Ormolu

I love this! This reminds me of the potion Harry Potter concots in the Half Blood Prince...so dark, addictive, and mystical. The dry woody accords add a vintage charm and this doesn't resemble any fragrance I've tried before.

This is a fast review, mainly to correct a glittering error. This fragrance absolutely did not come out in 1977, I'm sure it came out in the late 1980's, very possibly in 1987, so that 1977 date in the description here is just a typo. I was introduced to Penhaligon's when I went to London in May 1982, when Sheila Pickles (I think it was Sheila) owned and operated it and it was just one store at 41 Wellington, right above The Strand. (If you're checking Google Maps, they've torn off the 1980's exterior sometime after 2000, I think, and brought it back to something that looks like pre-1910; don't know if it's the original exterior or just something made to look Victorian.) Penhaligon's sold mostly bottles of edp then, and produced glorious catalogues only twice a year, one of them for Christmas buying. They might have been selling soap with a couple of the fragrance lines, but didn't begin to have an extensive product line with most of the fragrances that they had by the late 1980's. I loved Ormolu so much I bought the body lotion, I think a bubble bath, the soap (which unfortunately had little scratchy pieces of gold embedded in it; no idea what that actually was and I bet people whined about because it vanished 3 months later), and I believe talcum powder (people worldwide whined about that decades later). None of the fragrances Penhaligon sold in May 1982 had all of that stuff, not even Victorian Posey. I'd dredge up my old catalogs, but I'm not sure they were dated. I loved Ormolu at the time and couldn't believe they stopped making it. Still have my bottle, but haven't used it in years. I'll try to again, in a couple of days.

(1997 bottle). Ladylike 70's perfume. I am reminded of madame rochas, 19 and dioressence (the less leathery, ambery version) with plenty of moss, some soap, yellow ylang, narcissus, a soft rose, make-up, dry, woods, the 1970s chypre caboodle - surely this is a 1977 creation, not 1987. ? P.S. To me, smells nothing like the 2 Basenotes reviews.

Finally! I was wondering when this fragrance would be added onto the Fragrantica database. This fragrance is definitely Vintage (with a capital V!). It is an absolute powder aldehyde bomb. Not for me but sought after as a Penhaligons collectible item!