Fragrance Notes
Fahrenheit
The toilette is the version people picture when they say Fahrenheit, and Dior Fahrenheit Eau de Toilette is the 1988 original in its most familiar form, carrying mandarin orange, violet and leather.
Three materials is a short list for a fragrance with this much written about it, so take it plainly. Mandarin orange opens it, soft and a little sweet, the juicier end of citrus rather than the sour end, and gone within the first stretch. Violet is the oddity and the identity, cool and powdery with a green sappiness behind it, which is the quality that made this smell faintly like petrol and crushed stems to a generation of wearers and either delighted them or put them off for good. Leather is the floor it all stands on, dry, slightly smoky, suggesting worn upholstery more than a new jacket.
At toilette strength it is sharper and more volatile in the first half hour than a heavier concentration would be, which actually suits the composition: the strangeness is in the top and you want to meet it head on. Three or four sprays, and it will travel further than most eaux de toilette.
It belongs to autumn and winter and to the evening, though plenty of men have worn it to the office for thirty years and have no intention of stopping. It is marketed to men and it polarises, so a try before buying is sensible if you have never met it. Jean-Louis Sieuzac and Michel Almairac are the perfumers behind it.
Perfume has never been a sideline at Dior. The founder described himself as a couturier-perfumer, his first collection in 1947 arrived with a scent attached, and the fragrance division, now under LVMH, went on to produce Eau Sauvage, Dune, Poison and Sauvage.
Please note: images are a guide only. Packaging and bottle design may occasionally differ from those shown due to manufacturer updates or promotions.
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