I’d be willing to bet White Shoulders was the first perfume many of you owned — or pilfered a drop or two from your mom’s dresser. From the fragrance’s tawny pink packaging with a gold cameo and font that looks like it was lifted from a Marquess’s personal letter, to its lush white floral scent, for me White Shoulders was the ne plus ultra of class.
And then I grew up. To be fair, White Shoulders changed a lot over the years, too. When it was first released in 1945, the Hartnell perfume company, later renamed Evyan Perfumes, manufactured it. Over the years, White Shoulders bounced from Evyan to Elizabeth Arden to Parfums International, and now to a company I’ve never heard of, Idea Fragrances Company. No doubt its formula changed and cheapened. Now for six dollars and a trip to Walmart, you can own a quarter ounce of White Shoulders Parfum.
Jan Moran’s Fabulous Fragrances lists White Shoulders’ notes as neroli, tuberose, aldehydes, gardenia, jasmine, orris, lily of the valley, rose, lilac, sandalwood, amber, musk, and oakmoss, and writes that its “predominant note is tuberose.” In other words, White Shoulders is a tuberose fragrance with every other white flower in the book shoveled in.
Initially, I was willing to go with that description, and after a few wearings I decided White Shoulders was a pretty, innocent fragrance without a lot of sex appeal or surprise, but nice nonetheless. Plus the bottle is so darned cute. Then I tried White Shoulders next to Frédéric Malle Carnal Flower. Compared to that heady tuberose heartbreaker, I realized White Shoulders has a lot of rose. In fact, after about fifteen minutes, I’d call it a rose rather than a tuberose fragrance. I could also smell how one-dimensional it was.
White Shoulders Parfum has limited sillage and lasts a few hours. Once the fragrance turns rosy, it fades and disappears without a lot of development. While it will always have a special place in my heart, I probably won’t be giving it a special place in my perfume cabinet.
The good news is that the delicious pink of White Shoulders’ box and cap, and the cameo molded into the bottle remain the same. I may not wear the fragrance, but I’ll keep the box. If I ever have a boudoir, you can bet I’m painting it the exact same color.
Idea Fragrances Company White Shoulders can be found at drugstores.
My husband had a girlfriend when he was in university. He gifted her with White Shoulders. During our courtship, he thought it was wise to give me a bottle. WRONG! I hated it for two reasons. Do I still have to hear about her 40 years later? I can’t stand tuberose and gardenia. Needless to say, White Shoulders is on my Top Ten List of Fragrances I Hate.
I don’t blame you! Your husband had a little bit to learn, it sounds like, before he met you. Fortunately there are so many other, gorgeous perfumes out there.
I owned White Shoulders when I was in high school, and ah, that was when it was still Evyan and was sold in department stores for considerably more money than its current asking price. Of course in those days, a list of notes was as unheard of as a computer, but I just knew that it was a little too sweet and heavy for me. Funnily enough, I still feel that way about tuberose.
But I’m with you on the “tawny pink” box. I’d pair it with black and white toile fabric in the room.
Great interior design choice! If we want it to be the perfect White Shoulders boudoir, we could always put a few tuberoses in a vase.
And that’s my preferred way to enjoy tuberoses!
Me too. As much as I love tuberose, I find I’m deliriously into Carnal Flower for fifteen minutes, then it’s just too much on me. Still, for that first quarter hour….heaven.
i agree with you 100%. Same with gardenia.
I tried Carnal Flower and find it beautiful, but it was a scrubber for me. Headache inducing stuff.
I find a couple of travel vials of Carnal Flower are plenty for me. I love it and can’t imagine not having it around, but I save it for the right time.
A guy I dated briefly in college told me White Shoulders and Pavlova were his favorite perfumes. That prompted a trip to the dept store perfume counter to test. Both were beautiful (especially WS) back in the days where I owned only a few low-budget and GWP bottles, and judged perfumes by their top notes. Neither resonated with me [even before I understood perfume structures I could sense the development and determined I didn’t like the heart/drydown] and with a low budget, I didn’t buy either. The relationship didn’t last, so money saved.
Angela – I’m still thinking – how hard it is to be revisiting some of these scents that were wonderful in their early/glory days that have become barely a shadow of their previous lovely selves. I’d love to read your overall impressions at the end of the week and see what others think.
It is hard to smell some of these great old fragrances and see how hard they’ve fallen. But it’s been interesting and instructive, too. Even in their shadow states, fragrances like Chantilly and White Shoulders are still recognizeably what they were. The signature is still there, which says something about their greatness (although I suppose there are lots of white florals even now).
I have wonderful memories of layering my mom’s White Shoulders with the White Shoulders powder. I thought that pink powder puff with the matching pink box was the most glamourous thing in the whole world.
I’ve definitely moved on (and I’m not such a fan of white florals), but the memories linger.
Powder puffs are just plain glamorous on their own! Add some tuberose fragrance, and super glamour results. People don’t seem to use powder much any more–I know I don’t. I have some My Sin powder I think I’ll get out and try.
I was just bemoaning the same thing to a friend the other day…..why no powders anymore? In my family, no woman worth her salt would get dressed for the day without a good powdering. It made your stockings/panty hose glide on much better than lotion does, it ‘set’ your fragrance so it stayed with you longer, and in the humid Midwest summers, it cut down on …well…perspiration.
Well, that cinches it! Tomorrow I start my day right with a smoothing on of powder!
Lush still sells dusting powders (Silky Underwear is nice), but they lack the glamour of the “olden days.”
I love that name, though! Silky Underwear.
My mother never wore powder, only a very light roll on deoderant – and – she was very suspicious of perfume ‘it might smell nice when you put it on, but later it will make you stink.’ I think she once put on an Escada which must have had a really bad dry down on her. She also never used powder. Ok, thats a long way round of asking how/where does one apply body powder?
First introduced to perfume through Escada! That might explain a lot.
I’m not an expert, but I think the idea is that you put on powder–a light coating–after you’ve dried off from your bath. I think you focus on areas that might perspire or chafe, like underarms and chest. Maybe someone else will weigh in on this.
Angela is correct, and very lady like in her phrasing.
I suspect the both of you are young and lovely, and have no unfortunate folds nor overabundance of inner thigh, but if you DID, those would also be the sorts of places that you would dust powder on.
Thanks for the explanation! I don’t think Escada was the first frag she used so I’m not sure thats the reason though. I think it may be more to do with the world, in general, being a threatening and hostile place with dangers silently lurking in the most innocuous places (like in pretty perfume bottles!)
I’m doing ok on the folds bit, at present, but I do sweat much more than I would like to, so I stick to strong, unscented anti-perspirant as an adjunct to my perfumes.
Oh, I LOVE powder, and still use it regularly. Another Southern thing, I suppose. I scored some vintage Nuit de Noel talcum powder for under 30 bucks a few months ago on ebay, and it is swoon worthy.
That sounds amazing!
I had (maybe still have) some Joy powder but discovered that after some years that it lost its scent. It became just powder. I wonder if that is common? Anyway, I live in too dry a climate to make powder seem appealing.
I’ll have to test my My Sin powder and see if it still has scent!
Be still my foolish heart. I need to find out if Joy still makes powder!
I got some Tabu powder for about 3 dollars on one of the discounters, and I love that, too.
Tabu powder sounds wickedly terrific!
I haven’t smelled White shoulders in years, probably decades, but it always reminded me of sweet peas when I was younger. And forever associated with church in my mind, as it was the definite Sunday go-to-meeting scent for the ladies in the part of northern Georgia I grew up in. (Tabu and Jungle Gardenia being the non-Sunday scents!)
I wonder if there wasn’t some Tabu lingering among the pews somewhere that could have spiced up the WS a bit to get that sweet pea scent?!
I knew WS was cheap, but I didn’t realize it was 6 dollars cheap! I am so grabbing some the next time I go to HellMart. I bet the bottle holds its own just fine next to my beloved Fifi Chachnil, too!
White Shoulders has definitely plummeted in cost. I love the descriptions of your Georgia scents! I swear just listing the names makes for a good foundation for a screenplay.
There’s a screenplay in there for sure….because trust me on this, those ladies only had one nice bra, and they wore that Saturday night as well as Sunday morning with their one good church dress, so you just know they were sitting there in church trying to think respectable thoughts, while getting the occasional whiff of Jungle Gardenia that reminded them of what they had been doing the night before!
That’s a tremendous detail! If you aren’t a novelist now, you should start on your book first thing tomorrow.
Angela: I missed Navy yesterday, so I have to go back and read. But it is very interesting to read your review of WS. I became enchanted with it when I was in high school – they still had it in the department store then. It just seemed so elegant. My Mom said she’d worn it in college. I did finally buy a bottle sometime in my early 20s – I loved it, but it also just didn’t seem to fit at the time, much like the bottle of Rive Gauche, and the bottle of L’Air du Temps I had. They’d all be vintage now, sigh. I wish I’d kept them all.
I feel your pain. I can’t believe some of the stuff I dumped when I was in college. If only, if only….
I second the pain. In high school I had owned bottles of Chanel, Halston, Raffine, and a few other precious gems that I can’t even remember, and my dear sweet mother threw them out in a goodhousekeeping fit. Although, thinking back now twenty years later, she probably didn’t want me wearing stuff that smelled too ‘grownup’. Whatever. All I know is that I loved to smell fragrances on my person long before I became aware of such aphrodisiastic qualities. Does that make any sense? And as for Dear Mother? Well, let’s just say she is well aware of the dire consequences of going anywhere near my current perfume collection. Altho no longer any Chanel/Halston/Raffine to boast of, alas. 🙁
Oh, too bad! That’s quite a collection for a high school girl, too. I haven’t smelled Raffine in years.
This turned me off at the time- friends doused themselves with it but all I could think was ‘gack’. I am NOT a white floral fan, they make me feel like I am in an overheated funeral parlour with a guest of honour who is truly past their prime. For those that loved it though, I am sorry to hear that it has become a shadow of it’s former self.
That’s such a great description! From someone who isn’t wild about white florals, of course.
White Shoulders and it’s sister scent, Most Precious (aqua packaging) were my go-to choices when trolling for guys at the skating rink in the late 60s to early-mid 70s. One of my male “acquaintances”, a good 8 years my senior, pronounced them both “snuggling perfumes”, which sent my poor dad through the roof. Ah, what memories!
I love that story! White Shoulders and the roar of wheels on the skate floor. I hope there was organ music, too.
Years ago, my husband and I took in an injured tomcat. He had to be confined to the house while he was on the mend. The cat was “entire” and sprayed all over the house. My husband wanted to name the cat for his least-favorite fragrance, White Shoulders, but deemed it an inappropriate name for a boy cat. So we named him Shalimar, after his second-least favorite scent. We got the cat neutered as soon as he was all healed. He lived a long and happy life after that, and we were able to get the spray smell out of our house.
So far, I think White Shoulders has inspired the best stories yet! I do love the idea of naming a cat White Shoulders–especially a black cat. I’m glad the story had a happy ending, too.
OMG, that is too hysterical. I’d have named him Bijan, myself. (I think I have shared my feral cat/animal control story here before)
I wonder how many cats would end up named Giorgio?
We actually had a cat with the same name as my least favorite perfume (Angel), but we didn’t name her for the perfume, nor did she spray in the house. She liked to sit on my husband’s shoulder, so we always joked he had an Angel on his shoulder.
BTW, how did you ever get the smell out of the house? Tomcat urine has to be one of the most pungent smells on earth.
I agree. Any cat urine is stinky and tenacious.
I went through a White Shoulders phase. It was one of the first department store fragrances I bought. I really liked it until I asked my great aunt Liz what perfume she was wearing and she said White Shoulders. I loved the woman to pieces, rest her soul, but I did not want to smell like an 80 year old woman. I still like it because it does remind me of her and maybe one day I’ll pick up a small bottle for old times sake.
I keep Youth Dew around for old times sake, so I understand that impulse. I really can’t wear it, but I do love smelling it for the memories.
I remember smelling White Shoulders on people… probably ladies at church… back in the day and loving it. I once asked for some for Christmas – I think I was maybe 10. My mother demurred (she hates BWFs). I wound up with Chloe instead.
When I thought of buying some for myself, sometime in the 1990s, I smelled it at the drugstore and it was not the same, so I gave it a miss. Every so often I think of picking up a vintage bottle on ebay, and then I forget about it.
Chloe is a big white floral too, in my book. Not as big, though, or as ladylike, I guess. I’d be interested in what you’d think if you tried it again.
Oh, Chloe is a *total* BWF. I think my dad’s mother gave it to me for a birthday, and I suspect Mom was holding her tongue on purpose. I am still surprised she let me out of the house wearing it. (Though I dabbed it. Maybe that kept it bearable for her.)
If I run across WS, will report back…
Dabbed sounds smart. I remember loving Chloe, though, and having a Chloe-scented soap shaped like a calla lily. I loved it!
There is something really wrong with my scent memory. I could have sworn that WS beared a resemblance to Bellodgia, but I haven’t smelled either one in decades. So, I have been under the impression, for years, that WS is a carnation scent – now I have to sniff it again! But obviously, I’ve been confused.
It’s definitely not a carnation scent. Give it a smell and see what you think!
When I was a kid, White Shoulders smelled like gardenia, and only gardenia, to me — it might have been a WS bath oil that my mom had? The Vermont Country Store (http://www.vermontcountrystore.com/products/beauty/fragrances/perfume-for-her/white-shoulders.html?evar3=cross%20sells) calls it a honeysuckle fragrance. I bought a tiny bottle (alcohol-based) at the at the drugstore recently, but I haven’t tried it yet.
The smell of honeysuckle is so nice! I have some growing on a fence, and I love sitting outside where the fragrance blows by. I hope the perfume you bought smells as good.
I could never, ever smell White Shoulders without thinking of my evil step-mother who wore it and hated me.
I associate it with her cruelty and all those bad memories of her and realize that is the only fragrance ( thankfully) that does that to me.
That sounds horrible! I bet you can’t even stand to look at the box after those memories. It’s time to get out something beautiful and smell that and feel the love.
This makes me sad and angry! Angela gave you perfect advice.
Dear Angela and Jolie~
You two are sweeties and I appreciate the thoughtful advice and care from you both. Thank you and yes I did do just that after I read this-
I went and sniffed, then spritzed Une Rose Chypree and felt instantly comforted.
I feel the love everytime I talk to my perfume pals. <3
Une Rose Chypree is the perfect antidote to bad feelings.
My mother had a bottle! It always smelled like lilac to me, for some reason. Then again, that was nearly 20 years ago, so who knows what it was like then? More likely, my little-girl nose didn’t know a lilac from a tuberose. I preferred mom’s bottles of Cinnabar and Beautiful anyway!
It does have lilac in it. Maybe that’s what you were getting.
I had a bottle of White Shoulders that I acquired in high school or college, back when it was still made by Evyan and sold in department stores. I thought of it as a very classy scent and really wanted to like it, but every time I put it on, I felt that it was too sweet and cloying. It definitely was much more white floral than rose–had it come off as a primarily rose scent, I would no doubt worn it (and enjoyed it) a good deal more. I have since decided that white florals are just not my thing, I don’t think I have ever found one I have really loved. I can’t wear Joy either–just too much jasmine, too “thick”, cloying, and ultimately headache inducing.
Oh, but Joy is so wonderful! Well, I guess that’s more Joy for the rest of us.
How interesting…I really dislike white florals as well, and yet Joy is one of my HGs. I never even thought of it as a BWF, but with all that jasmine I guess it is, duh! I have noticed that I only like very dirty jasmine, though.
I tend to think of wfs as tuberose and gardenia, which I just cannot stand. Tuberose makes my throat scratchy!!
Angie, This review brought back a funny memory of my freshman year in high school! A few of us (it was an all-girls school) were waiting together in the locker room one morning; our bus always arrived long before the school day actually began. One girl said to another, “Your perfume is really nice. What is that?” The other girl replied, “It’s White Shoulders. Know your fragrances!!” and laughed. She was a very sophisticated 14-year-old in many ways, and I was deeply impressed by this idea that we, as young women, should aspire to Know Our Fragrances. 😉
That is a very cute story! She may have been on to something. It is very satisfying to reconize someone’s fragrance and say “Are you wearing Happy/Mademoiselle/Euphoria? It smells lovely on you.” and it’s a great convo-starter.
So true! People are usually surprised when you recognize their scent.
And that story stayed with you all these years. You really took her advice to heart! The powerful words of a 14-year old.
Very impressive young lady!!! I wonder if she’s one of us?!
Hey, maybe she is!
What a delicious, thing: Drugstore Week! In South Africa, I don’k think I encountered WShoulders at the time, but my drug store thrills were some of the others mentioned: Jovan, Exclamation!, Colors by Benetton (loved it!). When I first heard about White Shoulders (here), I did not know what it smelled like – I know feel I do, after this great review! So I would have to close my eyes and concentrate to have a positive association with White Shoulders – as to me it meant either shoulders that were “untanned” or “coated in a thin layer of dandruff”, both of which would have been the most unimaginable horror in my teen years/twenties years! Thanks for demystifying.
I am very glad to clear that up! It sounds like you have most of the tried and true drugstore favorites where you are.
– i now feel I do (typos, as a result of all-nighter work)
I do plenty of typos and don’t even have the excuse of all-night work.
A good friend gave me a bottle of White Shoulders for Christmas when I was about 23 (decades ago I’m afraid). Oy. So sweet, so cloying. It about gagged me but I wore it whenever I was going to see her for several months. Fortunately, my little sister had/has a passion for sweet scents (Jungle Gardenia, Freesia, etc, I should give her my unloved bottle of Anais Anais) and was happy to take it off my hands. Even at 14 I had a preference for spicy Orientals. Lucky for me, the DH does too.
It’s perfect to have a sister with tastes the opposite of yours! Hopefully she’ll stumble across a nice oriental or two for you, too.
I am loving the background articles about everyday perfumes. I love finding out background info on all perfumes and am looking forward to more in this line.. Lovely job.
I’m glad you’re enjoying the reviews. They’re fun to do–not every perfume costs a hundred dollars a bottle!
Yes, White Shoulders was my first perfume, the original one when it was expensive and heavenly! This is back in the late forties (I’m old!) and whenever I wore it to a dance it was MAGIC! Couldn’t chase off the guys. Was wearing it when I met my husband and he said it was one reason he went after me. I stopped wearing perfume after awhile, then my daughter gave me a set 5 years ago, and it’s pretty shallow now, without the deep notes I love. New formulation, cheaply done.
I love your story! I wonder if there’s another wonderful white floral out there that would give you the same feeling as White Shoulders? Maybe Carnal Flower would.