Must de Cartier II

Wearing and assessing a perfume that is or was the signature scent of someone you used to know, is difficult at best. It's hard to tell if you like (or dislike) it due to the memories or because of the way it smells. It took me a while and 80% of a miniature Must de Cartier II EDP to get over myself and smell the juice for what it is.

My former friend used to wear both the EDT and the EDP. If I remember correctly, the eau de toilette was greener and more mossy. I think I liked it better, though I don't have a sample to check. You see, Must II was only around for a short time- launched in 1993 and discontinued somewhere between 1999 and 2000 (I bought my friend a bottle in early 1999 and it was already a little hard to find). I'm guessing it was never crazy popular because very few bottles remained and the prices they reach online nowadays are between $200-300.

I really dislike the top and middle notes of the eau de parfum. It smells both aquatic and aldehydic, a combination that feels very wrong. The floral part is dominated by a metallic muguet, another questionable element as far as I'm concerned. But it gets a little better once it reaches a musky wood territory and I have to say Must de Cartier II has a quiet elegance and enough complexity to make me to think of it as one of the last very French perfumes. I may not like it too much but I appreciate the idea behind it- a well-dressed, perfectly coiffed kind of scent. It smells of money and connections, nice hotel lobbies and good jewelry. It was a little out of place in the early nineties, when you either wore Angel or Eau d'Issey- Must II was somewhere in the middle (conceptually speaking, it smells like neither) and didn't attract enough attention to itself, which was probably part of the problem.

1993 Must de Cartier 2 ad  and 1996 Cartier Parfums ad from couleurparfums.com