau thing is just too happy for me. Michelle however is another thing, it’s a powerful opening, the tuberose is doing a samba and I’m dancing. It dances all day and night, and in the morning she eats a breakfast with you too. Beautiful smooth coconut and flowers with a hint of spice, heaven in the drydown is the creamy best heart of it. It’s love. I want to wear shoulder pads and call myself Alexis.
bwf82 – :
jennycollins: I’ve seen it at the perfumeemporium.com, but only a mini was there.
Perhaps on ebay?
state96 – :
I love Michelle but have a lot of trouble locating the perfume. Anyone know where I can purchase it
aspss – :
Lush and buttery fruity heaven. The epitome exotic smell. Long lasting. Unique unique unique.
First I get a blast of aldhydes, tuberose and coconut, like an exotic cocktail, than it morphs to buttery ylang ylang, jasmine and some carnation (that little spicy hint), tuberose still present, like standing in a garden on an island in the South Seas, until the vetiver emerges and let’s me think of fruitful earth. Mandarines, anyone? I sniff them, although they are not listed.
Why on earth they stopped creating perfumes like this? They take you on a journey, they tell a story, they make you dream.
I adore Balenciaga. By the way: Are the oldschool Balenciagas skyrocketing these days? They surely earn it, but it is fun to watch the prices rise and rise and rise…
dubina23 – :
Belongs to the FIDJI fragrance family! Very unique and daring!!
a.lex – :
Very strong and in-your-face type of fragrance. Topnotes are a blast of aldehydes and slightly unpleasant gardenia, which quickly turns into carnation (I’ve got a weird skin chemistry that usually amplifies carnation – too bad for me ‘cos it isn’t one of my favourite notes). There is one (rather long) stage when Michelle reminds me of Norell (1:1 practically). It dries down to a mossy, dirty earthiness with strong vetiver and tuberose accents and tropical flowers/fruits (I guess it might be a rain forest smell – although I haven’t been in one;)Like with many older creations, I appreciate it but don’t think I’d wear it…
TutMooreonetA – :
What can I say about Michelle? First let me be clear that I own this in both the EDT and the extrait versions. And both are quite the same except the EDT has more sillage.
Michelle is quite a contradictory perfume and that is her main charm. She is tropical coconut gardenia and sunny peaches, bright freesia and sultry ylang, and just when you think you have a tropical floriental, you start noticing something green and lifting which I am supposing to be the vetiver.
Another nice thing is that the tropical oomph of Michelle makes it a fine summer oriental scent for those who think of orientals as winter thing. It absolutely blossoms and soars in the warm weather. The florals become more intense and the vanilla less so.
I was surprised to see it here as I thought it was a discontinued marvel.