Cinnabar (1978)
by Estée Lauder

Cinnabar is too pungent and musty, with the carnation overwhelming the cinnamon. There’s a lack of clarity in the composition and the end result is simply a mess of notes. It also smells very old-fashioned – more than I would personally like or could even tolerate.

Put simply, Cinnabar is not the timeless classic that it likes to think it is.

My mother's signature scent in the early 80's was Cinnabar. I remember it being deep, exotic, and very spicy. It just screamed "grown up" to me, and I used to sneak a spritz on occasion. I would love to revisit it today and see if it still smells like the quintessence of sophistication.

For years this was my favorite fragrance, but I don't wear it anymore.
Now it just feels too heavy and intense. Even the lotion seems too heavy.
Guess my taste has changed because I used to adore it.

So much cinnamon. Cinnamon is certainly not a demure spice, and here we have it full strength … with aldehydes! If any fragrance deserves the label “spicy Oriental,” this is the one. In the top accord, I can sort of tell that there is an orange note in there, and I certainly can believe that there is clove in there, too: The clove and peach are used as a slight support of the cinnamon and don’t come through very strongly to my nose. I can’t separate out the florals in the midnotes – the cinnamon is still so dominant. Actually I don’t really determine a very different accord for the middle notes, so I find this is a linear fragrance. The drydown does settle down to a much lesser potency of spice, and is quite beautiful with its incense and light woods –This base of incense, patchouli, and vetiver with a touch of the sweetness of vanilla and amber becomes a translucent skin scent.

I do like this fragrance very much, but not nearly as much as I thought I would. Until the drydown I was rather disappointed in the quality of the accords. I don’t really object to the amount of spiciness of Cinnabar, but I find a muddiness, a lack of clarity about their use. I would have liked the cinnamon to have a sharper, less dense, less oily tone to it. I was hoping that Cinnabar would be a more economical version of JHL, and, it certainly is an option I will consider when my JHL is due for replacement, but I think my choice will be another bottle of JHL – JHL is a better fragrance.

Don't remember how I discovered Cinnabar, but took a bottle with me when I went to work in Italy and Greece for two years. Found it utterly comforting in the autumn and winter, a touch of home and home land. I've discovered other lovelier scents since then, but asked for a bottle for Christmas and find that a little goes a long way in invoking that same comfort, loveliness and "home" feeling. Every perfume review says this, I think, but for what it's worth, I repeat the same chestnut: "When I wear this, people say, 'Oooooh, you smell delicious.'"

Cinnabar and Opium do smell a lot alike in the opening. All that cinnamon. But then they take very different roads. Opium is more complex and on the right person with the right body chemistry it is magnificent. Unfortunately my body chemistry is not the right one for Opium, which makes me cry.... but...Cinnabar I can wear and it smells great on me. Someone said cozy? Yes, definitely and spicy and warm. Love it. And I have worn it off and on ever since its debut in 1978. Like all Estee products a little goes a long way and it lasts a long time, ten or twelve hours.