old lady smells

i've been really interested lately in learning about wonderful old perfumes, because something tells me that it's probably all been done already and anyway i want to sort of learn about the bach cantatas of fragrance, you know? lay down a base. note.

so i bought some mitsouko for christmas and here's what happened (this was for my own blog, so i'm republishing it here because it's perfume-related):

so my package of perfumes finally arrived last night. i was sooooo excited! i opened up my new treasure, mitsouko, and on my first sniff i recognized it immediately: old lady. not funky old lady; funky old lady. nursing home old lady. i always thought that smell was the result of some combination of medications or ointments; turns out it's a smell that was fashionable or sexy at some point. old ladies want to smell that way, apparently. they take that smell and spray it on themselves, deliberately.

so i don't know, maybe it's a good smell. well composed or something. but i don't think i can get past the old lady association. and it doesn't develop into anything strange or mysterious or soft; it develops into more layers of old lady, hidden rooms in the back of the nursing home where they keep more old ladies.

oh well. i hope the one i got for mom is good. yikes.