Vintage (1978) vs recent (2013) Rive Gauche. First of, I gotta say; in my opinion this is the best reformulation L’Oreal has done with an YSL fragrance. Actually, the only one that hasn’t completely butchered a perfume. Rive Gauche is still itself, for better or for worse. Main difference lies in the opening and long drydown. I already really like the current one, but I simply adore the vintage. The original opens with soaring metallic aldehydes, the ones that sting your nose and give you an instant high. It smells like hairspray in the best possible way, so if you dislike them, stay away. If you love them, like I do, this is heaven! There’s a beautiful tarry quality that further enhances them. Imagine hairspraying a vial of poppers and sniffing. Stunning! The current one has 0 tar, 0 metallic effect. It’s plain aldehydes with a hint of peach. C14 aldehyde? It will still scare those who loathe them even though the impact is muted compared to the original. The heart is where the similarities intensify; geranium, Iris, a very French floral bouquet of rose and jasmine, that feels like a finely milled bar of white soap. Blindingly white, in a marble bathroom. Stark and cold, silver bathroom fittings. Vintage has them in spades along a ray of light in the form of lemon and LOTV. Current one dials them down, adds more peach and citrus and feels like a minimalist version. But as a whole, the feel and smell isn’t all that different. Now the drydown, that’s where you find all the good and heavy stuff. In the vintage. Oakmoss galore, vetiver, all smoothed by amber and musk. The new one relies on vetiver mostly, with tonka bean adding a slight fougère effect. Drier, less oakmossy (it still has treemoss), more powdery. Less green, more grey. The vintage feels more herbal, more full, the oakmoss really shines. The Iris still rocks in a sublime way, the feel is of smoothing body powder on heated skin. Cooling. With both versions, I get all day longevity and strong sillage. While the new is different, and years of restrictions and reformulations have taken its toll, it’s still very much itself. The controversial aspects have been eliminated or toned down, but it’s a miracle it’s been kept so ‘vintage’ smelling. Fresh, cold (while I never thought of Chanel n°19 as an ice queen, Rive Gauche is definitely a cold hearted one), powdery, green. It just happens that the 1970’s version gets me high in a way the current one does not. Silver hairspray poppers! Current? Big like. Vintage? Absolute love!
I have a love hate relationship with this perfume and clearly it's taken me a long time to bother to review it, something I don't usual afford many perfumes specifically marketing towards women. It's not discrimination on my part, more that I have enough men's and unisex to review. My love hate relationship is basically that I used to hate this and now I don't...well not entirely at least. Always had a problem with aldehydes and floral musks and this starts out very bracing, even this modern version. One thing that has struck me about this fragrance is that it's the perfect counterpart for the Men's version, or sorry...more correctly the men's version is a great counterpoint for this, being as this one predates it by several decades. The green, sharpness in the opening actually has slightly the ammonia smell to me and reminding me a bit of being choked by hairspray, perm kits and hair dye by my mum, sisters when I was a kid and nowadays by my missus! Allow that effect to subside though and you are treated to what is essentially a feminine 'Barbershop' scent. Do women have a genre called 'hairdresser' scents? Anyway the musky, oakmoss clean white florals, slightly minty geranium, vetiver and woods could easily be worn by a man and on my skin actually smells really good. A fragrance I've been aware of for a long time but has come into clear focus for me now, which says as much about my changable tastes as it does about the quality or suitability of various perfumes I may have dismissed in the past.