Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Ted Lapidus Creation- When Chypres Where Cheap




Picture this: The mid-eighties. Me as teenager who wants to swallow the world, be rebellious, glamorous, creative and most of all: hide my extreme geekiness and insecurity. So I experiment and make my parents crazy with inappropriate makeup and terrible clothes (what did you wear in the 80s?). For some reason, the one thing I could get away with wearing was perfume. And I did. Boy, I did.

Creation by Ted Lapidus was launched in 1984 and even then it was probably inexpensive, otherwise the bottle would never have landed in the hands of my high school girl self. I remember loving it instantly, the way I adored animalic chypres long before I could name perfume genres or identify notes. I must have recognized it as sexy, slightly inappropriate and felt very womanly when I wore it. It allowed me to escape a little from my daily life as an awkward high school chemistry major whom the only boy who liked her was the school principal's son, who was even nerdier than me.

Searching online for this Ted Lapidus scent has unearthed the notes (from Fragrantica.com)-

Top Notes: Black currant bud, mango, passion fruit, peach, bergamot, lemon, mandarin, galbanum
Heart Notes: Gardenia, jasmine, tuberose, narcissus, rose, ylang-ylang, carnation, lily of the valley
Base Notes: Amber, oakmoss, musk, sandalwood, patchouli, vanilla, civet

It sounds like a hot mess, but what I smell is a fruity-green chypre with a deliciously dirty base. It's not as overly sweet as one would expect from all the fruit, and doesn't smell like a screechy white floral, either. It's not elegant or refined by any means, but it smells good. Or maybe it's nostalgia speaking.

Ted Lapidus Creation is widely available as an EDT, mostly under $20. Since it's a chypre with quite a bit of oakmoss I wouldn't be surprised to learn that newly manufactured juice has been reformulated (the license holder for Ted Lapidus perfumes is Elizabeth Arden, not exactly the fountain of luxury high-end perfume). I managed to score a couple of pure perfume bottles, which was what I reviewed here.

Creation ads: okadi.com

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