Ivoire (1980)
by Pierre Balmain

The Ivoire I know has this composition:

Top notes: aldehydes, chamomile, asafoetida, mandarin orange, violet, artemisia, marigold, bergamot and lemon
Middle notes: nutmeg, carnation, cinnamon, narcissus, pepper, orris root, jasmine, turkish rose, neroli, ylang-ylang and lily-of-the-valley
Base notes: sandalwood, tonka bean, amber, patchouli, musk, raspberry, vanilla, oakmoss, vetiver and incense.

Ivoire shares quite a few key notes with Oscar (Oscar de la Renta) but it is a little less sassy and in-your-face. It also has a much more balanced and subtle composition. The fresher top notes give way to a refined warm and powdery dry-down. Ivoire is a very rich and chic fragrance. It is especially suitable for winter wear.

21st December, 2011.

Review of Vintage EDT:
What can I say about Ivoire that hasn't already been said? Its a stunning, soapy, demure green floral that is excellently blended. To say that this perfume has a refined character is an understatement.

The individual notes are hard to pick out with the exception of the aldehydes, oakmoss, chamomile and marigold which on my skin are the most pronounced. Interestingly the aldehydes and oakmoss are most pronounced at the beginning and the chamomile and marigold are most noticeable in the dry down. It doesn't follow the ascribed pyramidal structure as listed above.

While this is absolutely gorgeous, I would NEVER recommend this as a blind buy because of the potentially polarizing green/herbal notes.

Sillage: approximately 10 feet
Longevity: 12 hours on my skin
Overall Rating and Feel: 9/10. This is a VERY GREEN fragrance, in fact one of the greenest I've encountered. It feels very chic, refined and strangely natural given the presence of aldehydes. It would be perfect to wear to a formal luncheon or in the boardroom.

30th October, 2011.

I am very, very new to this; I don't know many frags yet and don't have a good basis for comparison. But after hearing about it in several threads about green chypres, I dug out a mini of Ivoire that I've had for years. My current favorite is Niki de Saint Phalle, which is variously described as a green chypre oriental leather, has made me want to try other things with those descriptors to figure out how all those scent ideas work.

So far, of the 40 scents I've seriously tried, Paloma Picasso and Ivoire de Balmain are indeed very closely related to NdSP. All go through similar stages on my skin: green opening with various strong players popping up and stepping back, not all of which I recognize, but all of which are interesting to me; early drydown (after 15-30-45 minutes) I start smelling the "oriental" wave, which I gather are the spices and perhaps the beginnings of the woods; then the long-term drydown -- after an hour and as long as it goes, which varies -- the part I love most. Wisps of the opening greens, smoke-rings of the decadent spices, and the base. Oh the base. I am still buying samples and reading largely because I want to understand that base. Is it the much-mourned, now nearly banned oakmoss? Is it an interplay of oakmoss and other tenacious basenotes as mixed by master noses? It's the drydowns that are most related to alchemy for me.

Paloma is close to NdSP, not in detail but in overall shape. But its drydown is not as enchanting to me. I like it -- I smile when I catch a whiff -- but it doesn't make me excited to smell more, and talk about it, and get to the bottom of WHAT IS THAT INCREDIBLE SMELL?! as I do with NdSP (every time).

Ivoire de Balmain is a little different, a little sharper, a little more assertive. I do like it, but it lacks some of the roundedness and balance that I think both NdSP and Paloma have. It keeps a slightly irritating, maybe attention-grabbing, character throughout. Ultimately, though, its drydown is disappointing to me, staying with the nose-clawing sharp greens and soapiness, never letting in the spices and -- the thing that might be what makes me love NdSP so much -- the completely different type of bitterness and warmth that comes from tagetes (marigold). Ivoire is one my husband asks me about, in his hesitant and deeply respectful way, because he doesn't much care for perfume that smells like PERFUME, if you know what I mean, and he came close to asking me to scrub it off. It certainly projects the most of any green I've tried yet. I may try it again in extremely small amounts and see what he thinks as well as what I think.

Ultimately, I guess that just being a green chypre doesn't guarantee I'll like it. They are remarkably similar in many ways, and I expect they smell mostly the same to people who aren't interested in perfume.

5th June, 2011.

I have a tiny EDP bottle of this that seems to have evaporated to pure oil. It smells great. It makes you smell like an old lady, yes. But a very sophisticated and wise one so that's OK! I have long believed class outruns trends and fashion everytime and this scent assures me I'm right. I think the scent is good for a man who has no problem knowing he's a man too, much like Shalimar, Lou Lou, Lempicka, and a few others. Thumbs upo from me.

12nd April, 2011.

Greenery, piercing, sparklingly aldehydic, powder-puff, lemony, fresh, bitter-soapy, Victorian Garden, strange-yet-familiar, most certainly white. Less cohesive the closer you smell. Superb lasting power.

A time and place not ours to touch. A Monet painting of young women outdoors. Unwearable.

31st March, 2011.

To me this fragrance is dominated by Iris. It seems to fall right in the middle of Iris Poudre and Iris Silver Mist. The laminate from Balmain lists only three notes with Orris being one. It's sort of fresh and heavy at the same time, if that makes sense. Easily worn by a man imo although I passed it over.

23rd February, 2011.