Vintage Opium by YSL

/ australianperfumejunkiescom

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Portia

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Hi Crew,

My BFFs Mum only wears vintage Opium. It’s her fragrance and when they totally changed the juice she was devastated. So for the last few years my job has been to seek out vintage Opium and give her a bottle at any gift giving event that she has used up her previous bottle. She’s spritzing her way through about 150ml per annum currently. Obviously it’s no hardship for me to trawl the internet and various FaceBook page Sale Docs in search of her precious, actually it gives me focus some nights when I’m up late but too zonked out to do anything productive.

Yes, I have had a couple of fakes come through and one that had obviously been stored poorly because most of that fabulous top had been scorched away leaving only the base minus. I thought it was a fake but rarely do fakes have bases so fabulously perfect and long lasting.

Not long ago one of the Aussies on Aussie Fragrance Network and I did a frag swap. Can’t remember what I sent but in return I got the most pristine vintage Opium and I’m chuffed.

Vintage Opium by YSL 1977

Fragrantica gives these featured accords:
Top: Coriander, plum, citruses, mandarin orange, pepper, jasmine, cloves, West Indian bay, bergamot
Heart: Carnation, sandalwood, patchouli, cinnamon, orris root, peach, lily-of-the-valley, rose
Base: Labdanum, tolu balsam, sandalwood, opoponax, musk, coconut, vanilla, benzoin, vetiver, incense, cedar, myrrh, castoreum, amber

There is quite a bit written about Opium and how freaking lavish it is. What it smells like to me now is Kath’s Mum. Here we are at Christmas after lunch. She is a rare and wonderful woman who took in a 30+ year old orphan and gave me a place and a family to call home on big events. When Jin came along she didn’t even bat a eyelid but welcomed him wholeheartedly too. Since then she has grown less able to provide the kind of enormous family event she is used to producing and we (Jin & I) have taken the Christmas reins and now they all come to us. Birthdays etc are now done at one of the local clubs or restaurants because it’s WAY easier.

So this is what Opium smells like to me. It smells like welcome and unconditional love.

Further reading: Yesterday’s Perfume and Kafkaesque
eBay sometimes has bargains, FB Sale docs are best

 

giveaway hemodernhome

Vintage Opium GIVEAWAY

WHAT CAN YOU WIN?

This week there will be 2 winners who will receive:
1 x Vintage Opium by YSL Sample
P&H Anywhere in the world

HOW DO YOU WIN?

Open to everyone worldwide who follows AustralianPerfumeJunkies via eMail, WordPress, Bloglovin or RSS. Please leave how you follow in the comments to be eligible. I must be able to check that you follow so if you have an email address on your gravatar that’s different to your follow address then please email me so I know. Yes, you can start following to enter, in fact it’s encouraged.

You must tell me how you follow APJ

and

Tell us a vintage perfume on your sample wish list

HOUSEKEEPING

Entries Close Thursday 19th January 2017 10pm Australian EdsT and winners will be announced in a separate post.
Winners will be chosen by random.org
The winners will have till Sunday 22nd January 2017 to get in touch (portia underscore turbo at yahoo dot com dot au) with their address or the prize will go to someone else.
No responsibility taken for lost or damaged goods in transit.

30 thoughts on “Vintage Opium by YSL”

  1. Thank you for the splendid giveaway, I’d be ecstatic to smell the vintage version of this great personal favorite for my upcoming birthday!
    Faithful follower via email, Facebook and Bloglovin.

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  3. I love your blogs and that picture of your mother with you is so sweet, beautiful people I see love! I love Opium, it’s so warm and spicy! I follow via email and one of the vintages on my sample list happens to be my namesake, Joy by Jean Patou. I’m curious and it’s much too expensive and hard to get to.Lovely giveaway and I’m crossing my fingers!

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  4. She loves Opium…This is so awesome. I am myself in awe of the beauty of vintage Opium. Don’t enter me in the draw because I have some vintage opium in my collection already.

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  5. Lovely story, Portia. I used to wear L’Air du Temps in high school early 70’s. My favorite! Thanks for the draw! Email

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    • Do you wear Rumba or want to try it? I have a bottle of vintage. It is amazing. A spice bomb. Are you in U.S.? I would be happy to send you a 1 ml decant if you’ve never tried it.

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  7. I used to wear Opium in high school and have a bottle. The only vintages that I don’t own that I want are the Guerlains that are $600-1000/bottle. I will never try them. 😦

    I follow via email.

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  9. Hi Portia, thanks for the opportunity and the lovely story; that photo is pure happiness!

    I follow by email and on my vintage wishlist is the original Dune.

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  10. Thanks for the great article. I follow by email. Shocking is a vintage perfume Id love to experience. I wore Opium on my wedding day. I always loved the body cream.

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  11. I follow through email. The fragrance I’ve always wanted to re smell is Shalimar pre 70’s or Fabrege 70’s. Those are the two my mom wore.

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  12. Wonderful story especially the beautiful photo. What a great way to live life, being open to saying yes!

    No one around me wore Opium back in the day and I would love to smell the vintage and see if it’s what I remember smelling at the counter at Kline’s department store. I would like to smell the original Heaven Sent by Helena Rubenstein again; I remember rinsing my hair with it (diluted with water), no doubt a tip discovered in Seventeen magazine. Thanks for the draw! I follow APJ by Feedly.

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  14. Oh my, so many! Mitsouko, Shalimar, Femme, Bandit, Cuir de Russie. I’m tantalized by the thought of original Bandit. If I love the current one, how might I feel about the original?! Ah, I wish I’d become interested in perfume earlier. I follow via email. Thanks for the chance and sharing a lovely life story!

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  15. I follow by email. I’d love to smell pre-70s Shalimar. That said, I’ve always thought vintage Opium was pure genius. It was my mum’s favorite. Her clothes always had this faint trace of Opium. After she passed, every time I smell Opium, I immediately think of her as being near me. I recently smelled the present Opium and it is nothing like the vintage. I would really like some of the vintage to remind me. Thanks for the draw and your lovely vignette. What a loving person you are.

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  16. What a lovely story and picture. Kath’s Mum must be a terrific person, how lucky you all are to be in each other’ lives – and how nice that you appreciate it so much! The vintage I would love to sniff again is Shocking by Schiaparelli, my Mum had a bottle in her bathroom cupboard – I can remember how beautiful it was, but not what it smelled like. Thank you for the giveaway, I adored Opium in the eighties and wish to high heaven I hadn’t got rid of my original bottle in the nineties when I thought I should be more quiet and refined … 😱 (Follow by email and Facebook, always enjoy reading the articles!.)

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  17. Opium has meaning for my family too. I now have the reformulation and don’t remember what the vintage smelled like, I was too young. On my vintage sample list are Opium of course, as well as Habanita and Shalimar extrait. I follow by email. Thanks for the chance!

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  18. Thank you for the opportunity! I have been wanting to sample vintage Opium and vintage Shalimar for the longest time.

    I follow via email 🙂

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  19. DNEM Portia because I have a good supply of the beautiful vintage stuff, but wanted to chime in with my enthusiasm for it. Surely, the original Opium is one of the loveliest perfumes ever made. I’m happy to hear that I have a soulmate in Oz.

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  20. I’m following via email and fairly new to the frangrance world I mean I’ve always wore cologne but wasn’t until recently that my wife got me interested in trying different fragrances and I really opened up and started enjoying all these different scents. Speaking of which her birthday is just around the corner and this sounds like something she might enjoy so thanks for the chance at it.

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  21. HI Portia, love your vintage opium hunt story, what a wonderful person Kaths mum is! I follow by email and have owned the original opium so long ago but would love to smell it again. I would love to smell a vintage jicky and mitsouko one day.

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  23. I follow on email.
    This is beyond: this was the first scent I truly loved. Being a man, I don’t smell like someone’s mum, but it is the fragrance that WAS my signature. Old friends still comment about my wearing the original and how they miss the fragrance.
    I originally purchased it for my own mother, but it didn’t work on her. That’s how I wound up wearing it, and living every minute.
    So, this is definitely on my wish list!!!

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  25. I follow via email.

    Opium vintage is my choice! My first scent memory was my grandmother hugging us tight to the point of asphyxiation when we were kinds, and she doused and powdered herself ad nauseam with YSL Opium. Time to see if I’ll love it now (I bought a bottle of the EDT now and it’s nothing special).

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  26. A good girlfriend in High school back in the 80-ies always wore Opium. I think I haven’t smelled it again since then. It would be a nice memory. One of the vintages I’d love to try again is Trussardi Donna.
    I follow APJ by email and many thanks for the giveaway.

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  27. Hi Portia, I still have a little Opium Parfum left in my bottle from my honeymoon in 1989 …I loved it then and I love it now❤️

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  28. As everyone else has said, this is a beautiful story. Scent and love – nothing better than that! I love vintage Opium and have a bottle of vintage Samsara that I adore. I’d love to try almost any other vintage Guerlain too. Thank you for the giveaway. I follow by email.

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