Cher Uninhibited

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Hey, remember when Cher came out with that perfume? It was the late 80s, the oriental fragrance era was just starting to peter out and out came Uninhibited–clearly uninhibited by the timeline of its release because not only did it break away from the oriental fragrance fad of the time, it was also a sparkling floral aldehyde.

Uninhibited

Uninhibited

In Bottle: I think the sampler I got may have come from a bottle that’s gone off. I get strong floral aldehydes but there’s this faint and unpleasant whiff of alcohol lingering around too. You know that sweet, cloying, sickening smell of rot and alcohol? I’m getting that.

Applied: Floral aldehydes nice and big and that unfortunate smell of off-perfume is also pretty big too. I’m not going to blame the fragrance for this as I’m pretty darn sure the age of the sample is probably what’s doing it. Anyway, the aldehydes are still sparkling and the florals with a dominant jasmine and rose scent are still going strong. As the fragrance ages, there’s a bit of rose, jasmine and woodsiness heading through the aldehydes though this fragrance remains mostly soapy and powdery. It dries down with a pleasant dry woodsiness with a distinct cedar note that’s been calmed down with age. I probably would have really liked this fragrance if it hadn’t been for that bizarre off-perfume smell. But again, this was a pretty old sample and I don’t think the quality of a sample from a fragrance this old could ever be guaranteed and I did gamble a little bit on an obscure celebrity fragrance being kept up like a vintage Guerlain Mitsouko would be. From what I did smell, I could tell I rather liked it. It has a classical air about it thanks to those aldehydes and there were several layers of complexity that still shone through in the fragrance despite its age.

Extra: I’m really sad having read the notes list for this because most of the fragrance was an amalgamation of scents and all I got were jasmine, rose, aldehydes and cedar.

Design: There’s almost something Art Deco about this bottle that makes me really like it. It’s got clean lines with a little bit of whimsy. If you were to take a gander at it, you wouldn’t have guessed it was a celebrity perfume until someone told you. The bottle just seems so classy like it’s from a much earlier time than it actually is.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Heliotrope, aldehydes, ylang-ylang, geranium, rose, jasmine, tobacco, cedar, musk, sandalwood, vanilla, vetiver.

Uninhibited has been discontinued for quite some time, though tracking down this stuff isn’t too hard. There’s a lot of secondhand sellers but I would advise caution when you go to buy this stuff as my sample had gone off. I’m unsure as to when exactly Uninhibited was discontinued so watch out for that also if you plan to track down your own bottle.

Reviewed in This Post: Uninhibited, ~1989, Eau de Parfum.

Jennifer Aniston Lolavie

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Jennifer Aniston’s perfume has been received with what I think is an odd sort of popularity in the fragrance world. Why am I perplexed? Well, it’s not that the stuff doesn’t smell good. It’s not even because I think it’s generic. It’s just that I had no idea Jennifer Aniston was still a very popular celebrity. Granted, the last time I watched a movie, a television show, or paid any attention to celebrities was about ten years ago.

Lolavie

Lolavie

In Bottle: Clean and soft floral with a kick of citrus at the top and a bunch of white musk.

Applied: Citrus opens up Lolavie and quickly makes way for the scrubbed clean florals. The scent is very light and refreshing. I can definitely see this being worn in the spring when the flowers have just started to come up. There’s no–or very little–sweetness to this thankfully as the predominant floral note seems to be lily according to my nose. There’s very little in the way of interesting progression as its dry down, I’ve noted, smells like sandalwood and white musk. All in all lolavie doesn’t leave a huge impression on me. It’s clean, it’s light, it’s fresh and it’s definitely a floral. Outside of those very basic facts there just isn’t a lot to comment on. Her longevity stinks due to how light she is but if you’ve been searching for a light, easy, floral perfume then Lolavie is a very good choice.

Extra: Lolavie was Jennifer Aniston’s first fragrance release and I think she’s been trying to table a deal to make another one. Before this fragrance was even released there was a bunch of media buzz about how Aniston didn’t want a normal celebrity perfume and that she wanted something daring and new and different. I will hand it to her that Lolavie is different from the sugar piles of other celebuscents. But it’s not daring or new and hardly different if you compare it to mainstream offerings. It’s a good attempt though and Aniston manages to avoid the Britney Spears segment of celebuscents and is so far cruising along with Sarah Jessica Parker.

Design: The one bone I have to pick with Lolavie is its packaging. The bottle is incredibly unwieldy. I have no idea why they designed the thing to be so big and–well, it’s just big and clunky. It’s a lovely shape. It’s an interesting twist on the standard classic perfume bottle look. But why does the thing have to be so enormous? The size of the bottle makes it difficult to hold and spray and is just unnecessary. Another thing that makes me cringe about the packaging is the typeface they chose. Reminds me a little too much of Times New Roman. Times being the typeface people associate with textbooks, technical manuals, and book reports they were forced to write in school. None of these things paints a particularly fascinating image of the scent within. Other than that, it’s a lovely simple design.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Citrus, rose, jasmine, violet, lily, musk, amber, sandalwood.

I modified the description of the notes list a little because I thought calling a blended citrus accord a “citrus grove accord” was pretty ridiculous wordage. Unless I’m to believe they crammed the citrus, the trees, the dirt, and farm tools into that accord I think calling it just a plain old ‘citrus accord’ is the way to go. What is it with these celebrity releases that they have to come up with the most bizarre ways to describe their notes? Do consumers really buy a perfume because they think they’re getting the smell of an entire citrus grove? No wonder perfume is so misunderstood and confusing. There’s so little consistency in the marketing.

Reviewed in This Post: Lolavie, 2011, Eau de Parfum.

Justin Bieber Someday

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Okay, let’s get a few ground rules down before I get into the meat of this fragrance review. 1) Justin Bieber does not know how to compose a fragrance and did not personally compose this fragrance. He may have been given some samplers and told to pick his favorite. 2) Justin Bieber is probably the last person who would know what a woman wants to smell like anyway. 3) This stuff doesn’t smell bad, it just smells like generic celebrity perfume chaff.

Someday

Someday

In Bottle: Sweet fruity floral. It’s very light and easy to wear, but also smells really generic because there’s nothing that sets this fruity floral sweet and clean deal apart from any other fragrance like it.

Applied: Soft, slightly sweet, and clean fruity opening with a clear floral heart. There’s jasmine in this for sure, a little bit of lily of the valley I think and probably some sweet and unassuming little flower like heliotrope or freesia. As the fragrance ages, the florals come up a bit more but the scent never really goes anywhere exciting nor does it get any stronger. I don’t think I should even go into complexity because there’s not a whole lot of that going on in this fragrance either. This stuff is light and you may find yourself having to apply a lot of it. I can’t say much for it aside from the fact that it’s got a focus on light and clean florals. The dry down is unexciting with a very sheer blend of white musk and light vanilla flowers.

Extra: You’ve probably heard by now how similar the bottle design for Someday is compared to Marc Jacobs Lola. Well, the similarities are there but at the very least the bottle for Someday isn’t an almost identical rip-off of Lola like a certain other perfume.

Design: I’m not wild about the design of the bottle. Even the commercial for this fragrance couldn’t really make it look good. The design is amateurish to be honest and comparing it to Lola seems a little insulting. Lola’s a well-balanced, if a little bit loud, of a design. Someday looks like a wobbly child’s art experiment. Maybe I just don’t see the appeal of the bulbous bottle design and the weird flower/heart cap thing. Maybe I’m just too old to think this looks good? Who knows. I just don’t like it.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Mandarin, pear, wild berries, jasmine, creamy flowers, vanilla, musk.

So bottom line is Someday is an easy to wear, easygoing light floral scent and you aren’t going to stink if you decide to go out and throw down some cash for this stuff. It’s not special, it’s not unique, but it isn’t bad either.

Reviewed in This Post: Someday, 2011, Eau de Parfum.

Sarah Jessica Parker Lovely

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Lovely is like one of the few fleeting breaths of fresh air in between the intoxicating aftermath of a fruit and candy explosion at the celebirty perfume factory. That is to say, this fragrance can stand up on its own even without SJP’s name on it.

Lovely

In Bottle: A mix of lavender, woods, and clean amber. Not at all what I was expecting from a celebrity perfume but word has it that Sarah Jessica Parker’s fragrances are usually a cut above the other contenders.

Applied: Lavender on the opening with a hit of citrus. The lavender here is used rather well though it’s definitely not some of the best quality lavender. Still, I can applaud Lovely for having the guts to use the note. Some lavenders wind up too strong, tending to smell medicinal if not used right. I actually like Lovely’s interpretation as it’s a woodsy, clean scent with a twist of herbal. The lavender seeps into the mid-stage as the fragrance introduces a hint of amber and woods as Lovely warms up quite a bit. There’s a certain soapiness to this that keeps things clean and accessible, which only impresses me further. The fragrance is so far being rather risque for a celebuscent but it manages to skirt the territory between highbrow smell experiment and department store safe. The fragrance ages down to a woodsy lavender musk. I dare say this stuff smells almost elegant.

Extra: Funny enough, my first experience with Lovely was in a book. A tester strip of this stuff was wedged into the back of Chandler Burr’s The Perfect Scent. The strip the fragrance was squished onto also makes a great bookmark.

Design: Egg-shaped, pink, easy to hold and use bottle. I don’t know what else I can say about this stuff. The shape is pretty generic and the bottle looks very unassuming. I neither love it nor hate it.

Fragrance Family: Aromatic Woodsy

Notes: Lavender, mandarin, bergamot, rosewood, orchid, patchouli, amber, cedar, musk.

Score another one for the celebuscent team. I try to maintain an open mind about fragrances no matter whose name is on it and I feel like the more I smell, the less impressed I get with celebrity perfumes. It’s because the great majority of them smell generic and synthetic. But once in a while something like Lovely or Cumming proves me wrong and I’ll happily accept that.

Reviewed in This Post: Lovely, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Hello Kitty

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I don’t know why I expected anything else but sugar and sweet from a fragrance put out with Hello Kitty’s name on it. Or expect anything from a perfume that comes out of a cartoon cat’s head. But hey, it’s just fun.

Hello Kitty

In Bottle: Sweet, candy, and quite synthetic smelling. There’s not much to this perfume aside from candy-like with a little touch of apple and other fruits to cut the tedium a little.

Applied: Initial flare of sweet fruit with an apple note that’s very synthetic. This is the apple that I smell in DKNY Be Delicious. Too sweet, a little plastic, not very attractive but it does its job as a fruity opener. The fragrance heads into its mid-stage with an equally sweet showing, amping up the sugar even more while it takes on a bit of a vanilla and fruity flowers mix. There’s no really good florals in this, just vague perfumery flower scent that smells as nondescript as the rest of the fragrance. The dry down is a typical sweet vanilla with a cleaned up white musk finisher.

Extra: Hello Kitty’s had a few perfumes named after her over the years but I believe this one is a part of the Hello Kitty beauty line that’s now available at Sephora. I never quite understood the Hello Kitty craze, though I do own a few pieces of Sanrio merchandise and remember a vague time in my tween years when I thought some of the characters were cute. I can appreciate this for the fun factor at least.

Design: The bottle is essentially Hello Kitty’s head with a balloon pump coming up the top. It’s cute at first glance but when you settle down and think about it, it’s a bit macabre. Here you have Hello Kitty, with a sprayer nozzle coming out of her head, and then you squeeze a balloon pump to get the cartoon happiness out of the bottle. The balloon pump, being what it is, is not as good as a standard push atomizer but it is functional. I would be concerned about how the balloon pump continues to function as the user uses the perfume more and more as it’s a pretty delicate piece of hardware.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Fruity

Notes: Cassis sorbet, mandarin, apple, magnolia blossom, freesia, orange flower, tonka bean, vanilla, musk.

And now I know what Hello Kitty is supposed to smell like. This fragrance lived up to my expectations of it smelling like a candy confection. If you’re looking for complex and interesting, you’d have better luck elsewhere.

Reviewed in This Post: Hello Kitty, 2011, Eau de Parfum.

Harajuku Lovers G

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The Harajuku Lovers fragrances is one of those things I never really got into. The scents are okay–mostly. My favorite of the lot is G which was supposed to represent Gwen Stefani’s character. There’s been so many flankers over the years that I’ve pretty much lost count of them all. So this post is a review of the original G, the one released in 2008.

Harajuku Lovers G

In Bottle: Fruity and coconut. Very tropical. The fruitiness is more predominant in the opening.

Applied: Blast of very slight tart fruits followed by very sweet coconut that rushes in and steals the show. The coconut is huge in this fragrance and is clearly the main player. It hovers up top and casts this creamy coconutty sweetness over the rest of the fragrance. You get some florals in the mid-stage, mostly reined-in jasmine and freesia with this sparkly clean undertone. There’s nothing particularly remarkable about G, but it is a very, very, well done coconut, beachy, tropical scent. The dry down is markedly uninteresting with more coconut hovering over the sandalwood and clean laundry smell.

Extra: Okay, I think I’ve got most of the flankers down for G as of this post. With how popular the Harajuku Lovers fragrances are, I doubt the list of flankers is going to remain static. Anyway we’ve got G (2008), Sunshine Cuties G (2009), Wicked Style G (2010), and G of the Sea (2011). Then there’s the bottle redesign for the winter which further adds to the confusion with the Snow Bunny version of G. I’m sure I’m missing some other edition like Valentine’s Day G or Talk Like a Pirate Day G–Oh no, am I giving them more ideas? 🙁

Design: Okay, yeah, the bottles are really cute. But they’re not my thing. The perfume comes in a little glass stand that the plastic doll is propped on. You gain access to the perfume by either popping off the head of the doll or the entire doll body. I remember handling these bottles more than once but don’t remember if I removed only the head or the entire body but spraying the fragrance itself was not an unpleasant ordeal. I was honestly not that impressed with the design and would have rather seen these dolls as a part of some sort of dangling charm off of a better designed bottle similar to what Juicy Couture did. Think about it, cute little Harajuku Lovers cellphone charms that come with your perfume. As it is, it’s too gimmicky for me at the moment.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Mandarin, coconut, apple, jasmine sambac, freesia, magnolia, coconut cream, white sandalwood, cottonwoods.

The fragrance for this is one of the better iterations of tropical and coconut out there. I’m just not a fan for a variety of reasons. The coconut is just that, pure sweet coconut, nothing too interesting about this fragrance. And the packing does not hit home for me. So they missed me by two points. There is, however, a huge fanbase for these dolls and these perfumes so clearly it’s a successful gig.

Reviewed in This Post: G, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Britney Spears Circus Fantasy

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So I dragged my heels on this one a little bit. I’m fatigued with the whole Britney Spears Fantasy line, to be honest. Fantasy, itself, is an icon of celebrity fragrances and its flankers are nothing to be sniffed at either. Though they aren’t so unique  that if you passed on them, you’d miss out.

Circus Fantasy

In Bottle: Circus Fantasy does clean! That’s a nice mix up from the fruitiness of the other two Fantasy scents I’ve tried. It smells like a very sweet glass of lemonade.

Applied: Sweet citrus up front and the citrus is a quick fader so we get down to business rather quick. Heading into the rest of the opening, Circus Fantasy hits up a sweet berry note and falls into a pile of pretty little violets right away. The mid-stage is a more floral fragrance, doing a mixture of sweet and clean florals rather well as the scent hits up peony and orchid. It smells really similar to a bunch of other celebrity fragrances in the mid-stage with that sweet floral heart that’s so recognizable. At least it’s easy to accept and wear! The dry down is an uninspired array of vanilla and sugar with a jolt of clean dashed in there for good measure. Overall, Circus Fantasy does clean and refreshing rather well. The mid-stage bores me a bit along with the end stage but the opening was pretty good. I liked the lemonade smell and wished we had gotten more of that.

Extra: Now the only fragrance in the Fantasy line that I haven’t gotten my nose on yet is Hidden Fantasy. That’s the red one. I can’t seem to find it anywhere but online and I would like to avoid getting more than a decant or sampler spray of it so until I track it down, I’m sure Britney’s perfume line will come out with another Fantasy flanker.

Design: Still hate the bottle. Sorry guys. It will probably never look any better no matter what they do with it. Circus Fantasy is an appealing shade of blue at least, with red rhinestones set into the bottle’s glass.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Raspberry, apricot, lotus, orchid, peony, vanilla, sugar, musk.

Move over Midnight Fantasy, Circus Fantasy’s got you beat. I really do like that lemonade opening and wish they could have just bottled that for all three stages.

Reviewed in This Post: Circus Fantasy, 2009, Eau de Parfum.

Bath and Body Works Cotton Blossom

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I was surprised to find how many people wanted to smell like laundry. Can you really blame them? Laundry scents are among some of the most finely tailored fragrances out there. While perfumes are an artistic canvas where the lives of the abstract smells dwell, laundry detergent and other household cleaning or hygiene products is the world of the wildly successful but ultimately uniform. And then there’s Cotton Blossom.

Cotton Blossom

In Bottle: Sharp and floral. This smells so benign. And benign in this case is a compliment because what else is Cotton Blossom really trying to achieve but that ultimate laundry smell?

Applied: Goes on sharp and clean. Clean in all caps even as Cotton Blossom wastes no time at all telling you what it’s going to be about. And what it’s about is laundry and soap. This smells like any number of laundry smells you may have enjoyed. It’s slightly flowery, it’s powdery, it’s huge on the soap, it’s sharp and clean white musk and it’ll make you feel fresh and neat and there’s nothing else to it. The opening stage is a bit sharp and this stuff goes on strong. It mellows out a bit in the mid-stage where the sharpness is rounded out a little and the powder becomes more noticeable. Cotton Blossom, strangely enough, smells a bit watery on me in the dry down but maintains its powdery floral personality. Experiencing this was like smelling laundry detergent, pouring it into the machine, then turning it on. Sharp initial blast, mellowed pour, mixed with water. Kudos to Bath and Body Works for this one. If you want to smell like laundry, Cotton Blossom’s your gal.

Extra: For what it is, Cotton Blossom has surprisingly awesome longevity. So while this doesn’t come in eau de toilette or eau de parfum, I don’t think this fragrance needs to be any more potent.

Design: Cotton Blossom is presently available in a body mist form in Bath and Body Works’ older design. So you don’t get anything special. Just a tall bottle that’s entirely plastic with a semi-transparent label bearing the fragrance’s name and theme. The best thing about the body mist at Bath and Body Works is you get a ton of fragrance for very little money. There’s 236ml in a full size.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Sun dried linen accord, grass, mandarin blossom, jeans accord, peony, cotton, musk, baby powder.

I will never be able to take that notes list seriously. Never. I love how playful the list is though. Anyway, Demeter also has a fragrance that’s supposed to smell like laundry in Laundromat. I vastly prefer Cotton Blossom as it lasts longer and is far cheaper.

Reviewed in This Post: Cotton Blossom, 2010, Body Mist.

Beyonce Heat

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Today we’ve got Beyonce’s Heat perfume. This fragrance, along with J-Lo Glow, are extremely popular and are often asked about. So I’m finally crawling out of the wood works and digging up my notes on it.

Heat

In Bottle: Ah peach up front. Big, synthetic, sweet peach. You know I used to like peach but now that I’m smelling it everywhere, I kind of wish these celebuscents would move onto a more obscure fruit. How about the beloved durian? Noble, spiky, tastes like custard and smells like sewage . . . What?

Applied: All right, so we got sweet peach up front blasting the opening wide open with a big fruity announcement. The background to the peach that digs itself into the mid-stage is a series of barely detectable florals. The fluffy opener leads rather well into a warm cleaned up amber and fruity flowers mid-stage with the sweetness still lingering about even now after the peach is all gone. Heat dries down in a rather expected fashion, keeping that warm amber scent and adding vanilla and soft woods. Heat’s nothing new, it’s nothing groundbreaking, but like all celebrity scents it is a good, decently constructed, wearable fragrance.

Extra: So Beyonce’s first perfume release was a big smash hit. Though most of Heat’s popularity probably has less to do with the juice and more to do with Beyonce’s  name on the bottle. This stuff sells, and it’s okay with me so long as the stuff they sell is at least decently composed–which Heat is. Smell away. Heat has already spawned a few flankers so if the original doesn’t float your boat, there’s Heat Rush and the elixir version of Heat.

Design: The bottle’s shape reminds me a bit of Hugo Boss Deep Red with a few interesting curves  and a few neat little colors added in. I’m okay with the design. It is what it is, though, which is a flashy celebrity bottle. One of the better ones out there.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Oriental

Notes: Red vanilla orchid, magnolia, neroli and peach, honeysuckle, almond, creamy musk, sequoia wood, tonka, amber.

I don’t know if I’m going to be up to smelling those two Heat flankers. I expected a bit more out of this fragrance than what I got. In the end, it’s a celebrity perfume that’s fairly predictable in how it was built and how it plays itself out.

Reviewed in This Post: Heat, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

Alan Cumming Cologne

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Alan Cumming clearly has a sense of humor as the fragrance’s name in this case is “Cumming”, quite simply. The name has wrinkled noses the world over who don’t see exactly how high-brow the humor behind this scent actually gets. Whether you share the humor or not, you can at least give Cumming a try. I’m rather surprised that the nose, Christopher Brosius of Demeter and CB I Hate Perfume fame, didn’t take this fragrance more literally. Okay, okay, I’m done with the jokes. I promise.

Alan Cumming Cologne

In Bottle: Earthy and leathery up top. Very surprising for a celebrity fragrance composed in 2004. But we are talking Brosius here and say what you want about the man, but he is not one to conform to expected norms.

Applied: Loud opening with an earthy leather and whisky combination folding you in, making you think things will only get stronger from there. But the fragrance heads into its mid-stage in a surprising twist. The pepper takes up a bit of fight from opening to mid-stage lending the fragrance a hint of spice. The scent then goes from heavy to light, something that I didn’t expect this fragrance to do as the mid-stage smells of warm and smooth nuttiness, woods and earth. Nicely done, I don’t smell any of the heavy leather from the opening but there’s a minor trace of it giving this scent a bit of complexity during the mid-stage. This is an oxymoron of a scent, and surprisingly lovely as a result. Over the years of smelling celebrity perfumes, I’ve come to expect predictability but Cumming is a pleasant left fielder.  The interesting bit at the end of this fragrance is a smooth earthy scent. Quite personal, and–dare I say it?–rather sophisticated. This fragrance isn’t for everybody mainly because the opening does turn a lot of people away. If you like the opening, or can stick it out for about an hour, the fragrance does take a turn for the very interesting and very wearable.

Extra: I had to stop myself halfway into that introduction paragraph and wonder why I can find humor in Cumming and it’s ad campaign when I found Marc Jacobs Bang and its ad campaign an eye roller. There are several reasons why, but the one that comes readily to mind for me is the fact that Cumming knows its name, knows it’s funny, and runs with it. Bang seemed to be named thus to sell itself as sexy or shocking. This, this is just in good fun and I can more readily appreciate that far more. If you’re interested in the Cumming fragrance, there’s 2nd Alan Cumming also by Brosius. You can read up about it on Brosius’s site here.

Design: Simple rectangular bottle with a tall cylindrical cap. The name on the glass written in a slight bit haphazardly and–let’s not kid ourselves–it was obviously designed with the name in mind. I can get on board with funny things like this. Perfume is all together too serious sometimes.

Fragrance Family: Earthy

Notes: Bergamot, black pepper, scotch pine, whiskey, cigar, heather, douglas fir, leather, highland mud, peat fire, white truffle.

Probably one of the best celebrity fragrances that I can commend out there. And it’s been described as an anti-celebrity fragrance. Heck, I’m on board with that. It’s interesting, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, and it’s one of the few that can stand on its own as a fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Cumming, 2006, Eau de Parfum.