Hope (1952)
by Frances Denney

I read the review of vintage Hope and remembered how much I adored it! It was an amazing lovely fragrance - nothing compared! A soft oriental that I compare to nothing else. Learning that Frances Denney had a website I ordered a new bottle and the body lotion. While I was disappointed with the lotion, the beautiful perfumed cologne did not disappoint. I am as enchanted with it's soft elegance today as I was so many years ago. It is an underexposed treasure of a perfume. It is a timeless classsic proving as perfect for this mature woman as it was for that young woman so many years ago.

1st October, 2011. (Last Edited: 28th October, 2011.)

This review is for vintage Hope.

If have to say so myself, even as a young girl of 12 I had the heart of a perfumista. The first scent of my own that my mother gave me was Frances Denney's HOPE. I loved it and even though I was only a pre-teen, when I first smelled Hope I had that feeling of déjà vu or being transported to some other time, even though I had not yet lived enough life to have experienced any other time or place. As years passed I became more interested in the bottles that perfumes came in than the perfumes themselves, but I still chose "signature scents" along my journey to adulthood that seemed to serve as a kind of budding perfumista rites of passage. After I moved on from Hope there was Bakir, then YSL’s Opium, then Habanita. By then I was in my late teens.

However, even with all of the wonderful fragrances I experienced over the years, Hope was always in the back of my mind, haunting me. I would often think back to the time when, as a young girl I stood on the slate steps in front of my house watching the sun set. I had just applied a bit of Hope to my neck and had caught a whiff of it in the warm, late evening breeze. As years passed I would remember that moment and the sweet floral/Oriental richness of Hope. I often wondered if I ever got the chance to smell it again, would it be as wonderful as I remembered it to be.

Curiosity got the best of me, so last week I searched Ebay for vintage Hope, not wanting to risk being disappointed by one of the many new and possibly reformulated-to-death bottles available all over the internet. What I found was a vintage bottle with a completely glass stopper that contained what remained of ½ an ounce of Hope pure parfum that was dark as tea. Apparently, no one else was interested, so I bid and won. I received the bottle a couple of days later. As I unwrapped it from its 2 inch thick cocoon of bubble and Saran wrap, I could faintly smell it and my heart started pounding as I thought of how I was finally holding the smell of my childhood (and the seed of my perfume obsession) in my hands at the age of 51. When I finally reached the bottle and opened it, I swooned. Hope was better than I remembered and I suddenly realized that I had come full circle because every perfume that I have adored in these many years of perfume collecting (Shalimar, Vol de Nuit, L’Heure Bleue, and many more) was influenced by that first perfume experience.

10th January, 2010.

Yumm! It does make my nose itch, though. (Allergies) The bath oil smells the best, and I use it as perfume. It's richer smelling on the skin. Truly, Yumm. There once was a perfume called "Lost Horizon". Hope reminds me of that.

14th May, 2009.

I wore Hope for a few years in the '80s and loved it, then put it aside. Recently I discovered the Frances Denney web site and ordered a .25oz bottle of the Hope parfum. Am I ever pleased. What a beauty. It starts out as a classic aldehydic floral, but the drydown is what makes Hope a real winner. The geranium settles in with the base notes and becomes dark and clove/carnation-like, a deeply attractive skin liquor. After an hour or two, Hope becomes a perfect bouquet of classic flowers balanced on a dark, sensually spicy backdrop. Notes include jasmin, Bulgarian rose, Algerian geranium, allspice berries (Pimenta dioica) and other spices. In many ways, Hope is like a tamer version of Caron's Coup de Fouet, which is also on my favorites list. I'm delighted that Hope once again has a prominent place in my fragrance repertoire after a 20+ year absence.

21st June, 2006.