Oh my, Eau My Sin is as wonderful as I had imagined it would be. Everyone who has sniffed it on me has said “Ooooh that smells wonderful on you,” although each of them has declined to try it, which makes me think that it is another one of my particular fancies that that no one else can really imagine joining me in, which means all the more for me! I prefer the Eau to the Extrait, perhaps because the parfum sample I used had a bit more of an aged quality, maybe due to some spoiled top notes, or to funky basenotes? I’ve just sniffed a bit of extrait from one of my ebay coups which is lighter in color than the first sample I had, and it is a bit fresher smelling but the drydown seems to be mostly ylang ylang/musk/civet and the heavier floral aspect of this scent is not my favorite facet. 
Here are the notes: Top Notes of aldehydes, bergamot, lemon, clary sage, neroli; Heart Notes of ylang-ylang, jasmine, rose, clove, orris, lily of the valley, jonquil, lilac; Base Notes of vanilla, vetiver, musk, woods, tolu, styrax, civet
Madame Zed, who created My Sin (Mon Peché) in 1925 or 1926 for Jeanne Lanvin, seems to be one of the glamourous White Russian exiles populating Paris since the Russian Revolution, many of whom were involved in fashion and other arts of luxury. Some of these women were titled aristocrats who had probably escaped with jewelry and cash and needed to make a living, doing for others what they had done for themselves all their lives, creating personas through clothing, accessories and personal care. This partucular Russian sensibility, arriving in Paris on the heels of the first sightings of Diaghalev’s Ballet Russe and the heroic exoticism of Paul Poiret’s design empire, transormed high syle in the Paris of this period. Mme Zed created this scent (the final scent of 15 she did for Jeanne Lanvin before 1925!!!!) at what seems to have been the end of her perfume career, as there are no scents credited to her after it.
You know, I’m not good at picking out notes, and frankly don’t aspire to it, as my definition of a fabulous scent is one in which each individual note is sublimated to the whole and none asserts itself too strongly, except for maybe a few moments on it’s way to morphing into something else. But now that I sniff and read the notes listed, I can imagine that the topnotes smell like that strange herbal citrus floral quartet, and the middle mixture of heady florals, fresh spring flowers and murky iris has a complete yet somehow Unfloral effect, all held by an astonishing 7 basenotes ranging from the frankly benign vanilla through to the earthy vetiver and woods, to the mystical styrax and tolu, climaxing with notorious civet (it’s an antique, so we might as well enjoy it!). My Sin is a kind of everything but the kitchen sink all perfumes rolled into one, which makes it feel like one of the truly iconic perfumes of the first half of the 20th century. My Vintage Perfume Enabler, Denyse Beaulieu (also known as carmencanada) said of it in her email encouraging my ebay odyssey “My Sin is pretty much my definition of perfume. Fabulously blended, refined and animalic, totally undefinable.” Now if SHE can’t define it, what am I to do?. Just reading the the notes is fascinating, like reading a great recipe, one feels that the cook is definitely functioning on a special level, and that s/he knows something I definitely don’t and can learn a ton from. Thank you, Madame Zed.
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