Old Spice

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Today we’re smelling Old Spice. I’ve smelled new Old Spice (hah) plenty and I’m sure you’ve smelled Old Spice plenty too, so let’s take a minute to appreciate what Old Spice smells like. Just because.

Old Spice

In Bottle: Spicy sweet floral with a citrus palette cleanser, bold for a men’s fragrance I gotta say. This is sharp, clean, sweet and strangely complex. A surprise to me immediately as it adds to its opening concoction a slightly boozy note intermixed with a dash of sugar sprinkled in.

Applied: After the citrus is done its job, the spice lingers around as is to be expected as the fragrance slowly introduces a fantastic miasma of cinnamon and clove with a few powdered flowers tossed in there for good measure. This scent is very dry, like a basket of cinnamon sticks at a spice market sitting near a bunch of burning incense on a hot summer day. It’s dry and warm and comforting with an interesting note of smoothness that comes up to mix with the florals and the spices that I want to say is sweet vanilla. Old Spice is a remarkably complex fragrance that goes through several stages on me but it’s mid-stage–that mix of sweetness, smooth vanilla, dry spices, and incensed florals is truly something else. Don’t turn your nose up at this or you’ll miss out on a very, very respectable scent. When Old Spice dries down, it takes a while to get there, but when it does it introduces a woodsy quality to the spicy floral sweet vanilla incense and warms things up even more with an amber and toasty tonka bean scent. Something this complex is mind-boggling how it could work together but it does! And it’s delightful.

Extra: Unlike a lot of people, I don’t have any early memories of Old Spice. I don’t know anyone aside from my fiance who may have once used Old Spice deodorant. And I kind of wished I did because this stuff is great.

Design: Old Spice’s bottle can be seen above. I don’t actually own a bottle of this stuff though with the affordable price tag, I really have no reason not to. The shape is reminiscent of a cola bottle but it works for this stuff and actually looks kind of nice. I can imagine that sitting on someone’s vanity. Wait, do men have vanities? I’ll just call them sink counter. Bottom line, the bottle works, it looks fine, it’s a good design for what it is and good for what you pay for.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Orange, lemon, spices, clary sage, aldehydes, cinnamon, carnation, geranium, jasmine, heliotrope, pimento berry, vanilla, musk, cedar, frankincense, benzoin, tonka bean, ambergris.

Don’t knock it ’til you try it. Old Spice is a confident little classic number that’s been around since 1937. Yeah, the Old Spice really is old and I have to say, it’s aged rather well.

Reviewed in This Post: Old Spice, 2010, Eau de Cologne.

Guerlain Jicky

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So Jicky, what do you want me to say about you? Well, I ask because everyone the world over has already said what they wanted. It just seems I’d only add yet another opinion to the already loaded mix of what makes Jicky tick. Ah well, let’s give it a stab anyway. I started off this blog reviewing Mitsouko of all things! Jicky

In Bottle: Spicy lavender, warmed up and dotted with a slight citrus topper in the opening. Jicky is immediately alarming and comforting at the same time.

Applied: Initial flare up of citrus, a big yellow splash in the opening to get you ready for the lavender that rolls in soon after. The lavender really shines with Jicky for me. It’s normally a comforting scent, this lavender, but the Jicky lavender gets a bit indolic at times thanks to what I can only assume is the civet used in this. It’s very heady and frankly speaking, she doesn’t smell “right” but that doesn’t stop her from smelling awesome. For those of you not in the know, “indolic” is a polite term for “smells like poo”. Breathe past that minute note of “off-ness” and you’ll be rewarded with a spicy leathery quality to it. There’s definitely animalic swayings in this fragrance. It’s not soft and tender lavender for sure and if you were to drop this into a soap people would be wondering what’s wrong with you while at the same time wondering how they could get in on it too. This is dirty stuff but it’s classy stuff, and it amuses me a great deal. She doesn’t try to fruit it up or pass it off as some sort of therapy and just for that alone, Jicky should be given a crown. It’s simply you and lavender, leather, spice, and hilarious indole. And you had better take it. Jicky uses that full lavender with an air of sophistication and a sense of daring all the way into the closer where the lavender fades a warmed dusty tonka greets you at the bottom with that ever present indole. Something about Jicky smells familiar but at the same time incredibly lush and hard to grasp. If Jicky could talk, I imagine she’d say, “What? You don’t like it? Then it’s obvious you don’t get it and I’ll thank you for getting out of my way”. Yeah, that’s Jicky. She doesn’t care if you don’t like her. She knows she’s good.

Extra: I love Jicky. I don’t love how she smells because I am a self-professed, shame-faced lover of clean and easy to wear. But I love what she stands for and appreciate what she is. She’s an era in perfume long gone but stubbornly and regally embodied in her bold presence that just refuses to go quietly. She’s one of the few Guerlains that I will probably never wear simply because she’s too much for me. But I can appreciate her all the same. Especially for being so “in your face” with all the fresh, clean, fruity stuff being pumped out today. I find it delicious to imagine a group of bottles, a hundred or so in number, of celebrity fragrances could be placed on the floor in a room. And there might be a bottle of Jicky sitting in the middle, waiting for some unsuspecting person to come by, pick her up and get slapped in the face with all that she is. Never change, Jicky. Never change.

Design: Those of you familiar with the Nahema design will recognize the image above. Though it should be noted that Jicky most definitely came first. Beautiful bottle, classical look, wonderful feel. Pictured above is the parfum concentration placed into an fantastic, elegant flacon. It’s Guerlain at its best.

Fragrance Family: Classic Aromatic

Notes: Lemon, mandarin, bergamot, lavender, orris, jasmin, rose, patchouli, vetiver, leather, amber, civet, tonka, incense, benzoin.

You don’t really need me to rehash the romantic story of Jicky and her creation again, do you? Nah, I’ll just leave this post to say that if you were here and reading about Jicky, and were interested, there is a large online database of information readily available with a quick Google search about the conceptualization of Jicky, where you can get Jicky, and what–if anything at all–has happened to her in all these years since 1889 when she was first introduced. Or you can click here.

Reviewed in This Post: Jicky, ~1970, Eau de  Parfum.

Caron Tabac Blond 1919

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I think I’m still whirling from that miasma of hazelnut from smelling Chocolovers, but I’ve this drawer full of vintage perfume samples and by George, I am going to have a marathon. Starting with this beauty right here, Tabac Blond by Caron. Long dead and been replaced by a pale imitation toting itself as Tabac Blond. I believe my sample is from the 50s, though I cannot be sure when this was made. All I know is that it bears very little resemblance to the present day Tabac Blond EDT and EDP, though people have also noted those two forms are no good and the parfum that I have is the way to rock it. Tabac Blond

In Bottle: Not at all what I expected. Might be cause I’m used to perfume from the more modern times. Tabac Blond opens with a roaring leathery, viscous petrol note that threatens to punch you right in the nose just because you aren’t manly enough for its opening. And it’ll do it.

Applied: This smells like a garage. A place with motor oil, diesel, and bitter smoke. The leather note is beautiful, full and rich. The opening smokey oil scent takes a bit to give way to the equally smokey and rich, deep spices. Cloves are there in large numbers blended with that rich leathery scent that gives this fragrance a sophisticated feel. The carnation lends further to the spiciness already noted in Tabac Blond but also gives it a very, very slight clean feel to the fragrance. The spices and leather revolve into the base as well as Tabac Blond kicks up with a touch of florals, keeps the spice, and takes on an even warmer quality with a golden amber note at the bottom to finish things off.

Extra: No modern men’s fragrance smells like this as far as my knowledge goes and it is a shame because what’s billed as masculine today pales by comparison to Tabac Blond. And the best part? Tabac Blond could be worn by both men and women back in the day and was primarily marketed towards women. But because of how sweet and fruity we’ve gotten with women’s perfume in recent years, Tabac Blond would probably be labelled as, “Hyper-masculine”.

Design: Tabac Blond has been redesigned over the years and what bottle it now comes in is a mystery to me. Perhaps one of you can help me out in this regard. I recognize its old classic bottles, rectangles with beautiful accents. Simple but so dramatic and classic. If I were to purchase Tabac Blond on of these days, it’d be in a classic vintage bottle with–hopefully–well-preserved vintage juice inside. Pictured above is what I assume is a recent bottle design. It sort of lacks the elegance of the classic bottles but it is not a bad design. Actually, the more I look at it, the more in reminds me of Britney Spears’ Fantasy series thanks to those little bumps on the glass. Never mind.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Classic

Notes: Leather, carnation, linden, iris, vetiver, ylang ylang, cedar, patchouli, vanilla, amber, musk.

If men want to smell really manly instead of woodsy and aquaish, Tabac Blond will do it. But good luck finding the vintage. The recent version is a pale imitation. So pale that I would be tempted to say it’s a completely different scent. It’s like they took the classic then neutered and left it in a bath for weeks.

Reviewed in This Post: Tabac Blond, ~1950, Parfum.

Terre d’Hermes

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Ahh, Terre d’Hermes. People could write poetry about you–and sometimes they weren’t poets to begin with. The truth about Terre d’Hermes is that it’s a very, very good masculine fragrance. There few men’s fragrances that would outright agree to being truly good masculine fragrances and Terre d’Hermes just happens to be one of them.  Terre dHermes

In Bottle: Beautiful sweet and mild citrus mingled with a very light woodsy note.

Applied: Upon application Terre d’Hermes wastes no time letting you know it’s a citrus and that it’s sweet and charming. I get the citrus, slightly sharp but not overdone. I get lots of orange with a full-bodied spice that mingles so well with the citrus that you could have sworn oranges were always this spicy. Terre d’Hermes is a wonderfully well-blended concoction, it’s billed as masculine but I could see a woman wearing this too. The opener of Terre d’Hermes blends into the mid stage with a lighter, greener, fragrance that slowly introduces the wood notes along with that lingering spice from the end of the opening. As Terre d’Hermes comes home in the base, it rounds off with a not overdone, well tempered, well meaning, and well used cedar wood.

Extra: Composed by Jean-Claude Ellena in 2006, Terre d’Hermes has gone on to become one of those esteemed recent men’s fragrances. It blows the water out of Bleu de Chanel anyway.

Design: Terre d’Hermes comes in two concentrations. Eau de Toilette and Parfum. The bottle is the classic rectangle glass bottle with a couple of orange dashes at the bottom that look like the bottle’s feet that I think is–for lack of a better word–cute. There’s nothing cute about this fragrance otherwise. It’s grown-up, lovely, lauded and you would be hard pressed to go wrong with it or its aesthetics.

Fragrance Family: Citrus Woodsy

Notes: Mineral, grapefruit, rose, pepper, geranium, cedar, benzoin, patchouli, vetiver.

Another perfume that doesn’t blast cedar up my nose? Something so rare sometimes that I fall to my knees and sob when I find another.

Reviewed in This Post: Terre d’Hermes, 2008, Eau de Toilette.

Secretions Magnifiques is the Answer

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The internet is covered the world over in trolls. But some of the best trolls are ones that love making fun of perfume. They seem to come in a few varieties. My favorites are the ones that suggest “someone” in this big smelly would should make a perfume that smells like any manner of unpleasantness. Most often it’s one bodily secretion or another. Which is where I come in with the fragrance I’ve come to refer to as the Troll of the Perfume Industry; Secretions Magnifiques.

Someone thinking they’re clever in suggesting a perfume that smells unwashed? Secretions Magnifiques.

They think a perfume should smell like blood or old blood? Secretions Magnifiques.

They want to smell like vomit? Well, how about something vomit inducing? Secretions Magnifiques.

I don’t like how the stuff smells. But it is a brilliant gimmick.

Not an Ingredients List

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Funny enough that just a month after publishing my review for Twisted Peppermint, I come to realize how synthetic it smells. This upsets me quite a bit as I’ve realized the more vanillas I smell and pay attention to, the less I can tolerate synthetic vanilla. Something in Twisted Peppermint really tips off my radar now. I used to love this stuff, now I can only smell it in small doses. I know it’s just fun and still good but leave it on me for a little while and I feel like it gets too sweet for my tastes. Ah, fickle nose.

Anyway, the real reason for this post is my frustration over people who still think a notes list for perfume is a list of ingredients–it’s not. I don’t know if it ever was when it comes to commercial perfume but when someone asks, “Hey, what are the ingredients in my perfume?” Someone else inevitably tells them to go look up its notes online and see. One particular woman the other day held up a list of notes that she insisted was a bonafide list of ingredients for Marc Jacobs Daisy. She seemed very proud of herself too like she’d uncovered a lost treasure.

We all know there’s legislation in the works that’ll force fragrance manufacturers to disclose all the ingredients in their fragrance and there’s been widespread fear amongst perfumistas that this will drive small perfumers out of business while larger perfumers will start packaging their fragrances with a book of ingredients that no one in their right mind will ever want to read or reference.

I’m not all for the legislation as I think it’s  highly unnecessary and incredibly alarmist, but I would like it very much if people stopped claiming a list of notes is a list of ingredients.

Prada Infusion de Tubereuse

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Being a big fan of a couple of Prada’s other infusions (d’Iris and d’Homme), I went out looking for the newest releases. Infusion de Tubereuse looking forward to a light, airy tuberose treatment and Prada delivers yet again.  Infusion de Tubereuse

In Bottle: Very faint, light tuberose, green and almost fresh and clean like tuberose that’s been run under some water and scrubbed for presentation’s sake.

Applied: The infusion of this tuberose are a bit heavier and more literal than what I experienced in d’Iris. Infusion de Tubereuse puts a very gentle, very mild note in there that’s hard not to like. It’s an easy tuberose to wear, as it’s very clean and soft. It’s practically the polar opposite of most tuberose scents that tend to capitalize on the flower’s ability to dominate a perfume. There’s a slight sweetness and crispness lingering around in this scent to further clean it up as Infusion de Tubereuse rounds itself off with a dry down that’s green and only a touch bitter.

Extra: Tuberose is a perennial flower with a juicy, sweet, heady floral scent that some people equate to smelling like rubber. Tuberose is most often used as a middle note in perfumery.

Design: Infusion de Tubereuse is bottled similarly to d’Iris and d’Homme. There’s a little more detail going into the packaging with a design focusing on the purple fragrance rather than just solid colors. The simplicity of the Infusions’ packaging is fantastic and I’d love to line them all up in a row.

Fragrance Family: Soliflore

Notes: Indian tuberose, petitgrain bigarade, blood orange, dynamone.

Petitgrain bigarade’s an interesting note because it’s one of the most prominent scents in this fragrance. It is, essentially, the green leaves of a bitter orange tree. I guess that explains it.

Reviewed in This Post: Infusion de Tubereuse, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

BPAL Kitsune-Tsuki

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Kitsune-Tsuki has multiple personalities on me. On some days, she’s a pretty, plummy, fruity jasmine fragrance. On other days, she’s a dried prune scent with a deep resiny quality to her. But what she lacks in consistency she makes up for in entertainment. Kitsune Tsuki

In Bottle: Clean and musky playing with the usually rich, pulpy plum note. Very prominently fruity up top, sweet with a dash of sharp white musk.

Applied: Plum flares up, it’s the first thing I smell. It’s sweet and rich and decadent as it evolves into a pretty sheer jasmine plum fruity floral with a clear note of clean, sharp, white musk. What Kitsune-Tsuki smells like in the bottle is pretty much how she smells on me upon initial application. As she ages, the plum fragrance deepens, edging out some of the florals while the white musk at the base of this fragrance hovers around, cleaning up the scent. The longer Kitsune-Tsuki is left to age on me, the more it starts to dry and smell raisin-like. Some days this raisin scent is sweet and clean with a candy-like dusting of sweetness. Other days it becomes a prune, dry and mealy and a bit disturbing. Whatever its progression, and whatever is wrong with my skin chemistry some days, Kitsune-Tsuki is a pleasant, light plum fragrance.

Extra: Kitsune-Tsuki, according to Black Phoenix Alchemy’s website is named after the female Japanese spirits, possessed by fox spirits who commit mischief.

Design: Bottled in the same way as every other Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs fragrance. It’s bottled in a 5ml amber glass bottle with a black screw on cap. The label displays the name of the fragrance and the perfume house.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Plum, orchid, daffodil, jasmine, white musk.

Some days I can’t tell if I love Kitsune-Tsuki’s unpredictable progression, and most days I wonder if I’m brave enough to test which way it’ll go. So while I don’t wear her as often as I’d like, she makes for a fine conversation piece nonetheless. You can purchase Kitsune-Tsuki from the Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs website. She is found under the category, “Diabolus“.

Reviewed in This Post: Kitsune-Tsuki, 2009, 5ml Bottle.

Paco Rabanne Lady Million

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I was hoping Lady Million would hit it off with me a little better than 1 Million but it was a sad day as my hopes were dashed. Lady Million

In Bottle: Fruity, sweet, and slightly cloying, with a base of earthiness that draws the sweetness away from pink girly happy fun hour. Only a little though.

Applied: Ah sweet fruitiness, cloying it up in my nose upon spray with that distracting cleaned up earthiness that I wish hadn’t been introduced into the  mix as all I smell upon application is Lady Million’s very cloying dirt. I think the best part is when the opening finally fades after what seems to be an hour and goes into a slightly more sophisticated sweet, warm honeyed amber fragrance. Though I wish it had reached that point a lot sooner. The cloying note in the opening is still present here sort of ruining the honeyed aspect and just making it smell like a fruity woodsy floral. Highly depressing, though not repulsive at all. In fact, the raspberry note that keeps wading in and out with its cloying syrup-drenched fruit reminds me a bit of Guerlain’s My Insolence. A fragrance I actually liked. As Lady Million proves to be true to her counterpart as her strength clings to you with impressive stubborness. Once again I had tried to wait for fade but ended up having to wash her off. She’s a little less insistent after a shower but there were still faint traces of her the next day.

Extra: All right, so that’s two for two striking out in the million category. Lady Million’s not something I’d even consider trying again as it smells like so many other things that I have smelled before and on top of that, it does this weird and annoying cloying routine on me.

Design: Lady Million is gold on the outside with a significantly less hefty weight than 1 Million. I was actually disappointed that this thing wasn’t heavier. Its shape was reminiscent of a gem. Upon lighting my eyes on it for the first time my initial thought was, “Looks like a diamond, I guess”. So bravo for a concept well executed. the handling of the bottle is not too bad either, despite its unconventional shape.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Citron, raspberry, neroli, orange flower, jasmine, gardenia, patchouli and honey.

Honestly, there wasn’t that much floral going on in Lady Million but there was no way I could truly describe the strange, and slightly nauseating mix of syrup, raspberries, woodds, and random flowers. I am just not a fan, Lady Million. Sorry.

Reviewed in This Post: Lady Million, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Aquolina Chocolovers

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How do you round out a week of reviews for one of the world’s most famous and respected fragrance houses? Easy.  Chocolovers. Chocolovers

In Bottle: Very sweet, rather cloying, chocolatey, milky, nutty fragrance with a splash of orange and lemon juice. I didn’t expect anything different from this and it really delivered.

Applied: The orange and lemon curdle the fragrance on initial application and I wholly believe Chocolovers would have been better off without it. Once the lemon recedes you’re left with–well, what else? A smooth, creamy chocolate milk with hazlenut dashed in there for a little added complexity. Chocolovers smells like a candybar. A gooey, rich, wafer-stuffed candy bar that probably has a thousand calories in it, is probably bad for you. Once you’ve eaten it, you aren’t left feeling satisfied but you do feel a little guilty. That’s my experience with Chocolovers. Big strong smell upfront, fleeting feeling of guilt in the back. The chocolate note in this smells as expected, it’s a synthetic and it’s a clearly detectable one which would harm the fragrance’s enjoyability but come on–the thing is called Chocolovers, how serious can it possibly be? It smells all right for what it is; a fun, cute, throw it on during an off-day fragrance. Just be warned, it is powerful. Chocolovers will fade in a few hours to a milky, dusty fragrance that seems to float up out of nowhere.

Extra: I’m not a fan of the Chocolovers fragrance and feel Aquolina got their Pink Sugar fragrance just right with how fun and simple and unapologetic it was. But the Blue Sugar flanker and now this one? They aren’t very original or unique from one another. They are all gourmands of some relative state and they all echo the Pink Sugar base.

Design: Chocolovers’ design is an interesting thing to love. I can’t get past how just how little it cares about being serious. Pink Sugar had a cute little motif. Blue Sugar was subdued and rather boring. Chocolovers just takes literal interpretation to the extreme with its bottle. Little wavy hearts on the glass. A chocolate heart on top of the cap. A red sprayer nozzle. There’s not a single serious thing you can say about this fragrance.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Bergamot, orange, lemon, lily of the valley, coriander, hazelnut, vanilla, malt, musk.

It’s great when the first thing I thought when I saw the notes list was, “Really? Coriander?” The second thing was to look up on Google how many flanker products Chocolovers has and it turns out the fragrance has been made into  body butter. Now that I can see.

Reviewed in This Post: Chocolovers, 2008, Eau de Toilette.