RETRO - Guerlain Shalimar Pure Parfum (Extrait)

Guerlain Shalimar was first introduced in 1925 by Jacques Guerlain.  Shalimar means Temple of Love in Sanskrit.   The inspiration was a love story between an emperor, Shah Jahan and an Indian princess.  Jacques Guerlain used a new molecule - ehylvanillin - and blended it with Jicky to create Shalimar.  Shalimar is timeless and is almost 100 years old. The pure parfum version is probably the closest to how it was originally intended

Shalimar is an Oriental fragrance with top notes of lemon, mandarin, rosemary and bergamot; middle notes of jasmine, May rose, patchouli, vetiver; and base notes of iris, incense, opoponax, tonka bean, sandalwood, musk, civet, ambergris, leather, coumarin, Peru Balsam and vanilla.  

This is the pure parfum version of Guerlain Shalimar and is dated from 1992 from the gold and black outer box packaging.

Reviews of Guerlain Shalimar pure parfum

From Fragrantica - "One can own many perfumes that are wonderful, but none will smell better than Shalimar extrait"

From Now Smell This  - "the Extrait is the queen of Shalimar formulations. Only in the Extrait did I really smell Shalimar’s iris, rose and green notes. In other versions, its florals were stampeded by lemon, vanilla and civet. Not that you don’t notice skank here. Plenty of dirty, fusty notes, like old velvet or the yellowed pages of a book, give Shalimar its iconic, grand lady personality."

From Scented Hound (on the extrait ) - "It’s big and full and proper, but slightly naughty.  It’s like the most luxurious silken pillow that you’ve ever rested your head on.  After around 45 minutes an incense in combination with the bite of the civet make their way in.  What was bright and bursting with energy now turns more vampish…constrained vampishness, but you know it’s there.  As it continues to develop there’s a darkened sensuality that pulses from the heart of the perfume, the incense is so subdued and there’s a hint of leather that smells like a well oiled and rubbed baseball mitt."