Joy (1930)
by Jean Patou

This review is for vintage Joy extrait. I agree with JessicaGrace, all I'm getting is a rich, Jasmine soliflore. While I can appreciate the obviously high quality materials used in this scent, It just doesn't do it for me because it's too 'pretty", well-behaved and proper. I gravitate to scents with more of an edge. However, if you're looking for a Jasmine scent that's highly elegant and refined to wear to a special event, Joy is perfect. Even though it's not my "thing" I have to give it a thumbs up for quality and sillage and I'm happy to have it in my wardrobe.

Jasmine soliflores -- and try as I might, I can't get much else out of Joy -- are always difficult for me. I associate the scent with guest soap, and the only associations it brings up for me are matching towels. Aldehydes might be enhancing the soapy/powdery effect. This doesn't smell dated to me as much as it just smells squeaky clean and ordinary. It does warm up over time, but nothing fantastic happens. I guess I just like my perfumes a bit skankier than this.

The Platonic essence of "old-fashioned women's perfume." Your choice whether "old-fashioned" means classic or dated. One things is for sure: they don't make 'em like this anymore. Because.e most people don't want 'em like this anymore. I can't help but smell a 40+ conservative high-end designer clad society-lady within these vapors. It would truly seem out of place on a young 21st century woman, in the way that Vintage Tabarome would seem like an olfactory oversized suit on a 20-year old bachelor. These may only be conventions, and the perfumista will ignore them - but conventions are pretty powerful, after all.
It is a brilliant perfume and I cannot add much to the descriptions. A peachy aldehydic top, which I find better-tempered than in Chanel No.5, whose aldehydes knock me over. A perfect heart of blended florals - indolic jasmine, noticeable muguet and rose (as well as Ylang, orris and orchid) and slowly emerging spicy sandalwood and musk. A pronounced civet note hovers above it all from the opening, to slightly recede into the floral mix, adding some raunchiness to the bouquet of innocence. Add the wonderful art deco flacon (though the current incarnation has plasticized the stopper) and you have one of the all-time greats of 20th century perfume culture.

Like Narcisse Noir, No.5, and Fracas, Patou's Joy is a monument from another era in women's perfumery. It's not the kind of scent that would be made today, except perhaps as an exercise in irony. Too bad.

Joy opens up with indolic jasmine, powder, a jolt of aldehydes, and a very well-integrated note of civet. The powder, indoles, and civet remind me (believe it or not) of Amouage's Gold for Men, only without the frankincense. Joy sweetens with age as the aldehydes calm down and tuberose and a very rounded rose note join the jasmine in the foreground. Within thirty minutes of wear Joy unfolds into a powdery, semi-sweet white flower bouquet. I can't honestly describe it as "light," but the dominant accord is certainly less heady and lush than it could have been. I consider this a good thing. The drydown is mostly sandalwood and powdery musk, with the civet still lurking in the shadows.

Is it "perfumey?" Yes. Is it "old school?" Yes again - but only in the manner of a true classic. Joy reflects another time and place, where sensuality was dressed in dignity and elegance. Joy is very adult and very ladylike, but there is also an element of animalic lust deep in its heart. It seems at once formal and romantic to me now, and I concur with earlier reviews that suggest it as a bridal fragrance - at least for a mature and self-assured bride.

At first, Joy bubbles up like the first day of spring. I sniff; I instinctively smile. It is the kind of fragrance that makes me want to inhale until I faint. Too quickly, a repulsive, floor level insecticide odor quickly invades the juice. Then with no warning, that unpleasant odor abruptly fades and a lustrous pearl of floral fantasy rises up like the moon over the Taj Mahal. This is exquisite. Then an annoying odor that reminds me of carnation raises its unbeautiful head and sours the fragrance, making it seem sadly old lady. But the fragrance itself is so breathtaking that I can deal with the carnation, if, indeed, it is that. It is too bad no one has invented a perfume brush (like the brush that removes fat from gravy) and you would whisk it through a perfume you want to love and remove whatever odor saddens it for you. (Such a brush would have to be scent-specific—a different brush for each fragrance note.) I have researched Joy’s perfume notes and do not find carnation listed among them, so I wonder what is it that smells like it?

I have both the EdP and EdT. For my body chemistry, the EdT seems softer and sweeter, so I like that one better.

In dry down, that is when the perfect sexuality of Joy reveals itself. Most of the carnation-like fragrance is gone; rose and jasmine mingle like anointed lovers without the fragrance ever getting woody or amber-y (Heaven forbid). I would have liked Joy to be like this from the start.

Despite the one note I do not like, Joy gets a thumbs up from me. No other fragrance comes close.

Joy was this scent of mystery back in my childhood days. I didn't know what it smelled like because the SA would not let me smell it because it was "the costliest" perfume in the world, exclusive in a snobbish sort of way. I guess it would've been an expensive thing to do to have a kid obviously without money to test it. I was lucky to smell it when I asked my mother to test it. I was bowled over--I loved the smell of it, so opulent, sophisticated, and glamorous. I was even more bowled over at finding out how much a bottle of EdT costed, not to mention the cost of the parfum, and the 10,000 bulgarian roses needed to make an ounce of Joy.

In modern days, I couldn't help but mourn at Joy's state of existence lately. It's still a high-end department store scent, but not as exclusive anymore. Its price point has been lowered, I suspect that synthetics have now been introduced to the Eau, compliments of Proctor & Gamble, the new owner of Parfums Patou.

Smelling this new "Joy" smells somewhat watered down and barely there, definitely devoid of its glamor that transports you back into the 30s and 40s. I vowed to find vintage bottles.

YES! eBay had them, and **SOB!!** I cried for Joy's dignity. It seemed the era of Joy wearers have disappeared and I found a sealed 1/2 ounce bottle (ca. 1050's?) of the parfum for under $60 and a vintage EdP for under $40. This was the REAL stuff!

These dark amber vintage items were so beautiful smelling them, they smelled real, and the florals were lush. The smell of roses and jasmine made full with the help of tuberose and a verrry verrrry animalic base.

I don't smell sandalwood, unless it is the green note that I smell, but aside from that, the base almost contradicts Joy's floral beauty. It is also so sexy and skanky in such a good way! I'm definitely smelling real musk and real civet that no modern and everyday woman would even go near in this synthetic fruity-floral cum (excuse the pun) Britney Spears era.

Smelling the earlier incarnation of Joy, a scent from another era of opulence and worth, brings me to an understanding myself--I have a profound respect for other eras where everything has a different meaning and convention. It really humbles me to own and smell such a thing of beauty of days gone by.