Beautiful
Estée Lauder (1985)

I wore this perfume 25 years as my signature. Sure - I had other perfumes in my rotation - but when I wanted to really make a great impression, this was an easy reach - the perfume that I knew that I could count on - 100% - without fail. I stopped wearing this recently because it reminded me too much of an ex. It was time to find a new signature

I've tried over 330 perfumes since deciding that I wanted to find a new signature, but I have not found a perfume that out performs this - or that I receive this many compliments on. This is truly great with my chemistry. I really love this perfume!

This is hard to beat. I love this perfume.
If you find something better - let me know.

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Rare Gold, Rare Pearls, Today by Avon all receive a solid stream of compliments. Bijan Woman by Bijan receives a lot of compliments. Beautiful is still one of my very favorites. David Yurman (the original and Fresh Essence) receives a lot of compliments. One of the best new finds this year is Beauty by Calvin Klein -- this is a much lighter fragrance, more natural smelling -- this is another one that really draws a solid stream of comments and compliments!

Have you seen the film "City Lights" with Charlie Chaplin and Virginia Cherrill ? Do you remember the final scene when the flower girl, whose sight has been reatored by an operation paid for by the him, now smiles at him, and gives him a rose and some money, and then touching his hands, recognizes them."You?" she asks on the title cart. He nods, tries to smile, and asks,"You can see now?" Yes she says,"I can see now". She sees, and yet smiles at him, and accepts him. He guessed correctly: she has a good heart, and is able to accept him as himself... that is Beautiful Estee Lauder. So utterly emotional, romantic, queenly, but not a frigid cold queen, she is a queen who loves her home, a warm woman with a tender heart.

A perfect example of perfumery done well. Powdery retro classic floral bouquet. It's so french. Like a big bouquet of flowers. Lots of green in this fragrance which gives the flowers more realism. The opening is fresh and bright as spring first flowers is gorgeous. Then the heat of your skin awakens the garen that lies in the mid notes. A really stunning rose that truly to me smells of fresh cut roses. The white florals are more of a supporting role-the jasmine, tuberose and orange blossom, none of them take over, but just hum sweetly in the background. The floral arrangement last for hours until a powdery, musky, honeyed oakmoss makes the final appearance in this bewitching metamorphosis. The dry down reminds me of an exquisitely scented, expense french soap. Beautifull reminds me of Cacharel Anais Anais. This is a classy, well respected woman with refined taste. Vintage and sophisticated.

Really intense, old-school ladies' fougere that screams for attention!

Beautiful by Estee Lauder is shaped greatly by the ylang's sweet-powdery edge, tuberose's creamy fleshy touch, loud lily, loud bright jasmine, and warmed a tad by sandalwood and straight green vetiver.

Imagine your typical 1980's MEN's fougeres - Trussardi Uomo comes quickly to mind - and you'll get a good picture of Beautiful's character. Personally, it's bordering on gawdy and too bold. Perfect for the woman who wants to relive the vibe of bright, yester-decade perfumes without fear.

I love tuberose, but I don't like when it's treated this way. It's an average vintage bitter fragrance, with too many different flowers and some spices. There's itchy greenness. Very good performances.

Sophia Grojsman is a pretty divisive perfumer in the fragrance community despite her many achievements, because her compositions are all feminine, and mostly represent an uncompromising floral loudness married to aromachemical boosts. Her perfumes have a resplendence suited for the dominant take-charge woman of the 1980's, and in a new millennium of apologetic fruity airy patchouli fare, feel too imposing for many, but in Beautiful by Estée Lauder, Grojsman's style feels more moderated thanks to house stalwart Bernard Chant, who worked with her on this scent. Beautiful was also part of a huge sweet tuberose wave that hit the 1980's feminine perfume scene thanks to scents like Giorgio Beverly Hills (1981), Grojsman's own Gloria Vanderbilt (1982) and Yves Saint Laurent Paris (1983), plus Givenchy Ysatis (1984), but Beautiful comes across more balanced with it's green woodsy base than many of it's peers, hence why it has persevered while many of the others in its class come across as relics. It's really interesting that Grojsman, who is often considered a prolific master of blending rose in all of its facets, and the creator of the famous "hug me" Iso E Super accord found in many perfumes of the 90's, took a co-pilot seat with the old guard perfumer of Estée Lauder, but the results here are pretty memorable. Most tuberose-led fragrances from this era are often considered monsters, but this is likely the least so in it's respective micro-category, since Beautiful is just much less aggressive than many examples built around the note.

Estée Lauder Beautiful is as the name suggests, a very gorgeous yellow floral brimming with rose and tuberose top notes, a hedionic jasmine and white floral middle, laid on a sandalwood vetiver base. Many florals of this kind rely heavily on aldehydes or musks, but not Beautiful, and there isn't even a heavy oakmoss plonk here to date this like many of its contemporaries, but one thing Beautiful doesn't have is a lot of unisex appeal, since it doesn't rely on a lot of green notes of woody pencil shavings base elements to keep it from being too sweet like many florals of the day. Instead, Beautiful just has an immaculate amount of blending, with the rose and marigold/tagetes slickly coating that round tuberose note in the top, placing it very much in the 1980's, but being smooth enough that it doesn't feel like a "tuberose bomb" a la Giorgio Beverly Hills. The dusty white florals follow, with ylang-ylang, muguet, and neroli playing on a layer of jasmine hedione. There's a tiny speck of indole from the jasmine here, to keep the roundness of the top, but it's not funky like indole in large amounts can be. The base is a very soft sandalwood and vetiver, which add the desiccating quality to the juicy flowers above it needs to keep Beautiful from becoming heavy, although over-application can definitely happen here. Wear time is a good 8+ hours, and this has decent enough fall through springtime legs, but in summer it might be too cloying. Sillage is also pretty good, and a little goes a long way with tuberose fragrances anyway so go easy on the trigger.

Tuberose comes across intrinsically feminine in the same way gardenia does to my nose, but that's not to say a man couldn't wear Beautiful, just that he would unequivocally be judged as wearing a woman's perfume when he does, which might actually be the desired impression for you dandies out there. Modern women might see Beautiful as a bit too mature for anything outside business meetings, weddings, or other formal gatherings, and the bridal advertisements of the day declaring Beautiful as a "bouquet of a thousand flowers" sure don't help with that perception. Beautiful came out opposite Lauder for Men (1985) in the same year, and although named different, form a layering pair if worn by a couple, with Lauder's green floral chypre leanings (oddly feminine for an 80's masculine) mixing well with the soft and mannered tuberose glow of Beautiful, creating a lush unisex accord for anyone passing such a scented pair. Beautiful is also an example which runs counter to the stereotype that all Estée Lauder feminines are loud and brash, something probably cultivated since 1953's sex bomb known as Youth Dew, and provides a bit of quietus to what is admittedly a pretty dynamic catalog from the house. A ton of flankers and limited editions of this have been spawned, but none of them really capture the golden glow of this perfume, which is just one of several game-changers Sophia Grojsman was involved with creating throughout the prime of her career as perfumer. A gorgeous, if fairly serious-feeling powerhouse classic. Thumbs up!

A beautiful, deep floral. Lots of rose and tuberose. I think it's a heavier flower scent, more suited for wintertime. Has a woody, green base. One of Estee lauder's classics. I adore it because my Mother loved it...