Help dating this Flacon Amphore of Shalimar

I recently acquired a full flacon amphore of Shalimar extrait. I've been wanting one of these bottles for a while, so I was very happy to finally get one. However, it did not include the box, so I have no idea what vintage its from. Can anyone tell from the photos below?

Thanks!

Thanks, ladies! I'm not really a bottle guy, but for this one I make an exception. This is probably my favorite bottle in all of perfumery. I'm very happy to finally have one in my collection, but I'd love to know more about it.

Mike - its entirely possible that I got ripped off. I was so excited to get an amphore that went for an unsealed one. I got it on eBay as an "unsealed, almost full" bottle from a seller with lots of 100% feedback, but I know that's no guarantee of authenticity.

I haven't really worn it yet - just a drop on my arm. The topnotes seem off, but it's definitely "Shalimaric". The heart smells right, but weaker than I'd expect - although everything tends to be weaker than I expect on my skin because I soak up fragrance like a sponge.

I'm not confident I would know for sure, as the only sealed vintage parfum I have bought is still sealed. The juice is about as dark as my sealed vintage Marly horse bottle, and much darker than bottles of the current parfum, zigzag box vintage EdT, and PdT atomizer I have. Here's a comparison:


Zigzag box EdT, Marly horse parfum (no outer box, but would have been zigzag, I think), the bottle in question, Parfum de Toilette (this is the oldest "EdP" formulation, I think), and current parfum.

Here's a close up of my sealed vintage parfum:



Maybe I should open up this beauty and compare. I really don't want to do that, though ...

I never considered that the label not saying "parfum" was a concern. My vintage bottle just says "Shalimar" where the current says "Parfum - Shalimar - Guerlain - Paris". I thought I read somewhere that there was a label in between those that had fewer words than the current. The amphore bottles were all parfum, weren't they?

Thanks, Primrose - I enjoy photographing my perfumes almost as much as I do wearing them! My bathroom vanity and iPhone4 make a surprisingly good photography studio.

I will certainly report back if I learn anything outside of this thread.

OK, already! I will open it.

I think it's my only good vintage Shalimar extrait, so I've been ... saving it - for what? I don't know. I suppose it's just that once I open it, I won't have a sealed bottle of the best Shalimar ever anymore. Once it has been opened, an irreversible process begins that ends with an empty bottle of the best Shalimar ever. I know it's silly - what's the point of having it if I'm not enjoying it?

I have a 1/4 oz flacon parapluie in a white/black zigzag box with the purple Marly horse inner box, as well as the unboxed amphore - I bought both unsealed. I compared them to each other last night - I think both have either been tampered with or they have been badly stored. The opening of both has no little bergamot, and is definitely "off" with very low sillage. The base is OK, but I'm mostly getting vanilla by then - the best part of the show is over.

I checked Mr. Guerlain's page and found a lot of info, but not much about the flacon amphore, other than a photo of a 15ml example that may be the same as mine.

I also found some info elsewhere on the web, including the eBay guides. One of the guides says that the amphora was only used for parfum, but I couldn't confirm that.

Knowing that the juice in my amphore is off, identifying it's exact vintage is not so important. It would be interesting to know still.

Anyway, I'll try my sealed bottle tomorrow and report back.

OK - I didn't have time today.

I'm extremely fussy about opening these things. I pry open the metal seal, untie the cord, and keep untie-ing until the stopper is free, and then I re-tie it back to the stopper, and knot it above and inside the foil seal and then close it back up again as well as I can. This can take me up to an hour! Am I the only crazy that does this? I'll try to do it tomorrow.

By the way, this one is different from all the others I've opened. The seal usually looks like thick foil with a gold coloring on the outside. This one looks like its made of copper foil, and seems much stronger. You can see the color difference in the image in post #7 above, where there is also a current parfum in the picture.

castorpollux - thanks for the info. Are you sure they were only made in the 50s? I read a web site that described the bottles used over the years, and it shows this style as being made from 1955-1978. That's not from a verified source or anything like that - just one website I happened to find googling, and that time period includes a few variations of the design. Do you mean that this specific version of the amphore was made only from 1950-55?

It's ...

good!

Thanks so much! It sounds like you know your stuff! It tells me that the chances of finding an amphore with good juice is lower than the later designs, so I won't try again with one of these bottles. I have my beautiful slinky little flacon (with not so beautiful juice) - I don't need another.


Sorry, Knit! I didn't have time! Too many mundane matters filling my days lately. I barely had time to pop it open, dabbed some on my arm, sniffed it and posted my little tease.

By the way, that little charm was tough to get off! I swear it's made of heavy gauge copper or brass foil - much stronger than the aluminum foil ones with gold tone on the outside that they put on the new bottles and the vintage EdC and EdT.

Today, I put one spray on my arm so I could feel it developing throughout the day. I couldn't give it a full wearing - I can't walk around work smelling like the Abode of Love, you know. It may undermine my authority.

I reapplied this evening to play it back.


That's it, Mike! The citrus is very subdued, but still there, I think. It's overshadowed by - everything else! It's incensy, resinous, sweet, animalic - and in a very complex organic way, not the "check-the-box", "yeah, it's in there" civetone aromachemical way. I know what you mean about the petroleum - it has this nose-singing kerosene bite. It literally stings when sniffed up close.

It's so intense, and utterly captivating. It goes in through my nose, works its way through my brain, down my spine, and grabs me by the core. I swear - sniffing the first movement is so charged and overwhelming it has a physical effect. Weak in the knees, feeling faint - it sounds like it must be hyperbolic, but I totally get it.

The opening is the best part by far. After that, it's still gorgeous, but it loses that gut-wrenching power. Much more floral, rounder and juicier that the current parfum. Much more feminine, I would say. I don't care, though. It's too good for that to matter. I'm not great with notes, but I think I smell jasmine, rose, and iris. It's very natural and complex to my nose. Are these all still natural florals? Does the current still have them? I don't know, but there's a big difference here, I think. Comparing to the current version by analogy - this is like an oil painting, where the current is like a pixelated digital image. The new one is very angular and sort of represents the idea of the floral elements, where the vintage is just ... there!

The drydown is pretty much the same as the current version. At least I can't tell the difference. I haven't compared back to back, but if they are different, it's not a dramatic difference. It's pretty much all smoky vanilla and sweet resins, with the fading light of the heart.

It's easily the best perfume I've ever smelled.

OK - I put it all out there. I hope I didn't make too big a fool of myself! That's certainly the most detailed report I've ever given of any perfume anywhere. I usually don't trust my nose/brain enough to say so much, but it kinda gushed out.


KarmaLee - It was hearbreaking to realize how degraded the juice in my amphore and parapluie are. But, the awesome perfection of the contents of my bigger urn flacon go a long way towards making up for it.

I know exactly what you mean by being drunk on Shalimar now!

Thanks, Knit - that's very kind of you to say.

Now that it's open, I'm already dreading the day that it will be gone! I'm one of those people that starts getting depressed on the 4th day of a 7 day vacation because it's more than half over now. This is even worse! There will always be another vacation. Not this - there will come a day when there are no more bottles of vintage Shalimar to be found.

I'm normally not a glass-half-empty type, but I can't help it. Each wearing is, say .1 - .2ml. That's only about 200 doses of olfactory heroin before my little 30ml bottle is empty.

The government of France should nationalize the Guerlain family oeuvre, protect it as a national treasure, and produce the classic perfumes in their best vintage formulations for the betterment of all mankind.

The stopper does have a plastic seal - it looks like the glass top has a small nub that the plastic stopper is pressed/glued onto. This is the same as the bottles in the zigzag 1967-marked boxes, I think. I've neved had a parfum with older packaging, so I have no idea when they changed from all glass.


I like the current as well. I think it is more wearable for me - I still won't wear it out alone, but I layer it with Habit Rouge. I think the vintage will be something I indulge in at home, mostly



I will try a big wearing soon, when I have time to enjoy it. It's a bit unsatisfying having to sniff my arm constantly - I like filling the room sometimes.

For the first time, I've been inspired to add a review to the directory of something I truly love. I took my sniff report above, edited and refined it after a subsequent wearing, and submitted the result as a review of Shalimar in the Basenotes FD.

I've done a couple of reviews of less significant perfumes before, but I've avoided writing anything about ones that I consider truly great until now. I know I'm taking this all too seriously, but I really didn't want to write about my great loves unless I felt I could write something worth reading.

Thanks to all on this thread for your insight and kindness. I couldn't have done it without you. On the other hand, I'm not blaming any of you at all for any ignorance or silliness that may have resulted.

Maybe one of these days I'll work up the nerve to write reviews of Mitsouko, Habit Rouge, and Jicky.

Wearing the Shalimar again now. It's just so... damn... good.