Drseid
Helpful Review
4
Different Than I Remember But Still Impressive...
*This is a review of the vintage English Lavender.
English Lavender opens with an aromatic airy and slightly camphorous lavender and citric bergamot tandem with a sharp supporting cedarwood undertone. As the composition reaches its early heart the bergamot vacates, leaving the staring aromatic camphorous lavender and supporting sharp natural smelling cedar initially by themselves, before gradually adding in herbaceous, leathery clary sage as the composition moves though its heart. During the late dry-down the lavender eschews its aromatic facet and cedarwood support as it turns mildly powdery, joined by moderately animalic musk through the finish. Projection is below average, as is longevity at 5-6 hours on skin.
English Lavender (vintage) is a composition I was exposed to as a child nearly forty years ago. The composition was quite common back then in stores everywhere, also finding its way into soaps and other toiletries. While memory can be quite tricky when looking back on a period of nearly 40 years, I distinctly remember it leaving an indelible positive impression with its very recognizable signature. Fast forward to present time, after many years of passing over buying a bottle of the vintage juice it was time to go down memory lane and make the purchase to see if those positive memories still held so many years later. Wearing English Lavender on skin as I write this, I can definitely confirm that while different smelling than I remember, the composition still is quite distinctive and impressive, only adding unexpected sharp natural cedarwood to the mix. In truth, there really isn't much to English Lavender's composition structure. It is a relatively simplistic concoction, but what sets it apart from the competition is its near-perfect execution and very solid raw material quality. Who would have thought this was a drug store fragrance? On the negative side of the equation are the relatively poor performance metrics. I don't know officially if the composition was an EdT or an EdC, but I would wager an EdC, as it has a light airy structure with relatively poor longevity. Whatever it is, it smells darn good and is still dirt cheap in relative terms on the aftermarket making even a blind buy a real low-risk possibility. The bottom line is vintage Yardley English Lavender smells different than I remember it with more of a cedar component, but the end result doesn't disappoint, earning it a "very good" 3.5 stars out of 5 rating and a solid recommendation.