Pavlova

I wore this in the late 70s/early 80s, and didn't notice a difference when I happily bought a bottle during the 90s. It was, however, extremely strong - just one spritz well above my head & walked into was too strong, even hours later. I ignored it for years (picked it up again in 2012!), and it was perfect! It's much lighter and mellower - I can now actually spray it directly onto myself - but it's still long-lasting. It's very heady and sophisticated - I wear it when I'm in the mood for something "rich and strange." The fruity bits are merely a few vague light notes in this mysterious symphony of tantalizing, exotic florals with a heavy woody, spicy base. The oakmoss reaches right up from the bottom and wraps itself round the whole of the fragrance, a warm and woodsy-smelling blanket. This fragrance is a dark Winter's ride through deep woods in a chiming Russian troika, with a gorgeous Borzoi by one's side. I'm quite surprised by reviews describing it as smelling cheap and grandmotheresque. My BF adores it, which is always good. ;)

I have the bottle with the dying swan on top and I wrote a review about it some while ago. I still do like it a lot. Now today my little plastic bottle arrived of 30 ml edt.(in a white bottle, you'll find them everywhere on Ebay now) I must say that it smells (for me!) very different than the swan bottle! More wood notes from the beginning, less sour notes...I think it's somehow more sophisticated than the swan, softer and more rose. Staying power is less but for the price of 1,97 euro for me it is a wonderful scent! It's like the little sister of Pavlova. I don't know the vintage but to me it seems that they have changed the formula again. Maybe other fragrantica's can tell me if this one smells a little bit like the vintage one...

I buy up every affordable bottle of this that I can get (MUST be from Payot though - not any other brand like Four Star Fragrances, etc). I also have a music box, a ceramic powder box and a cardboard powder box for this line. I just adore it! I also have some swan soaps. A wonderful perfume. One of the first perfumes as an adult (way back in 1980) that I discovered walking into our local TA Chapmans store - the air was heavy with its scent and I fell in love with it. Very hard to buy on-line though - you never know if it's going to be turned or good. I try to get the parfum and not the eau de toilette as the eau de toilette turns more quickly. A lovely romantic scent.

Wow, another trip down memory road... It must have been 1983, and I bought one of my first perfumes, alone. The bottle attracted me, so did the name of the great Pavlova. And the fragrance was just what I needed. It was a cold and long winter, and Pavlova graced my cashmere sweaters and coat. It was gentle, lovely, graceful and very feminine scent, somehow polite like a woman who can't help being noticed, but is much too modest to push herself forward. On me, it was a bit powdery, a soft floral scent with depth and long lasting power. If they really changed the formula, it's a pity, because it was perfect the way it was.

Ah, this one is gorgeous. I can imagine a woman with straight stance (no slouching), long hair and delicate features wearing this. It does not matter if she wears rags, she'll carry herself (and this perfume) with dignity and even rags look designer wear on her.. This dry earthy floral. I can clearly smell tuberose, oakmoss, jasmine and sandalwood in it. I can wear it in winter and summer, day and night. When I am sure or unsure of what I have in store for day. Oh I miss this perfume after I swapped it... On hunt for vintage one again!!!

It was the box that got me: shiny black with that broken wreath of pink flowers, the art nouveau lettering. The bottle cap with the ballerina in the the dying swan position is a heart melter. But the perfume just misses greatness. It is a nice enough blend of fruits, flowers, spices, and woodsy notes. But that's all it is -- nice enough. It is missing that special something that elevates a scent from very good to classic. Perhaps a bit too romantic for the office but lovely for any other occasion.

This review is for 1922 edt bottle with black rectangular cap... This perfume is tuberose and oak moss heaven... I can smell other florals too, maybe jasmine but can't pick individual notes... I wish I could pick more geranium and hyacinth but this is such a well blended perfume for my untrained nose to pick any notes besides the most dominant ones!!! Oh this is going to be my go to perfume. Never thought I will like tuberose oakmoss combination this much!!!

Pavlova, aaaah Pavlova.... I think Pavlova is a very special perfume.It's a very mysterical perfume and every day it smells different. Like the moods of a human. One day it can make you happy and the other day you just don't wanna wear it because it makes you sick. In the beginning I didn't like it, way too strong and só different than the perfumes I knew. Now I begin to know it and learn to love it. Give this special lady a try, she's worth it.

I have the vintage edp (simple frosted glass stopper, found as a set with two crumbling soaps in a package labeled Christmas'79) and, I must say, it captures the ballet quite well. There's both an airy quality to it, stemming from the white flowers, but also a strength and physicality about it (oakmoss and a slightly animalistic Jasmine). It's pretty well balanced and restrained. That being said, a dab will do ya.

I bought a pack of two of these bottles for $20 at a Burlington coat factory in Wilmington, Delaware in probably 2011 because I thought they looked cool and I was very into Zeppelin at the time. I periodically have to rack my brain to remember the name only for it to knee-jerk occur to me just as Pavlov would have wanted. One of my all-time favorites for having always stuck with me.

Will love it until i die. it's faithful to be sweet and charming never offensive. it's always in inexpensive but classy. Sophisticated and classic like a cashmere navy blue blazer single breasted. enough said.

The old version was my tuberose dream, to me it was innocence. I found it again years later and the new version broke my heart. Dreck.

I haven't smelled this in many years, but I did wear it in the early 80s in my teens, and I found it to be much more complex and sophisticated than similarly-priced fragrances. I've seen someone here describe it as old-ladyish, but it seems vintage in spirit to me, and not frumpy. In the same way I love the shoes and clothes of the art nouveau-to-deco period, I can see this fragrance as a nod to the stylings of that era. I would like to smell it again, but I'm afraid of what I'll find! It is a pity to reformulate any fragrance, I think, unless it's causing vertigo or cancer or something! Mind you, every frag is NOT a masterpiece, but would someone go back and re-paint the Mona Lisa or undo and re-sculpt a Michaelangelo? Silly to try to remake something of a moment that is an artistic expression. Change it even slightly and it is not the same thing at all.

I owned a bottle of this for a hot minute. It was the summer after high school graduation. We were all trying to preserve our high school friendships by having a lot of parties at each other's houses that summer. I got this and was taken by the reference to what I assumed to be the ballerina Anna Pavlova but what in retrospect might have been the dessert (which is still, come to think of it, a reference to the ballerina), as well as by the floral decorations on the box and bottle. I spritzed with a tester at the store and liked the musky, spicy floral. I have always been a sucker for florientals. I was thinking of having it be my signature scent, but it was not to be because someone stole it out of my house at one of those parties and then I never saw it in any stores afterwards. Someday I'll buy another bottle just 'cause. Love the internet.

well, it's time to make a pas or two... meet m-lle pavlova, closest friend of miss Dior! :) as for me, i would like better to think it is floral CHYPRE, than simply-floral-scent. it's nice, austere, elegant, swell. what is this little ballerina? nor sprite, neither sylph. It's fully made of bone, brawn and blood, so light but big, so strong, but delicate, so white but with some darkness inside... Wait! It's the swan!!! just the swan. only the swan. Queen swan. The Dying Swan. :D nothing imponderable,nothing amusing, but the back is straight, the manners are excellent, the eyeshadows are made of brilliant powder and you are always on tip of your toes. you're not so fragile, as you seem. it's time to wear an old school, ladies! :) ps. I'm russian, so I've been watching "The Dying Swan" perfomed by plenty of ballerinas :D of course, I LOVE IT

A sharp jasmine opening with noticeable cassia and a note that initially smells like rubber, which is actually delightful. The drydown opens into several flowers anchored by vetiver and musk. As it warms on your skin the oakmoss and orange become more noticeable. Is this a great perfume? No but it's got a lot of depth for what it is and the price can't be beat. If you've never tried it give it a whirl. You'll mark it "like" rather than "love" but it's a grown-up feminine scent that puts several $100+ perfumes to shame. (Although it's a floral chypre I think that this is a perfume that loves cold weather--it's not nearly as interesting when it's hot or humid.)

An Art Deco scent in baroque packaging, Pavlova reminds me of powdered rosin on pointe shoes, and dusty velvet curtains. I'm remembering the 1980s formulation, and I think of it as a classic chypre-type fragrance. Pavlova is a very rich scent, heavy on sage, benzoin, oakmoss, and labdanum. Don't expect this to be "pretty", like a Cinderella-ballerina. Pavlova evokes Saint-Saëns's Le Cygne in St. Petersburg during the winter of 1905. Its notes seem to radiate life's bitter struggles against an endless search for beauty.

This was a nice fragrance, but not for years seen in a perfumery. I don't know if I could find this lovely bottle again, got it long ago. The fragrance by Payot was so charming , is not altogether so easy as it seems at the very beginning. Top notes are light, later base notes are really elegant. Feminine and sophisticated, had a strange note that bothered me a bit, but I must admit...it's very special, wearable in all seasons and not at all heavy.

Pavlova is a an out and out floral chypre. So if you enjoy wearing chypres, you will enjoy this. I love wearing this, especially in cold weather but my family hold their noses when I do. My little daughter especially prefers the classics in my collection and the powdery soft florals I end up wearing for her sake! That said, on a day spent in my own company, I really do enjoy Pavlova's distinctive presence.

This is a really beautiful fragrance. Classic oakmoss and floral parfum! My bottle says Paris 1922, I'm not sure of the actual date, but it has a glass ballerina on top of the bottle. The beginning is bright and fruity, major floral topnotes with grapefruit and berries! The fade is delightfully woody and oakmossy with sweet citrus bursts hidden behind.