Salvador Dali (1983)
by Salvador Dali

Wonderful 80's power house fragrance! At first it briefly reminded me of Opium by YSL. I would say that gives a fair impression of the type of scent this is. Powerful, warm aldehydic floral. It comes as one of the few Parfum De Toillettes in 100, 50 and 30mls and just a 30ml of the EDT. Can be found very cheaply online and I have to say it's not received the acclaim it deserves.

To be honest foetidus' review describes it perfectly!

27th June, 2010.

I love this perfume: on me it turns into a slightly sweet slightly oriental, with subtle spicy and floral notes. It is very similar to the floral Chanel No22. Well worth trying

5th March, 2010.

I find that this scent (black lips and pen too) is very clean and elegant. Cleanness of soap, white flowers, aldehydes... Real classic, but actual if you are in in the vein for it. It may be rainy autumn day or a first date, round-up of old friends or interview - if you want to feel freshness, confidence and self-dependence. I use it not often, but always have in collection to wear when want some clear and white...

28th August, 2009.

I wore this perfume in the 80:ies, and I truly loved it. Salvador Dali is the perfume who made me leave Chanel No 5!!! I had Salvador Dali until it dissapeared from the stores in my country.

And now I have found it again! I have tried quite a lot of the fumes I used to wear way back in time, and not all of them are what they used to be. I guess some of them are reformulated. But not Salvador Dali, it smells exactly the same as it did in the 80:ies!!!

Today I have both No 5 and Salvador Dali, and enjoy them both.

Salvador Dali starts aldehydic, and if you try this perfume for the first time, please, let it stay on your skin quite a while before you judge it! The greatest pleasure starts after half an hour of wearing it! It is very longlasting, too.

The bottle is totally adorable! Two thumbs up from me for Salvador Dali!

29th August, 2008.

I’ve seen where this called a chypre; I’ve also seen it referred to as an Oriental; to confuse the situation more, H & R Genealogy positions it between aldehydic and sweet floral. What is it, really? I, personally, would call it a chypre, but I wouldn’t argue with Oriental. I think we can all agree with “aldehydic,” but… “sweet”…? It doesn’t come across as sweet to me. All of these labels just go to show how complex and impressive this fragrance is. Salvador Dali is an admirable EDP that hasn’t received the acclaim it deserves. The deep, rich, sensual notes already spring up in the opening, and its citrus / green accord is kicked up to the second or third power by the aldehydes. It is so sensual that I began scanning the pyramid for the animalic notes… Much to my surprise, I didn’t find them listed – must be the indoles from the jasmine. The middle florals form a solid rich floral bouquet with the jasmine slightly dominant to my nose – there is also a fairly strong powder, which continues into the base. The base presents a definite amber and vanilla, but it isn’t what I would call sweet because the cedar and the myrrh have a strong drying presence. It’s a wonderful what-I-would-call chypre base: woody, ambery, and slightly resinous. Hours later the myrrh note is still caressing the skin. Another wonderful ‘80s feminine fragrance.

23rd August, 2008.

This 2' bottle of Salvador Dali (black lips) has floated around with me from various apartments and finally to my permanent home since the late 80's. Back then, I was primarily collecting perfume for the bottles. As an artist I was happy to have this bottle since I had studied Dali's work in my college art history class and knew it was his design. I had never attempted in all the time I owned it to get acquainted with the scent inside until recently. I have Basenotes and its contributors to thank for teaching me how to fully experience scents and helping me to discover the many treasures I had right under my nose if I would have just opened the bottles (vintage Jicky and Shalimar among them), dabbed some on and patiently waited.

A few weeks ago I decide to try this and was so surprised by how beautiful it is that I could have kicked myself in the head for not trying it years ago. The opening notes are very floral which I'm usually not a fan of, but this is so well done that I can more than live with it. The sillage at this point is good, so a little bit goes a long way. As it starts to dry down the flowers seem to make a rapid exit and I start getting notes of rich leather and dark tea even though these notes are not listed in any description of this perfume's composition that I've found.. Eventually the tea recedes and the leather note becomes more prominent and the scent seems to stay like this for a while, which is great because I'm crazy about leather notes. At this point it smells quite similar to the leather in Bal a Versailles. In the extreme drydown stage the tea note comes back again and that's what's left as you wake up and smell your wrist the next morning. This scent is gorgeous! My bottle is old and tiny, so my fear is that I may run out one day soon if I keep wearing it the way I have been and when I attempt to replace it, the only thing that will be available will be a, most likely, reformulated and watered down version.

8th August, 2008.