It’s a new year, a bright, sunny day, and I thought I would finally open the box of Mitsouko soap that was standing next to my bed.
Such a shame, in a way, to break through the wrapping and use up a vintage rarity that has been lying in wait for many years untouched (until I snatched it up at a flea market), but then these soaps were made for washing, to be used, and I found that today I couldn’t resist.
In the Golden Years, soaps by the loveliest perfume houses were really PERFUMED. And although this particular product may have lost some of its pungency (fresh off the Guerlain factory production line it must have been more bursting with perfumed oils), it still glowed from within the cellophane with a velvety, gourmand sliver of cake, Mitsouko as I like it best (in the parfum de toilette format preferably, when the rich and edible, friandise of Mitsouko’s sunnier elements – lost in the dour and unfriendly vintage parfum) come more to the fore, the sensuality more resplendent than the seriousness.
In the shower, the soap has a forest-white foam, lathering the skin intimately with a gentle chypre film of Guerlinade – luxuriant and pleasurable, inviting you extravagantly to begin the perfuming layer process, though with just one use, the letters you see inscribed in the hard, uninviolable flesh of the soap, have unfortunately already faded away.
Happy New Year!
(and keep on writing, please 🙂 )
Have I suggested I wouldn’t…..?
I ADORE beautiful soaps, vintage or otherwise. It’s a shame that some lose their scent but others stay remarkably strongly scented if sealed. What a pleasure it is to unwrap a lovely cake of soap.
Happy New Year! Warm best wishes for a fab 2016. 🙂 ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡
You too. Glad someone understands my rapture over such a simple (expensive) thing.
On an unrelated topic, is the Dandy ever coming back? I miss him.
I miss the Dandy too! I so wish he would come back.
What happened to him? I know he was researching the First World War and all that but I miss his mysterious pizazz.
“… when the rich and edible, friandise of Mitsouko’s sunnier elements – lost in the dour and unfriendly vintage parfum) come more to the fore, the sensuality more resplendent than the seriousness.” Damn!!!! Just love the way you write, N.
I blush re-reading it myself, to be honest. I know what I mean though!
I have one of these too. I just like to leave mine out to perfume small spaces. It has such a lovely smell, and I find it really does project very nicely. Happy 2016 🙂