Miss Dior

Miss Dior, unlike her younger sister (Miss Dior Cherie), is a smart, sophisticated woman who enjoys the finer things in life but doesn’t let it get to her head. She’s humble and complex with a classical charm that Miss Dior Cherie can never beat.

Miss Dior

Miss Dior

In Bottle: Green with a prominent aldehyde quality to it and a dusting of florals.

Applied: Sharp green aldehydes that are a bit of a sting on the old nostrils. Miss Dior goes on strong and powerful, hits you with a wave of classical perfume and reminds you of what a real chypre ought to smell like. Nothing like the lilting chypres of today that have been toned down and have lost their oak moss. Miss Dior is the full force of chypres upon application. As the fragrance ages, she smooths out a bit taking on a powdery quality to me with a warm sensuality that works in the complexity of the fragrance. It’s hard to describe complex fragrances for me because breaking them down into components and saying, “I smell this and now I smell this” would ruin the experience. Instead let me just say that Miss Dior smells like a vintage with an aldehyde and floral mid-stage prominent in neroli and jasmine and is every bit the chypre that she’s supposed to be. The fragrance dries down into a lovely rich flowers, forest and buttery leather scent that makes me want to stick my nose to my wrists and deeply inhale.

Extra: Miss Dior was released in the late 1940s and was composed by Jean Carles and Paul Vacher. Like most (if not all) classics that have survived till today, Miss Dior has been reformulated. The version I’m reviewing in this post is reportedly from sometime in the 1970s. I have not tried the more readily available, “Miss Dior Originale” yet, but I do have a sample of that so I will be trying it eventually.

Design: Miss Dior seems to do everything better than Miss Dior Cherie. The bottle has a classic look, but one that will never go out of style. While it’s a familiar shape to Miss Dior Cherie, Miss Dior’s more grown-up style and beautiful textured glass sets it a class above its younger counterpart. Miss Dior doesn’t need a bow on its neck to exude femininity, basically.

Fragrance Family: Chypre

Notes: Aldehydes, gardenia, galbanum, clary sage, bergamot, carnation, iris, jasmine, neroli, lily of the valley, rose, narcissus, labdanum, leather, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, oak moss, vetiver.

It probably sounds like I’m ragging on Miss Dior Cherie a lot in this post, and I am. It’s not that Miss Dior Cherie doesn’t accomplish good things as a modern gourmand that appeals to younger women, it’s just that Miss Dior–who sometimes gets confused with her younger counterpart–gets a lot of bad press from people who accidentally picked her up thinking she’ll smell anything like the candy-like Miss Dior Cherie. Then come the proclamations that Miss Dior “smells like old lady”, and that’s just unfortunate.

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior, ~1970, Eau de Toilette.

4 thoughts on “Miss Dior

  1. Miss Dior is one of my all-time favorites. I have a vintage parfum bottle and a modern EdT decant – and I like them both. Though I fear it might be changed beyond recognition now when it became Miss Dior Original lending its original name to Miss Dior Cherie.

    • I’d love to get my hands on a vintage bottle of Miss Dior. I’m a little concerned about trying Originale as I read it’s the most noticeable reformulation.

        • I’ve been eying it on eBay and will probably have to make a move on it soon. I really wish Dior hadn’t taken its name away and used it for Miss Dior Cherie. It’s made quite a mess between the two fragrances.

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