Anaïs Anaïs L'Original Cacharel 2014 Eau de Toilette

Today, determined to get to know a legend, I spent twenty euros on the 30ml legend. As everyone knows, every legend changes over the decades and centuries...
I have read that Anaïs Anaïs L'Original is no longer 'the' original. I lack the background knowledge, so I will comment on the 2014 version without bias.

I had previously taken a sample home, but only on a white paper strip.
So much in advance: the paper strip suited Anaïs Anaïs much better than I did.

I was quite enthusiastic and still am, in a way, about the top note and heart note. I couldn't experience the base note at that time, due to the lack of body heat on the strip.

But back to the beginning: I really liked the beautiful white bottle with the veiling pink flowers. Elegant in an old-fashioned way. Vintage. This would look lovely on a delicate white dressing table, alongside a vase with white lilies, behind it a gold-rosé brocade wallpaper. Dame Blanche, draped in flowing silks, enters the sunlit room for her morning routine, strokes her hair with a goat hairbrush, powders her nose, and dabs Anaïs behind her ear, beneath her flowing hair...
My mood picture confirmed me, quite prosaically in jeans, sneakers, and a parka at the local Karstadt as I released the first spray of Anaïs... The first floral cloud wafts away. No citrus, no fruits, and none of the usual notes found in the top note.
A very delicate, light, floral, but also somewhat peppery freshness, as if someone were holding a bouquet of freshly bloomed hyacinths in the fresh morning air under my nose, 'Here, smell this!.....aaaaaah!'
Top note is great! Check!
Soon, however, this person approaches with more samples from the early bloomers' selection. She becomes a bit pushy. More and more and more and more flowers she presents.....
- Hyacinths! Take this!
- Violets! Take this!
- Hawthorn! Take this!
- Lily of the valley! Take this!
- Roses! Take this! And this! And this!
And as a rosy backdrop, she throws in a few fluffy cherry blossom petals....I am up to my neck in a spring potpourri...

Suddenly, I realize that the Anaïs fairy with the dressing table has a Mireille Mathieu hairstyle. Hippie-esque, but with elegance... The dew on the flowers is now drying, a slightly muffled jasmine comes through, along with some trendy plants from the 70s...Ylang-ylang and is that patchouli?
I am almost feeling a bit groovy....
Up to this point, I liked it. I thought this overly dense floral abundance would surely subside.
On the way home, I kept sniffing my paper strip....aaaah interesting...a wonderful soap. This floral quality, yet without heaviness....I also perceive a bit of sharpness...

Only today, after my purchase and the actual wearing on my skin, do I get to know the true Anaïs. She has a dark, musty secret, a corpse in the cellar....Moss and musk put an end to the cornucopia of spring.
On the skin, every freshness disappears; it smells a bit like my grandmother's generous baby powder donation at the birth of my first child. A lush bouquet of roses and lilies thickly powdered white....

If I could wish for something from the Anaïs fairy, it would be a bit of citrus or bergamot in the top note, a bit more vetiver in the base, and fewer dark notes.
That would be my personal version of Anaïs.

Still, I find that this is a coherent fragrance, but for a different type of woman than I am, and perhaps from another time.

I do not know the much-praised original, but for me, this version conveys a hint of the seventies. Well-groomed bourgeoisie gone astray. If it could be smelled as a spectator, then Isabelle Huppert could wear the scent for the film adaptation of Madame Bovary. The scent is beautiful, but for my type, it lacks clarity and freshness or the complete wickedness. Moreover, it is too dense for me and a bit shrill synthetic. Oh, what a pity....