Joy is perhaps the most precarious of all perfumes. With the right pristine batch, on the person it was born for, this rich living floral can be almost staggeringly exquisite; truly live up to its name. On the wrong skin – the overwhelming majority I would say, it could just as appropriately be renamed Despair.
The vintage soap I snapped up for something like five dollars recently is beautifully packaged, embodying luxury. The JP embossment on the box. The lovely case – which could work fine for carrying travel soaps or for putting in paper clips. The thoughtfully placed inner towel that modestly adorns the partially used up savon.
But the smell of the soap itself is definitely a bit of a shocker. Cellophaned within itself for fifty years lamenting its waste, the indolic natural jasmine and sour dark macerated roses roiled in sweaty sandalwood aligned with the glandular, micturating eros of musk and civet have done their own thing over the decades, culminating in a savage animal quadruple milled jasmine murk that you are embarrassed to have gliding and frothing over your body. And the stench of it lingers ; in the bathroom, in the house : grubby vestiges of roses and uresis with intimations of both Number One and Number Two, filmy and cantankerous. Thus, the soap thumbs its nose and mocks you with the ultimate irony; you come out of the shower far, far filthier than when you went in.
Tee-hee.
A wonderful description of an incredibly ironic encounter. Thank you. Needed a CHUCKLE!
We both did.
I laughed too.
I laughed as well! Thank you…laughs are always welcomed!
……..whereas Roger et Gallet vintage soaps seem to keep their fragrance undimmed by time.
Enjoying Osmanthus at present, – really lovely.
R and G je adore
wore Vetyver last night and would kill for a full soap collection
Haha! Hilarious.The soap looks a bit number two-esque in that photo too.
I remember the first time I sprayed this on. It was in Jenner’s shopping store in Edinburgh. After I sprayed I wandered around looking at other things until I noticed this rank odour. I looked down at the floor, expecting to be near some sort of ancient grille that led down to a more ancient toilet and eventually realised the stench was coming from me!
By the way, can you tell us which woman would carry this off? I bet she’d be quite terrifying!
‘Number Two-esque’ is the most hilarious new word I have heard in a while – and I can totally imagine your sewery predicament.
And yet there is something amazing about this perfume and the old Patou perfumes in general.
Haterz gonna hate on Joy but the review in my book – one of my most extreme ever- where I blab on quite sincerely about bloodstreams of jasmine jouissance – was meant from the heart : sometimes the rose jasmine just BLOOMS from the bodybuilding with nary a hint of pooper scooper or essence of dehydrated bladder – it just smells fresh, extremely elegant, and actually joyous. I gave a friend of mine a nice bottle of the lighter ( and more recommended Eau De Joy : bizarrely, despite this review there is another bottle of that I want because I just adore the presentation so much – am I extremely shallow ?): it can smell divine on my mother too – she is The Jasmine Queene – but she has also had some moments of sudden dodginess where – like you – she suddenly felt exposed and olfactorily mortified
It was another era
Yes I really want to appreciate it, but I just get 1 and 2 mostly! “Dehydrated bladder’ haha! I do love all the euphimisms such as ‘fecal’ ‘indolic’ ‘animalic’ etc. I enjoy some ‘barnyard’ perfumes such as L’air de Rien mind you. If I spot Eau De Joy I’ll give it a try. I must say though, I’d rather have a touch of piss than calone – i.e. l’eau d’issey – that’s intolerable!
Oh dear………not a good experience !
sicko that I am I quite enjoyed it – the indolic Indian solid attar aspect – but I did also recoil and knew that poor d couldn’t be left with only that as his morning shower option
thinking about it yesterday he went into a sudden bathroom scrubbing frenzy – it may well have been precipitated by this oily wreckage of feral toiletry
Hilarious, what a description!!
I had to remove it from the bathroom to protect Duncan – but thought I’d better describe it first. Glad you could probably picture it !
Joy is more Disdain than Despair on my skin. The animalics come out like a zoo on me.
I’ll have to try Eau de Joy.
It’s not SIGNIFICANTLY different, but it does present the more pleasing and lighter facets of Joy – I definitely prefer it
Enjoy maybe merits a mention, obv not vintage but a lovely modern take on Joy for me, hugely wearable with no side effects!
Yes but a bit TOO easy and unchallenging !
Maybe a challenge for Patchouli haters!
Oh is it one of those fruitchouli numbers in the base? I must say the name is really quite naff – but it was quite popular here in Japan for a while. You could never get away with actual Joy here now.
I laughed too! Thank you…laughs are always welcomed!
I thought I should share the joy
Yikes… I bet some of these underused words were very happy to be let out spilling with glee onto the page thanks to vile vintage soap!
Yes a quick Wikipedia urination glance yielded some real lexical treasures !
I love your website and your way of writting. But what I often miss… (we can’t explain it often enough) how to use a product! Even a ‘simple’ soap! Reading some comments, it proces.
As a former Patou employee: Many ‘dry’ soaps don’t smell good. Some even stink!
A very good example: Trèsor’s soap!
You can also only smell Jean Patou soap when they are wet! This applies to many luxury soaps (therefore in cellophane).
Use Joy fragrances: spray Joy, and many other classic perfumes, more than 30cm from the skin! When you use an ‘old classic’ scent, use it the old-fashioned way! From a distance.
If you don’t do this, it will take about 5 hours for the actual scent to emerge.
In the meantime you have already developed such an antipathy to it… The type of ingredients leave a memory in our brain. Too bad if that is not positive due to incorrect use.
Unfortunately, due to the open-sell / self-service concept, many classic scents ‘suddenly’ did not survive. People don’t get (good) advice anymore…. But that’s another story
Of course I did actually use this in the shower, hence the smell everywhere. As I hopefully got across, the packaging is exquisite and the probable only reason it smelled so bad is because it is so old.
I genuinely like Joy in many ways and have my eye on an Eau De Joy I have seen in an antiques shop that is in pristine condition.
It’s those real, old fashioned animal notes that are the issue. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t …
Soaps can be real divas, or bores! All my modern G&R belong to the latter category: boring wan tea scents. The vintage carnation soaps on the other hand are wonderful! Then I bought a Portuguese soap with rave reviews (Claus Porto): lovely scent, no lather at all. I was literally wringing water from a stone. Now I bought a Chanel No 5 soap — God how wonderful! Creamy opulent lather, dreamy perfume scent, fantastic hand feeling after washing. This one is the diva!
Sounds divine! Was it a modem or vintage iteration ?
The modern!
I would like to try it – see those soaps about a bit quite a lot : done with skeezy old savons !
I‘m a total fan, however, it is undeniably Chanel No 5, aldehydes et al! You‘ve got to love it …
I do !
I am scared you now think I don’t like aldehydes when my Vetifleur review from the other day shows me to be a staunch aldehydian
I think (when reading the Vetifleur review) my concentration lost track when I realized that Rogue like DSH and other US perfumes is not readily available in Europe. That it for me then …! But now I know, especially with that fantastic word „aldehydian“!
Rogue perfumes are available on the wonderful SLICKBOYS site in UK
They have very many other niche hard to find perfume brands as well.
Fantastic fast dispatch
Shall have to check the site out thankyou
tragic
!
Oh, you poor dear. That soap does not seem happy. Joy is one of my favorite Spring/Summer fragrances ever! It just sings on my skin. A truly magical creation if ever there was one.
I agree. This soap was just rather old I think!