Guerlain Mitsouko

 The good thing about not having my whole perfume collection totally at hand is that it is forcing me to try and use what I have. Even though I did manage to grab a couple more bottles, my selection is limited. And by a 200 full bottle strong collection, having around around 12 bottles to choose from is a little more difficult to do. I am always worrying about what if I have a craving for Amouge Epic or Coromandel? That means I will have to muscle my way through that craving.

Every Friday, Now Smell This has a community project where one wears something that corresponds to whatever theme there is for that day. This past Friday, the theme was chypre. And since the only chypre that I had from the 12 bottles that I have, it was Mitsouko, what seems to be the queen of all chypre perfumes that's still in production. Mitsouko was pretty well represented on Friday. In some ways, Mitsouko was a little lame because so many wore it but it was all I had in terms of a chypre that day. Plus, it was a very long time since I had worn Mitsouko. I had forgotten how strong Mitsouko could be and the lasting power is phenomenal. Since I was wearing the current EDP, I would not recommend wearing it outside of the low 70's in temps or it gets unbearable.

When I was pretty new to serious perfume smelling and collecting, I found Mitsouko early on. I didn't fall head over heels with it right away but really enjoyed it for some reason. After a while I mostly figured out why. It's not like most modern perfumes. Most modern perfumes release anything that makes them smell good are in the first 15 minutes. Mitsouko releases it's beauty slowly. It took me a while on why I liked Mitsouko so much and eventually fell in love was Mitsouko's balanced nature. I was taken surprise by how peach was presented in Mitsouko. I am used to sickly sweet peach in so many of those cheap perfumes that I did wear in the past.

Then I tried vintage Mitsouko in all of it's oakmoss glory. I heard people waxing poetical about the vintage version, I wanted to try it on one hand but didn't on the other. Around this time, it was my first attempt at trying to curb reckless spending. When I did try it and fell in love, it led me down a rabbit hole called E-Bay. I was buying as many reasonably priced bottles as I could. By the time I was finished with getting vintage bottles of Mitsouko, I moved away from Mitsouko and went on to Shalimar. I do think that I will have to pull out and wear Mitsouko more often.