La Collection Couturier Parfumeur Mitzah

Deep in the most ancient part of Istanbul, a honey yellow Turkish crescent moon of midnight creeps over the walls of the Topkapi palace. Summer dreams on the Bosporus are heady with the heavy exotic fragrances of the Grand Bazaar that linger in the serpentine streets as they waft toward the incense filled gardens on the edge of the city. In such gardens on just such a night as this lovers have met ever since scandalous Theadora danced before the infatuated Emperor Justinian at the dawn of Byzantium. Rare and sensuous this night is filled with promise and sweet delights of desire tinged with danger. Women of ripe beauty peek in the moon glow from behind screens of carved ebony. They whisper to one another that the night is never long enough when He is near and always unending and eternal when he is not. That is the song of longing, of loves promise never fulfilled. Desire and dust wrapped in silk put away to save for the thing that can never really be. It is the dream of love. This is all and everything I have found in the glorious perfume from Dior called Mitzah. Named for Christian Dior’s muse and friend Mitzah Bricard it is heady and hypnotic but never overwhelming. It is what I would call deep and multi layered in its design, a real stunner for me that never shouts but rather insinuates and seduces the one who wears it. And in so doing casts a spell of enchantment beyond the wrist, or from behind the ear out into a waiting world of yes. Mitzah opens in a temple garden loaded with incense where a smooth coriander feeds and supports an ethereal velvet red rose. Then suddenly oriental fresh spices scatter across the skin as if spilled from huge terracotta jars in the bazaar at Alexandria. It is so well made that the middle notes slowly unfurl like Cleopatra wrapped in an oriental rug that lay for years on the floor of a cinnamon warehouse. The highly erotic labdanum snakes over this rug and licks like a cat the creamy warm vanilla within this bowl of golden scent. You dare not close your eyes or you will be lost in a sumptuous whirlpool. There is a long lazy luxurious slow stretching dry down where the thick honey still sticks to the honey comb and drips down over a layer of pungent patchouli. All of this majesty and resplendency is carried on the remaining whisper of that first incense from ancient temples dedicated to pagan gods of love. Mitzah has a stable and long lasting silage that speaks of quality and lasts on my skin a good seven to nine hours. It comes on strong but don’t let that scare you. It is an oriental with a genteel soul and the longer it lays languorously on the skin the softer it becomes. It never powders down but rather wafts on with that incredible smoky slightly sweet incense. Mitzah is listed as a woman’s fragrance but in my experience it is remarkably masculine in a smart Near Eastern manner. When I wear it men invariably ask me what it is and where they can get a bottle. Mitzah is a sly seducer that works well on a man and is his equal on a woman and will blend with both chemistries. The chemistry it inspires is of skin upon skin that sparks the heart to a sweet madness. This meeting is in fact the Algerian love knot fragrance that two lovers could wear. Smelling of each other when they are apart and bending into a kiss of fragrance when they meet. FIVE GOLD STARS *****

Swish, swish, swish. That's me sashaying past you, with absolutely maximum attitude, just so that you can get a beautiful waft of this gorgeous thing I've got on. I was lucky to get 0.5ml of this in a samples swap - thrilled to meet it, as I'd read so much from its fans - and can absolutely see what all the fuss was about. Because this is just hip-swinging, jaw-droppingly good, no matter your gender or your usual perfume 'home base', in my view. Tour de FORCE, baby! It's a lot sweeter, more femme and more vanilla-centric than my usual turf, that's for sure, but all so incredibly well-balanced and fine-tuned that it just leaves me drooling and begging for more. The woody-mellow dryness of coriander and cistus make it almost a warm oriental; the honey and rose aren't allowed to cloy; the vanilla is classy and dry, not harsh and fakey-cakey. The patchouli's mild and manageable, not the dark/bitter/stinky/hippy kind, and kept to a minimum. On my skin, something in the mix somehow produces a note of freshness that's almost citric, almost-floral, but obviously isn't either. Overall it's almost unbelievably classy and attractive - even when playing so hard against my usual prejudices. Perfectly unisex and with really solid longevity: it rules the room on first spray, when the spice and incense are up front and thrillingly complex, but is still very much present at up to 9h in (forever, on my skin) and although it's mellowed down to a softer, more golden amber-vanilla, it's still distinctive and nuanced enough to be interesting. Wearing this is like watching one icon after another line up in sync on a fruit machine - ding! ding! ding! - because one aspect after another after another is a winner. I nit-pick for a living, I am fussy about 'fumes and I have weird taste ... and still I can find no fault with it. Not one. Just frankly spectacular. Regal. Masterful. If you ever find an old bottle of this abandoned in a millionaire aunt's estate, or a junk sale, or even on eBay, I say JUMP. You're so unlikely to be disappointed. Whenever I wear Mitzah I feel calmed and centred and capable of taking charge and acting like an adult. When you are wearing this, everything is going to be OK. (Embarassingly: I keep confusing its name with the Hebrew word MITZVAH, i.e. commandment, good conduct, good deed, like in bar/bat mitzvahs. There's no link. But my confusion is understandable because this Mitzah is, in every possible sense, a GOOD GOOD THING. )

Mitzah is probably my favourite perfume from the Dior Prive line. Feve,Ambre Nuit and Bois D'Argent are my other faves but this is on another level for me. I have a weakness for Incense and amber notes and if you are looking for a sweet incense fragrance, for my money, this is just about as good as it gets. Upon first spray, Mitzah gives you a solid albeit short lived hit of spice, the coriander and the spice notes mentioned with a hint of bitterness. The heart is where this gorgeous frag truly comes alive with the cinnamon, incense sweetened by the rose, vanilla and honey. The dry down is also a warm balsamic labdanum and patchouli mingling with the Incense. Lots of notes mentioned but to summarize, I would say this is a sweetish cinnamon Incense frag. Some frags just have their notes tied up in beautiful harmony and this is one of those, every note in perfect balance with the other. For me this is nosegasm in a bottle every time I sniff it. Nothing More I can add to that regarding the smell. Projection on this is what I would call in the "Classy" range. Stays within arms reach but anyone who comes close to you gets strong whiffs which is what you need most of the time. Longevity like most of the heavier frags in the Dior Prive line is par excellence. I routinely get 10 hours or more with 3-4 sprays. In conclusion, I will say this is a fragrance that every Perfume lover needs to get their nose on at least once. Even if you end up not liking it, it will have given your nose an education. If you like Incense, Amber, or honey notes, Mitzah is a no brainer. 9/10

Love at first smell: Dior Mitzah is a case where the reality of this now-discontinued Dior Privee fan favorite was met by reality. Cinnamon, incense, amber, honey, and vanilla make up the main portrait of the fragrance. Rose is involved but not prominent and the coriander is similarly used in only a small quantity, fortunately. Perhaps the honey and amber are most dominant for me in the blend, which stays relatively linear, but the cinnamon and vanilla contribute to the gourmand and the incense adds its characteristic ashy darkness to the mix that grounds the otherwise foody mix in something less playful. Mitzah is smoky, sweet, and slightly spicy. While it leans toward cold weather due to the incense and cinnamon, this certainly strikes me as something that could be worn in warm weather, as well, perhaps simply with fewer sprays. Performance is excellent, as a small sampling of this on my wrists projected significantly for several hours and then closer for some hours beyond that. Attributing value to this, given its discontinued and increasingly rare status, is difficult, as prices seem to soar to double the current Dior Prive costs ($210 for 125ml) on the secondary market, but if you love it, and even this smallest offered bottle is a big one, it can surely last as long as you want it to. Scent Split is where I obtained my sample, so I'd like to credit them with still offering this, along with a variety of other discontinued scents from a handful of houses. 10 out of 10

I've had this fragrance since 2017 now and rarely wear it. I have 2 large bottles, 1 new and 1 90% full. Mostly, I just use 1 spray every few weeks to enjoy the scent. What I find very interesting is that the scent of this fragrance has evolved since I first purchased it. I remember when I first got these bottles from Dior, I opened one in-store and shared a sample with the store manager. To be honest, we were both struck by the overload of cinnamon that hit us. I don't think either one of us was too impressed. That initial blast of cinnamon was something I tolerated until the scent dried down. Not the case anymore. As of now, 2020, the cinnamon has blended in with the other notes. The initial spray down still has cinnamon but you get as much of it as you do of the patchouli, amber, incense, vanilla, honey, rose, cardamom. I am amazed at how well balanced this fragrance is now. The dry down is even more spectacular but I can now enjoy this from beginning to end. The name fits, Mitzah. Just like a woman, or a bottle of fine wine, gets better with age. This is now something I would compare to coromandel or a more intense version of amber nuit. Delicious, beautiful, complex, warm, inviting, comforting, rich scent. I'm amazed by how much the scent has evolved inside the bottle.