La Perla La Perla 1987 Eau de Toilette

Captured inside this cheaply produced and rather tacky bottle lies one of the most incredibly undervalued and passed over fragrances on the planet.

I only came in contact with this beauty a few years ago. I was making costumes for a very popular television dance show and helping out with wardrobe on live broadcast days. The garments would come home with me after the show, where I would unpack them from their bags and hang them on a rail behind my cutting table ready for laundering.
One morning after one such night I was working at my table and kept on catching the most incredible whiff of fragrance from time to time. I realized, eventually, that it was coming from behind me and I immediately found the culprit on one of the gowns I had made. I phoned up the person who had worn the dress and asked her what she had been wearing the night before ... it turned out to be La Perla. She brought me a mini of it the following week, which I cherished as long as it lasted.
I was doing a little re-organizing a while ago and unearthed the empty bottle ... and ordered from Ebay the very same day!

This is definitely an 80's floral chypre bomb ... but what a delicious way to be blown up!! La Perla is so well blended that very few notes stick out on their own ... rather they form a melange of scent so magical that it could very well bring a tear to one's eye. The florals here are just gorgeous ... deliciously sweetened with the addition of honey. The rose lingers all the way to the very end, beautifully supported by a clean and crisp sandalwood and a slightly peppery patchouli. Longevity and silage are stellar here, in true retro fashion. Be prepared to be enveloped all day and well into the night!

If you hanker after serious 80's beauty at a very affordable price, hanker no more ... get some La Perla and revel in the memories it brings :).

::This review is for the EDP::

It was love at first sniff between me and La Perla years ago. It's like a luxurious cashmere sweater that fits perfectly and cuddles you. It's warm, soft, comfy yet sexy.
On my skin it opens up with a peppery-smoke of roses which, in itself sounds maybe a bit unusual and surprising, yet proves to be a soft and sexy combination. Than, a slight vanilla-honey mix appears and settles next to it adding extra warmth to the roses, and finally, a beautiful soft musk finishes the grand parade of pretty smells in the dry down. I know that far more notes are supporting this perfume in its evolvement from first spray to dry down, but they are so well blended that I can't discern them, I just know it smells rich and complex.

It's a favorite when I don't know what to wear because I adore it for day & night and in every season and I know that it always smells just right on me. And -just as important- I always enjoy smelling it too.
To me it's the perfect mix of character with a soft edge. All love and soft with an undertone of willpower that doesn't disappear in the dry down and lasts on me forever. It's a beauty!

I discovered La Perla through a great thread on Basenotes about underappreciated perfumes. This is a 1980s perfume that is in the same rose chypre vein as Paloma, Diva, Scherrer and Knowing. To my nose it’s closest to Ungaro’s Diva, which, of those I’ve just mentioned, is the one I like least. A bit too much sweet honey for me. La Perla differs from Diva in just the right places, though, and I really like it. The honey is toned down, the rose is a touch darker, the patchouli is amped up substantially and the spices seem more integrated. As the scent progresses, it gets drier and the honey fades. The rose and the patchouli come together; the patchouli makes the rose drier and the rose warms up the cool, earthy patchouli a bit. Long lasting drydown.

I really fell head over heels for La Perla, which I first encountered last year when a fellow fragrance traveler sent me a generous sample of this gem. I had never even heard of this perfume, much less seen it anywhere for sale. To me, La Perla, like Moschino's first (eponymous) perfume, is a made-in-the-1980s classic which deserves to live on and on and has been severely underappreciated, passed over by the masses lured in to the major counters to buy the latest new big thing (whatever it may be, and however it may smell...) by massive attention-getting marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, La Perla has been shrouded in relative obscurity—I presume because the company has lingerie not perfume as its primary focus? More evidence for this "other priorities" theory would seem to be the cap on the La Perla bottle. It's probably the cheapest one I've ever seen, more akin to something that you'd find on a stick of deodorant than a luxurious perfume. But it wasn't the ugly, tacky, five-cents-to-produce cap that kept me and so many others away. It was the near total lack of any significant effort to promote or sell this beautiful perfume!!!!!

Why do I love La Perla? In part, because it is a sophisticated yet comfy modern chypre, which was amazingly created between two patchouli fads. On the one hand, there was the hippie era, when (I'm told...) dark patchouli oil mingled with old faded, not-washed-for-months jeans. On the other hand, we continue to witness to the present day the post-Angel deluge of sweet patchouli frags. Somehow La Perla manages to avoid both excesses, being rich in patchouli and moss but neither very dirty nor very sweet. Instead, this perfume is soft and sultry: a perfect piece of silk lingerie, in fact. I love to sleep in La Perla, I really do.

***

NB: the above review is for vintage LA PERLA. I have two reformulations, one in the original bottle, and one in the new bottle. Neither comes close, unfortunately. I'd give them 70% tops.

La Perla La Perla ... ....

This is the best fragrance I have ever smelled and I mean the old version. I can cry that they have it reworded. I recently added a bottle can score on Ebay for a lot of money but I think it was the last because it can no longer find.
I always get compliments on this fragrance and when I put it on I spray delusion in the most beautiful Perfume creation ever.
The combination of roses and incense is great in this scent. I'm still going to enjoy my last bottle La Perla La Perla .....