White Linen (1978)
by Estée Lauder

I love this perfume, it's perfect for everyday summer wear. Clean, old fashioned soapy smell with strong flowery notes, particularly jasmine and lilac. It has a great inside of drawers wood smell base note too, mostly sandal and cedar coming through. It's definitely an old fashioned kind of smell, but I think almost so uncool it's cool.

It makes me think of clean clothes hanging on a washing line waving in the breeze on a summers day, skipping through long grass and being young in general (despite the old lady link!)

8th December, 2011.

The aldehyde opening reminded me of No.5, which I was not expecting. At first I was afraid that it was going to stay stingy and sharp, but it warmed up quite quickly into sweet very nice wearable scent. Not that much like linen, but I suppose you might get that if you look for it. Yes, it is a bit old lady, a bit Ivory soapy, in a good way. Nothing stale smelling, and no spicy carnation. Very very nice. I think I will throw the bottle in my bag and take it to work.

25th June, 2011.

Sparkling clean, like an Ivory soap absolute with a dash of rose; oh! and those wonderful aldehydes!

For most people this would probably be considered dated, to me it's nearly avant-garde...

21st April, 2011.

This is so pretty, so clean, so polite, so soapy, so chaste and so pure that could be a perfect scent for Nuns. It is as much interesting as much it could be your favourite washing powder. It would need to be seriously decontexualized in order to be a little bit intriguing. Maybe if wore by a tattooed bourlesque-ish girl dressed in a black leather dress could be more appealing.

2nd April, 2011. (Last Edited: 4th April, 2011.)

When I tried White Linen on a test strip It was love at
first sight W.L was the first Fragrance In my opinion
to recreate freshly dried linen that just came out of
the drier or or cloths drying in the Wind under a clear
blue summer sky on a clothes line and when i received
a sample bottle of White Linen i was ecstatic and
sprayed on my skin Then it turned sour on my skin and
i was a bit puzzled is this a bad sample because
sometimes perfumes do go bad due to age or
manufacturing or it's my skin chemistry some scents
don't work on some scents and maybe this is not one
of them I don't want to pinpoint that White Linen is
a mere disappointment which is not or a average run
off the mill Fragrance i really think it's the harsh
aldehyde with the with the mixture of Lemon and Honey
Aldehydes have to be carefully blended to make sure
not get a plastic and cloying smell smell but nether-less
a unique Treasure.

24th March, 2011.

This review is for the vintage parfum.

My 80 year-old grandmother wears White Linen, although her favorite is YSL Paris.

Just sayin'. White Linen is all about BIG white florals and soap with some civet on my skin. It's tough to smell the civet with your wrist glued to you nose but from afar, your sillage could smell like someone pissed their freshly-washed trousers (White LINEN) and covered it up with baby powder. Awesome.

White Linen isn't bad, but it's not for me.

3rd February, 2011.