Poison (1985)
by Christian Dior

I can't really be objective about Poison, as it's attached to a lot of nostalgia for me. The first bottle I acquired of it was in 1986, as a teenager. I wore it almost every day for 2 years. It's what people came to associate with me (and according to old classmates, it still does remind them of me.) At the time, I was the sole girl at my school who wore it (or the later knockoffs), and it was a strange, dark, daring scent which fit my strange-girl personality. I even had a cat who adored it, and would lick it off my wrists (my mother checked with the vet to be reassured that the amounts she'd be ingesting wouldn't hurt her); this memory is bittersweet, given the brevity of cat lifespans.

On me it was thankfully never "too much" according to everyone who smelled it on me (I applied exactly one spray, which might have had something to do with that), and it smelled mostly of its fruit and spice notes. Even after it became an ubiquitous, abused and overused fragrance, I was told that it was still somehow distinctive -- and therefore not annoying -- on me.

Not long ago, I opened a box that had been stored at my parents's house and found a full bottle that had been bought in 1993, according to the serial number. 25 years later, the bottle smells exactly how I recall it; one spray provoked a rush of memories in a way the newer formulas don't, which is rather curious.

So yes, Poison, for me, is and will always be a 5-star scent.