White Shoulders

PLEASE NOTE, BEFORE USING MY REVIEW AS A REFERENCE WHEN DECIDING TO PURCHASE OR NOT TO PURCHASE THIS PARTICULAR FRAGRANCE: This review is for THE ORIGINAL 1943, beeswaxed sealed, bottle of White Shoulders, with the Hartnell label! I have never actually had the distinct pleasure (or displeasure, according to some) to have the modern formulation of White Shoulders, that is currently being bottled by Elizabeth Arden under my nose, so I cannot guarantee whatsoever, that the modern formulation of the fragrance smells anything like THE ORIGINAL 1943, beeswaxed sealed, bottle of White Shoulders, that was bottled by Hartnell (The fragrance house was called Hartnell before it changed it's name to "Lady Evyan" and then again soon after to just "Evyan"), that is described below! This is a super nostalgic fragrance for me, simply because it was my Great-Grandmother’s, my Grandmother's and mother's signature scents, thus, per tradition, it's now mine, even though I am mainly into gourmands and shun all most all other florals like they're the plague. It's sort of turned into a family affair, so I am hoping to get my three young daughters into fragrance at some point and I am really hoping that they'll eventually grow to love this particular fragrance just as much as my Great-Grandmother, my Grandmother and my mother did when they wore it and just as much as I do when I wear it. It’s also one of my all time favorites because, while for some, both the Benzyl Acetate and Isoamyl Acetate smell like jasmine, these two chemicals are also found in very high concentrations in bananas, and THAT is THANKFULLY, what I smell in place of the jasmine. In fact, jasmine (depending on the level of concentration) almost always smells (again, thankfully) like banana to me AND I ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY AND COMPLETELY ADORE ANY, EVERY AND ALL FRAGRANCES THAT CONTAIN ANY FORM OF PREDOMINANT BANANA NOTES! So, for me at least, this fragrance is a very lovely, very romantic, slightly green, soapy, clean, warm, very fruity, floral. THE TOP NOTES (ACCORDING TO MY NOSE): It starts off with a very prominent banana (from the jasmine) and some really nice peach. THE MIDDLE NOTES (ACCORDING TO MY NOSE): It continues with a slight hint of greenery (from the lily of the valley) to it, a bit of honey (from the orange blossom), some purple lilac (which happens to be my ultimate favorite floral note), and some sugary sweetness (from the gardenia). THE BASE NOTES (ACCORDING TO MY NOSE): It finishes with smooth sandalwood, soapy musk, warm amber and a very, very slight hint of naturally derived civet. Overall, despite the fact that all of my bottles are eighty-three-years-old (thankfully, I have been blessed, in that I have been lucky enough to have found and purchased four backup bottles and will continue to buy any and every Beeswaxed Hartnell Bottle I find), I wholeheartedly believe that the ORIGINAL White Shoulders, that was bottled in 1943, is still a very beautifully complex fragrance. Also, if you love banana fragrances, and jasmine smells like banana whenever it's under your nose, you're going to LOVE Hartnell's (Lady Evyan or Evyan's versions of White Shoulders were bottled in 1945 and contain the same exact formulation as Hartnell's) ORIGINAL 1943 formulation of White Shoulders fragrance.

I just picked up a vintage bottle of this and so glad I did. What they make now is fine but doesn't have the longevity and throw like the vintage made by Evyan. This was one of my beloved Aunt Doris favorite perfumes. I'm going to wearing it for the next two days while spending time with my Uncle Lee this weekend her widower. He asked me if I had it. I think he wanted to smell it again the vintage. The vintage is richer and fuller. White shoulders is the scent of a real lady and my Aunt Doris was just that a real lady. If you love this classic scent profile I suggest seeking out a vintage bottle you won't regret it.

lts not like modern perfumes but I don't have the association to it as dated so it smells nice to me.

they were loving those aldehydes back then, which is great for me

Bought this and just adore it. What an absolute bargain at £20. If you don't like big hitters stay away. Id put this as similar to Giorgio but smoother and slightly richer.

Snagged this for $8 at a local thrift/antique store completely unopened still in the cellophane. It smells so gorgeous. Right as I took the cap off i got hit in the face with this lovely photorealistic lilac immediately. First off, the spray nozzle makes this iconic clicking sound so you know she's an oldie. After first spray you get that classic aldehyde with the orange blossom & a touch of sweetness from the peach. From then on out all the pretty floras shine through followed by the Civetta, amber, oak moss, spices everything. I really feel as if I can smell every note that is listed on here. It smells like White Diamonds but her more sweeter sister. The fact that it's been unopened this whole time, being in god knows what temperature/setting, I'm very surprised it still smells so good. I tried looking up the batch code but nothing came up. Considering this was launched in 1945, I'm going to date it at least 70 years old.

This is my moms favorite scent, she’s turning 70 this year so I just bought both of us a bottle for nostalgia (and the body powder, I loved taking a bath in her big garden tub and using the white shoulders powder after). It smells exactly how I remember, a sweet feminine powdery floral. Her favorite flowers are gardenia and lilacs, she always talked about lilacs outside her window in summer growing up. This to me has a good amount of that sweet lilac and gardenia scent so I think that’s why she likes it so much.

I reject the idea of 'old lady' as a way of describing any perfume. By that logic, anything with milk and caramel is going to be 'old lady' in 10 short years. Anything anyone slightly older than us wore, or older than 5 minutes can be considered 'old' and that's a bit redundant. And are we calling OG formulations with naturals old now? Then everything will be old, eventually, and people can't repeat the same tired, meaningless adjective. That being said, this belongs in the category of clean musk scents like 100 others, but unlike those others, this is one of the OGs. Or at least, my bottle is. I've heard it's been reformulated, but I wouldn't know. One spray is all I need, and it fills the room, so suffice it to say, mine has lasted years. This is the kind of performance you deserve from a perfume, be it $20 or $400 ridiculous dollars.

I love vintage perfumes, especially ones with a story and have been super intrigued to smell White Shoulders though it isn't easily available in Australia and non existent in stores. I got the newer EA formulation and it came today in the mail. Its very different from what I envisioned but it's very beautiful, delicate and subtle. White powdery florals, like a milled soap and luxurious body powder. Soapy and very feminine. I wish the scent was stronger, I did 4 sprays to really get a good handle on the scent. On first spray it's sweet and reminds me of those chalky sherbet lollies but the dry down is lovely and familiar. I think this would layer well with Jovan White Musk as the dry downs share a very similar powdery note. Beautiful perfume, timeless.

Is it "old lady" ? Yes but ... There's a reason this scent has been around for DECADES. It really is a classic gem of a scent formula. Wonderfully soft feminine floral accord, clean not quite Chanel soapy/powdery but up there, sultry animalic base. ♥️ Lovely. 6/10 Timeless good 👍

Makes me feel like Jon Benet Ramsey

A vintage gem if there ever was one-- sweet, feminine, delicate, cozy, warm pink-coralish/creamyish. I don't get any green here at all. It's all feminine warmth and lace, but entirely unique in the best way possible. I highly recommend it if a no-fail unique ultra-feminine fragrance is on your wish list. Also, men love this on women.

This was my grandmother’s signature scent. I bought a bottle for my mom that arrived tonight. Orange flower and aldehydes dominate the top notes, lily, gardenia and tuberose come out strong at the heart. I immediately got the spices even before spraying, which was an unexpected nuance to my nose. Even if this didn’t hold the place in my family history that it does I would still likely call this an old lady scent, but not in a bad way. Mature, not sweet but complex. A white flower bomb.

This is my mom’s perfume! It always makes me think of her. ❤️

There is a review buried deeply in the reviews by “Fermina Daza” that you should find and read as respect to our country’s (us) past. It’s a beautiful review that I wish weren’t so hidden.

My wedding scent. Big white floral with a bit of seduction.

one of my nona's perfumes! too floral for me

I always thought of this as a Honeysuckle fragrance but that’s not listed in the notes. I wore it in my late teens in the 90s. Always pretty and got compliments all the time.

Just sharing a memory: It was the mid '90s and I was obsessed with Judy Blume, who mentioned White Shoulders in her middle grade novel, Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself. I was convinced White Shoulders must be the pinnacle of luxury. My grandma went on a mission to find it for me, despite hating this fragrance. We kept the bottle around until about 5 years ago. I only wore it a few times; I don't recall what it smells like but I wish I still had it. Judging by the notes listed, I would likely enjoy wearing it today.

I really enjoy how this settles, but I hate the opening. When it opens, it smells really animalic in a way that just doesn't work for me. I'm glad civet is not in much these days if this is what it smells like. Later on it, it just has this pleasant soapy, white floral smell with a vintage edge I can really get behind. I ends up smelling a little like you mixed Anais Anais by Cacherel and Glow by Jennifer Lopez together. It's a very comforting "mom" smell I've taken to wearing to work as a hospital admin/receptionist simply because it smells so clean, fresh and easy to approach. Edit I've found a fragrance light lotion and misting (holding it quite far from what you want to perfume) completely removes the opening part I hate. I absolutely love it now! I'm also shocked how it seems to perform at its best in autumn, rather than spring or summer.

Whenever I reach for White Shoulders, I'm hit with compounding thoughts. 1) This old white floral is lush and expensive smelling 2) Evyan and its legacy are a bizarre mystery 3) when the internet is your primary working resource, it's difficult, perhaps even impossible to discern smear campaigns, inaccuracies, and marketing myths from actual, factual reality. ...Regardless, I have returned for a followup report. I did my best, but please take this information with a grain of salt: "Evyan Perfumes Inc." (originally registered as "Hartnell") was founded by a Czech chemist and immigrant named Walter Langer. Langer claimed to be an Austrian baron "von Langendorff". Some records indicate he worked in Austria prior to attaining US citizenship, but there is no evidence that he came from nobility. He moved to New York with the goal of applying his chemistry doctorate to a trade. There he met his first wife, Evelyn Diane Westall, who encouraged him to use his chemistry skills to develop perfume. Together, they would prove that fine fragrance could be produced outside of France. The "Evyan" brand is a contraction of her name (Evelyn + Diane). Under their oversight, the business was successful. He managed the workers and developed new fragrances while she worked out the finances. "White Shoulders" (launched between 1935-1945, sources are unreliable) was their most popular scent, and evidently WWII patriotism helped sell it. The bottle presentation has shifted over the decades, but the peachy pink packaging, golden accents, and the silhouette of a woman are consistent motifs that borrow inspiration from French cameo jewelry. The early ads depict Evyan as an old-world luxury fragrance company, but company reports indicate it was cut from a different cloth. All production was done in New York under Westall & Langer's oversight, during a time when most other New York businesses were outsourcing labor. Unfortunately Westall passed of illness in '63. At the time of Langer's death (1983 per his obituary), he had ~250 people employed. Langer's $125 million-dollar fortune was distributed between his second wife (reportedly a narcissist) and Evyan's executive vice president (started from the bottom, now she's here). It was a 6-year legal battle; evidently the lawyers and the gossip tabloids won. The Evyan brand was initially bought by Chesebrough-Pond's Inc. This conglomerate has since been subsumed by Unilever. All post-Evyan White Shoulders products have been produced under "Parfums International LTD". A shit subsidiary of Revlon. Regardless of who technically owns the rights to this perfume, the formula budget has been gradually sapped over the past few decades. ...One of our most iconic luxury perfumes: a story of romance, fortuitous timing, and a successful business; thinned out and relegated to rack stores like Burlington. C'est la vie. I wish this report ended on a better note.

I smelled a sweet pea bloom today from my garden and the scent brought to mind long lost memories of White Shoulders. My grandmother used to wear it, in the 1970s when I was a child I remember the beautiful bottle on her dresser, I 2as enamored with the relief of the lovely lady with long hair and bare shoulders on it and I loved to pick it up and feel it, so elegant. My grandma would always let me dab a little bit on. I remember it smelling like sweet carnations, and today that smell was exactly like the sweetpea I picked. Lovely memories. I'm curious as to what it smells like to me now, tempted to get a bottle. Yet I also don't want to alter the dear memory of what I think it smells like. We shall see.

man i don't even care if it's considered a granny perfume, every time i take a whiff of my bottle i say hell yea!!!

This was a blind buy for me, based on my interest in trying some classics and seeing so many positive reviews. The first time I spritzed it I liked how it developed; it started out a bit cloying but then evolved into a pleasant fresh powdery floral. Something in there reminded me of a lovely old-fashioned soap my mom brought back from a visit to Europe years ago. Fast forward to a week later and something changed, but not for the better. The drydown was stronger but with it came an overpowering civet note. I endured this stage, hoping it would be fleeting, but it stuck around and whatever pleasant soapy qualities were present the first time around were now undetectable. I’m not sure what happened. I was a bit sad about the change because initially it seemed like a comforting scent to spritz on my pillows on occasion. Perhaps my bottle was from a bad batch, or maybe the scent is going through some awkward “growing pains” phase, but for the moment, it’ll sit in the back of my cupboard.

White Shoulders brings to mind walking through an orchard of blossoming trees, picking peaches, and washing the sap and fuzz off your hands with a finely milled soap, while looking out the bathroom window at a gardenia tree and lilac bushes. A polite, pleasing, gentle floral perfume--excellent value for the price. It's one of those drugstore classics. The bottle I have is the most recent formulation of the EDC, and it lasts on my skin for at least four hours. There is a nostalgia factor, because I smelled this on teachers and family members many years ago. However, this scent does not simply embody "times gone by". It has a similar feel to other more contemporary clean, white florals--White Shoulders was probably their precursor. Someone complimented me on this, and said it smells like honeysuckles.

This fragrance (current EA version) is confusing the bejesus out of me. I thought I hated it. So why do I keep putting it on? 🤔 ~ Putting this here as a placeholder…I intend to review this, just as soon as I can figure her out…

My beloved grandmother who helped raise me died on Saturday, so I decided to buy a bottle of White Shoulders because it was her main perfume and she always kept a bottle of it and the powder on her dresser. We were very close. It came in today and oh my goodness, yes! It was instantly familiar and I just fell totally in love with it for myself. This may well be my own new signature. Sincerely. The notes appealed to me but I really couldn't remember how it smelled before ordering. What a value! I am sitting here smelling myself just totally beside myself with joy. What a glorious fragrance for the Easter season! This does not at all smell cheap, and I know at one time it was not a cheap perfume anyway. How lucky am I that the perfumes I most enjoy right now are not so expensive (Noa by Cacharel and Flower by Kenzo and I think White Shoulders is the most beautiful of the three). I am beyond delighted. This is eternally beautiful. Timeless. Supremely feminine and elegant. Joyful! I just was not happy with any of my perfumes today, but this did it for me. What a sublime feeling I have right now! I will write another review down the line when I am not so giddy. Update: This definitely has some commonality with my most recent signature scent, A Drop d'Issey and the delightful way Coco Mademoiselle smells on my skin (but not in the air or on clothing, just on the skin it smells like peachy orange jasmine and vanilla). I am happily wearing White Shoulders every day. It is very natural smelling. It smells as if you walked into a church full of lilies, lilacs, orange blossom, gardenia, and tuberose. I say that because it is the Octave of Easter and my church is full of lilies and the scent is magnificent and my perfume melded seamlessly with that scent yesterday when I was at Mass. Update 2: I think this reminds me too much of my beloved Granny-Lady that I can't wear it for myself with any regularity. It's such a stunner, though.

This used to be my mom's signature scent in the late 80s and early 90s. I like with any other nostalgic scent, it it's me right back to a place, time, and even to a version of people that still exist, but are nothing like they used to be. Bittersweet and distant. I am sure my version is a modern reformulation, since I got it very affordably on eBay to have as a memento. It's not my kind of scent, so I don't typically wear this apart from the occasional bright, crisp day when I'm wearing light colors and want to pretend to be some kind of lady that I am not. Hearing how different the vintage versions were though, I have now put this on my list as one to source.

Gorgeous white floral that’s on the fresher side of things. Sand & Sable had to have been inspired by White Shoulders, but Sand & Sable is denser. Opening with powder white florals and stays that way until the dry down. Just lovely and cozy. “Clean.” Definitely unisex in 2025. If a man is comfortable in white florals, this will be an easy wear as it's not sweet and there is a tinge of "soapy green" to White Shoulders.

I first had the pleasure of smelling this back in the early 80s on an older, very stylish coworker who always smelled sooooo good. One day I asked what she was wearing and she said White Shoulders. She said it wasn't cheap. She said her small bottle was like $75.00 (which was a lot of money back then) So when I found out of was still available I went straight to Amazon and snagged a bottle. For me it smells exactly the same as I remember and transports me back to a time when I was at my most carefree. I never want to be without it. If you love an incredible scent cloud that just sends you into ecstasy, this is it. But you have to appreciate white flower vintage frags 🥰🥰🥰