Toujours Moi

Today is a great day!!!! I was reminicing recently of all the great high end and drugstore brand fragrance my Mom wore in the 1960s and 70s. I already own most of them. Toujours Moi? Did Mom use that one???? It seemed to trigger a childhood memory. So straight I go to Fragrantica. Yes, all the notes seem like something Mom would wear. Although, I am my Mother's daughter and our taste in fragrance are all over the map. Delicate lady-like fragrances as this one...and powerhouse frags that slap you in the face like vintage Youth Dew. I went on my usual search...our local community Thrift Shop, where I have made some very spectacular finds for next to nothing. This community use to be a retirement community. Now it is mostly made up of young families. The elderly are slowly dying off. Their children and grandchildren come to settle thier estate, sell as much as thy can at a make shift yard sale and donate the rest to the Church Thrift. I hope these dearly departed know how much I cherish these treasures and intend on using them as they did once in the past. My second method of search is good old eBay. I count on a seller not knowing what a treasure they behold and price the item way beneath it's true value. If I have enough of a certain fragrance, I have been known to write these sellers and tell them they should tweak their listings to draw attention and get top dollar. I know, I know, I should show some loyalty to my fellow Fragranticans and announce a spectacular deal on the Bay. But then I think of the 80 year old man selling off his deceased wife's belongings and I must do the right thing. I can always tell when it's a man that knows nothing about ladies vintage anything. So this time I found a vintage 2 oz bottle of Toujours Moi for $8 with free shipping!!! It just came in the mail. "Oh boy Mom, it's just like you walked in the room!" Although mom passed away 30 years ago 😣. I am spraying with abandon. And as with all of Mom's fragrances, I call over my 10 year old son (the grandchild my mom never got to meet on this earhly plain, but I have a feeling she was pulling some strings when our adoption came through), "Hey, do you want to smell what your Grandma smelled like????" He comes running and always exclaims, as he looks to the sky, "Wow Grandma, you always smelled wonderful", lol!!!!!

"Toujours Moi" has a bizarre history. If Fragrantica is to be believed, it was originally created by Corday in 1924, was sold to Max Factor in the 80s, and since 1995 it has been produced under Dana. The maker of my mini dabber bottle is Dana, and I don't think they've listed all the notes. Fruity, fizzy, and sour uptop. Citruses, orange, peach, and currant. Powdery, warm holiday spices like cinnamon, cloves. I'm not as acquainted with nutmeg specifically. Softly floral with honeyed orange flower, jasmine, carnation, iris. The base is more nuanced than you might expect. It definitely has vetiver, the smoky, ashy variety, I think there is an old fashioned, dusty leather note as well. A dense amber that is mostly based around benzoin, some incense, refined patchouli, powdery orris, and a soapy sandalwood note. There's a dirty musk note in the base as well. Toujours Moi wafts smoky, peppery, powdery, honeyed orange flower wherever you go. A distinctive, seductive DNA. It imparts a "come hither", boudoir message in my mind. It will come across as a bit dense and sophisticated for most modern noses, but it's distinctive, lovely, and memorable nonetheless. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I do. Dana isn't great about maintaining the integrity of their fumes. The modern formulation of Baby Soft is a fleshed out spin on talcum powder, and Tabu reminds me too much of flat cola. Despite its sorted history, Toujours Moi has retained an identity, it genuinely smells great. Considering how rich and natural it smells, it's a steal. You get a lot for how little you fork over. Most perfumes 10x the price smell substantially worse. If you can divorce it from its reputation as the poor person's Habanita, it holds its own. 1/1/25 Picked up a brand new Dana bottle during the holiday shopping madness. To my nose the orange blossom isn't coming as far forward, but the scent is otherwise very similar to my small dabber. I'll have to see how it smells as this new bottle ages.

God bless Dana! I don't know how they do it, but I am so happy they do! They keep old school classics alive, and even affordable, in a world when trendy releases are weak, boring and overpriced. This scent is so much better than 90% of juices released today, and probably better than some big names' reformulations. I'm 30 and nobody in my family was into perfumes so I have no memories of great oldschool classics, I have to use what I find now. The turqouise-green package implies a minty smell for me, but this is quite the opposite, no mint. I've only tried the new Habanita, not the old one, and this reminds me to it so I can completely understand when people say it is similar to the original one. Rich and intoxicating, with lovely sweet dark smoke. I get the spicy vanilla note people mentioned. A dark charcoal grey scent for me, warm and comforting. It is incredible that one can get such a stylish classic juice for this cheap. Decent strength and lasting power for an edc, too, probably due to the oriental notes which tend to last well. I guess I can call it old lady because it's a quality scent, and "old lady" is just another word for good quality and style. I suppose all the ingredients must be synthetic and cheap, only guessing by the price, but ohhhh, does this smell classy! I guess when these scents were released they were no big deals and nowhere near the position to compete with releases by the big names and the materials those used. Then time passed, standards changed (recently to the worse), and compared to today's releases this is gold! And even the mighty classics have fallen, their original formulas were mutilated so by now the differences in the quality of the materials are gone. Wow. Out of four blind buy scents (Tabu, Chantilly, Zig Zag and Toujours Moi, none of them a big financial risk), four winners. I LOVE DANA!

Demure Jazz Age Baby... I'm not sure what I was expecting here... but some reviewers have called this the "poor man's Habanita". I'm not familiar with Habanita, but it's definitely giving me older vintage vibes of something like Emeraude Coty (1921) or Shalimar Guerlain (1925)- though not a dupe. It may have been inspired Habanita (1921) or by the success of Emeraude, as was Shalimar allegedly. Starts off very powdery & honey-vanilla with faint hints of bergamot, leather & iris. It's somewhat linear but not fully, and I pick up the spices & olibanum more in the finish. I don't pick up civet here, although I wouldn't have been surprised given the vintage. This is surprisingly wearable, and doesn't overpower, but gives a nice soft-focus powdery-vanilla sillage for the stated "eau de cologne", and it's an EDC in the longevity (about 3 hours). Fragrantica states this came out initially in 1924, but the box says "since 1923". Either way this scent is 100 years old or more, and has survived the test of time. It's not giving me as much bombastic-ness as I would expect from the roaring 1920s, or Shalimar. It's more of a demure cousin to Shalimar in soft focus, and I could imagine Daisy Buchanan (played by Carey Mulligan) wearing this in the film, The Great Gatsby (2013), based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Fitzgerald based the novel on riotous parties he attended in 1922, completed the draft in 1924). Spraying this on, you too could be a contradictory, demure Jazz Age baby, ready for her misty close-up. It's a love for me. Enjoy! What it says on the box: toujours moi/Since 1923/eau de cologne spray/Top Notes: Orange Flower, Honey/Middle Notes: Jasmine, Carnation, Spice/Base Notes: Olibanum, Benzoin, Musk, Patchouli.

Holy Madre de Josephina! Toujours Moi is an exceptional fragrance. It is also exceptionally under-rated and under-appreciated, and it's 100 percent affordable. The beauty of this fragrance lies in its utter simplicity. As reflected in the Dana brand overview page, this 1921 classic was originally produced by Corday and then Max Factor. Like so many fragrances produced in the 20's, Toujours Moi exudes a sophisticated, worldly aura. I don't know what it is about me, but many of these classic Orientals (Tabu) smell deliciously like vanilla. On to the Toujours Moi experience. The opening reveals a harsh blast of vetiver and sandalwood. It's a rough opening, but it's well worth the result. After 20 or 30 minutes, these delicious vanilla/orange blossom notes overtake the scent. It's an outstanding evolution. I was so entranced by the ever-changing smell that I kept holding my wrist up to my nose. Apparently, my fixation really irritated by husband because he said in a really perturbed tone, "Would you stop smelling yourself!" I only used one spray from the mister. Anyway, from 30 minutes to two hours after application the fragrance is in a total golden age. After two to three hours, the fragrance starts to deteriorate somewhat, but it lasts for a good six to eight hours. I can see how a younger person could be drawn to this one because the sweet vanilla-like florals that emerge have a very contemporary air, but with more depth and dimension than most new fragrances. Overall, Toujours Moi is awesome!! BTW, I have a new version issued by Dana Classics.