Estee Lauder Legacy Collection review – Carlos Benaim, Anne Flipo & Bruno Jovanovic; 2024

Talk about opening a can of worms. At first glance, the project seems quite simple: Frederic Malle wants to reimagine a few classic Estee Lauder scents, so he enlists the help of some perfumer friends, and the result of their efforts is released as the Legacy Collection (consisting of White Linen and Estee by Carlos Benaim, Private Collection and Azuree by Anne Flipo and Knowing by Bruno Jovanovic). But scratch beneath the surface of this relatively straightforward description and you’ll find a knot of questions and problems, many of which I tried to address in a recent episode of Love At First Scent. Here’s a link to the video – Estee Lauder Legacy White Linen, Azuree, Private Collection, Estee and Knowing reviews – and this is a link to an interview with Malle about the Legacy Collection over on my Substack. For further thoughts on the perfumes, please keep reading.

I don’t intend to dwell on the more perplexing aspects of this release here, partly because I did my best to tackle them over on YouTube, but mainly because they’re ultimately un-resolvable. At the heart of all the thorny issues is, of course, the question of whether and to what extent these five Legacy perfumes are faithful to the originals. Everyone will have their own views on this, but until someone invents a time machine, it’ll be impossible to make a conclusive comparison between the various iterations. Memories are not reliable, ingredients have changed over the years (by which I mean that the actual odour profile of the plants and materials we consider to be immutable will have altered for various reasons) and formulas in previous decades were not set in stone. The entire landscape is a minefield, populated by individuals defending their patch with an insistence that their vintage bottle is better than anyone else’s, because they know with absolute certainty (always a dangerous line to take) that it’s been looked after more carefully than all the others and that it is a flawless, trustworthy portal to the past.

There’s also the equally eyebrow-raising fact that the original (or should that be ‘current’?) versions of all these perfumes are still readily available through Lauder’s official retail channels. This is almost more difficult to understand than any other aspect of the Legacy situation, as the very existence of two differing (and very differently priced) iterations of the same scent must surely imply that one is inferior. After all, why would Lauder release the Legacy perfumes if they didn’t feel the current scents were somehow sub-par? A very complicated state of affairs, to say the least.

So, where does all this leave us? Sniffing as many bottles as possible, I suppose, in order to connect scented dots that aren’t always easy to discern. An exercise that’s bound to lead to frustration. When it comes to Knowing, I don’t own a vintage flacon, which means that my sniffing opportunities are severely limited and that I can assess the ‘accuracy’ of Legacy Knowing only with the help of my own fallible memory. I’m confident that the opening of the Legacy version captures the glorious, shoulder-padded extravagance of the original 80s release, but from that point onwards, the scent follows a different path, no doubt because of restrictions on the use of various materials that were needed to construct a convincing chypre. It’s also curious that the large dose of patchouli in the drydown of Legacy Knowing aligns the scent with what we now read as ‘Arabian’ codes. Perhaps this particular style of patchouli was prominent in the original iteration too, but I suspect it would have been read differently forty-odd years ago.

Of the five new compositions, Legacy Estee is perhaps the most problematic, because it’s difficult to see what purpose it serves in a collection that also includes White Linen. I gather that when they first appeared, these two were quite different from each other, but in this quintet, Estee comes across as a sort of inverted image of White Linen (in other words, it’s an aldehydic floral with a stronger emphasis on the florals) and suffers as a result. That said, when compared to a bottle of current Estee, the Legacy release is charm itself, with its gossamer petals and skin-hugging base of honeyed musks.

Legacy Private Collection is significantly different from what I smell in my not terribly old bottle of current Private Collection. The latter is inky-green, rather pinched and possessed of more than its fair share of powdery notes in the drydown. The former is a much brighter, more outdoorsy green from start to finish, using musks to enhance rather than obscure the verdant richness.

Legacy White Linen is the least different from its current incarnation than any of the other five (perhaps its base is a touch sweeter), which prompts me to suggest that the latter is the one most worth stocking up on, especially if Lauder decide that the non-Legacy releases will be discontinued. I’ve expressed my views on this masterpiece several times in the past and I’m pleased to say that in both versions, it remains one of the most heart-stopping aldehydic florals ever poured into a bottle, as celestial as it is earth-bound — like an angel that’s decided to spend a day amongst us mere mortals.

Finally, we have Legacy Azuree. What’s curious about Anne Flipo’s work here is that it starts off markedly different from the current juice (or at least the juice that’s in the approximately 10 year old bottle in my collection) in the sense that it places a bold, extremely un-Lauder-ish dose of cumin right across the top of the familiar, bitter-leather accord. But as the spices calm down, the two versions begin to converge and end up unexpectedly close to each other, with the new one being smoother and less sour.

I have no doubt that the Legacy Collection will not please everyone. For most people, their favourite version of a perfume is the one they encounter first, as it’s the one that locks itself not just in their heads but in their hearts — the one that will forever carry the strongest associations. So those who first met and fell in love with, say, Private Collection in the early part of the 21st century may well feel betrayed by the Legacy release, while those who came to know it in the 1980s may proclaim that balance has finally been restored. It will be extremely fascinating to see how the collection fares and, indeed, if Lauder decide to add any more scents to the range. Personally, I’d love to see what Malle and Co do with Cinnabar, Beautiful and Beyond Paradise. In the meantime, I expect the debate about which version is definitive will continue… as will my search for a time machine.

Persolaise

[Estee Lauder Legacy Collection samples provided by the brand in 2024.]

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