Review by ms rochambeau
I found a 2.5 ml vintage vial sample of Alpona in a dusty antiques store. I sniffed it and thought "strange" and put it away for several months. Three days ago I put it on and haven't stopped wearing it since. Upon first sniff I was put off by the citrus-y blast that was accompanied by oakmoss right out of the gate. An unusual combination, as citrus usually appears at the top of a scent with oakmoss coming more at the bottom, or drydown. However, after wearing it for the past few days, I have become smitten with one of the strangest Carons I've encountered so far. This is not a sweet scent and it's not a transparent cologne-type citrus. Alpona's citrus is more crystalized and opaque, evoking the smell of creamy/doughy lemon cookies, lightly dusted with powdered confectioner's sugar. As it dries down it brings on a wistfulness in me because of the fact that we will never see the likes of this already rare scent again. The scent that comes closest to it is Guerlain's Eau de Guerlain. But E de G is much more transparent and doesn't have that dark, mysterious, trademark Caron base like Alpona does. Each time I smell my wrist, I literally get a pang of melancholy and and almost wish I'd never found this little vial. After all, you can't miss something you've never experienced. It's a shame that everything in business has be about the bottom line ($$$) and that the vintage beauties many of us crave are being replaced buy the new "molecules" being pushed on the industry by giant firms such as Givaudan, Firmenich, IFF, etc. This isn't about allergens at all, it's about moving product, the cheapest and fastest way possible and Alpona has long been a casualty of that way of thinking.
