Those Fragrances at Drugstores and Walmart

More often than not, I come by someone who’s just returned from a trip from the Drugstore, Walmart, Superstore or some other similar department/grocery/drug merchant wondering if the perfumes they found there are authentic. In short, yes, they are authentic. I can pretty much say that most big chain stores such as Walmart, Superstore,  CVS, and etc. are selling legitimate and authentic fragrances. But, since I like Q&As and lists, let’s approach this in a more orderly fashion.

Are these perfumes I see in drugstores and grocery stores authentic and legitimate?
Yes. If you are finding these perfumes in large, chain grocery and drugstores they are usually authentic and legitimate. You likely won’t find anything super niche like Serge Lutens or Frederic Malle at your local Walmart but most mainstream fragrance houses do have a presence in drug and grocery stores. I’ve seen the usual brands like Calvin Klein, Christian Audigier, and Donna Karan. I’ve also seen higher end fashion house brands such as Dolce and Gabanna, Gucci, and Burberry. Once in a while I’ll also see Guerlain and even Chanel. So yes, chances are, they are authentic. I would be leery if a small, hole-in-the-wall, mom and pop grocery store was selling Chanel perfume, but you never know these days. The best practice has always been to educate yourself on how to tell a counterfeit.

Why is it a bit cheaper to buy the same perfume at Walmart compared to a store like Neiman Marcus?
There’s a bit of ribbing going on when it comes to Neiman Marcus. Some people call it “Needless Markup” because not only does perfume seem to cost more there, but so does everything else.
Now I’m no department store analyst or whatever you would call a person who sits down and stresses over these things, but the nearest I can presume is you can get perfume cheaper at Walmart because of the lower level of service.
Say you walk into a Walmart one day hoping to find a perfume. Chances are, there are some testers sitting around that look a little grungy and used. Or, at best you have to call someone over to unlock the forbidden cabinet of perfume mystery. If you manage to scrounge up some tester strips you can spray and smell while the Walmart greeter glances at you nervously until you find the fragrance you like. Then you head to the checkout line whereupon they herd you into a system that makes you feel a bit like cattle.
If you were to walk into Neiman Marcus, the first thing you’ll probably notice is how overdecorated it seems. When you approach the fragrance section, chances are a sales associate will offer you help on whatever you might want. They’ll usually stay with you or at least give you some attention and offer their opinions on what you might like depending on what you tell them. Whether you agree or not with this advice is entirely up to you. Regardless, if you do happen to make a purchase, the same sales associate will likely ring you up, pack your purchase into a lovely little gift bag and when you leave the store, “made me feel like cattle” should be a distant echo.
Now my experiences with the two stores is likely going to vary person-to-person and location-to-location. But it is generally agreed that you would get a higher standard of personal service at Neiman Marcus than you would get at Walmart.

Is the stock at Walmart older compared to the stock at a store like Neiman Marcus?
This tends to vary for me. Walmart and other non-fancy department stores like it sometimes have fresh product and sometimes have product that’s been sitting on the shelves for a while. I’ve had one experience buying an old bottle from a high-end department store so it’s not unheard of if you pay the premium price. I suppose it all depends on that particular store’s management and stock shipping frequency. Add to this confusion the fact that you can’t tell how old a bottle of perfume is most of the time unless an expiration date is present, the perfume has been redesigned, or the perfume has clearly gone bad or started to go bad. So ultimately, if the fragrance you bought still smells like it should, and it was stored properly and you continue to store it properly, does it really matter how long it’s been sitting on the shelf?

Hopefully this post helps settle the fears of the fragrances you see sold at Walmart. Bottom line, if you don’t care about the bells and whistles of extra service, buying your perfume at Walmart is perfectly fine. If you want the pretty gift bag then head for Neiman Marcus. I still advise anyone to make sure they know how to tell a counterfeit because those can pop up anywhere.


Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Touched Twice

Thanks go out to Kat for bringing this event to my attention. On August 6th between 2pm – 6pm PDT, Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab will be selling a fragrance called Touched Twice for $26.00 USD. So mark your calenders, plug in your cellphones, and point your mouse or trackpad to this page: The Last Unicorn to make sure you get your bottle of this very limited edition fragrance.

Touched Twice’s Notes: vanilla musk with frangipani, red sandalwood, frankincense, champaca flower, coconut, rose absolute, white cyclamen, Himalayan mogra, angelica, and white oud.


Paco Rabanne Calandre

Okay, now we’re talking. After three disappointing fragrances in a row, I think a little classic ditty like Calandre’s going to make me see the Paco Rabanne line of fragrances in a better light.

Calandre

In Bottle: Aldehydes and enormous florals. Calandre smells like a classic pretty much immediately. I’m thinking I might associate aldehydes with “smells like a classic” though, so bear that in mind.

Applied: Rose and jasmine with those soap aldeyhydes that makes me think “classic”. The fragrance settles down a bit as you let it age but the opening did knock me back because it was quite strong. As Calandre settles down, the mid-stage is an easier to wear and less “punchy” mix of lilies, jasmine, rose, and that omnipresent lingering aldehyde. The soft floral quality of the fragrance shows through more and more as the time passes and the fragrance is less of a punch in the nose and becomes more of an airy breeze. Keep in mind that when I say “airy breeze” when I refer to Calandre, I don’t mean modern perfume, wispy, wilting daisy, and barely there “airy breeze”. Calandre is definitely more pronounced than modern wispy perfumes. But it is light when you compare it to other fragrances such as the heady Guerlain Jicky or Joy by Jean Patou. The dry down is a little bit of a disappointment as Calandre settles into a soft sandalwood with a hint of dirtiness and musk.

Extra: Calandre, so far, seems to be the only fragrance from the Paco Rabanne line that I can actually see myself liking. Though it’s a bit of a weak contender when it comes to others in the classics category, it is leaps and bounds more impressive than the more recent Paco Rabanne releases.

Design: Remember when Paco Rabanne fragrance bottles weren’t literally designed? By that I mean, you didn’t have a perfume called “1 Million” bottled in a gold brick? Or a perfume called “Lady Million” bottled in a gold diamond? I’m not a huge fan of the boxy, kind of boring, Calandre but it’s definitely a step in a classy direction for a fragrance house that has, so far, rubbed me wrong in the design department. And while I can see the appeal of the literal bottles, I just don’t think they’re my kind of thing.

Fragrance Family: Classic Floral

Notes: Bergamot, green notes, aldehydes, lily of the valley, rose, jasmine, iris, geranium, sandalwood, oakmoss, vetiver, amber, musk.

Calandre, interestingly enough, is still reasonably available for purchase. I’m not sure if it’s still being produced. If it is, don’t expect that oakmoss note to be real–or even present. If it’s been discontinued then that would explain why a great deal of the bottles are going for $100 or more. Still, a pretty good price for a fragrance that doesn’t smell like anything made today but is also light and wearable enough if you’re afraid of the old classics. This is probably one of the more approachable classics I’ve tried.

Reviewed in This Post: Calandre, ~1980, Eau de Parfum.


Paco Rabanne Black XS

After two fails on me with Paco Rabanne, I had to wonder why I keep coming back to the brand since nothing they put out really interest me. Black XS has an enormous rose on the bottle which made me a bit leery about what I would get.

Black XS

Black XS

In Bottle: Slightly woody, creamy scent with a dish of flowers and some slightly tart berries.

Applied: On application, it almost smells like Christmas dinner. You know with the festive spicy smell and the little bit of cranberry? There’s sweetness in here almost immediately and it’s a pleasant little party. I admit, it is a little weird to feel like it’s Christmas all the way in July but hey, it’s fascinating at least! But Black XS quickly sheds its festive cheer and heads into a fairly banal floral mid-stage with a creamy and rich cocoa note adding a bit of interest to it. So far I’m pleased with the cocoa but pretty bored with the floral mid-stage that pretty much adds nothing new or interesting. I get more woods in the dry down, the cocoa note is still present and there’s always that looming sweetness that stuck around. Black XS lacks in a lot of departments and originality is one of them. I’m not all that pleased with this unfortunately.

Extra: Black XS was clearly not for me as it is marketed toward a young audience with a specific taste. I like to call them the Flowerbomb demographic.

Design: The bottle for Black XS is actually pretty nice–until you get to the huge rose on the glass then everything just kind of focuses there. I suppose that’s what they were going for and I suppose the demographic might appreciate the design but I don’t particularly like it.

Fragrance Family: Floral Gourmand

Notes: Cranberry, pink pepper, violet, rose, cacao, patchouli, vanilla, woods.

So I didn’t have a really bad reaction to Black XS. It was all right but like I said, there’s nothing original or interesting about this. It’s definitely wearable but it’s not at all artistic.

Reviewed in This Post: Black XS, 2010, Eau de Toilette.


Hermes Kelly Caleche

It’s been a while since I last had a whiff of an Hermès fragrance and it’s almost always a delight. Today, it’s Kelly Calèche one of the few fragrances marketed toward young girls and women that has a sense of respectable sophistication to her.

Kelly Caleche

Kelly Caleche

In Bottle: Leather and florals with a clean hint of grapefruit.

Applied: Grapefruit on the opening with lilies and unmistakable narcissus up top. The leather note in this fragrance stays in the background throughout the entire progression and even down into the base. But let’s get back to the opening stages first. Narcissus is the first to go, I barely even noticed it when the lily of the valley disappeared. What’s next is a pretty tuberose that works together with a rose and green and powdery note to give the leather this kind of sophisticated, creamy, scent. On the fade we’ve got powder, cream and leather. The fragrance is remarkably well put together and does a great job bringing leather into a younger fragrance audience with more refined taste.

Extra: I really admire Hermès for stepping into the young women’s market with Kelly Calèche. Whether or not she’ll be a hit amongst the Flowerbomb demographic is yet to be seen. But hey, if it doesn’t hit it off with the 20-somethings then I wouldn’t feel too bad. Kelly Calèche would be beautiful on anyone of any age.

Design: Rather simple bottle but it’s got that look and feel of quality to it that another bottle in this shape and style wouldn’t be able to pull off with inferior materials. I like the simplicity coupled with luxury feel and the sprayer nozzle works like a charm.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Grapefruit, lily of the valley, narcissus, tuberose, rose, iris, leather.

There’s not a bad thing I can say about Kelly Calèche. She’s just a pretty fragrance that I wished I had heard about and smelled sooner.

Reviewed in This Post: Kelly Calèche, 2010, Eau de Toilette.


BPAL The Zieba Tree

When I tried the Zeiba Tree I had expected a much woodsier fragrance than I actually got. While it does contain a bit of sandalwood, the majority of the fragrance depends on its fruitiness to get by. The Zieba Tree

In Bottle: Fruity and sweet, like lemons, peaches and–for some reason–a little bit of apple.

Applied: Perhaps it’s the citruses (particularly lemon) mixing together with the ultra fruitiness of peach because I smell a little bit of apple in The Zieba Tree. It’s odd, because it’s more of an authentic apple note than any of BPAL’s actual apple notes. I quite like it even as the sandalwood waffles in and out of the fragrance like it’s uncertain whether or not it wants to hang out or get out of there. The musk in this fragrance is a very light clean musk that makes me think of a tree that someone’s soaped up and scrubbed down. The rest of the fragrance isn’t too deep the resins add a little more of a tree-like quality to the fragrance but in general, The Zieba Tree is a predominantly clean and fruity fragrance with little hints of sandalwood.

Extra: The Zieba Tree, being a mythological entity was said to have housed bare-chested individuals in its branches.

Design: Bottled the same way as most of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s other 5ml fragrances.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Sandalwood, musk, resin, davana, lemon blossom, orange blossom, white peach.

I’m rather delighted at how fun the morph was when I first applied this and smelled apples. I’m not the only one who noticed as many other Zieba Tree testers have noted a whiff of Ye Olde Forbidden Fruit too.

Reviewed in This Post: The Zieba Tree, 2009, 5ml Bottle.


Demeter Thunderstorm

Whenever I hear about Demeter, I end up hearing about a few select pieces from their collection. A few that always tend to come up include Playdoh, Dirt, and Thunderstorm.

Thunderstorm

Thunderstorm

In Bottle: Ozone and dirt. I don’t think I can expect to get anything else out of it than that.

Applied: To be honest, I always feel a little silly reviewing Demeter fragrances. Because aside from noting whether or not they smell like the thing they were named after, I can’t elevate it beyond that. Thunderstorm is a very convincing composition of ozone with a layer of wet earth. You’ll get blasted with the ozone first, making it feel like someone turned the dial up on the humidity. Then you get the wet dirt. This stuff could be convincing even on a bright, sunny day like today. Thunderstorm reminds me of how much I used to love stormy weather when I was younger. When life was a little more vibrant and time wasn’t such a precious commodity. So in terms of stirring up a scent memory then congratulations to you, Thunderstorm, you did it.

Extra: Poor projection and longevity but Demeter’s fragrances weren’t composed to last on the skin or evolve. They were meant to be fun trysts that you could enjoy in under an hour. I can’t justify owning a big bottle of any of these fragrances, but imagine the amount of business they could drum up if they sold this stuff in smaller containers and marketed it as a collectable. Heck, they’d have me hooked.

Design: Bottle in the same way as other Demeter fragrances. You can either get a small rectangular bottle of this stuff or a large cylindrical bottle. Both designs are pretty utilitarian but they, they work.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Ozone, dirt.

There, knocking off another Demeter fragrance from the wall of scent. Though I really did like Thunderstorm because as a scent memory, it actually worked. I wonder what Playdoh will remind me of?

Reviewed in This Post: Thunderstorm, 2010, Cologne Spray.


Etat Libre d’Orange Fat Electrician

With a name like Fat Electrician, how can I not be curious?

Fat Electrician

Fat Electrician

In Bottle: Dry, dry, and more dry. Strange how a fragrance can smell dry but that’s the definition of Fat Electrician in the bottle.

Applied: Smells a bit like baked earth. You know when you were little and made mud pies, then had to leave them outside when your mother called you in to wash up for dinner? Then you’d come back the next day and your mud pies were now pounds of dried earth? That’s what this smells like upon application. And–if you never made mud pies as a child–then the closest comparison I can make is drought-ridden badlands. Fat Electrician smells like parched earth and I can’t get over how weird that is. Weirder still is unlike some other bizarre scents from Etat Libre d’Orange, this one can be wearable. Especially as it ages on the skin and turns into this creamy smoky scent. Like someone burnt their breakfast toast as they were heating up their milk in the morning. Add that to the bizarre dry earth scent and I know it sounds so strange and discordant but Fat Electrician is wearable! I can see myself wearing this on a weird day. It’s wigging me out a little–though in a good way.

Extra: The one thing I can always count on with Etat Libre d’Orange is their strange mixture of scents. Some of them could be flops. Some of them are hits. But at least I can say I’ve yet to be bored by an Etat Libre d’Orange scent.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as their other fragrances. A well-made, nice-feeling glass bottle with a special label affixed to represent the scent. Fat Electrician’s symbol is an amusing crack at utility repair professionals. And that’s about as eloquently as I can put it using my meager language skills.

Fragrance Family: Earthy

Notes: Vetiver, olive leaf, myrrh, opoponax, vanilla.

I just realized how funny it was to describe this scent as “earthy” while I look at its symbol. Just Google it, it’s a cute joke.

Reviewed in This Post: Fat Electrician, 2010, Eau de Parfum.


Moschino Glamour

The bottle for this fragrance reminded me of Nina by Nina Ricci so as I was drawn to the bottle, I also had to see what this stuff smelled like on me. Having little to no luck with Moschino’s I Love Love, I discovered Glamour was actually quite nice.

Glamour

Glamour

In Bottle: Very light but rather nice. It’s a clean, sweet floral fragrance. like fresh laundry or hand soap and something just a tad salty.

Applied: Okay, I’ve got it. This is what washing your hands smells like. At least it’s what Glamour will smell like on the top performance. The saltiness does stick around but as it mingles with the rest of the fragrance it becomes less pronounced. The scent goes into its mid-stage in a soft, gentle, clean floral with a woody cedar note trying to break through and ruin my day. But thankfully the cedar never gets very far as this fragrance can pretty much be defined in one word; weak. Not weak in a bad way but Glamour’s not very interesting, unique, or new. It’s a staid and safe clean floral that’s very soft and very fleeting. The dry down is a pretty dull affair of warmed amber and vanilla with the lingering floral notes from the mid-stage. I can’t quite pick out the florals but they blend together to smell like soap instead of the very dreaded “perfumey” smell where the florals are mixed so haphazardly that the fragrance just smells cheap and bad. Glamour doesn’t smell cheap and bad, it’s just incredibly light and rather boring.

Extra: Glamour’s longevity kind of sucks as she faded on me after about two hours and there was almost no projection. At times it was like I had actually washed my hands instead of sprayed a fragrance on.

Design: I like the bottle and the shape. Like I said, I was drawn to this initially because it looked so similar to my believed Nina by Nina Ricci. There’s a slight hint of burlesque to the design which could be entirely me speaking as there’s nothing remotely burlesque about the fragrance itself.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Salt, artemesia, tangerine blossom, pear, rose, lotus, petit grain, hibiscus, orchid, vanilla, amber, cedar, musk.

Me being the clean floral lover, I could see myself rocking out with Glamour. Though rocking out is probably a bad term to refer to this. Glamour’s more of a stay in and have a tea party kind of girl.

Reviewed in This Post: Glamour, 2008, Eau de Parfum.


Donna Karan DKNY Be Delicious

I was really wary of trying DKNY Be Delicious thanks to my less than warm reception to DKNY Delicious Night where I pretty much experienced it as a drowning episode in an ocean of sugar. But I tried Be Delicious anyway since a lot of people seem to love this.

DKNY Be Delicious

DKNY Be Delicious

In Bottle: Synthetic apple. That’s just about all I smell, there’s some sharp little citrus notes in the opening but this stuff is mostly synthetic apple.

Applied: More synthetic apple bubbling around up top with a very sweet and sort of cloying personality. Beneath it are some citrus notes that try their best to make themselves known but the apple in Be Delicious is just way too strong for any of that “balance” and “blended” nonsense. The fragrance doesn’t really age well either, I get some floral hints as the wear goes on but everything is being obscured by the big fat apple that’s sitting in the foreground. It’s like I went to see a play and someone that’s wearing an obnoxious hat is seated right in front of me. That’s the apple in Be Delicious. It’s not a good hat. It’s not stylish. It’s just fake and gaudy and loud. The dry down sees a fade on the apple a bit, where I get some florals mixing it up a bit. I would have liked for the apple to go away a lot sooner but hey, I think we’ve established that Be Delicious isn’t my kind of ride and no last minute florals can help that.

Extra: So there’s apparently an entire line of Be Delicious flankers that I have yet to try but if I don’t even remotely like the original, I wonder how I’ll do with the rest of them. Probably not well if they’re anything like Delicious Night or Be Delicious.

Design: Shaped like an apple. I kind of like how the Be Delicious line is shaped though the construction leaves a lot to be desired. I thought the metallic cap on Be Delicious work in an aesthetic sense far better than the plastic cap on Delicious Night. So the original has that going for it.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Green notes, violet leaf, apple, grapefruit, magnolia, tuberose, lily of the valley, rose, violet, sandalwood, amber, musk.

I don’t know where the rest of those notes where. All I smelled was apple and then much later on some rose and lily.

Reviewed in This Post: DKNY Be Delicious, 2010, Eau de Parfum.