Mitsouko Guerlain Eau de Parfum

It usually takes many years of mistreatment from heat and light in poorly-maintained warehouses to achieve the smell of dusty, musty, crushed flowers in a mediciny, space-heater way. Mitsouku saves you the effort of such abuse by opening up with that exact effect. What would happen if you aged Mitsouku in such an abusive climate? Probably biohazardous material.

The first ten minutes allows the floral accord to unfurl a touch more. I felt relieved. As time passes, it becomes imperious and grande without growing any lighter; it's a perfume that a high society spinster might wear. Mitsouku is the fragrance of formal power and ceremony; it is the polar opposite of little girl fragrances.

Part of the heaviness is the stale and musty smell of mothballs, yet its vague familiarity induces comfort. How is that possible? My grandmother wore a fragrance with very similar components, though I'd be shocked if she wore Mitsouku. The silage is generous at a few feet and it lasts eight hours or so tapering away in the usual fragrance fade.

At no time is Mitsouku unladylike; it maintains its decorum and essential feminine identity throughout every stage of its development. As a result and as you might expect, there's no way I could wear this in public. I doubt that most men could either. You would have to be a 10 foot-tall vampiric lord with 400 hp and the confidence of Alexander the Great to pull it off, and you probably couldn't do it even then.

In short, you don't wear Mitsouku. It wears you.