Soir de Paris (Evening in Paris)

This is for the original vintage. I have finally got my hands on a 1940s bottle of the real deal. With so many fakes although I knew I had the real bottle and box I have only now ventured to put the juice to the test. It's difficult to find any real clear info' on the notes of the original but as soon as I dared to open it I was hopeful. I have the Parfum. French not in English. This is it! Wafts out and stays around hovering without even applying so much as a precious drop. Everything people say about the nostalgia and sheer charisma is true. You are transported back to war time longing and desperate romance. Red red lipstick, powder, stockings and underlying sexual frisson. The earlier years from it's first creation in 1928 between the wars holds true for the emotional feel too. Glamour, the past horror of WW1, women asserting their power and confidence with the huge changes yet to come. All this in one tiny blue bottle. Now wearing it for the first hour: From what I can find through research there were originally some citrus in the top notes with aldehydic floral predominantly violet flitting in and out of jasmine, some kind of rose and down to an animal note with sandal or other wood softly in the base. It's so much more, complex but stable throughout. I think mine is too old to have kept the top notes totally so not in balance but it doesn't matter for what comes in immediately is rich, deep creamy seductive. A heady waft of old time Hollywood. Amazing for a fragrance 70 years old compared to today's vastly expensive offerings which will go off within a few years! Then something dark and deeply elusive but downright sexual. I've read speculation on dark carnation but it's more than that. Something pure animal here lurking and flitting. Probably one of the old forbidden real extracts. I don't know but we just don't get this in fragrances any more. For sure this blows C no 5 out of the water despite supposedly being of the same family. It's never sharp, acidic or asking time to adjust itself for it's next phase and stays constant in presence throughout. Takes no prisoners for sure but stays true despite many barely realised tantalising glimpses. Now I'm getting spice but even as my nose searches for it again it's gone. For a moment cinnamon then demurely settling into Muguet for a while before that dark sexy animal faint suggestive note comes back. This lady is definitely a bad bad flirt with the confidence that she holds an impeccable pedigree and is wholly in command. As has been said many times the astonishing thing is it's unchanging presence throughout. I'm stunned by the complexity and nuances however. More spice now but subtle within the lingering florals smoothly floating down into some gentle light woodsy tone laced with something I simply cannot define. Certainly not the vanilla which is poured with a heavy hand into so many base notes now including the reformulated joke they have made of Soir de Paris. They sold this for how much! I'm blown away. Thinking of what we have to pay for anything half decent now and all this from what was a cheap little scent. It makes me realise how very formulaic modern scents are. Boring, same , same, same. I bought this as a historical piece for my collection expecting very little but some powdery overhyped nostalgic floral pong. Oh how wrong I was. Worse though! I'm simply not going to be able to resist using it sometimes. Secret weapon? Yup. Those ladies definitely knew what they were doing dabbing a little of this behind their ears and knees..... ** Update**: Now about 2 years later and much detailed further research I can be sure this is not 1940s but actually the initial 1920s juice and bottle. My belief is that anything special or beautiful should be used not a museum piece although I do take great care of this. There are no top notes left at all so it kicks in with those heady powerful mid notes true to my initial take above and is in all respects exactly the same in the dry down. So this lady is about 84 years old. I've had Chanel that turned foul in a year or so! Perfume is so dilute now that we are not used to the real deal. You barely need a touch of this and you're scented for 24 hours. Just amazing!

This review is for the vintage 1940's to 1960's formulation. My love for Evening in Paris started when my mom was reading the VCS catalog. Upon finding the reissued 1990's bottle she mentioned her mother use to wear it when she was young and expressed an interest in smelling it again. I looked at the price and told her I was sure I could find one for a more reasonable price and asked her to let me shop around first. So started a long journey during which I discovered fragrantica. I found out about the vintage and new version and how people felt about both. I also stumbled upon the reason I quit wearing perfume for so long. I didn't know about reformulations and changing trends with Synthetics and stuff like that! I thought I had just become allergic or something. At any rate I started buying all the full and almost full bottles of Evening in Paris parfum, EDC and EDT I could find for a good price on ebay, hoping to come across the one my mom remembered. Some of the bottles had turned and were a bit off to my nose but they all still dried down nicely. Evening in Paris seems to age well. However I do notice differences even in the ones that haven't gone off. For example the older 40's cologne is muskier and gentler whereas the 60's one is sweeter. Does anyone else notice this? The difference is subtle and may just be age. I did find the one my mom remembered. It was the 1960's eau de toilette with a pointed gold cap and it smelled heavenly! After that I was left with like 7 other bottles but by this time I was so taken with this fragrance it hardly seemed enough! This is now my signature scent although my official favorite is Shaikhah. Evening in Paris is a completely different lady! She is soft, sweet and sexy. It's is so nice and comforting that I wear it to bed. It's also the scent responsible for my wearing perfume again! As for the notes, one place listed them as follows: Top Notes Bergamot, Violet; Middle Notes Linden, Clover, Lilac, Rose, Jasmine; Base notes Vetiver, Styrax. (PS Styrax is almost never used anymore I can't fathom why.) I don't know if these notes are correct but they are closer than the ones listed above (IMO). I think it may also have some amber and vanilla because it's just so Va Va VA VOOM!! I imagine so many mothers back in the day going to the Five-and-Dime with their daughters to get them their very first perfume! The young girl full of excitement at this milestone in her life would go up to the perfume counter or aisle and at once be drawn to the beautiful cobalt blue bottle. Taking a sniff she turns to her mom busy testing other bottles and sheepishly ask "may I have this one?" "Absolutely NOT!" This day she would have to settle for the more "appropriate" scent that her mom will ok. I am so over-the-moon for the old Evening in Paris. I can't get enough! I think it's obvious why this was so popular!

I managed to find a set of three vintage bottles on Ebay, and judging by the label shape these are from the 1940s. As soon as I opened the packaging, a faint powdery and floral smell wafted around me. I hadn't even opened the bottles and I was already enjoying the smell. Two of the (very beautiful) bottles were the cologne, and one was the toilette. I opened the bottles one by one and smelled each for a few moments. I was worried, because my first thoughts were "bitter dish soap." But of course, trying it on made me think otherwise. It wasn't bitter dish soap at all. It was elegant, and warm, and powdery, like I had originally thought. I couldn't help but smile as I took in the softness of it. Nostalgia enveloped me, and something inside me told me that I had smelled the perfume before. It must have been long, long ago, but I can still remember it. I can barely wrap my head around the thought that 70 years ago, someone was smelling this exact same scent from this exact same bottle. Not all perfumes age well, but Evening in Paris certainly retained every bit of glory and grace it was created to have. The smell is, as I said before, elegant. Some people may mistake "elegant" for "grandmotherly", but the difference is that elegance is timeless. It saddens me to know that this fragrance was reformulated for its relaunch. This is a classic, well blended scent that represents a less cynical time. If you can, get a vintage version instead of the newer version (Or get both.) All people should be given a chance to experience this. There's a perfect amount of every soft, flowery note, and just the right hint of musk and amber that trails off.

Here's my review for the 1oz wee bottle I bought on ebay, probably 1960s or older. Reminded me of no.5 more than anything, but that's not too surprising considering its maker. It's not a dupe but there's shared DNA. More sweet powder and very purple flowery, less animalics and aldehydes. Like the impression of the smell of a woman who used Chanel soap and powder, now you perceive her lovely sillage as she passes the table you're sitting at in Montmartre. Smells like the era between world wars, that's for certain. Makes me nostalgic for a time I never knew. For those who smell "only powder," that might be because many cosmetics and body powders from the last century eventually came to be formulated with scents that were popular and common from their respective times. It's why Coty L'Origan smells like your grandma's cheek. (Mine for sure!💛) She might have worn White Shoulders or Shalimar. But if she used Coty Airspun face powder between 1940-now, guess what, it's scented with Coty's most popular perfume from the time of its invention--L'Origan. (It used to come in all sorts of Coty scents. Bourjois was an earlier model of this marketing/formulation strategy.) My point isn't to admonish anyone. Just that "powder" is scented, and your cultural perceptions may vary. Like with suntan lotion!

As a child (back in the Pleistocene era) I remember thinking this was the most beautiful scent I had ever smelled. Someone gave me one of those little dime store bottles of it as a gift and I was entranced! The TV commercials only reinforced my absolute adoration for the fragrance and I saved my allowance money so I could buy one of the gift sets that had the powder in it, too. It was one of the scents that set me on the path to being a perfume freak. Fast forward 50 years and I found a bottle on a website for hard-to-find, old fashioned items. I bought it and fell in love all over again, mostly with the memory of what it meant to me a a little girl. I lavished it on, wore it day and night and after a few years, used that bottle up. A couple of years ago, I bought another bottle on an online off-price site and ::GASP!:: It was NOT the same! I'm crushed! I know this is--or was--a simple, uncomplicated powdery floral and not everyone's cup of tea, but I LOVE florals, this one among many, and I feel as if I've lost an old friend from childhood.