Panthere by Cartier

I have just added this treasure to my collection and am now testing it out.

A jewel in my collection 💖, created in the month of my birth 🥰, a special gift from my mum 💖. Panthere de Cartier Limited Editions is an Amber Floral. Launched in 1986 by Alberto Morillas. Top notes: orange blossom, labdanum, mandarin, ginger, rose, pepper and grapefruit. Heart: neroli, carnation, gardenia, ylang-ylang, nutmeg, jasmine, narcissus, heliotrope, iris, freesia and vetiver. Base: agarwood, sandalwood, amber, tonka bean, oakmoss, vanilla, incense, patchouli, cedar and musk. The scent remains pleasant and long-lasting; I confirm that current perfumes are damaged to encourage us to consume more. It is a sweet Floral with spices and a dry, powdery woody finish. It projects elegance and distinction. It lasts 9 hours on the skin with high sillage and high projection for the first 5. The presentation is beautiful and it can be refilled.

Today I received this discontinued jewel in a 15ml travel bottle and it has completely fascinated me. A blind buy that turned out well. I get reminiscences of Opium from 1977, perhaps due to the carnation and spices, but Panthere is sweeter thanks to the neroli and amber. In Opium the spicy notes predominate, whereas here it is the floral ones. Another reference is Boucheron for women due to that elegant neroli sweetness. These three transport you to another era, when perfumery was a dream, engineering and art all at once. Panthere is undoubtedly one of them.

Panthere Cartier. Based on the name and the bottle, you might expect something spicy, resinous or animalic like contemporary Opium or Obsession, but nothing of the kind; it was far more spiced and floral. At first, it smells like an old Guerlain with those floral cloves from the sixties’ lotions, but on the second sniff, you discover that beneath that calm lies a humid, sweaty, oily and heavy current, as if a maternal fragrance had been injected with litres of sweat, that tropical humidity. On the surface, it is a calm beast, but once you trust it, it gives you a scratch because this panther is nastier than the tabbies. It tells two stories: tranquility and danger, femininity and lust. It could be the perfume of a disguised witch; the ylang, clove and gardenia welcome you with maternal overtones, but then the tuberose and sandalwood hit you so hard you can’t react. A jewel that sails between mother and prostitute, without defining itself even in the dry-down, with spicy bursts and animalic notes. Apparently cheerful but with a dense, slow aftertaste like getting intoxicated by mushrooms. I think one perfumes themselves with whatever they fancy, but this smells like a wealthy aristocrat spending days seeking the sun, very French but with something Amazonian. It smelled of pure luxury. P.S. I read it’s a shame to use its name for the new Cartier, it’s nonsense; it’s called Le Panthere and is an excellent mature chypre, coming from Cartier which could be making the mistakes Dior or Givenchy make, it’s to congratulate them.

A classic for mature women, too heavy and intrusive for the young.

THE BEST FRAGRANCE I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY LIFE, I HAVEN’T FOUND IT AGAIN FOR YEARS, I ASKED IN ARUBA, ARGENTINA AND VENEZUELA AND NOTHING, IT IS A SUPER FEMININE FRAGRANCE WITH GREAT STRENGTH, I LOVE IT.