Hello Glorious Stink Monkeys,

I have to tell you that before I fell down the fragrant wormhole I only knew Pierre Balmain as a fashion designer, not a perfume house. We looked at his work in the history section of the fashion course I studied, can’t remember a thing except his name and that while I was not blown away by his work it was solid and he was clearly talented in a banal, perfectly proportioned, no statement except “I can afford Balmain” kinda way. For a student of fashion he just didn’t push enough boundaries.

Miss Balmain (Vintage) by Balmain 1967

Photo Stolen plunderhere

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Aldehydes, coriander, gardenia, lemon, green notes
Heart: Carnation, narcissus, orris root, jasmine, rose, lily-of-the-valley
Base: Leather, amber, patchouli, coconut, oakmoss, vetiver, tonka bean

I love the squeally, nail varnish and green first few seconds. They are enough to blow the back of your head off and I wonder if the top has slightly gone askew. After about a minute though we settle into a fresh green citrus and herbal extravaganza that would have most non perfumistas in the current fragrance climate running for a shower, My little 4ml sample looks exactly like the photo above but the juice is even darker and I’ve decanted it into an atomiser so I get the effect it would have had in the bottle tears ago.  After 5 minutes I get a gloriously heady white flower, OMG if only this is how Miss Balmain stayed for hours. This is exactly how I want to smell forever, when I get to this point in the fragrance I wish the same thing every time.

Photo Stolen milliedeel

The bouquet floats in winding its way through the spectacular whites as a cool, sharp, earthy floral. This is take no prisoners perfume and at this point there comes an human, bed head, morning breath hint under the flowers giving it guts and growl. So comfortable and so raunchy. I can’t even imagine wearing this to an office nowadays but step back in time and it was considered a fresh and girly version of perfume for the young woman on the go.

After about 3 hours I am all creamy leather, amber and earth with a touch of the cool bouquet rising faintly above on and off into the foreseeable future, not really disappearing from my skin entirely until my shower next morning.

Photo Stolen liveauctioneers

I have not yet tried a current incarnation of Miss Balmain to do a comparison test but will come back and add my thoughts when and if I do. There are a couple of ml left in my atomiser in case.

For further reading go see PerfumeShrine and TheNonBlonde

FragranceShop has 100ml $36
ThePerfumedCourt has Vintage Miss Balmain Parfum $12/ml

For some reason this was not taken as a serious contender by the other blogs I read. I don’t know why, it has everything a Vintage perfume lover could ever ask for, classified as a floral chypre with anamalic undertones it really is magic. I am thinking I’d like to try the current Miss Balmain formulation but no sample sites have it. I can wait, but at $36 probably not for too long.

Do you have a vintage fave that few people talk about or reviewers have overlooked. Tell me in the comments, I love reading about new stuff. Just as an added extra I have given you the Balmain latest runway effort which is SO 1980’s that I fair fainted. AWESOME.
Till tomorrow, be good to yourselves,
Portia xx

Balmain | Spring Summer 2013 Full Fashion Show