Cialenga Cristobal Balenciaga for women

I still remember vividly the day I discovered this masterpiece among my best friend's bottles . This happened exactly 27 years ago and I was just 23 .
When a frangrance makes you smile , opens your eyes wide with amazement and your feel your jaw fall because of great surprise you are definitely in front of " your masterpiece fragrance " . I was young and loved so much this gorgeous chypre with the very Balenciaga green notes added to splendid oakmoss , vetiver , cloves and a hint of rose so beautifully blended , a light sweetness by ylang-ylang ...

I never tried to buy a vintage because I am afraid of getting a bottle which has gone bad because of time , although it is not impossible to find one online nowadays .
It is a fragrance which has marked my tastes : I always appreciate well blended smells with oakmoss , cloves and vetiver and tend to put aside very sweet perfumes . I remember I also liked Michelle from this house but not as much as Cialenga as I found Michelle too sweet ! This makes me giggle today as Michelle very light and elegant sweetness is nothing to be compared with the candies in bottles you can smell these days . It was another era then and a girl aged 23 could never think about smelling old lady wearing a real perfume such as Cialenga and probably could never conceive to dress herself up into some fruity candy .

cialenga is a perfume that I associate with a beautiful enriching time in my life post civil war in the country of my birth, Liberia. When my kids & I escaped the war I lost everything.One day I walked into the mall I walked into a store just for nostalgia reasons & asked the Cialenga. It was brought to me & I remember only when the assistant was trying to pick me up as I had fainted. This scent,evoked such a profound memory tha I long for it and continue to search since it's no longer sold in the store in virginia. should anyone run into to please let me know & I shall pay whatever it cost.
thanks
Baindu

I wore this today and the dry, briskness of it made me think of Diorella, but I haven't compared them side by side. I love the scent but it lasted about 15 minutes on me. I have a mini, an edt and a parfum mini, all vintage. The first I can't smell at all in the bottle. The second I sprayed myself with liberally and then reapplied. I could smell it a little by the time I got to work. I took the parfum with me and applied that. It was absolutely glorious, for maybe an hour.

I read how long lasting it is for others and it makes me sad.

I had never heard of this but managed to find and successfully bid for a pure perfume dating from the 1970s. It is absolutely heavenly! It's hard to describe but seems to have all my favourite ingredients in a perfect balance. The oakmoss is to die for. What a difference it makes! I can't believe this scent is no longer made. I definitely prefer this one to other green-woody scents. It is certainly superior to Chanel No. 19 and although on me it has some similarities with Givenchy III, (minus the peachy flavour), it is, on the whole, better than Givenchy. Would love to find an Eau de Parfum or Eau de Toilette as I'm sure the fragrance would also work very well in a diluted, misty form.

I was fortunate to scoop up a vintage bottle of Cialenga. I am overjoyed by this purchase. This is a true Vintage classic! The longevity & silage is phenomenal. What I love most is the green notes & oak moss. It has a similar earthy green quality to No. 19 but their are differences that make it unique. This is sophisticated enough to pull off on a very stylish dinner date.

Flowerhouse/powerhouse of a scent with amazing longevity and sillage. However, it's better on others than me. If anyone would like to swap for it (edp), contact me.

I found a vintage bottle, EDP, and don't understand why this has been discontinued. It's a wonderful warm and spicy fragrance,dry rather than sweet. Love it. What a remarkable combination of notes. The opening is sharp with aldehydes and citrus, with a touch of acridness from the black current. The middle notes are floral but very dry in aspect, no heavy sweetness in these notes. It's very "woody", you get a lot of sandalwood and cedar here, even in the first 15 minutes. The drydown continues to evolve the earthy theme of patchouli, vetiver, oakmoss and cedar. This fragrance contains everything I love in a scent; it has personality and a lot of depth. A wonderful day or night scent for me, great sillage and longevity (8 hours). Apply with moderation, it' a powerhouse scent. Definately worth a look for all you woody-chypre lovers out there. Still available online for now. I'm stocking up since I know it won't be long before it's totally gone.

Wow! This is a genuine heavyweight. Not Aromatics Elixir super-heavyweight, but like Lauren it's a strong opening. A little goes a long way. I guess my sort of green is way more floral, perhaps sweeter, than Cialenga, Vent Vert and Lauren. I am overwhelmed by the strength of all three, but think everyone should try them, or you'll never know if this style is you.

(Reviewing a vintage miniature).

Vintage balenciaga perfumes are the givers of the perfect clove scent herbie, but not tooo herbie.
The drydown is jasmine and clove.
But not the powdery but the creamy sort of jasmine.

Because so many members have compared Cialenga to vintage Chanel No. 19, (with many preferring Cialenga) I had to sample it to satisfy my curiousity.

I go back to the mid 80's with No. 19, and have spent many years daring the perfume counters in department stores to show me something I'll like better (or even just as much). None have so far. Including, now, Cialenga.

I find the current No. 19 EDP very satisfying.

Cialenga by comparison (I sampled the vintage parfum) is similar, but if I have to describe it in my limited perfume vocabulary, I'd say it smells like a soapier, mustier, slightly spicier version of No. 19.

But that little magic thing that No. 19 has just isn't there. So, for me at least, No. 19 has yet to be dethroned.

For people wondering what the category is of this perfume, it is a cross chypre - green - floral.

It is a softer more 'aldehydes' version of the vintage Chanel N19 EDP 1st release. Chanel has never been able to attain that level for the later releases of Chanel N19. I think I had tried them all in my despair to find a large bottle of the vintage.
But I gave that up, after buying so many chanel n19's that I was soo glad to discover this interpretation of the concept, but this time by the house of Balenciaga.

Hi I discovered this wonderful perfume, emblematic in its sophisticated refinement, in the 1980s as a gift to my mother. After many years of inconclusive searches, being cialenga a perfume discontinued, I finally managed to find a dozen vintage packaging, perfectly intact. And it become one of perfumes that wearing more willingly and continuously huge success, despite being a feminine fragrance the wearing quietly without problems, love it and I don't care. the only sad awareness is that sooner or later commercially it will ends, and reissues are never equal all original, as success for mythic fragrances from Givenchy, where givenchy III for example is very much different from the original masterpiece.

Hi Rithacha,
No worries! I gave Chat a bottle of Cialenga a while ago and she did indeed love it very much!!
She loves almost all Balenciaga's very much. And I agree, it is a typical ' Cannot go wrong with' house!
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Thanks to Persephone's amazing generosity, I had the opportunity to sample this amazing Balenciaga creation. In fashion and in fragrance, it seems that this house can do no wrong.

Cialenga reminds me of a member who used to be on fragrantica - you might remember her as Chat Lunatique. I'm confident she loved or would have loved Cialenga! Sharp wit, martini-dry humor, impeccable taste in classic-structured quality perfume.

Think YSL Y, the Balmain series, Scherrer, Niki de Saint Phalle, Coriandre, the great green chypres of their time. Cialenga has a similarly disciplined structure, precise as a fine clock. A strong green opening, rose-iris-lily heart, and a base that does not skimp on the woodsy moss. If you like a French chypre, Cialenga will make your heart skip a beat.

Cialenga did give me a double-take with the fruity currant note, which smelled a little out of place at first, but endeared itself to me almost immediately. It's quirky, and I like it.

travelling back in time ...similar to Moyra happened to me. I was a little girl too in the 80'. A friend of mine had a sooooo sophisticated mother who wore much and expensive make up and seemed not to walk but float over the floor,and she smelled something unique. I associated that smell with a real woman I wanted to be, and asked my mother to buy that perfume for me. It was Cialenga. I was sure it could transform me into a beauty too!! And I was given one. My first real french parfum. A single drop used to last a week. So strong! What a sillage! I actually don't know, now, if I liked it or if I was bewitched. But now I miss that sensation. I remember the patchouli and moss, I think it was dusty, but very unique. Para a colega que perguntou com o que se parece...talvez o Opium+patchouli Maybe...

I had a bottle of this way back when, well, way back in the early 70's. It really wasn't my kind of perfume at the time, but I wore it before I discovered Chloe and Parure, which I really did adore.

Come to think of it, the only reason I wore Cialenga was that a gorgeous English girl a few years older than myself wore it exquisitely, rocking the dark, sensual notes.

I was very young, I wanted to be her.

Instead, I exuded the other side of Cialenga, the ancient, oily orange peel with spices side, distinctively unpleasant and un-sensual, more like something used to preserve mummies than a seductive potion.

Truth is that on my chemistry, Cialenga smelled much like I actually was at that time: neither gorgeous nor sexy, somewhat awkward and confused - just a very young girl pretending to be all grown up.

I've recently discovered (*blush*) that I actually own a vintage bottle of this, almost half full. It used to belong to my mother (a refined woman of exquisite taste) and I kept it along with all her other perfumes, but forgot about it completely - I probably wouldn't have appreciated it even only a year ago, anyway. I don't even think the juice has gone off, as I remember my mum wearing it and the smell is still the same to me.

So, what's it like? From the very first moment on it's very spicy, dry, dark and has plenty of character. When I say spicy, I mean really spicy, almost like a brew made of clove, coriander and possibly nutmeg, several spoonfuls of dust and a few drops of black tincture boiling in a rusty old pot on the stove of some clandestine rustic kitchen for who knows what kind of secret purpose. There's absolutely no sugar added. This spiciness never disappears, not even when the bouquet made of rose, jasmine, lily, and the later appearing iris starts to bloom. Once the flowers have faded away, the scent gets quite woody, but the dark cloud of spices still casts a huge shadow over the composition. That is no critical remark, mind you: this dark and cloudy feel, along with the dry spiciness, is the main characteristic feauture of this scent. I could swear I even smell dusty leather in the end, even though it isn't listed.
I love it. Partly for sentimental reasons, partly because it's so unsusual. It will obviously only appeal to lovers of vintage. That said, if it wasn't a tad soapy, I'd say this (or at least the juice in this particular bottle) could easily pass for a recent unisex niche release.

Olá

Gostaria de saber qual o perfume similar ao Cialenga by Balenciaga. Usei esse perfume a alguns anos e hoje não consigo encontrá-lo para comprar.

Obrigada.