Le Jardin

Soapy yet spicy floral. Reminded me of Carven, a clean soapy floral as well. Le Jardin didn't give me any particular floral, but was clean, fresh, unassuming and inoffensive. Good for work or casual wear. Sillage was low, longevity about 5 hours.

Now I recall different versions from this scent. The bottle as shown on top I've never seen. The other bottle(s) I have. But another mistery came to my attention. I've also had a Le Jardin en rose / fleur de rose, which I recall to be a little bit sassier / more sour, although the current bottle is the same as the old bottle. But the fragrances don't match. Next to this I've come to find the current fragrance has a drydown, which is a lot like 5th avenue from Elisabeth Arden + Zara Rose. Update: The bottles being sold now, with the plastic cap, writen above, with the cheap flowers is the same bottle as in the 80-ies. But... I managed to find a new box with the name Le Jardin Le fleur, which is not in this data base. And the fragrance from the old bottle is now in this new bottle!!! How confusing.

This is one that I wore as a 14-15 year old, and have been revisiting it lately. My bottle is by Max Factor, and I have not tried the versions from the companies who owned it after. It’s a floral fragrance that came out in 1982, and is very much of its era. You can tell it’s of the same era as Revlon Jontue and Anais Anais, but I don’t think it’s the same as either of those, and don’t find it to be a cheap version of Anais Anais. Some drugstore scents back then could give pricier perfumes a run for their money, and this was one of them; an intensely sunny floral scent that went well with floral dresses and pastel colors. Unfortunately my bottle seems to have gone off a bit, and smells similar to a gone off bottle of Jontue that I had. It lost some of the floral notes, and has a powdery blandness to it. The last Max Factor bottle I had smelled fine, so it’s hard to know what you’ll get when buying a bottle.

Go for the vintage Max Factor version and nothing else! The Incurably Romantic floral! The quintessential 80s 'toothpaste floral' minty mentholated herbaceous green florals on a powdery earthy orris base. I love the touch of powdered fruits over the tarragon. The smell of gel hairspray, herbal shampoo, powder and every beauty product in your bathroom mixed together in the best possible way.

Le Jardin is the 1990s in a bottle. It’s the smell of the revlon lady coming to your door trying to sell you stuff. It’s not offensive, but it feels really aged. It’s very soapy, a cheap thick cloud of musk and floral. It’s old, that’s a unanimous opinion, but not old in a way that makes one nostalgic which is it’s downfall. It’s not terrible, but it’s my grandmother’s perfume hands down. 5/10