Jean Patou Joy Eau de Parfum Spray for Her 30 ml

Product Information

I do love Patou. In all its incarnations (except the P&G Years) Mr. Fontaine won me over not only being a superior perfumer, but also I own Colony Heritage and the latest formulas of 1000 Edp, Joy Edp and Sublime Edp. All were very good in the midst of IFRA regulations. That was the first time where I experienced something similar to astral projection, I closed my eyes and inhaled the complex and luxurious aroma. The genie took me where I saw a paradise of rich velvety blooms, roses and jasmines sweating from the fine mist of a nearby waterfall and warmed by the glorious golden rays of the sun. I saw bees catching and carrying every droplet away to many little jars, like the one I held in my hand.

Fast forward, to a year after I stopped smoking, and all the pretty, elegant bits where overwhelmed by the musky note, and I couldn't give it away fast enough. Jean Patou as a company suffered from going through the years of economic recession, but it had a contradictory approach: when things got tough, luxury was boosted. Even when the company was in difficulties, and so was its clientele, Patou's approach was always to surprise the market with seemingly nonsensical products. That was the case of Joy, the quintessence of rarity and supreme opulence. When in 1929, Jean Patou smelled the unreleased sample of what was to be Joy, he loved it, but the perfumer told him it would be impossible to release it in the marker, for the essences that had been used were too expensive, and impossible to use commercially due to the prohibitive price. Jean Patou took this answer and turned this perfume into a marketing strategy, announcing Joy as "The World's Costliest Perfume." It was a success! After that it did settle down into a lovely mix of rose, musk and vanilla. Sweet as the finale is, I can't envision tolerating the first two stages to make this a keeper. It is possible that I applied too much, so I will give it one more chance with a smaller application. This was my second attempt, but I like to give any fragrance three tries. Being a fan of Patou fragrances I was excited to try Enjoy. Alas I have found this to be a difficult fragrance to wear. My tastes tend to run toward powerful scents, but even so the opening and the first 5 hours of wearing Enjoy were just overwhelming.An ounce of Joy had a retail price of 40 dollars, the most expensive perfume at the time. As told by Emmanuelle Polle, "What the clients would soon learn was that this ounce of perfume was produced through the extraction of some 10,600 jasmine flowers and 28 dozen roses. It was a gargantuan perfume, requiring huge quantities of fresh flowers. The couturier-perfumer was not one for artifice, be it in the way silk was worked or the walk of a model on the runway, or the ingredients of a perfume. The same line of conduct prevailed in his perfumes and his fashions: the quest for naturalness and the very best raw materials." Steele, Valerie, ed. (2010). The Berg companion to fashion. Oxford: Bloomsbury Academic. pp.553–555. ISBN 978-1-84788-563-0. The bright aldehyde chirped loudly and made a deafening sound, like an alarm, to make people around you retreat far away, so as not to be impacted by the aftermath. Distance produces beauty. Glamorous, seductive, confident, secretive and classy is the kind of woman I'd envision wearing this fragrance. I am a fan of mostly clean citrus floral fragrances, and when a friend gifted this to me I read the notes here and was convinced it would be a disaster on me. I mean, bananas in a perfume would be a notion difficult to conceptualize for most women who haven't worn Enjoy yet. Joy opens with lush florals from initial spray. Rich, photorealistic rose leads the way, initially slightly green and dewy, but unfurling to become a lush, sweet, powdery rose note. A hint of peach adds some juicy sweetness here. There is a bright aldehylic soapiness to the opening - I think aldehydes must be present in the lighter concentrations. I've never smelled Eau de Joy, but I believe aldehydes are present there too. It is reminiscent of Chanel No. 5 and Amouage Gold - the best aldehylic florals I have ever smelled. Joy EDT (at least my vintage version from c. 1970s) is up there with them.

Joy is composed primarily of a combination of jasmine and rose; 10,000 jasmine flowers and 28 dozen roses are required to create 30ml of the parfum, contributing to its high retail price. [4] Joy also contains other flowers such as ylang ylang, champak, and tuberose. Given its many ingredients, Joy does not smell like a specific flower. According to Luca Turin, "the whole point of its formula was to achieve the platonic idea of a flower, not one particular earthly manifestation." Jean Paul Gaultier began his career with Jean Patou during Michel Goma’s time there. He joined the studio in 1972 at the age of 20, completing his apprenticeship there. He left the house in 1974 to work at Pierre Cardin. Something I was fearing has happened. The house of Jean Patou is now dead when it comes to fragrance production.... The acquisition of the brand by LVMH was the final sign that things were coming to an end, and when they released a perfume called Joy under the Dior umbrella, it was clear that nothing good was going to happen with the original Joy, launched by Jean Patou in 1930. The base is still floral, but softer, it reminds me a lot of the smell of white lilies. I don't think it's powdery, it has nothing to do with Chanel No. 5, despite it being just as classy. I will always have a soft spot for Joy, but 1000 is easily my favorite. Previous posters are calling it a gender bender, and of course, to each their own! Their experiences may be different from mine. But to me, I find 1000 to be unabashedly feminine. I would love to acquire the vintage perfume in the green flacon, but fear if I don't act soon, it will only be a matter of time before it becomes out of reach.Designer Parfums appoints its first in-house perfumer". cosmeticsbusiness.com. 21 November 2011. Archived from the original on 10 May 2012 . Retrieved 14 September 2012. The structure is similar, but the weight ratio of various fragrance materials is different from the essence. EDT appropriately weakens indole and civet, giving consumers a lighter and easier-to-wear option. Jean Patou as a brand may have lost its luxury standing by infiltrating the discount stores, yet there is still an air of opulence which is easily smelt when sampling their line. Joy Forever has a similarly clean, crisp and airy opening to the original Joy. The bergamot accord really lifts this fragrance, making it the perfect choice for a warmer day.

Edit: I have now worn Joy twice. It's a jasmine bomb on me. I'm having a hard time finding other notes in this right away. After about an hour, it really quiets down. By then, it gets pretty powdery, and the jasmine all but disappears and Joy becomes pretty much a skin scent and I can barely detect it for the rest of the day. I have to respray it over again. Enjoy was an early version of the so-called “nouvelles-chypres” of the time like Miss Dior Chérie (2005) and Narciso for Her (2004). These perfumes substituted a musky patchouli base for the verboten oakmoss of the traditional chypre. The style now seems dated and era-specific, but Enjoy was one of the more successful iterations of the style.It's the end of an era, for all those who recognize Joy as an icon of perfumery, but also the end of many other scents, like 1000 and Sublime, pieces of olfaction that are a part of so many people's memories and personal stories. Maybe there just aren't enough buyers of these fragrances in the world. Maybe their time has passed and they have become fragrance zombies. As for me, I think that Joy is just as timeless and important as Chanel Nº5. But what was once the "Costliest Perfume in The World" seems to have lost its market value, at least for its current owners, LVMH. Designers for the House of Patou have included Marc Bohan (1954–1956), Karl Lagerfeld (1960–1963) and Jean Paul Gaultier (1971–1973). Christian Lacroix joined the label in 1981. The last fashion collection produced by the House of Patou label was in 1987 when the haute couture business closed definitively following Lacroix's departure to open his own house.

Karl Lagerfeld joined the fashion house as head designer in 1958, where he created the memorable long flowing dresses inspired by the 1930s, in homage to the founder. He left Jean Patou in 1963 to devote himself to ready-to-wear houses with whom he collaborated.

When I re-opened my eyes, I realized that I had pushed the bottle opening up my little 8 yr old nostril. It was pure magic, I couldn't get enough of the scent! I took the bottle out, and with a sheepish grin I wiped it off as well as I could and inadvertently spilled a little bit on my shirt. Knowing I would undoubtedly get caught, I ran over to the laundry room and threw my shirt in the washer and changed shirt. I passed by my Great-Grandmother and she gave me that knowing look. I told her what I did and she just shook her head and told me not to do it again. Joy was different from the previous Patou perfumes. First of all, unlike all the precious releases from the house, this bottle was very simple, austere and geometric, much in sync with the Art Deco style, and following the footsteps of the hit of Chanel Nº5. Second, the composition was for all women, more universal and not directed at a specific skin color or a particular event. It was a simple name, but very meaningful for everyone, everywhere. Joy was also jumping in the floral rose-jasmine trend initiated with Chanel Nº5, but whereas Chanel's take depended on artificiality and illusions, Patou's approach was mainly about naturalness and tradition.