CLEOPATRA'S BOUDOIR

Premier designer and personal couturier to Nancy Reagan, James G. Galanos’s signature perfume, aptly named Galanos was launched in 1979. It is classified as a Floral-Oriental fragrance for women. Galanos won a FiFi award in 1980 and I can see why.

The original vintage perfume is composed with top notes of lemon, orange, mandarin and chamomile, coriander, clove, bay leaf and cypress, heart notes of orange flower, jasmine, gardenia, ylang-ylang, muguet, rose, geranium and carnation on base notes of musk, amber, vanilla, Tonka bean, vetiver, cedar wood, oak moss, sandalwood and patchouli.

Just received a vintage sample from Bab, who sent me some lovely perfume samples to review this week. I am so grateful that this one was in the lot. Galanos is pure seduction. Its oriental character speaks soft, subtle tones of spices, namely clove, chamomile, bay leaf and coriander. To me it smells the way a bazaar in Morocco would smell, with baskets of mandarin oranges, lemons and navel oranges gleaming in the sun.

Gorgeous scent, with low tones of florals such as orange blossom (my favorite) gardenia, carnation, jasmine, lily of the valley, rose, ylang ylang and geranium, finally rounds out with basenotes of amber, Tonka bean, cypress, cedar, vanilla, patchouli, vetiver, oak moss, sandalwood and erogenous musk. I also detect a honeyed accord not found in the newer reissue. With all the scents melding together it would be a great scent for a harem’s incense burner, or hammam soap.

This is definitely a jewel in the rough. I thought that it would smell divine and I was not disappointed. If you find this vintage treasure for sale on eBay, snatch it up, you’d swear it was from a niche house.

The original Galanos was launched in a very dark navy blue box with white trim and lettering, it was still being sold til around 1985, then it was discontinued for quite some time. At the launch, you were able to purchase all of the Galanos ancillaries: parfum, eau de parfum, eau de toilette, moisture lotion, dusting powder, shower and bath gelee, and an extra rich moisture cream. A true American original, Galanos was being sold at better department stores like Neiman Marcus alongside French perfumes of the same calibre.

It was re-issued in 1995, probably without the oak moss for IFRA reasons. The newer Galanos perfume comes in a turquoise colored box. I prefer the older, vintage scent over the newly reformulated one.

Similar scents: Opium by Yves Saint Laurent, Youth Dew by Estee Lauder, Tabu by Dana and Cinnabar by Estee Lauder.