Jo's Scent Notes: Estée Lauder Legacy Collection

When I was a teenager, my father – who travelled a LOT – would bring me home ridiculously sophisticated bottles of fragrance from Duty Free. So, precociously, I wore proper grown-up fragrances like Estée, Azurée and Private Collection (as well as Miss Dior and YSL Rive Gauche), alongside the Aqua Manda I could afford to buy with my teenage allowance.

At the same time, importantly, I tore Estée Lauder’s ‘lifestyle’ fragrance adverts out of glossy magazines and papered the inside of my wardrobe with them, since I wasn’t allowed to stick them on my actual bedroom walls.

I wanted to live in these advertisements, with glamorous women in stunning locations, exquisitely dressed (and obviously smelling FABULOUS)… a whole world evoked by two black-and-white pages. I didn’t realise at the time that I was basically creating a vision board. Not knowing what one of those is, back then, I would have been very, very surprised if you’d told me that I would actually live a life that has been bit like that, visit many of those locations, wear some absolutely wonderful clothes – even meet Mrs. Estée Lauder herself. (Who I interviewed over tea at The Plaza in New York, where a whisper of ‘Estée Lauder, Estée Lauder’ went around the room, as if Manhattan royalty had made an entrance. Which basically, she was.)

One by one, I drifted away from those fragrances, though. And subtly, they were anyway changed – reformulated in line with new fragrance regulations about permitted ingredients, for instance, edging gradually away from their original formulas (while still in many cases remaining highly, globally successful).

But something truly extraordinary happened last week, and I was present when Frédéric Malle presented the Estée Lauder Legacy Collection, a contemporary yet faithful recreation of some of the most phenomenal scents ever composed.

If you don’t know who Frédéric Malle is, he’s the masterful ‘Perfume Editor’ who revolutionised the world of perfumery by bringing together some of the world’s greatest noses, allowing them to create the fragrances of their dreams, then putting their names on the bottles, under the banner of Éditions de Parfums Frédéric Malle – fragrances like Portrait of a Lady, Musc Ravageur and Lipstick Rose, all of which I love and wear. Nowadays, a press release barely lands on my desk without details of the perfumer who created this or that scent – and trust me, ‘twas not thus in the past. Up until that point, perfumers were essentially, for the most part, what Frédéric has referred to as ‘ghostwriters’.

I’ve long thought that Frédéric is a total genius, but is if further proof were needed, the Legacy Collection is it. He has brought his finely-tuned ‘editing’ skills to some of the legendarily successful fragrances under the Estée Lauder umbrella: Estée, Azurée, Knowing, White Linen and Private Collection, all created by Estée Lauder herself way back when, along with her trusted team of perfumers (mostly from the fragrance house International Flavors & Fragrances).

Anyone who knows, loves and wears those fragrances will recognise instantly the true DNA of their beloved scent in the Legacy Collection: they are absolutely identifiable, like old friends or even old lovers, but buffed and polished to sparkle even more dazzlingly, a bit like having your granny’s jewellery remade, in a modern setting. There’s the sense that a shaft of bright sunlight has been introduced to each, and I’m honestly bowled over.

Frédéric has ‘restored’ each fragrance to its original glory, working with world-renowned perfumers including Anne Flipo, Bruno Jovanovic and Carlos Benaïm, starting with detective work to find the original formulations, before those ‘tweaks’ down the years. (Carlos Benaïm, serendipitously, happened to have a couple of formulas in his records, from a time very early in his career when he worked alongside the original creators.)

And then, magic wands were waved. Formulas (which tended to be as long as your arm at the time of those original creations) were simplified. Ingredients that had been removed down the years because of legal restrictions (usually to do with potential allergens) were ‘put back’, through the use of alternatives so clever that mere mortals like you or I could never tell they weren’t the original. The resulting creations, magically, smell modern – but also ‘vintage’. And man, that’s quite some olfactory trick.

But here goes – the scents themselves.

Estée (originally launched 1968, reformulated by Carlos Benaïm). Opulently floral, bursting from the bottle on a fleeting tide of sparkling aldehydes, this settles down to a honeyed, powdery beauty. Just ravishingly pretty, this is firmly staying in my wardrobe, to bring out for summer parties and weddings.

Azurée (originally launched 1969, reformulated by Anne Flipo). Lauder describe this as a ‘woody-aromatic’ scent, but without wanting to get over-geeky, I’d call it a quintessential Chypre (my favourite fragrance family). Whatever, this is a stand-up-tall powerhouse of a scent, with a herby intro, jasmine scampering through the heart, and base notes that turn it totally smoochy: oakmoss, sandalwood, vetiver, leather, cumin and patchouli, creating a nuzzleable skin-scent dry-down that I can’t get enough of. (Pleasingly, nor can my husband.) Frédéric told us that Anne Flipo is now wearing this herself – and perfumers rarely wear fragrance, so make of that what you will. This is the one I’ve been coming back to, day after day, since the launch – and had several compliments already as I waft around trailing it in my wake, which is always the sign that you’ve found your match.

Private Collection (originally launched 1973, reformulated by Anne Flipo). Gorgeously fresh and so green, green, green – an open window, a breeze coming from the garden outside, bringing with it the scents of herbs and spring flowers like hyacinth and bluebell, before settling beautifully on the skin, tethered there by patchouli, oakmoss, musk and sandalwood. (GOD I LOVE THIS, TOO!)

White Linen (originally launched in 1978, reformulated by Carlos Benaïm). Crisp, dazzling, bright, also breezy – honestly, like white linen! This legendary fragrance has sometimes been described as ‘Estée Lauder’s answer to Chanel No.5’, and certainly, has a similar elegance and some definite echoes of that scent, with its icy aldehydes, rose and jasmine, and sophisticated base notes, which ensure this floral-aldehyde lasts well on the body. (Of all the new-again scents, this is probably closest to the ‘non-legacy’ version that is still available.)

Knowing (originally launched 1988, reformulated by Bruno Jovanovic). This was originally an 80s powerhouse of a fragrance, another Chypre that retains its smouldering va-va-voom, purring with amber, sandalwood, patchouli and resinous styrax, in the base. Yet this version smells totally ‘now’, and again, this one is now positioned front and centre on my dressing table. It, too, happens to be getting compliments when I wear it into the wider world. (Sashaying a little more than usual, because it kinda demands that.)

The originals of each of these fragrances remain in the collection (at least for now, though watch this space) – but these (with a price tag to match) are the ‘luxury’ versions, bottled in exquisite fluted flacons. On which note, we were all given the absolutely darling ‘discovery set’ pictured above, which currently isn’t on sale – and Estée Lauder, it needs to be! With perfumes this expensive, you really want-slash-need to sniff your way through the collection to find your fit, because this needs to be a highly considered purchase.

If you do want to try them for yourself and can get to London, there’s a dedicated counter (until this Sunday) in Harrods’s beauty hall, staffed by deeply knowledgeable consultants who are rightly bewitched by this collection, and who Frédéric Malle took the time to train himself, one day last week – causing great excitement. Word is that Private Collection is currently top of the bestseller charts, meanwhile. The fragrances will move to the main Estée Lauder counter, after Sunday, before rolling out to further locations in coming months, we’re told. (Interestingly the sales consultant we spoke to said that many of her customers for these launches are existing wearers of Frédéric Malle’s own exclusive scents.)

So, I could wear any of the fragrances in the Estée Lauder Legacy Collection. And I WILL wear all of them, actually – not just for their absolute contemporary beauty, but as a smile-making reminder of the teenage girl and the young woman who used to spray herself with the originals, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming while she gazed into those black-and-white ads, papered on the inside of her wardrobe.

And is proof that dreams can come true.

Estee Lauder Legacy Collection/£250 each for 100ml – buy here