Hey there Crew, So Mitsouko is not my Guerlain first love but it is the one I wear the most. There’s a whole shoebox of different vintages and strengths in the Guerlain cupboard (Yeah, I know. Bragging is hideous, soz). Wanna see a pic?
Just to clarify, there are a few other perfumes at the top of the box and I also have an amount of unboxed Mitsouko bottles in another mixed box. Yes, I know. GLUTTONY! I’m not doing this to make you jealous but more to show the depth and breadth of my illness. With the discontinuation of many Guerlain Parfums from the range it reminded me that I need to love and wear the ones I own. Grabbed EdT, EdP and Parfum from different eras and went crazy.
Mitsouko by Guerlain. Am I Wearing Too Much?
Often given featured accords:
Top: Bergamot Citruses Jasmine Rose
Heart: Peach Ylang-Ylang Jasmine Rose Lilac
Base: Oakmoss Spices Cinnamon Vetiver Amber
Mitsouko is 105 years old this year and as perfume people you’ve most probably tried it at least once. So you know how this wondrous beauty smells. Bold, old fashioned fruity sweet with a big, voluptuous bouquet and heavily spiced amber over a bed of moss. I often have trouble picking it in the wild because it smells the same but also utterly different on every wearer. It’s one that I comment on in the streets or venues and then get a big surprise when the wearer says Mitsouko.
Today (Monday) I gave myself four big EdT bursts on the arms, three bursts of EdP to the chest and one behind my head. Lastly I swiped a few passes of extrait up the top of my forearms and clavicles. I was a coruscating cloud of perfume and it smelled so bloody amazing. I went and had a lie down for 15 minutes and just breathed in the utter perfection before getting up and writing this for you all. Then I cleaned the house, did the laundry and wrote this weeks Trivia Q&A. All smelling unbelievably spectacular. I did not leave the house till evening, except to walk the dogs through the last vestiges of Indian summer here down in Sydney.
There is still an Extrait de Mitsouko available on the French Guerlain site. It’s €12,000 and 505ml. Good luck with that.
Surrender To Chance has vintage Mitsouko Extrait and other strengths if you’d like to try what is now a unicorn.
Do you have a Mitsouko story to share?
Portia xx
The first time I wore Mitsouko I was at a horse show. The high was 50-55F/10-12C with a stiff breeze and lots of fog. And I just kept pushing my jacket sleeve up so I could sniff my arm. That one spritz lasted all day outside and I still loved it when we settled in for the night. I have a tiny decant of an early vintage EdP and a newer EdT and even newer EdP and I love them all. Without a doubt my favorite Guerlain fragrance.
I have 2 bottles, a vintage 90s or 2000 edp and a vintage baccarat crystal bottle with an etched bottom and with a red ink paper label, and the satin lined red/ brown wooden traditional box, which I have been unable to date, but appears to be south of the 50’s from what I can make out by the availability of information online.
I don’t wear Mitsouko often but when I do she is front and centre on stage at the opera like Dame Nellie Melba.
It was early on when I first sniffed Mitsouko and it was the vintage. I didn’t know what to make of it. I know now that it was the oakmoss. A few hours later I was doing the dishes and kept getting whiffs of something wonderful. That was the beginning of my love for Mitzy!
What better way to discover Mitsouko than while doing the dishes. That made me smile. Perfect Maya.
Portia xx
Hello from Los Angeles my darling Ms. P! Yes yes yes, I don’t have as many Mitzis but I do have a small vintage Parfum from the 70s (OMG killer) and one of the perforated refillable EDPs in the gold bottle which is equally divine. I remember falling in love with Diaghilev by Roja, and then smelling Mitsuoko vintage and realizing how Roja’s had captured and yet adjusted it into a brighter lifted version – but Mitsuoko is the masterpiece here.
Mitsuoko became one of my most beloved in my own insane collection of fumes. It speaks to my heart in round warm base tones and elevates my mind. The modern versions left me cold. It is the essence of the art of perfume for me, and is among, if not the best of the Guerlains – if that is even possible. I adore you and your wonderful collection! I was mentally lying next to you inhaling all of that magic, transported by your story.
I would have LOVED to have you next to me Barbara. It’s been 10 years since we hung out together. Jin and I often think to come back to the USA but it just never seems to happen.
BTW, you might want to try the new Mitsouko. A few years ago Mr Wasser created a faux oakmoss that has multiple lift points just like the real thing. Though the whole fragrance is less dense than the vintages it is quite spectacular again.
Portia xx
Oh that sounds divine! I will have to try it! You and Jin are missed by many here! Hope you make it back or I make it there one day soon! XXXXOOOOO
Report back if you do try the new Mitsouko Barbara. XXX
I have a lonely bottle of the edt. I’ve sniffed and sampled the parfum — loved it — and would love to get some someday. The old Guerlains seem to smell best in parfum/extrait version to me. Your stash is amazing Portia!
Yeah, there is something so deep and enticing about the old extraits DinaC, if you ever come to Sydney we can sniff some of them together.
Portia xx
Oh, Mitsouko. My first, biggest Guerlain love. My suit of armor that I can also wear … whenever I feel like it, including to the grocery store. Today might be that day (it’s spitting snow.) I’ve also noticed how different it seems on various people. I have various vintage iterations, although not as many as you!
It’s spitting here today too March. Wear Mitsouko in the best of health and enjoy the grand waft.
Portia xx
Mitsouko was not my first choice of the old Guerlains but I thought a chypre lover has to have this classic perfume in the collection so I bought my second hand bottle half full some eight years ago. It is an EdT from the nineties and I consider myself lucky to have found it at a very good price. I don’t reach out for it often, because it feels very vintage. I’m seldom in the mood for it but when I am, I make sure that everyone around me knows it! Actually, the lovely spring weather right now makes a beautiful background for this fruity-spicy-oakmossy perfume.
HA! Neva. “I’m seldom in the mood for it but when I am, I make sure that everyone around me knows it!” could be a perfumistas mantra.
Portia xx
You smell divine Portia, and I love your Guerlain cupboard collection. We all need joy in life and my perfume collection provides me so much joy likewise. My original Guerlain love was Shalimar and then L’Heure Bleue. No story, I came to Mitsouko later; however, love it. I have small vintage EDP bottle and a recent edp from 2016 ish. I will wear today. xoxo
You’re so right Kathleen, what else is this life for than to do a little good and wear a lot of perfume.
Portia xx
I desperately want to love Mitsouko, alas she is bitter and austere on me. Despite that, I have a spray bottle of the edp and a 250ml gold bee bottle of the same, which I bought at a very reasonable price just for the bottle and never expect to open. I keep trying it, hoping some day I can wear it instead of her wearing me. Le sigh.
OMG! You have a 250ml gold bee of Mitsouko EdP TaraC. Be still my beating heart… THUD.
Portia xx
Hangs head in shame… have never other than a tiny sample sniffed nor worn Mitsouko. Revoke my badge. I think; when I was really exploring tons of stuff, I wasn’t really ready for it. Then I just had too much else going on. And have never been a vintage collector. However, if I encountered some of it in the wild I would 100% buy it. As far as wearing too much – when you’re at home, cleaning and doing laundry – when else can you bathe yourself in scent! Go for it!!
Well MMKinPA, you HAVE smelled it so you get to keep your card, badge and spritzer.
Oh yes, doing chores is when we should ALL smell bloody sensational to drown out the turbines of tedium.
Portia xx
Ah, Mitsouko.
Mitsouko wasn’t my first Guerlain (that was Vol de Nuit) but it was the first true love. I got a small bottle of perfume decades ago. Used that up (I still have the empty bottle on my dresser) and made some sad noises on Makeup Alley’s perfume board. Lo and behold, someone (I can’t recall who now) popped up and said “Would you like my vintage EdP? I don’t wear it much”. Well, yessireebob!!!! I can’t recall what I sent her to say thanks but it was a load of all kinds of stuff.
I still have a bit in that bottle which I pull out — and like Tom, it acts as a very specific sort of armor.
When I finish this bottle (whenever that will be) I will of course keep the empty — and then I’ll get another. And if I’m lucky that will coincide with being in Paris (or maybe it will be an excuse to go) so I can visit the Guerlain shop. A pilgrimage of sorts.
LOVE this story Cinnamon. Perfume people are the best.
I’ve not had much luck in the Champs Elysees store so I go to Place Vendome. The service there is always amazing.
Portia xx
Ah, will make a note about the Place Vendome shop.
There’s also another Guerlain down near Printemps and Galleries Lafayette. They are extremely helpful and rarely very busy.
I wore Mitsouko a very long time ago when it was in the cologne form in those beautiful round clock face bottles. For me, that was my favorite, along with the extract. For some reason I have a lot of difficulty wearing the edt and edp these days. I wish I could find those clock face bottles again.
Oh yes Cyndi!
I have a clock face Mitsouko EdC around here. Sometimes they come up on the resale sites.
Portia xx
You make my collection of vintage Mitsouko to shame. Only 8 bottles worth of vintage edt. The most recent is a tear drop bottle from the 90″s, back when it still had oakmoss in it. My mother says that I smell like an old lady and she is pushing 70 herself. And I was wearing the current version. I loved Mitsouko early in my perfume journey.
8 bottles is not to be sneezed at Eldarwen22.
HA! Mums are funny. Just so you know, on this one thing she is utterly wrong.
Portia xx
I have a bottle and wear it on days when I feel I need a bit of armor. I find it comforting, but it definitely has an edge on me- I call it Mitfukyou. Like “screw with me at your peril- I will cut a bit@h old skool.”
Years ago when I worked at Rizzoli in Beverly Hills there was a French lady who came in a lot- she was friends of the mother one of the other employees and would stop in to get the papers. She always wore black and was always, well not out of style but just true to her own style, which screamed “Paris” without the help of anything as vulgar as interlocking C’s. A sort of Cecil Beaton-ish look. She always wore the same perfume: innocent peach and vanilla with a little sourness that was slightly.. carnal.
Of course it was Mitsouko.
It doesn’t smell quite the same on me (nor should it) but it still has that edge..
I bet you smelled divine!
LOVE that story Tom. Style is eternal.
Oh yes, I smelled all the divine.
Portia xx
Great description–LOl at “screamed Paris without…the interlocking C’s.” I have only two bottles of Mitsouko, one vintage, one from the 2000’s. Wear it when I want a sexy stiff ‘n’ starched vibe.
I loved that too Shiva-woman. Such a beautiful expression of the basic banality of modern designer.