Y

Bought myself my first bottle of "Y" in the current EDT this month. Classic Green/Floral/Chypre. Nose: Jean Amic, 1964. Y sails in on a cloud of nose-prickling aldehydes; whispers of dry nostalgic peach and gardenia follow. The peach actually takes my nose not into the mod-1960's, but rather into the 1930's, when that winsome note was often used in the head of fine perfumes. The gardenia adds a smooth floral roundness to the head, which is well-supplied with a bitter green galbanum. That Y is a chypre is evident from the first sniff; one never wonders whether it might morph into a fruity, woody, spicy or oriental. The base is a true chypre of the old-school, and surprisingly substantial, chunky for a women's number of Midcentury. If you've ever mixed together the building blocks of a chypre with your own essential oils--- bergamot, tonka, patchouly, oakmoss, civet, vetiver--- you know that the result is surprisingly chunky... thick and dark and earthy; something of that solid nature is kept present in Y, not merely intimated, as it is, say, in CRISTALLE or DIORELLA. Without elements such as cade and Russian birchtar (or isobutyl quinine), I cannot call Y a leather per se; no, it is a true chypre in every way. The heart seems to me strong in bulb-flowers: narcissus, hyacinth, jonquil, iris, tuberose, muguet, with only intimations of other "colored" flowers like rose. With the galbanum head, the flowers always retain an air of sharp, early-spring greenness, even into far drydown. Like many great old fragrances, Y does not have just a single "stamp" or idea that it projects; as others have stated here, it is a free-formed shapeshifter, revealing its components differently depending upon skin tone, warmth and weather; there was a time that this malleable, indefinable character was seen as the mark of a truly fine perfume. Refined, very "French", Y combines an airy, bitter-"haute chic" head with a surprisingly earthy/mossy base. Though I am using the modern EDT, nothing suggests that it has been "dumbed-down", "freshened" or made linear to please modern noses; the moss within is probably tree-moss instead of the IFRA-banned oakmoss, yet it sure smells like oakmoss to me. A subtle civet, here not in a foecal capacity, but rather imparting a wash of some classic ("old lady-ish" ?) indoles, imparting lushness to both floralcy and base. Grand and uber-stylish, Y is not a scent for cheerleaders and sorority sisters; it probably wears best on a woman over 35 who can rock its sophisticated swank. Were it not for its subtly frilly muguet hint, it could be easily worn by men, too. The sillage at first is aldehydic-bright, sharp and profuse, yet it quickly dies down into a rooty greenish-yellow stamp that will last many hours. Its closest perfume neighbor would be, not CRISTALLE, CREPE-DE-CHINE or DIORELLA, but rather 1947's BANDIT in its finer EDP quality; Y looks more to the past than it does to the 1960's future. I may be laughed at by saying that Y's floral heart reminds me of the vernal, green, bulb/rooty blend found in GREY FLANNEL. I picture blonde women wearing Y, somehow--- Grace Kelly or Ingrid Bergman. Y is highly recommended for the person who appreciates fine, classic French perfumery, and with an especial love for green notes.

I have a 3.5 ml bottle of the parfum. Not one of the ancient parfum bottles with the glass stops from the 60s, it's one of the more recent parfum bottles with the plastic stop. An artful showcase of texture distended across time. I think this has unlisted violet, otherwise I'm unsure how it imparts a watery top note. Some trick with the aldehydes? The lactonic peach certainly smooths it out. Refreshingly crisp hyacinth & white flowers at the heart of this otherwise edgeless, dewy, green chypre. The rose is subtle but it does a lot to keep Y smelling clean and smooth late into the drydown. The base has a bit of warmth, but is moreso earthy, muted, powdery. I'm impressed by the sophistication of this perfume. Imagine how hard it must be for perfumers to get galbanum, hyacinth, and oakmoss to play nicely. Y prevails at every stop along the journey. This is the vintage chypre for those who prefer green notes to fruits and florals. Undeniably one of the more prim, staid chypres, and nowhere near as popular as Rive Gauche, but it's well made and it smells fantastic. One of those perfectly chiseled pieces that belongs in a museum. It might be my favorite fume from this designer, and I've been consistently impressed with all of their older offerings. With how immaculate and ladylike it feels, I think it could make for a good bridal scent. Perfect for the warmer months, Margiela take note~ this is the authentic "Springtime in a Park" experience.

It seems as if I have found my perfumed Holy Grail:Gosh, what a achingly beautiful scent!!!I From a singular search for a scent my mother wore in the 1960's(one being Nostalgia by Monteil; practically impossible to find at a price I can afford) my journey has led to the discovery and realization that the chypre family of fragrances have become my passionate favorite, ousting the spicy orientals I have favored for years. I have become enamoured with the perfect creation that is Y, balanced, elegant and warm.On my skin the scent is a warm chypre that builds around a tender sweet rose that seems to mix beautifully with my chemistry, creating a earthy, woodsy yet soft and very gentle feminine veil. I would so much like to find Y in a eau de parfum, but I led to believe that it is not being manufactured any more. However, will continue to look. I was also curious if YSL is only selling Y under its spa collection series-and if it is the same fragrance.It would be horrible if they decided to discontinue it now that I have discovered it. They just can't seem to stop tampering with the greats. Y makes me realize that owning a vast array of fragrances that smell amazing is very nice but to focus on those to which I have an emotional connection is priceless.

Thank you Namida, for the generous decant! No bite, no sharpness for me here. Y is all about smooth thick flowers on a bed of slightly damp oakmoss. Never heavy. The scent of a spring forest at dusk where fairies live and play. There are no aldehydes for me here. At least not the aldehydes I smell in N°5. But there is a certain airyness to the perfume. A sense of light shining through the new, green spring foliage. So maybe that's what the aldehydes do, without being to prominent as a scent itself. The hiacynth is quite prominent on my skin, but never once does it turn plasticky, as this wonderful blue flower often does. The gentle yet heady scent of honeysuckle transports me to my childhood and the honeysuckle in my mother's garden that gave off its scent most strongly at dusk. There's a slight sweetness from the fruits, ripe and dripping. And then there's the wonderful bitter, foresty oakmoss. It binds the whole thing together without ever being austere or cold. No, in Y the oakmoss is light, airy, happy. Y is a perfume of pure joy. It represents spring and summer without ever being citrussy or overly green. It's a portrait of spring in pastel shades. Soft and slightly chilly, but never cold and always inviting.

My bottle was pushed behind 20 other bottles; I know that it's been at least 2 years since I wore it. I'm savoring the drydown, it's a tiny vintage extrait bottle. I wish I knew how old it is. Currently, the biggest presence is flowers- galbanum, hyacinth and rose. When I huff my wrists, I do smell oakmoss and civet. pushing their way through (it's been about 15 minutes since I dabbed it on). I'll update in another 20 minutes. Right now the patch and benzoin are stepping forward and mixing with the oakmoss and civet. The flowers are just a whisper at this moment. Candidly, I prefer the opening, but the beauty of the whole composition is exquisite. I'll update in the next 30 minutes. I hope that perhaps a few flowers will reemerge. In this final stage of drydown, the flowers are almost nonexistent to my nose. On second huff I get a hint of hyacinth; but it's clearly unfolded to an old-school classic chypre IMO. I'm fortunate to have a few classics in my stash.. Vtg Coty Chypre, Vtg Crepe de Chine and Grossmith Golden Chypre. If your tastes are similar to mine, try to find the Vintage Y extrait and savor this beauty. It will not disappoint.

When I first wore it in the '70es, Y was the most sophisticated chypre around. Perhaps it was the most sophisticated perfume around tout court. It was a green complicated symphony of flowers and woods, with aldehydes directing the movement. It was a masterpiece, a subdued one, never reaching the status of other perfumed monuments. Underrated it has always been, but enjoying the status of untouchable among those who had tried it. I have never bought the Eau de Parfum back in those days because the Eau de Toilette had a powerful strength and I never dared something more potent. Today Y is still much enjoyable, much lighter and less long lasting. The Eau de Toilette is much much thinner than it used to be, the fragrance is still very good, very classy, very beautiful. It is still a wonderful green chypre, a genre it seems to have been replaced by syrupy, candy, sweety fruity scents so much in fashion today. But chypre remains a classy genre, my personal very favourite one declined in all its possible hues and Y is a magnificent representative scent. Yes, even today, even after being reformulated.

Perhaps the most beautiful bottle of eau de parfum I have had the extreme pleasure of using was a natural vapo of Y de Yves Saint Laurent, at this time (circa 2000) others similar were Paloma Picasso, First & Rive Gauche, the eau de parfum concentration was so very lush and powerfully long lasting with the unctuous juice the colour of liquid gold, Oh how I miss wearing this stunner & in my opinion one of the best chypre's created in modern perfumery, honeyed peach and mirabelle plum nestled in a gorgeous high quality patchouli, galbanum, vteyver civet & amber, YSL was a very hard act to follow back then, "Where have all the flowers gone"? It is of course still available but not in the sublime concentration of yester year, at least I was able to experience this fragrant treasure, the vintage parfum is just as good if kept well in a cool dark space only used sparingly alongside Opium & the spectacular Rive Gauche, vintage Paris was another multi-faceted rose that deserves a special place within YSL's lineup of vintage masterpieces, I rest my cast!!!

This juice seems to be the cure for winter. In the past 4 or 5 hours I've applied a significant amount of my miniature because I can't get enough of the scent. Y opens beautifully with rose and powder and peach. Aldehydes and other florals slowly come in and then the small meteorological miracle occurs. Normally in the cold dry air of winter these floral notes would collapse into either nothingness or a thin sad sweetness. In the case of Y, the resins and oakmoss begin to open with a strong plum note. There's just enough civet to give the perfume structure. You will then have several hours of pleasure from alternating sweet incense and lush florals. This is how I've always imagined the Spice Coast of India to smell. When I first applied this I immediately thought of Arpege. I think Amic was too smart to try to reproduce it but definitely was paying tribute. I hope the kill rumor is just that since I've come to this so late. Sillage: cocktails at the Plaza Durability: very good though the top note is addictive Price to value ratio: excellent 9/10

Ahh--my college years! Living in a big city for the first time---(PGH)---within walking distance of big dept stores for the first time and exploring fragrances by American and foreign designers for the first time. I was into fashion but didn't have much money to spend on clothes--but I could annoy and harass the salesladies in the stores and try on Chanel,YSL, Guerlain, Caron, Worth, and an endless list of scents with special offers and free gifts with purchase and discover fashions in fragrance! I discovered Y about the same time as I picked up bottles of Amazone, Fidji, Aliage, Cristalle,and Calandre. These fresh but dressy, clean but rich, sophisticated but green and floral flights of fantasy were completely magical to me!Scent is so emotional and deeply timed to memories of time and place and people. I still have a tiny bit of my 1970's Y and it still smells like freedom and sophisticated style to me!! You girls who didn't grow up in the 1970's---you missed one helluva party!

The audacity of YvesSaintLaurent Parfums to rebrand Y into a new, men’s perfume. They could have used another... However, Y in its ancient formulation is both more beautiful and successfully made than the noble Givenchy III. Not that GIII is of inferior quality but Y uses peach and plum plus styrax to give a sweetish, pinkish quality to an otherwise usually acerbic green chypre of the era. It’s lightweight but tastefully done to which a reviewer somewhere likened to a dragonfly landing on a dew-kissed leaf at dawn. As for the reformulation, the perfume smells like an EDP. With coriander taking at its fore. But to me, the edges of the new one has not been smoothed out like the previous iteration. Beautiful still but doesn’t give the feel of the brevity of beauty. Edit: the fruits are accorded well with the aldehydes and florals, the sweet quality comes from these fruits. Get the older formulation. It’s one of the most underrated and pretty chypres: non-moody.

This is a very charming and elegant fragrance. It's full of poise and intrigue. I've been nursing a 60's era bottle of the parfum for some time now. Of the many classic "green" fragrances that I've tried this has one of the lightest and brightest characters. It is also softer than most green scents having no sharp edges. This fragrance is a precursor of the "green" scents that came to define the 70's. Most of them are a lot stronger and harsher than this lovely "Y". Recently YSL has launched a version of Y minus the Oakmoss and with other changes. I haven't tried the new fragrance and plan to replace my bottle with another vintage one. There is a lot of vintage Y EDT available on Ebay, but not much of the parfum. I'm going to hold out for the parfum as that is how I've come to love this scent and don't want something that may disappoint. For any of you who have found other "green" fragrances too harsh & bitter, this may be the one that will steal your heart!

This is the "Frenchiest" perfume I've ever smelled. Oakmoss, throw into the air by effervescent aldehydes. Supported by stone fruits and powdery florals that create an impression of sunshine (not of sweetness). Dry humor, with a warm laughter. A radiant, light-hearted classic chypre, perfect for summers sipping champagne at your countryside chateau. At risk of beating a dead horse, I'll echo other reviewers about the VINTAGE. I owned and got rid of the reformulated bottle (green juice, squared bottle, built-in gold sprayer top). The current formulation isn't terrible, but you could tell that the scent has a very aspirational structure, and the quality just isn't there to support it. It's a thin weak shadowy wisp, amping up the hedoine-green notes to compensate for skimping on the jasmine/oakmoss. I picked up a vintage bottle (gold juice, long rectangular bottle) from someone who didn't know its worth on eBay, and couldn't be happier.

ACH!!! I'm so tired of the "grandma" and "old lady" references!! What if we started referring to all the sweet fruity scents made in the last 10 years as "juvenile", "immature", "pre-pubescent" or maybe just "little girly"? Scents definately belong to certain time periods, representing the current style and can smell "dated", no doubt about it. But a good perfume is timeless and "Y" is exactly that...it starts as a slightly heavy oakmoss chypre (just like Cristalle actually) but brightens quickly to an enchanting green floral heart. It literally blooms on your skin, truly breathtaking in it's beauty. You either like it or you don't, you'll either wear it or you won't. Fine with me no matter (except don't buy the last bottle on the planet or I'll have to kill you) as I plan to add this one to my permanent/masterpiece collection right away. And if your grandma smells like this, God Bless her, she has excellent taste!

I feel so extremely fortunate to have tried this exquisite masterpiece and I really wonder how the heck I've never had the change to try it before now. It leaves you feeling awesomely uplifted, I loved it from the first sniff, an excellent cypre creation. Green, clean, elegant, classy, soapy with woody and floral notes at the same time. I know there are fruits given in its notes and is classified as a fruity cypre, but to me, it's more of a green chypre or even flowery cypre. As time goes by, its floral notes become more prominent and a lovely, delicate sweetness emerges although the green character of it is never really lost. A fragrance that gives me confidence and lifts my spirits, it would be great from morning to night and could be very well be worn in formal situations too. Great creation, it became very special for me. For all the floral chypre lovers out there, be sure to try it.

Aldehydes in Y amp up the tasty bitter green sharpness of galbanum and tame the sweet floral trinity of gardenia, tuberose and jasmine. I think of Y as a melancholic chypre and wear it exclusively in spring. When gardenia, tuberose and jasmine are all together among the chypre ingredients I usually find the overall scent choking, althought I'm a big chypre fan otherwise. I've checked the ingredients of the fruity chypres, the floral chypres and the leather/aldyhylic chypres and those I dislike all contain all 3 (gardenia,tuberose & jasmine) but if it's just one or two of the 3 it's much more appealing to me. But this scent seems to mix the 3 in a way that's truly transformative. Y is magic. Wear it and you will receive comments, not all of them positive, but wear it anyway - you can't please everyone all the time so you might as well please yourself!

YSL Y etd Original/Vintage (Launched In 1964) 🗣This And Guerlain's Chamade edp, Both Remain My Mother's Two All Time Favourite Chypre Perfumes To This Day!! And They Certainly DON'T Make Perfumes Like This Anymore!! Y Is A Chypre"s Lover's Absolute Fantasty In A Bottle!! That Is Perfectly Suited To Both Sexes!! Clean, Green And Fresh, With Just The Perfect Amount Of Added Powderness, Like A Walk In A Cool Green Shaded Forest, After A Heavy Shower Of Rain, Where All That Green Moss Growing On Tree Stumps Really Comes Alive To Fragrance The Air Surrounding You!! Wearing Y edt, Is Like Wearing A Fresh Stepped Out Of The Shower Feeling All Day Long!! This Perfume Does NOT Resemble Chanel 19 In Any Way!! But Very Similar To: Guerlain's Chamade, Dior's Original Miss Dior, And Givenchy's III. And Is Pure Undiluted Class In A Bottle!!

I bought this one today after smelling the disastrous reformulation sans oak moss and grabbed this one with not one but two types of oak moss in it! This scent surprised me, I was a little scared that it would be overly sharp as I didn't get on with Ma Griffe though I like most green perfumes. I own and love No 19 and Fidji and feel that this sits between the two. It goes on a little 'angry' as most aldehydes do, then settles into an almost delicious composition moving through dry autumn leaves and green grass to the plum note that I love in Rochas Femme. This is a scent with a long evolution and is clean, sexy and not at all humdrum. I will wear it for work and in the daytime instead of Femme or Opium alongside No 19. A green scent with warmth and sexiness - wonderful and an absolute travesty that it's gone.

I am brand new to this forum, so I'm hoping that I'm following the rules... Vintage Y 1964 has been my fragrance since the late 70's. It feels as if it were created for me. I have always been able to source it - Fragrance.net was where I last purchased it. In the mid 1990's, while visiting Miami, I was told by a perfumery that Y was being discontinued and I wouldn't be able to find it. So, I purchased 8 bottles of the Eau de Toilette. It lasted for years. Once depleted, I made purchases on Ebay, etc. at a reasonable, competitive price. Wanting to have an extra bottle, I tried Fragrance.net. No luck. As with other hard to find products, some sellers on Ebay are gouging potential customers with their pricing. If anyone knows where I can buy a "new" bottle of Y vintage 1964, please DM me. Thank you!

My Love. My Angel. My absolute favorite vintage and quite possibly my favorite fragrance ever. Y is absolutely intoxicating. I cannot stop smelling myself when I wear it, I have never smelled anything like it. It’s special. It is impossible for me to describe what I experience while wearing it. I would not ever want to be without it. Unfortunately, perfume like this is no longer made. While I disagree with those who compare Y to Givenchy iii I understand the association; however, Y takes me on a journey Givenchy III could not even begin to attempt. In my opinion Y is more Regal, much more impressive and doesn’t try as hard as Givenchy. While there is a light similarity III doesn’t unfold as beautifully as Y. How can I put this, One wears III but Y, she becomes a part of you

I was so afraid of using "Y" on a frequent basis, as the end result would be running out. I simply was afraid as I wasn't sure how long I would be able to easily find replacements. The thought of falling short of my passionately loved rose-centric chypre was a thought I couldn't deal with-of not knowing if I could count on continuing being able to again get my hands on it for an affordable cost. Time has passed, and although I feel just as passionate about "Y", I gave in to my passion and now wear it as often as I reach for it. Still uncomfortable with running out, I have been keeping my eyes out for a big Eau de Parfum of this really special juice. Truth be told, it would be more that awful to go out of this world without finishing my current bottle!