Shalimar Parfum Initial

Sally Mann Immediate Family, 1992

Sometimes you take a test, a sniff from the bottle and things click. You're sniffing and/or huffing at your wrist until the scent is gone, then making plans to get a bottle. Funny, my first sniff of Initial was in Macys' last summer/fall.  An SA asked me if I had tried it and handed me a card. I smelled the card, looked at her, then at the card again and said, "Did you spray the card?" I couldn't smell a thing. She smelled the card and she said yes, she had sprayed it. Okay. I happened to be dripping in Mitsouko that day, a living lesson in extrait, a little goes a long way. Nobody said anything, but I realized that I had put on too much because noticed that I was kind of smelling Mitsouko constantly, like the scent has cinged the inside of my nose. But, several hours later I could smell Initial on the card and it was alright, nothing earth shattering.

The perfect birthday gift for next month.

A couple of weeks ago I was in that awful Macy's again and took a hit from the bottle-only because there wasn't anything else of interest to smell.  I was checking the Coco Madmesiole EDT, I had sprayed myself with it. When I smelled the sprayer of Initial, WHAM! It hit me. Like a ton of bricks. OMG, it smelled like a Guerlain: it smelled kind of poopy,* musky, rich and vanillia-sh. Since this was Macy's it was probably the only Guerlain in the joint.  I was sorry I had sprayed the Coco Mad on myself, I would rather sprayed Initial. Once home I was checking the retail prices, searching ebay for a bottle, a sample, anything. I found a 15ml spray for $20, like above, one of those gift with purchase items. Buy it now. I have been wearing it for several days straight, have not gotten bored, tired or sick of it. Not that a week or so is a lot, but it's like I can't get enough if it, I'm sniffing myself, spraying it in the morning, before I go out and a spritz before bed.

Initial is a strange perfume. I don't think of it as a Shailmar flanker, I didn't even approach it that way, Shalimar was the last thing on my mind when I fell for this potion. Yes, it is a nod to Shalimar, but only in it's vanilla aspect. That's the only connection I draw between the two, the vanilla. My bottle of Shalimar is ancient, an almost black extrait that smells like nail polish remover in the opening-so it's difficult to compare the two.

My thoughts a couple of weeks later: more wearings and I see more connections between Initial and her grandmother,  Shalimar: the citrus-y opening, the powdery dry down,  leather? Nah, maybe Initial wears a patch of suede, although it's not in the notes, something is velvet-y in there. Tonight I smelled the caramel notes, they smell almost chocolaty. Nearly every wearing I notice something new. I'm wondering if it has Iso E Super? I swear I smell it in the dry down, a hint of it at least.

Speaking of new, Initial wears like a new, modern fragrance with classical roots. It smells modern in a good way, modern as in rich, well made, not modern like a screechy, synthetic, fruit celebrity-drugstore scent. There's something about a new perfume-one that you just luv-something special, makes me feel all fancy smanchy & dolled up when wearing it.

ninapeople.com/natalia-vodianova-en-tenue-d-eve-pour-guerlain-a51189.html

Photo by Paolo Roversi

http://nymag.com

Now about the advertising, every time I see the  black & white ads with Natalia Vodianova I am reminded of Sally Mann's photography, the portraits of her daughter (the older one), the dreamy look in her eyes, her age of being child, but beginning to look like a woman.  I also think of early photography,  where slow film required long shutter times, and in portraits if the subject blinked or moved their eyes during the sitting,  their eyes would appear in the final print as either blurred or practically all white, a blank, zombie like look. Natalie Vodianova is stunning, why, why, why give her such an empty look?  It must be working because it gets a reaction out of the viewer. I suppose there are worse looks they could portrayed in the advertisements, let's see, something aimed at younger girls/women....name any celebutant or reality star and there you go. I'll take the haunted doll look any day over that.

The Shalimar Flankers, they're nothing to sneeze at! Well, I've only smelled Eau Legree and Initial, but they're both fantastic scents in their own right. In my mind I tend to separate them from Shalimar, and think of them as stand alone perfumes-that smell very much like Shalimar. As long as Guerlain doesn't discontinue or reformulate the hell out the regular Shalimar, then alls right with the world. On the flipside, it isn't all that creative for Guerlain to be churning out flanker after flanker, not very original. Why not make a different perfume instead of an offshoot of one already in production? Shalimar Initial and Eau Legree are full bottle worthy to me, but now there's another Initial on the way, which I'll have to test once I see it in the store, and what will come after that? Shalimar Initial Noir?
Although I do like some flankers, come to think of it, the only flankers I own are the two Shalimar ones mentioned here, and an Eau de Shalimar is on it's way to me, probably in today's mail. We'll see....


Ohhhh, I'm thinking about the birthday already, over a month away. I don't know how long my little 15 ml will last, or if I'll still be yearning for Initial by the time my birthday rolls around. I may ask for a Chanel, Eau Premiere maybe, I don't know how Hubby would feel marching into the Chanel Boutique, but I think he can get Eau Premiere at that Macy's, Shalimar Initial, too. By that time I may be chasing after something else....


*About the poop note, in some perfumes I smell a poop immediately, right out of the bottle. Notably in Chamade, Vol De Nuit,  Lui, Ivorie De Balmain, and worst of all in Joy. I used to think it was Civet, but it must be the indolic-ness of jasmine? I will be doing a post on this eventually.