Dioressence is the perfume that Dior launched in 1969 under the slogan “the barbaric perfume,” composed by Guy Robert to accompany a fur collection. An amber chypre, frankly animalic at the outset, it has been reworked several times, down to the current eau de toilette, which the house presents as an oriental of geranium, cinnamon and patchouli.
The critics hold the 1969 Dioressence to be a great animalic perfume and judge its reformulations harshly. The current eau de toilette is described as rosier, soapier and tamer: pleasant, recognizable, but far from the “barbaric perfume” that its name promised.
Olfastory’s review
Few Dior perfumes generate as sharp a gap between reputation and the bottle sold today. Nearly all the judgments concern the distance between the original Dioressence, held to be a great perfume, and its successive versions.
An original become legendary
Luca Turin saw in the first Dioressence the last time the word barbaric had been used seriously in perfumery, carried by a strange, almost spoiled note. Now Smell This ranks it among the vintage perfumes that every enthusiast should smell.
Reformulations judged harshly
As reported by Chandler Burr, Turin's verdict on the reformulated version is final: it betrays the original. A reviewer for Now Smell This describes an older version in which the soap and a note of decay gave way to a very French spicy floral bouquet; her recent bottle smelled of rose, spice and soap, and lasted only two hours.
A former employee of the house, now a reviewer, sees in the current eau de toilette a light, green infusion of moss and soapy rose, pleasant but flat.
A current version somewhat better regarded
Opinions on today's version are less sharply divided. A 2012 review judges it better than the 2000s versions, more frankly chypre and drier, without recovering the body of the original; others still call it recognizable, with more rose and less strangeness.