Pure Poison was launched by Christian Dior in 2004, 6 years after Hypnotic Poison and nearly 20 years after the original Poison fragrance. It was created by perfumers Carlos Benaïm, Dominique Ropion and Olivier Polge, and has notes of jasmine, sweet orange, bergamot, mandarin, orange blossom, gardenia, sandalwood, musk and white amber.

Pure Poison attempts to appeal to modern sensibilities (and modern tastes in fragrance) while hanging on to the original conceit of Poison as the venom to catch your man:

Pure Poison — though very different from the original Poison, which launched in 1985 — is a modern spin on the same concept. It is designed to appeal to young women of the 21st century who are passionate, down to earth and able to turn their wildest dreams into reality, but lack the selfish front that characterised the 1980s. (via Cosmetics International; 7/9/2004)

It is rather a stretch conceptually: one might ask whether a down to earth, emotionally generous woman needs or wants a fragrance called Poison at all. For that matter, the fragrance itself cannot hope to live up to its name, for pure it might be, but there is nothing even remotely venomous about it…

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