Mitsouko Guerlain 1919 Eau de Toilette

On the evening of July 3, 1973, David Bowie announced on stage at the London Hammersmith Odeon with the words “…not only is it the last show of the tour, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do” the end of Ziggy Stardust. While the world of fans collapsed after these words, Bowie created a myth with them. Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous artistic figure who believes in love and peace but ultimately fails in his own life and sinks like a hymn. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, an album that made rock history, helped establish Glam Rock, and inspired so many other artists up to the present day.

When Jacques Guerlain created Mitsouko in 1919, he also created a myth in the world of fragrance. Like Ziggy Stardust, “Mitsy,” as it is fondly called by its fans, quickly became very successful, influenced the perfume world, broke with the typical feminine scent schema by spreading more masculinity with spices, vetiver, and oak moss, thus reviving the Garçon - Garçonne theme, and has since been generally regarded as a reference chypre and one of the best perfumes ever created.

But alongside any lasting success and star hype, the fall and decline are not far away. However, it was not the creator himself, Guerlain, who dealt the death blow to Mitsy. Nor were it the loyal fans of the fragrance who turned away and left empty concert halls. No, it was the IFRA regulations, from which the words “but it’s the last show we’ll ever do” originated. The IFRA, founded in 1973 by the way, decided around the turn of the millennium that bergamot, musk, and oak moss would be placed on the index. Those building blocks that make up the soul of a chypre were banned and had to be replaced if one did not want to discontinue the fragrance. Mitsy was reformulated multiple times, but it was not until 2013 that Thierry Wasser succeeded in creating an award-winning version that was supposed to come very close to the original scent from 1919. This reformulation affected not only the Eau de Parfum and the Extrait but also the Eau de Toilette. But unfortunately, this could not prevent the downfall of Mitsy Stardust.

In my opinion, the Eau de Toilette benefited the most from the reformulation. The dark, musty, bread dough-like start after spraying disappeared and was replaced by a bright, transparent, citrus-floral top note. It was as if the dust of entire failed generations of reformulations fell away all at once. Mitsy shone in the bright-spicy chypre framework. Dreamlike. So dreamlike that I wore it daily, could not get enough of its scent, stocked up on it, which would save me for two years, and even wrote an ode to the Extrait.

But then came the year 2015, and Mitsy Stardust suffered a fateful deep fall once again. According to Guerlain, there were problems with the stability of some ingredients, which led to a leathery, tar-like scent taking over the top note. This was a market disaster for Guerlain, as the EdP and the Extrait were taken off the market for more than six months, and production was halted. It was said that the Eau de Toilette was not affected, and I felt secure. What a fatal mistake.
The EdP, the Extrait, AND the EdT were affected by this tar note. And it was again Thierry Wasser who reformulated himself to the brink until the end of 2016, when a version of the EdT appeared that, while free of tar, unfortunately presented with significantly more synthetic monotony and a lack of freshness in the top and heart notes. In projection, this may not be so noticeable, but the glory of Mitsy Stardust is forever tarnished, and the fall as a signature scent is hard to stop when there are few alternatives.

I have no choice but to do as Bowie did at his concerts, by asking before I sing “Mitsy Stardust”: “Why do you kill Mitsy?”