Bat-Sheba

Just received a miniature from Israel:-) Wow, this is strong, earthy, rich! I guess it reminds me of a confident woman, rather strict,it's a serious perfume:-) Glad that I managed to test it.

BAT-SHEBA By Judith Muller Nose Sophia Grojsman & Ernest Shifftan Year 1964 A Fragrance Fit For A Queen Review For The Vintage Bath Oil My eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when I saw that Fragrantica had finally itemized and listed the Judith Muller fragrance line from the 60's. These are absolutely beautiful vintage classics. They were my first perfumes when I was a teenager. My mother's sister Miriam was living in Tel Aviv in the 60's and she often delivered gifts to the family including perfume. These were my perfumes and I get a tear in my eye just thinking about how it all begin. At the time, this was the only perfume line I can remember that came out of Israel. Most of what was called perfume at the time was perfume oil and it was commonly found in the entire Mediterranean: Egypt, Greece, and for that matter Lebanon and Turkey. Perfume in these countries were bath oils and rose oil, oud, and toiletry (soaps) not chemically formulated modern IFRA (International Fragrance Association) but Judith Muller changed all that. With the help of none other than Sophia Grojsman, in one of her earliest known compositions, she launched the first national Israeli perfumery. She became quite wealthy and established her fragrance store in Haifa, retired in Tel Aviv. The line no longer sells in Israel and the perfumes have been discontinued but can be found in their vintage form on eBay. I was able to get my hands on them through sellers on eBay. Let me tell you. I am in Heaven re-living my past, smelling the fragrances after so many years. Notes in Bat-Sheba consist of aldehydes, bergamot orange, fruit, green notes, rosewood, cardamom ginger at the top, honey, cactus, jasmine, rose, carnation, iris, and ylang in the heart, and in the base there are notes of sandalwood, balsam, patchouli, vetiver, musk, castoreum, oak moss, amber, leather, and vanilla. She should be classified as an Oriental though displays the tendencies of a floral chypre. She is fresh, summery, sweet, mature, exotic, floral, green, herbal, spicy, aromatic, animalic and balsamic. My God it's like a dessert oasis, like finding rare flowers and water in the middle of the desert by the Dead Sea. This is so Jewish you have no idea. So very suited to the climate of Israel and for that matter that whole area - Palestine Syria Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. The perfume bath oil is made of rose water and honey, with moss, soapy and warm, seductive and feminine as it cleans your skin.Bat-Sheba was a big success and spawned other fragrances: King David for men, Judith for women, and Shalom for women. These fragrances came in hand painted amphora bottles that looked like ancient perfume jars or amphorae from the Ancient World, like they belong behind glass in a Jewish history museum. Bathsheba or Bat-Sheva in the Tanakh or Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) was the Hebrew mother of King Solomon, one of the wives of the most famous of all Jewish kings, King David. She was married to Uriah the Hittite, a soldier in the king's army and was therefore unattainable and untouchable. Bat-Sheva and her handmaidens were out on a terrace one afternoon not far from the palace. The maids drew her bath and Bat-Sheva undressed herself and began to bathe in the scented waters, fully exposing herself to whomever could see her. She must have done this deliberately to catch the eye of the king. David saw her from the roof of the palace and was filled with lust and desire for her. He summoned her to the palace and they made love. Nine months later she was pregnant with the king's child and he tried to cover it up by getting Uriah to sleep with her and pass the child off as his biological son but Uriah was always preoccupied with military duty and never home long enough to make love to his wife. Finally David committed a great sin and put Uriah in the front lines of battle to ensure that Uriah would be killed. Sure enough Uriah was slain in battle. David then married Bat-Sheva and together they conceived Solomon who would succeed David as the next king of Judah and Israel. For this sin, David was punished with a rebellion by his son, by the death of his first born, and with the presence of the prophet Nathan who scolded him night and day for his crime. With a dramatic story such as that, and a tale I was familiar with as a child, I thought Bat-Sheba would be too grown up for me to wear. But not at all. This is a very easy to wear subtle and soapy scent. It sort of reminds me of Fidji by Guy Laroche. The opening is fruity and delicious with citrus and nondescript fruit, something like a nectar and a distinct honey. The honey note appears to have been Judith's own idea as she specifically looked for notes of scents that were Biblical and found in ancient Israel. Honey is definitely one of the most well known fragrances of the Ancient World. The honey serves like a kind of glue along with the amber (another smell of Israel, amber tree) and cedar wood (Cedar of Lebanon) as a support for the flowers such as cactus flower and indolic night blooming jasmine and ylang-ylang all of which are indeed found in the flora of Israel and Palestine. Finally one can also describe this as more exotic and spiced up rosewater; rose water was very common in the ancient world and used for scenting bath water. Rather than being strongly floral, the scent is subdued and delicate, like floral toilet water. The dry down is sandalwood, green notes of vetiver, a vanilla and leather. The animalic notes in the end including castoreum give this perfume a real long lasting staying power. There is also something powdery in the end. Sillage is very soft and cannot be detected by others. She is like a good body lotion or perfumed soap that sits on your skin quietly and elegantly. The fragrance is regal and discreet, feminine and exotic, like Bathsheba at her bath. This was the best of the ancient world and the best of the new modern aroma chemicals of the 60's. I highly recommend this to vintage fans who have not experienced it. I urge you to seek out the bottles from ebay. Some of them are not full and are a bit turned because of the age and you might get more musk and woodsy notes than anything else. For that reason I recommend the miniatures or the perfume oil. This is a very beautiful Oriental floral. I am proud of my Jewish identity and heritage and a perfume such as this suits my Jewish soul. I have the other perfumes Judith King David and Shalom in my collection and recommend them to vintage lovers as well.

It's exciting to me to finally have a bit of this vintage juice - aged though it is - for I feel it is travel in a bottle! Obviously, I want to find more of this line. Why NOT travel to Israel for perfume? :) Bat Sheba is well constructed, historic, and totally interesting. But I have to note that Bat Sheba as a name might be a bit of hyperbole! This scent smells more to me of something a polished great-grandmother might have worn to the matinee in her stylish wrap. Powdery, comforting, grounded, cozy, mature, warm. It evokes security and classic fragrances, such as those deeper scents by Avon and Estee Lauder. There is nothing dupe-like about it, however. I think the top notes may have vanished. But what remains is classic wood, balsamic powder, and a hint of flowers with unsweetened incense. Having worn Avon Cotillion recently, that comes to mind, only this is a distant cousin. If Bat Sheba were sweeter and had a cinnamon note they might be kissing cousins! Recommended for anyone familiar with Youth Dew and the like. More for time travel than seduction - though I can definitely imagine it being seductive when first released. (I would absolutely love to find myself with the historic Bathsheba to smell whatever attar she actually wore!) Five stars for nostalgia and four for perfumery - as aged. If it were fresh...I can easily imagine 5 stars.

This is very odd. Last week, for some reason, I was thinking of a fragrance (Janine D.)that I had owned and loved back in the eighties whose name I couldn't recall. Hadn't thought of it in who knows how long. The very next day I recognized it on the 'recently added' column here on this site. I suppose it got me thinking about other scents that I had owned in the past that were not listed on Fragrantica. Among them were two scents by Judith Muller, in the little ancient flask shaped bottles, - and voila - here they are! I'm sure Bat-Sheba was one of the two - I remember its scent quite clearly, especially a musky note which might be the castoreum listed.It wasn't my favorite scent, there was some sort of incense-y note that I didn't quite like - maybe the Palisander Rosewood? The other scent was either Shalom or Judith, I can't remember which. Whichever it was, I liked it better than Bat-Sheba though I can't really recall what it smelled like.

I am proud of having perfumes from Israel. My fav part of globe where my ancestry is from. I love Holy Land! I wish I have a real scent of it when they have launched it. I like the perfumes made with passion. Like Eliza have wrote it... the story from Torah.. closed in middle eastern fragrance.

I have always wanted to try this one and if Fragrantica ever does spotlight on this perfume writing and researching won't be necessary because .....we have Eliza's review. Eliza your review only makes me want it more.

My grandad has mentioned purchasing this for my grandmother which, at the time, sounded really romantic. I'd kill to get my nose on this as it's seemingly a part of my family's better moments

can some send me a sample please?