This isn't a perfume review as such, but today I was in Boots, the Chemist chain in the UK, and noticed the new bottle of Yves Saint Laurent Opium, pictured left. It is very similar to the more recent Belle D'Opium, which is purple-coloured. The funny thing is, when I last tried Opium a few months ago, I thought what I was trying is the reformulated juice. I thought to myself that it wasn't half bad and wondered what all the fuss was. I'm sure many of you are well aware of the controversy surrounding the new Opium, which I don't have the time or inclination to go into here; there are plenty of bloggers posts on this issue. The bottle of perfume I tried is the one pictured in the second picture below left.
It turns out that what I tried, if I am not mistaken, is an earlier incarnation of Opium. Perhaps what I tried is even the original formula. I'm not an expert on this sort of thing - possibly there has been more than one tweak of this over the years.
To cut a long story short, I tried the new Opium today, if it can be called that, and my, what a marked difference. It goes to show just how far reaching reformulation can be, because this smells very different to the earlier version I tried. I'd go so far as to say that until well into development I wouldn't have been able to guess it was Opium, had it been a blind test. Later on several facets do emerge that nod to the original, but it is a much meeker, wrinkle-free incarnation, and worse for it, in my opinion. Of course, there is some debate over whether this is meant to be a brand new fragrance that just happens to share the same name as the original, or an ingredient-restricted attempt at reformulation. I don't care, frankly, it just isn't as good as the earlier Opium, whichever way you look at it.
Some people have commented on how garish and ugly the new bottle is, but frankly, the second bottle pictured is hardly a looker, at least in my opinion, although it is a typical YSL bottle style!
Image credit - top left: http://www.beautifulmakeupsearch.com/beauty-blog/
Image credit - second picture: http://100mililitros.com/
