In all of perfumery there are only a handful of perfumes which can be said to be true game-changers. One of the fun things about writing about these masterpieces decades later is it allows me to see with perfect 20/20 hindsight how influential they are. One of these few is Estee Lauder White Linen from 1978.
As I’ve written about before the 1970’s were when women began to buy perfume for themselves. As they began to enter the workplace they still wanted to smell good but they wanted understated. The perfume companies were all looking to find what these working women wanted. One thing was for sure in 1978 few of the Estee Lauder releases like Youth Dew, Azuree, Alliage or Private Collection were going to be seen as office-ready. Estee Lauder probably saw this market segment slipping away and needed something to entice them back. Somewhere along the line Estee Lauder got the bright idea to combine the new class of synthetic musks together. To achieve this they enlisted perfumer Sophia Grojsman.
Again using that perfect hindsight this was an early opportunity for Mme Grojsman to compose in what will become her trademark of big bold blocks of synthetics. White Linen is full of this style as she strives to capture the smell of crisp clean linen freshly ironed.
Sophia Grojsman
Mme Grojsman first employs Hedione and its expansive jasmine-like quality as a cloud on which an assortment of aldehydes can also become fuller. Hedione is an ingredient with all the indoles removed from jasmine essential oil and it is a perfect choice to provide a matrix for the aldehydes to insert themselves into. The heart is a whopping boatload of synthetic musks lead by Galaxolide. Galaxolide had only been used in fabric softeners and soaps up until that point. Mme Grojsman’s choice to use it adds that laundry fresh smell by co-opting the molecule responsible for it. The rest of the musks are used to construct that crisp cotton accord. Every time I get to this point of White Linen I am blinded by the bright white olfactory light Mme Grojsman has created. A base of a couple of synthetic woods and we are done.
White Linen has 20-24 hour longevity and average sillage.
White Linen has been a consistent seller for almost forty years. It’s longevity is testament to the enduring desire for many perfume wearers to want to feel like a freshly laundered cotton sheet. That time has allowed it to find its way to the discount bins where 1oz. can be found for around $25. One other interesting fact is because this is composed almost entirely of synthetics it hasn’t been significantly changed. The dreaded reformulation hasn’t changed things. To find a true masterpiece of perfume for this price it should be hard to pass up.
Disclosure: This review is based on a bottle I purchased.
–Mark Behnke
Your chemistry background is showing, Mark! lol! Seriously, this is one of those amazing Lyrical Science posts that are a Mark Behnke trademark, full of science-y stuff woven into a tapestry of societal lore and pop culture history. Reading this, I can see the big shoulder-pad suits in the glass conference room……then Mme Grossman….(and that's where I gets interesting – wonder if she wore big shoulder pads back then (I know I did)…….
…I'm babbling on here to say that this post is a great homage to an iconic scent, but from another angle, focusing on the practicals of why it came into being – a reverse-engineering move, if you will. I remember being mesmerized by White Linen when it first came out – and I wore the snot out of it, until migraines, Anais Anais and Karl Lagerfeld forced my hand. But even today, so many, many fragrances later, White Linen still holds its own as a groundbreaking statement.