Creed Green Valley

Creed’s Green Valley is the feminine answer to Creed’s enigmatic Green Irish Tweed. The softer, gentler, more girly fragrance is supposed to be a similar treatment. I don’t see the similarities, unfortunately. Green Valley

In Bottle: Sweet aqueous scent with a fruity note further adding sweetness to the water. This has the sweet water treatment that I smell in similar feminine aqua scents. Including Bath and Body Work’s Dancing Waters. Obviously Green Valley is several steps above Dancing Waters in complexity and beauty.

Applied: More sweet water, slightly green note in the opening. Sweetness come up with the violet leaf as a very pleasant blackcurrant note. Unfortunately, as Green Valley starts to dry down, it falls apart. I seem to be having a spat with lemon notes as the lemon in this fragrance throws everything off as it comes in, tips its hat and proceeds to become the biggest thing in the fragrance, overtaking everything and throwing its weight around to the point where all I smell is unbearably sharp lemon. Once in a while, I can get a safe whiff of what Green Valley was, smooth, sweet, watery and blackcurrant. But the lemon will come in immediately after and exert its massive influence. It’s a shame too as this gigantic lemon will stick around until the dry-down phase where it fades to nothing just before the pleasant woodsy base disappears too.

Extra: I certainly don’t get the Green Irish Tweed tie-in. And it isn’t just me and my feud with the lemon note either. Green Irish Tweed is in a different class than this. If you want to smell like Green Irish Tweed, why not just get Green Irish Tweed? Or the knock-off version, Cool Water.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as other Creed fragrances. This bottle is in a clear glass with a clear cap. Nothing spectacular about it with regards to the design elements though Creeds are fairly well packaged in some lovely and quality material.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: : Mandarine, bergamot, ginger, lemon, black currant, ambergris, musk.

I’m thinking I should stay away from anything with lemon in it. But just this one particular lemon used in some fragrances that ends up ruining the whole deal. I seem to be fine with the lemon in Pure and Nina. This stupid gigantic lemon, however, has so far ruined Green Valley, Versense, Light Blue, and Covet.

Reviewed in This Post: Green Valley, 2009, Sample Vial.


L’Air du Temps’ Limited Edition Bottle

L’Air du Temps has come out with a new limited edition bottle designed by the much acclaimed, Philippe Starck. It looks like this:

Lair du Temps Limited Edition FN

It is supposed to be the literal visual of two doves kissing in mid-air. I have to disagree, as two doves kissing in mid-air is the last thing that comes to my mind and other people have agreed. There have been statements that note the design resembling some sort of jaunty dinosaur, a piece of bone from an animal, a pile of vomit, and a bat.

I see a batarang:

Batarang

What does L’Air du Temps’ Limited Edition bottle look like to you?

Thanks to Perfume Shrine and Gizmodo.


Perfume Bestsellers

There’s a few sad things to note in the world. The first is that more and more people are flocking to fruity floral fragrances. The second is that in fifty years, these fruity florals might be classics. I have no issue with fruit florals, I just think there’s too many of them. Certainly with more and more celebrities, hocking their names to fragrances, there isn’t a sign that the flood of celebuscents will end soon. Yes, some celebrity scents are done well. But by and large, they are a large splatter of the same fragrance groups. We have the candy-like sweet, the fresh floral, or the fruity floral.

So it comes as a surprise to me when Forbes magazine released the list of the top five selling perfumes for 2009 and it looks a little something like this:

  1. Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle (fruity floral)
  2. Giorgio Armani’s Acqu Di Gio Pour Homme (aquatic)
  3. Estee Lauder’s Beautiful perfume (floral)
  4. Dolce and Gabbana’s Light Blue (fresh)
  5. Chanel’s Chanel No. 5 (aldehyde floral)

True, there’s no smoky vanillas in there, or musky roses, or incense and lavender. But it isn’t a grim projection at all. And it’s nice to see Chanel No. 5 is still turning heads. I’m no big fan of Coco Mademoiselle, but at least it’s not Britney Spears Fantasy. Nothing harsh on you, Fantasy, but if I see another teeny-bopper insisting that Fantasy is the bestselling and best smelling perfume of all time, I’ll probably cry.

Thanks to Forbes.


Boadicea the Victorious Pure

Boadicea the Victorious is one of the luxury niche brands. I know, I know, just what does luxury mean in an industry defined as luxury? The price points for this house tends to be higher than the others, thus defining it as the luxury of the luxuries? Who cares, bottom line, it’s expensive. Pure

In Bottle: Fresh, crisp citrus and pink and white flowers. Pure smells like laundry,  just barley, but with a citrus topper and an even cleaner lead.

Applied: Beautiful citrus opens up the fragrance. Green and fresh, a lot of lime and a bit of lemon then the white florals come in and add a slight powdery sweetness to this while the citrus notes hang on into the mid-stage where that clean laundry scent gives way to a beautiful, airy beach-like floral and green tea. The dry down comes too soon as I was appreciating that lovely white sides, blue ocean, green palms feel of Pure. Upon dry down I finally get word of the sandalwood in this as Pure becomes a dusty, pretty citrus. This fragrance triggers a vague memory from my childhood. Green fields, dusty country road and laundry hanging from the lines.

Extra: Boadicea the Victorious is a relatively new British niche house headed by Michael Boadi. The house features some exclusive scents, and a ready to wear line referred to as The Victorious, which Pure is a part of.

Design: Presented in a rectangular glass bottle with lovely metal trimmings. You will receive the bottle nested in its own box and you shouldn’t settle for less, especially given how much this goes for on Luckyscent at $265.00 per 100ml. Yikes.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: : Bergamot, Sicilian lemon, green tangerine, Mediterranean cypress, basil leaves, Egyptian cumin, juniper berry, ylang ylang, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, vanilla.

Given how much this is, I wouldn’t settle for less than a fragrance that completely knocks my socks off. Pure is a lovely scent, for sure, a few degrees above a mainstream house’s general fair when it comes to clarity of the fragrance. I do love that juicy, pure citrus opening.

Reviewed in This Post: Pure, 2009, Eau de Parfum.


No Musk

It’s always rather funny when you hear people say something like, “I want a scent that ______ but doesn’t have musk. I hate musk.”

You can’t possibly hate musk that much if you want a perfume. See, asking for a fragrance with no musk is like asking for a cheeseburger with no cheese. This cheeseless cheeseburger was requested by yours truly once much to the chagrin of the teenager behind the counter. Almost every fragrance, be it a perfume or a laundry detergent contains some sort of musk. Usually synthetic. I say ‘usually’ like 99% of the time is a smaller fraction of the instance.

Natural musks, back in the day when making a fragrance involved chasing down an animal, were used as fixatives. They still are but 99% of all musks are now synthetics. Mainly because chasing an animal down to extract its secretions to put into perfume isn’t as socially or ethically acceptable as it once was (was it ever?).

These days, you have musks of every color that mimic almost any scent and are used as fixatives for everything that could hold a smell. What I find most funny are the people who say they hate musk who use scented soap. Some of the strongest musks are contained in scented soap because it’s such a harsh environment for fragrances.

The truth is, people don’t necessarily hate ‘musk’ they just hate things that smell ‘musky’ which could be the smell of warm, dense, saltiness that really turns them away from a fragrance. But then, ‘musky’ could mean so many different things to many different people. So it’s not a matter of ‘I hate musk’ at all.


By Kilian Prelude to Love

Prelude to Love is one of the six original fragrances released in 2007 By Kilian. It’s a part of that expensive lacquered box collection that costs an average of $200-and then some for a thrill. So since this fragrance humbly requests that I throw down the cash for it, it should wow me. I was mostly fascinated with how beautiful Beyond Love’s tuberose was so I decided to slap on Prelude to Love and see how it rocked the boat. Prelude to Love

In Bottle: Sharp citrus and pleasant slightly sweet orange blossom with what smells like fresh dirt.

Applied: Sharp citrus with orange blossom and slightly bitter and green floral. Prelude to Love is a notch stronger than Beyond Love but it’s also not to my liking. The opening is just too sharp for me and a bit too earthy. The mid-stage starts up with a more earthy note. I couldn’t wait to get the top notes away because I didn’t really appreciate their earthy, bitter, sharp brightness. As the fragrance ages though, I noticed the citrus calms down a little while the earthiness continues its crusade with a bed of miscellaneous green florals and a pleasant spice and dryness. The dry down is even earthier, greener but lacks the sharpness the opening top notes had. This scent smells spicy from mid-stage to dry down. It’s a green, earth scent. Like digging up vegetables from your garden.

Extra: Prelude to Love was composed by Calice Becker. She did some of the other By Kilian fragrances too like Taste of Heaven and Pure Oud.

Design: Like Beyond Love, Prelude to Love is bottled in a rectangular lacquered bottle and will be presented to you in a nice cushy box complete with a lock and key. A little over the top? Maybe, but for $200 per 50ml, you might as well take the bonus features too.

Fragrance Family: Earthy

Notes: : Lemon, mandarin, bergamot, lavender, freesia, neroli, rose, iris, cardamom, pink pepper, ginger, orange blossom, leather, musk.

So far I’m not enchanted enough by this collection and Prelude to Love is a bit too earthy for my tastes. I do prefer Beyond Love because it’s more to my tastes.

Reviewed in This Post: Prelude to Love, 2007, Sample Vial.


Guerlain Spiritueuse Double Vanille

Two of the more interesting vanilla based fragrances I’ve ever smelled have been Tom Ford Tobacco Vanille and Spiritueuse Double Vanille. Being a vanilla lover, I wanted something that captured the essence of a really great vanilla. Tobacco Vanille was a nice one. Being more accessible was also a bonus. Then I found a bottle of Spiritueuse Double Vanille kicking around and fell hard for it. Spiritueuse Double Vanille is heralded by many fragrance lovers as the most convincing, the most real vanilla fragrance. And I have to agree. She’s beautiful. Spiritueuse Double Vanille

In Bottle: Smoky sweet vanilla liqueur. Very smooth, extremely pleasant. Reminiscent of Tobacco Vanille but with a nicer, milder, less tobacco interpretation. The smokiness is pretty light in the bottle as Spiritueuse Double Vanille smells mostly boozy.

Applied: Spiritueuse Double Vanille instead opens with a fabulous liqueur reminiscent of bay rum. The vanilla is up front too, smooth and sweet and pure. The smokiness and cedar make the next appearance as Spiritueuse Double Vanille heads toward the spice. This fragrance is golden and warm and has the most utterly pleasant vanilla fragrance I’ve smelled yet. It’s like having a drink, wearing a monocle, smelling a box of cigars and hanging out in your mahogany library. This stuff smells classy. And that vanilla? It’s the kind of vanilla you’ve always wanted in a fragrance but never quite got. It smells like true full-bodied, boozy with a touch of spice vanilla–not that stuff you usually smell that’s sweet, and a little plastic. As the fragrance ages on my skin I get less smokiness and more pepper and more spice. All the while, the vanilla is hanging about lending the fragrance a fabulously smooth and rich treatment.  The mid-stage is like a blend of tobacco, mahogany, vanilla bean, and cedar and it seems to have lost its booziness from earlier. When Spiritueuse Double Vanille dries down, it resembles a pleasant predominant vanilla. Sweet, smooth, sophisticated and utterly beautiful.

Extra: Spiritueuse Double Vanille is a limited edition by Guerlain released in 2007. Jean-Paul Guerlain himself composed this fragrance for the house. I am not clear on whether or not it is still in production but I sure hope so because I believe this one is a definite keeper.

Design: Love the bottle. Thin and rectangular and easy to hold and spray. The details on it are also fantastic, with a wax seal-like design sporting Guerlain’s iconic bee. The major thing I didn’t like was how this was boxed, making it near impossible to both use this regularly and store it in its original packaging. Spiritueuse Double Vanille comes in a fitted box with a travel cap (that’s just a regular screw on cap) and a separate atomizer spray nozzle that you affix onto the bottle yourself. Due to the different heights of the travel cap and the spray nozzle, and the fitted box this fragrance comes in, once you install the atomizer, you can no longer make it fit in its original packaging. Very annoying. So you can’t keep Spiritueuse Double Vanille in its original box and if you’re nuts about keeping your perfumes out of the sunlight and light in general like me, you will have to shove it into a dark corner or drawer and hope the lack of extra protection from the box won’t make that much of a difference.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Gourmand

Notes: Vanilla, benzoin, frankincense, spices, cedar, pink pepper, bergamot, Bulgarian rose, ylang-ylang.

Guerlain has been using vanilla for so long as a base for its fragrances. So when a house that built its prestigious reputation on vanilla outputs a vanilla fragrance, you better believe I’m going to go smell it. And of course they hit the nail on the head. When I first got into this whole fragrance thing I was afraid of two things. 1) That I would fall in love with a limited edition fragrance. 2) That the fragrance would be expensive. Thanks a lot, Guerlain.

Reviewed in This Post: Spiritueuse Double Vanille, 2007, Eau de Parfum.