My introduction to Shalimar was two-fold: a vintage EDC that I won on eBay, and a bottle of extrait that my generous mother gifted me with. For nearly a year I’ve diligently bid on every reasonably priced bottle of vintage extrait that came up on eBay, but never come close to winning.

In a rare twist of fate, I bid on and won both a vintage (un-opened!) bottle of Shalimar parfum and a bottle of vintage L’Heure Bleue EDT, for a laughably reasonable price. I nestled my little box of Shalimar in the back of the perfume cabinet, and forgot about it.

Today, when I couldn’t decide what to wear, I reached for the little black and white encased purple velvet box. After dabbing it on, I thought, “Hey, this is great!” and decided to put a dab of the current formulation on my upper arm, for the side-by-side comparison.

Just for fun.

Next to the vintage stuff, the current formulation is sharp, astringent, and… chem-ih-klee. The vintage is so smooth, so organic (yup, that’s civit!), so purrfect that it’s narcotic. I can’t keep my arm from my face, and am actually considering dabbing some on the tip of my nose to reduce the possibility of arm strain.

So what’s problem? I’ve got a 30ml bottle, and a 7.5ml bottle of the new stuff, and a precious 7.5ml of the vintage (not including the lovely EDC). Does this mean I’m going to spend my days scouring the interwebs in search of back-up bottles of vintage parfum?

Yeah, that’s what it means.