Poison (1985)
by Christian Dior

Femme Fatale potion. I've always had this; I always will. Whenever I wear it I think of a quote from a movie, "Black as midnight, black as pitch, blacker than the foulest witch."

Exotic, seductive, captivating...Christian Dior's Poison is a classic elixir with an amazing mix of notes:

* Top: Coriander, Plum, Wild Berries, Anise, Brazilian Rosewood
* Heart: Carnation, Jasmine, African Orange Flower, Opoponax, Cinnamon, Incense, Rose, Honey
* Base: Vetiver, Musk, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Virginia Cedar, Amber, Heliotrope

I continue to be amazed at how sexy this perfume is, and I will never tire of it!

Dior 's best creation EVER , nothing in this world is like this evil , seductive queen ...

It's easy for me to write about the scents I that give four stars--but five stars? I need more space than this box provides. Five-star scents are essay scents. These could involve history, or cogitation, or passion, or all three.

Still, I'll try to keep this as simple as possible. Poison was the first perfume I loved--not the first perfume I enjoyed, or the first perfume I loved wearing, but the first perfume that I *loved*, the insane way that teenage girls fall in love. That love was about mystery and discovery and a sense of things being made just for me. I know that's maudlin, but that's adolescent love.

All these tender emotions may seem to run opposite to the camphor-and-tuberose beast in a bottle that comes to mind when you think of Poison, but consider the competition in 1985. It was a time of big smells, especially at my otherwise conservative Southern Baptist-dominated high school. The boys wore Polo. The girls wore hairspray. Giorgio was the floral du jour. I hated that for its aldehydes and its pretentions and it's Polo Club preppy stripes. ("Of Beverly Hills." Seriously?)

My friends and I were nascent post-punk kids in a repressive carpet of Laura Ashley pastels. We cared about music and art and getting out of our small town. This was at a time when you could still get beaten up for looking like we did. I looked awful with black hair, so I bleached mine: I was that one Gothy girl with blonde hair. All my friends wore Shalimar or Coco, so I felt like they were already taken, and they didn't suit me. And so, enter Poison--a floral fragrance that seemed punk rock. It was perfect. And it was new. And it came from a proper French fashion house. It smelled like nothing else on earth, except maybe an outer-space patchoulyized update of my grandmother's Jungle Gardenia. And its sweetness smelled heavenly mixed with the tannic crumbles of tobacco in the lining of my beaten black leather biker jacket. I would take that jacket out of my closet and just sit there, inhaling. That smell, the whole thing, was *me*.

In light of Poison's ultimate fate in the hands of big-haired women twice my age at the time, I realize how ridiculous all this seems. I was likely not the perfume's intended demographic at all. Or--given the limited number of options available to the perfume consumer in 1985--maybe I was, because maybe anybody was. I don't know much about how a major perfume launch was conducted then (or now). Maybe the idea was to play up the scent's uniqueness. Who can say? Through the wonder of those strange, Lilith-and-the-Apple adverts, we found each other at just the right time--alienated dreamy teenager and newly launched purple fantasy juice. And where I lived, it was completely monogamous. Nobody at my high school would touch the stuff. And. get this: the preps started talking to me, because I wore nice perfume. And I found something to talk to them about. Poison gave me a ticket out of the shell.

I missed Poison's devaluation in the latter years of the 1980s, when I went off to college and really dropped out of the mainstream. I didn't own a television, and I didn't bother with fashion like I had at home. Like many college students, I shed my old identity when I went away, leaving my confrontational self behind. I traded in my perfume, too. (I'll come back to that). When I saw Poison around in those years, it was usually at Walgreens or another downmarket drugstore shelf. Seeing it there felt depressing, a little like seeing a former boyfriend who ended up on skid row.

I have always felt like Poison never deserved its terrible reputation. The people who wore it didn't understand it. Even when I first wore Poison, knew that you could easily put on too much. One spray was enough--and even then, you had to use the spray-and-walk-through method to get the right distribution. Otherwise, headaches and worse would result. But at the right dosage, it's sublime. It's cool and hot, sweet and bitter, light and dark. Did I mention it's economical? My bottle--I only ever had one--lasted for years. And years. I don't think it was ever thrown away. For all I know, it's off in storage somewhere--

Now I have a small bottle of vintage extrait. It did not come cheap. Even though Poison takes a lot of cheap shots on the fragrance boards, I know it gets love and respect as well. I also see that young kids are actually wearing it. I'm so glad about this, because it's a beautiful fragrance that deserves to take its place among the classics. (The reason women went nuts with it in the first place was because it smells terrific--however, more Poison is nasal fatigue, not better).

I sometimes layer my extrait with some of my earthiest oud and leather fragrances. I encourage you to do this. If I get the blend just right, I can get uncannily close to my teenage self. I can remember Love and Rockets vinyl and David Lynch movies (things I still like very much and enjoy to this day) and the smell of cigarettes and my biker jacket (things I miss very much but can't have back) and that feeling of waiting for my life to really start (a feeling that goes away when you figure out that this is actually really it, now, right here).

So I can't be objective about Poison, even if I wanted to be. It's tied up in my identity. I'm still a Perfume Person. In fact, to many people, I'm still a Loud Tuberose/Patchouli Perfume Person, One of my best friends (who came from the circle of people who first spoke to me because I wore Poison) told me the other day whilst perfume shopping, "I still can't believe you don't own Portrait of a Lady." I probably should. But it's not the same. It seems pointless to wear things that are even similar Poison, even if their quality is technically better.

So, when I chose something new to replace Poison on my dressing table, I went for something that would show that I had developed some taste and restraint. The fragrance? YSL's Paris--that model of decorum. But that's another story--

Poison is the evil queen incarnate.

Her deep purple curvaceous bottle that fits perfectly in your hand, the clear crystal top is worn as her crown. Gold letters incribe her name.

Her sprayer hisses her venom onto my skin and it tingles. I come to her when I need the power to seduce, transform into the femme fatale.

She never fails in her powerful embrace.

Plums, tuberose and spices in a cloudy jolt of a nasty off putting note at first to punish you for what you dared to unleash. Then it works her magic in a large way, the carnation, the purpleness envelops you...transforms you.

The greater whole it creates with individual notes rising from time to time enraptures your attention. This is no ordinary scent. This is one of the greatest of all time, a hallmark of an era.

Only her decadent goddess sister Opium stands as one of her equals. Poison is the malevolent one.

I obtained a nib 1989 3.4 edt edition for this review. Its been 20 years since I encountered her original form. She is just as strong, potent and magical as ever. My senses recognized her as an old dark sexy friend. Although her formulation has changed with the times and become more syrupy and grape than her original overripe plums, never underestimate the evil queen.

I adore her.