Youth Dew (1953)
by Estée Lauder

The name must be a joke. It is too heavy and old. But that is not why it is so bad. Many old type floral oils are just bearable but this one has a bad composition besides having these old oils and too much spice. Very disturbing. You can use it to spoil a party, two puffs up in the air would disperse the crowd.

A fragrance I would love to appreciate for its notes and for its heritage... yet, it doesn't do it for me, it does not suit my skin and it makes me feel nauseous. It's not quite as "off" on me as Clinique's Aromatics Elixir, but it's in the same league. Love it or hate it. Maybe Youth Dew is the Marmite of perfumes?

Way too moldy smelling to me. Stale. Old. I thought it would dry down to a soft powdery musk, nope, it's an old stale and moldy odor that lingers with a vengeance. This smells like death. A funeral. Like dirt. Old rotting corpses. I think everyone gets the idea about this stench. One of the worst I've smelled. Avoid it.

I urge all those who smell a rich old lady to give Youth Dew another chance, with more careful attention. She may be rich, this lady, she may be old (she wasn't always), but she is wiser than you know. The initial shower of assorted spices suggests that she may possibly be benign, even kindly; then, the clove and rose recall the grand passions of her youth; finally--you must pay close attention--the benzoin drifts up from beneath her polished manners like a prophecy (tricky to interpret, undoutedly true). Among my favorites.

This is how a seductress smell... Warm, inviting, sexy, caring, feminine... This is one of the best orientals ever done. Though it is a well known scent, it does not lose from its originality, cause its a unique perfume. It is definitely not for everyone though.. A small dose works best.

When I was very young, 8 or so, I thought the bottle of Youth Dew owned by my Aunt stunk of skunk. In my thirties I had a friend who was older than I and who was the epitome of elegance and chic and whose signature perfume was Youth Dew. It was magnificent on her. Men would walk by her, stop, turn around and follow her. Always asking the name of the perfume so they could buy it for their wives, or girlfriends and always complimenting her. I thought that maybe it was time for Youth Dew to work its magic on me so the next time I was at a department store I tried a little on my wrist. Huge disapointment. Skunk juice.Sigh. Now I am in my fifties and it just so happened that someone gave me a gift collection of Estee Lauder mini's a few days ago and one of them was Youth Dew. So yesterday I touched a tiny bit of the perfume to my wrist was rewarded with the most luscious dark sexy sweet fragrance in the world. It has taken 50 years for my body chemistry to get "right" with this perfume and I can say it was so worth waiting for. It is elegant and classy. Even though I am not, I feel that way for a while while I am wearing it.