When it comes to writing down my thoughts and feelings about perfumes, I never approach the task flippantly, most especially when it comes to the older iconic fragrances. It took years before I felt I was ready to opine on Shalimar, for example. It’s been around longer than my grandmother after all and what could an inexperienced, beginner perfumista have to say about it anyway? Nothing, that’s what. Nothing worthy of paying any attention to anyway. And Mitsouko is even older than Shalimar, being released in 1919. I just don’t form opinions on things I don’t understand. And it took a long time for me to “get” Mitsouko, but alas, I finally understand.
When I was first introduced to this perfume over 5 years ago by Johnathan Nieto at the Guerlain boutique in Palazzo Vegas, my only thought was why on earth would anyone want to smell like this? I ended up buying Mon Precieux Nectar that visit lol. I knew nothing about Mitsoukos historical context, or what ingredients were even available at the time of its creation, nor the inspiration behind its name, or even its predecessor, Chypre de Coty. No, I knew none of these things and didn’t even consider their existance. All I knew was that it didn’t smell like the squeaky clean, sweetened concoctions that had been in vogue most of my life. To me it smelled sour, musty, and very very dated. And while it IS dated, now that I really understand oakmoss, it no longer smells sour and musty, but sweet and woodsy. I’ve actually grown to adore Mitsouko.
So you might ask, how on earth can something go from smelling bad to smelling good and the only thing that’s changed is a mindset? Well, the nose is funny that way. And really, it’s like anything else that’s an acquired taste. I mean, who really loves beer the first time they taste it? Or “stinky cheese”?
It wasn’t until I started tinkering around with essential oils and absolutes that I developed a love for oakmoss. And after I had tested an original, very rare-over 90 years old formula of Chypre de Coty, the original chypre of mass production, I was inspired to create my own chypre with all natural ingredients just to see what it would smell like. So I researched where to get the best (legit) EOs and Absolutes, researched basic chypre composition, and ended up ordering Patchouli and Oakmoss Absolute from Piping Rock and Labdanum, Cistus, and Bergamot from Gritmans along with a few others, and began my little experiment.
Oakmoss has been mostly banned from perfumes in the last 10 years or so due to alleged allergens, but after playing around in it for weeks, I can say I am in no way allergic to oakmoss. And what I discovered was that the Mitsouko I had originally tested was but a shadow of a ghost of its original self, for it contained little to no oakmoss. And oakmoss is an imperative ingredient in any true chypre. Like baking bread without flour, or spaghetti without any tomatoes, a chypre without oakmoss is not really a true chypre.
What I ended up creating over those few weeks tinkering with EOs, was a very “rough around the edges”, unrefined hint of what Chypre de Coty was and I ended up developing a real love for oakmoss. But my experiment was very much lacking, and compared to Mitsouko, the most obvious thing lacking was the peaches.
It’s funny how things are relative. Like how originally, Mitsouko was sour and musty to my nose with nothing sweet about it. But a side by side comparison of Mitsouko to Chypre de Coty, proved how much sweeter Mitsouko is than Coty because of the peach note. When you cut out all the sugar from your diet, things begin to taste sweeter. And that’s just what I experienced with my nose with my chypre creation experiments and wearing Mitsouko and Coty. I avoided all the sweet gourmands and orientals for a while to focus on chypres, and all the little nuances began to really shine within them.
The other facet of Mitsouko that I loved even before the fragrance itself grew on me, is the incredibly romantic inspiration behind the fragrance in the first place. Mitsouko was metaphorically meant by Jacques Guerlain, to ring in the end of WWI and to inspire hope for the future. The namesake, Mitsouko, came from the book, La Bataille by Claude Farrere. It is a story of forbidden love between two lovers whose countries were at war against each other. From wiki:
” The story of Mitsouko is found in Farrère’s novel La Bataille (‘The Battle’, 1909), which is a romance based upon Japan modernization and westernization during the Meiji period and upon the 1905 naval Battle of Tsushima when the Imperial Japanese Navy defeated the Russian Imperial Navy . In Claude Farrère’s book ‘La Bataille’, Mitsouko was a beautiful Japanese woman whose name meant both ‘honey comb’ and ‘mystery’, who was married to a noble Japanese Navy officer and who had an ill-fated love affair with an English officer. ”
So that brings me to how I grew to love and appreciate Mitsouko. And after swapping my reformulated EdP for a decant of Royal Extract, I decided to replace it with a vintage edp, that still contained all that glorious oakmoss. And I just looooove it!
Mitsouko is definitely an acquired taste for the young noses of today, that have been spoiled by clean sugary sweet, mass market fragrances. Not only is it an acquired taste, it can be somewhat of a difficult taste to acquire because Mitsouko can be a bit on the temperamental side. The notes that dominate can depend on the weather, humidity, and the moisture levels in ones skin. Sometimes I get lots of peaches and Mitsy is sweet and well behaved, other times, I get more bergamot and vetiver, which do not play so nice on my skin. So if you try it out and do not like it at first, do yourself a favor and try again at another time. I’ve known lots of perfumistas that disliked Mitsy at first, but I don’t know many that didn’t grow to just love it. There’s a good reason, after all, that it’s still in production after almost 100 years when many new fragrances get discontinued within a decade. Despite its temperamental nature, Mitsouko is truly an endearing classic fragrance that I’m sure will be around many more years to come.
Season: All
Top: Citrus, Jasmine, Bergamot, Rose
Heart: Lilac, Peach, Jasmine, Ylang, Rose
Base: Spices, Amber, Cinnamon, Vetiver, Oakmoss
💜~FragAmour~💜 A Fragrant Affair 