Dior Dolce Vita

Dolce Vita is a vibrant little number that I kind of wish I had more of. It’s bright, peppy and classical all at the same time.

Dolce Vita

Dolce Vita

In Bottle: Sweet, almost pastry-like with a strong peach/apricot and cardamom showing initially.

Applied: Dolce Vita goes on reminding me of a peach pastry. It’s got to be the–well–peach, and the spices that make me think of the jammy fruit filling in a danish. The pastry feel doesn’t last for too long before I get a hit of sandalwood with a pretty strong sweetness. Dolce Vita is sugar and woods with a tablespoon of cinnamon sprinkled over it. The sandalwood is quick to settle down but the sweet cinnamon fruity floral thing has bigger plans and sticks around on the fragrance for quite some time. Dolce Vita has good staying power on me, I barely noticed when it slipped from its sweet fruity floral middle and nestled between a nice tame cedar and a soft, lilting sweet vanilla base.

Extra: Dolce Vita was released in 1994 and was composed by Pierre Bourdon of Cool Water fame.

Design: I really like the bottle. It looks like it came from an earlier time than the 90s and it has a nice feel to it too. It’s a good looking piece that has 90s elements to it, but at times can feel like it came from an earlier era. Hard to describe, but overall, I like it.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Grapefruit, bergamot, lily, peach, rose, cardamom, cinnamon, apricot, magnolia, heliotrope, rosewood, sandalwood, cedar, coconut, vanilla.

I had to take a couple of tries to figure out if I truly liked Dolce Vita or if it was just a fad I was going through. I do really like it, it’s nice and well-composed and thankfully still available to boot.

Reviewed in This Post: Dolce Vita, ~2004, Eau de Toilette.


Miss Dior

Miss Dior, unlike her younger sister (Miss Dior Cherie), is a smart, sophisticated woman who enjoys the finer things in life but doesn’t let it get to her head. She’s humble and complex with a classical charm that Miss Dior Cherie can never beat.

Miss Dior

Miss Dior

In Bottle: Green with a prominent aldehyde quality to it and a dusting of florals.

Applied: Sharp green aldehydes that are a bit of a sting on the old nostrils. Miss Dior goes on strong and powerful, hits you with a wave of classical perfume and reminds you of what a real chypre ought to smell like. Nothing like the lilting chypres of today that have been toned down and have lost their oak moss. Miss Dior is the full force of chypres upon application. As the fragrance ages, she smooths out a bit taking on a powdery quality to me with a warm sensuality that works in the complexity of the fragrance. It’s hard to describe complex fragrances for me because breaking them down into components and saying, “I smell this and now I smell this” would ruin the experience. Instead let me just say that Miss Dior smells like a vintage with an aldehyde and floral mid-stage prominent in neroli and jasmine and is every bit the chypre that she’s supposed to be. The fragrance dries down into a lovely rich flowers, forest and buttery leather scent that makes me want to stick my nose to my wrists and deeply inhale.

Extra: Miss Dior was released in the late 1940s and was composed by Jean Carles and Paul Vacher. Like most (if not all) classics that have survived till today, Miss Dior has been reformulated. The version I’m reviewing in this post is reportedly from sometime in the 1970s. I have not tried the more readily available, “Miss Dior Originale” yet, but I do have a sample of that so I will be trying it eventually.

Design: Miss Dior seems to do everything better than Miss Dior Cherie. The bottle has a classic look, but one that will never go out of style. While it’s a familiar shape to Miss Dior Cherie, Miss Dior’s more grown-up style and beautiful textured glass sets it a class above its younger counterpart. Miss Dior doesn’t need a bow on its neck to exude femininity, basically.

Fragrance Family: Chypre

Notes: Aldehydes, gardenia, galbanum, clary sage, bergamot, carnation, iris, jasmine, neroli, lily of the valley, rose, narcissus, labdanum, leather, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, oak moss, vetiver.

It probably sounds like I’m ragging on Miss Dior Cherie a lot in this post, and I am. It’s not that Miss Dior Cherie doesn’t accomplish good things as a modern gourmand that appeals to younger women, it’s just that Miss Dior–who sometimes gets confused with her younger counterpart–gets a lot of bad press from people who accidentally picked her up thinking she’ll smell anything like the candy-like Miss Dior Cherie. Then come the proclamations that Miss Dior “smells like old lady”, and that’s just unfortunate.

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior, ~1970, Eau de Toilette.


Doir Tendre Poison

The more of the Poison line I discover, the more I puzzle over the fact that the original Poison, released in 1985, has eleven flankers. No matter what fragrance you’re talking about, that’s still a lot of flankers.

Tendre Poison

Tendre Poison

In Bottle: Fresh, sweet and woodsy with a hint of spice and a bit of ambery quality.

Applied: Tendre Poison comes out right away with a big hit of fresh citrus that rolls with a sweet opening that takes you on a trip down to floral and woodsy in no time. There’s a bit of amber quality to this, perhaps a result of the honey warming up the scent as it combats the blast of cool citrus that came out from the opening. The fragrance hits a floral chord in the middle stage with a nice tuberose making a rather grand entrance to my nose. The tuberose gives the rest of the florals–and the scent as a whole–a very nice creamy quality that compliments the woodsiness that settles this fragrance down and takes it into its base notes. Tendre Poison ends with a smooth woody and spicy fragrance.

Extra: Tendre Poison is a rather old showing when it comes to the Poison line of flankers. It came out in 1994 and seems to be a bit difficult to find in the general market these days. At least, I haven’t seen any of it kicking around store shelves. You may have to hit up eBay for this one, but be careful, there’s a sizable counterfeit presence for the Poison line of fragrances.

Design: The shape is generally similar to the original Poison bottle. It’s still a very nice bottle and I still think it’s a lovely use of the apple shape that imparts a certain level of playfulness while maintaining an aura of luxury at the same time. I’m not too wild about how bright green this iteration is, but the general aesthetic is all right.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Floral

Notes: Bergamot, tangerine, mandarin, galbanum, rosewood, honey, freesia, orange blossom, rose, tuberose, musk, heliotrope, vanilla, sandalwood.

I rather liked this one. It’s unique in that I haven’t quite smelled something that’s progressed in this way before. It also smells modern, despite its release in the early 90s. But then, it’s earlier release date might help it steer clear of the more recent releases that tend to smell a little generic to me.

Reviewed in This Post: Tendre Poison, 1995, Eau de Toilette.


Dior Midnight Poison

Midnight Poison is a fairly recent flanker to Dior’s very popular Poison perfume.

Midnight Poison

Midnight Poison

In Bottle: Anyone expecting Midnight Poison to smell like the original Poison will be in for a shock. This is woody, dark, and earthy. It’s a cry so far from Poison that it has me grinning from ear to ear.

Applied: Sharp spiciness and earthiness up front. Lots of patchouli mixing with a spicy bergamot starting note that drifts beautifully into an earthy patchouli rosy scent. The rose is very faint and lends a delicate note to the fragrance as a whole. I wouldn’t have thought this combination would work so well–even though it’s a pretty obvious one. The fragrance fades into a patchouli and wood fragrance as it progresses, surrounding you with a deeply sophisticated blend of earthiness, amber and wood with a faint hint of rose.

Extra: Midnight Poison was released in 2007 and is still widely available from retailers.

Design: Midnight Poison shares the same bottle shape as the other Poison bottles in the line. The chief difference is the coloring of the bottle. It is a deep, dark blue. Very beautiful. The shape is still easy to hold and use.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy

Notes: Bergamot, mandarin, rose, patchouli, amber, vanilla.

Midnight Poison is one amazing fragrance. It’s fascinating in its use of an extremely powerful patchouli note that dominates the scene of the fragrance’s progression.

Reviewed in This Post: Midnight Poison, 2009, Eau de Parfum.


Dior Diorissimo

Diorissimo is a classic from the 1950s before Dior went the youth route and replaced their hard hitting fragrance lines with stuff like Miss Dior Cherie. I smell Diorissimo and miss the days when it was okay for a fragrance to be heavy and heady.

Diorissimo

In Bottle: Florals with a slight sting of citrus up front and a coating of animalic civet in the background.

Applied: Fresh and green with a citrus opening and that smell of leaves and dew. The lilies come in during the mid-stage and in the final act of the opening and proceed to dominate the fragrance. The lily scent in the middle is very noticeable, clearly the stars of the show as the fragrance settles into this heady floral lily mixture that’s just unrelenting. I still get a bit of that fresh green leaf scent that present when this fragrance was first applied but the civet can’t stay hidden forever. It creeps up as the fragrance gets warmer and dirties the scent up quite a bit. At times I’m wondering who let the mongoose into the garden as the civet is a bit disturbing but at the same time feels like it belongs. The dry down introduces a bit of sandalwood, scenting together with the lilies as the two do a little good against the ever-present civet.

Extra: Diorissimo is still available in its Eau de Toilette form and for the most part, it smells similar now to when I first smelled it in the 90s and, all things considered, it is available for a fairly reasonable price. You can also hunt down the Parfum concentration, though I’m told it’s more rare, more expensive, and even headier than the EdT.

Design: Bottled rather simply but has a classic elegance to it that says this stuff doesn’t need frills and gimmicks to look good and be good. I like the simplicity of it all. The brush script I can take or leave but the overall design is pleasing and nice.

Fragrance Family: Classic Floral

Notes: Bergamot, leaves, rosemary, lily, lilac, jasmine, lily of the valley, ylang-ylang, civet, sandalwood.

I’m not sure how to treat the civet in Diorissimo. It’s not heavy enough to be a deal breaker, but I do notice it and it does put me off a little. Regardless, if you like a little civet here and there Diorissimo is a beautiful classic that’s survived the times–mostly–in tact.

Reviewed in This Post: Diorissimo, 2005, Eau de Toilette.


Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau

Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is the green little flanker from 2009. It’s older sister, Miss Dior Cherie was a smash hit when she debut in 2005. I wrote a review of Miss Dior Cherie almost a year ago and proclaimed my amazement at one of the few perfume headaches I’ve ever gotten. And so, enter her flanker.

Miss Dior Cherie L'Eau

In Bottle: Sweet and flowery with a hint of cleanness. It’s like I’m smelling a bar of too-flowery soap.

Applied: So Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is a little disappointing in the bottle, does she get any better on the skin? Eh, no, not really. She goes on with that sweet florals thing again, there’s a hint of sharpness to this that makes me think fresh and clean like a shower gel or a bar of soap or something. I’ll commend this for being less sweet than Miss Dior Cherie but there’s not much else to it than a very familiar, but very banal shower gel scent. The mid-stage is marked with a squeaky clean sweet floral blend of white flowers and fruits. The dry down is a floral woodsiness with a dash of sharp white musk for good measure.

Extra: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau has a good thing going for it if you like weaker perfumes that don’t last very long but can still make you wrinkle your nose. This stuff smells nice, and if you like squeaky clean smells and little else, this is a good bet–just don’t expect it to last very long. The longevity seriously sucks.

Design: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau is bottled in a similar shape to Miss Dior Cherie but with a taller bottle and a frosted glass-looking bow  and cap. It’s still fantastically cute packaging. The juice is also an appeasing shade of yellow-green.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Bitter orange, lily, gardenia, woods, musk.

I admit it, I do like this a lot more than Miss Dior Cherie. But the fact that I didn’t get a headache from this probably has something to do with that. In the end though, Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau, is just not special. She smells like a great deal of other things out there and there isn’t much to set her apart. The bottle sure looks cute though!

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior Cherie L’Eau, 2009, Eau de Toilette.


Dior Poison

Poison by Dior is one of those classics from the 80s that I don’t give a whole lot of run time to. Because I don’t like it. I tried to. I came around to Opium and eventually cultivated a reverence for Jicky, but when it comes to Poison, I am still left wondering why. I guess I just don’t like it! But I’m going to review it anyway because it is a well composed beast of a fragrance that remains one of Dior’s most popular perfumes. Poison

In Bottle: Smells sweet in the bottle, almost like cough syrup with a slight spiciness to it that layers over a faint woody presence.

Extra: Whew, Poison! You sure came in loud. There’s nothing quiet or gentle about Poison. She’s big, she’s bold, her volume’s all the way up and she isn’t afraid of share what she thinks. Poison starts off with a sweet plum and blossoms mix with a spicy blast that projects like crazy. The top notes are guaranteed to clear quite a bit of distance around you and create a Cone of Smell sort of thing as the mid stage comes in with a added dollop of spice that’s coated in jasmine, rose, and heliotrope. My favorite friend, tuberose also makes an entrance here. Dragging behind it is a very irate cedar scent. Amusingly enough the cedar in Poison is the type that teeters into loud and obnoxious territory but the rest of Poison is so loud and bold that the cedar smells almost tame on me. Once the sweetness and fruitiness of the opening calm down we get into the end stage where Poison is a spunky lady that smells of incense and sophisticated florals holding onto cough syrup in one hand while she applies lipstick with the other.

Extra: Poison was the original in a rather lengthy line of flankers. In addition to the original, we’ve got Poison Tendre (green), Hypnotic Poison (red), Hypnotic Poison Eau Sensuelle (also red), Midnight Poison (blue), Pure Poison (white). And that’s not including the elixirs. Clearly when Dior decided to go bold and different with the first Posion in 1985, they really hit it big.

Design: Poison’s bottle is in the shape of an apple and the glass is purple. Seems to be a popular motif for perfumes here, apples and forbidden fruits and whatnot. I do like the design of Poison’s bottle, even the blatant use of the symbolism is okay with me because the bottle is beautiful, feels nice to hold and is decently easy to handle.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Fruity Woodsy

Notes: Coriander, cinnamon, orange blossom, honey, pepper, plum, rosewood, rose, tuberose, wild berries, cistus labdanum, carnation, jasmine, heliotrope, cedar, vetiver, musk, vanilla, sandalwood, opopanax.

I’m pretty sure Poison’s tendency to smell a bit like cough syrup is what’s keeping me from this fragrance. But don’t let that stop you, she’s  big and brass and if you’re looking for that, definitely give her a try.

Reviewed in This Post: Poison, 2007, Eau de  Parfum.


Dior J’Adore

Perfume ads tend to be these really dramatic, in your face styles. Or very subtle, introspective feels. For J’Adore it was an in your face kind of thing that one would expect from a loud floral fragrance. I remember the commercial for this one particularly well, with a decked out Charlize Theron throwing things on the floor. But to buy a perfume based on its marketing material is a pretty bad idea. Rarely has a fragrance smelled like its marketing. Whatever smell you would happen to take away from that kind of thing anyway. J'Adore

In Bottle: Clear, bright florals and a juicy sweet fruity scent. I wouldn’t venture to call this a fruity floral though. This is mostly just a floral with a heady flowery background.

Applied: Sweet and heady florals with a very minor fruity note trying to turn these florals to a fruitier position. The fruit evaporates upon the arrival of the mid-stage but I retain the sweetness with a pretty rose and violet scent as the woods start to usher in. The power of J’Adore is fairly impressive though its very sweet floral scent is so bright and sunny. Rather reminiscent of some perfumes I smelled earlier in my life. Flower powerhouses that radiate like entire gardens have been planted in your nostrils. J’Adore does calm down near the end though as the dry down works into a sweet woodsy floral.

Extra: Christian Dior is a fashion designer who founded the Dior fashion house.

Design: J’Adore the bottle is egg-shaped with a very interesting plastic cap wrapped in metal. I find the design fun to look at and handle. The bottle itself is very easy to hold and the sprayer works just fine.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Mandarin, champaca flowers, ivy, african orchid, rose, violet, damascus plum, amaranth wood, blackberry musk.

This is really just an inoffensive, nice smelling floral fragrance for a more mature person. The presence of those fruit notes doesn’t shift this fragrance any closer to young fruity floral as J’Adore is a firmly planted floral perfume that’s appropriate and wearable for a wide range of occasions.

Reviewed in This Post: J’Adore, 2009, Eau de Parfum.


Miss Dior Cherie

Sometimes, you come across a fragrance that just isn’t to your taste. Miss Dior Cherie is not to my taste. While I do tend toward the fruity and the sweet, Miss Dior Cherie is like a candy strawberry syrup attack that goes straight up my nose and into my head. Congratulations are in order, I suppose. No. 5, Shalimar, Brut, and all the powerhouses of the 80s combined could not induce a perfume headache. Today, Miss Dior Cherie took that prize home. Miss Dior Cherie

In Bottle: Sweet, sweet, synthetic strawberry layered over a lovely slather of caramel. There’s so much sweetness and sugary fruitiness in this that it’s crossed the line between edible, wearable sweet and cloying sweet. I tend to think of myself as having a high tolerance to sweetness. After all, I didn’t mind the tooth numbing sweetness in Love of Pink by Lacoste or Pink Sugar by Aquolina. But that combination of sugar, candy and strawberry in Miss Dior Cherie takes it a notch above just sweet into shrill sweet. So sweet you can feel your blood turn to high-fructose corn syrup.

Applied: Initial minor burst of sweet citrus aside, Miss Dior Cherie wastes no time letting you know what she’s up to. She’s going to turn you into a walking strawberry lollipop. I immediately got hit with the sugar and caramel and whatever else is sweetening this so much. It’s cloying upon first application and several hours later, it’s still cloying and I can still smell it. It being the initial notes upon application. I was really surprised to find this fragrance hadn’t moved or evolved on me at all. If nothing else, Miss Dior Cherie deserves applause for longevity. The strawberry candy fragrance is a strong one. The projection isn’t bad. It’s neither far nor short. It’s just right. I just don’t think this one works for me. And as I wait a few more hours, it starts to turn for the cleaner, melting down from strawberry lollipop to jaded strawberry and sweet, fresh florals. I can only assume that slight and freshness is the patchouli trying its hardest to come up. The dry down is rather pleasant, though surviving that powerful longevity to get to the clean last act is too much of a challenge. Really, the initial burst and the workings of those middle notes just reminds me of cough syrup. Sorry, Miss Dior Cherie.

Extra: Dior’s had a lot of hits in the past. The original Miss Dior, Diorella, Poison. All of them to be respected. And a lot of people really love Miss Dior Cherie. I can see why. It’s a very sweet, very fun, extremely girly fragrance. But to me, it overdid the sweetness and the strawberry note was too candy-like. The fragrance itself didn’t dry down fast enough for my tastes and the dry down is really where I start to appreciate Miss Dior Cherie. Otherwise, she sits right at the start with that syrupy strawberry and remains one-dimensional for hours. Overall, Dior has had a lot of hits, a lot of great fragrances and Miss Dior Cherie, while popular and peppy and cute, is probably not one of my favorites.

Design: Lovely and simple bottle glass bottle with a metal bow attached to further add to the youth of this fragrance. It is overall, very nice, youthful, and trendy packaging. The sprayer works fine, the packaging is adorable. And the French commercial is one of the most fun-loving, uplifting perfume commercials I’ve seen. A very recognizable, in branding, fragrance.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Gourmand

Notes: Green tangerine, strawberry leaves, violet, pink jasmine, caramel popcorn, strawberry sorbet, patchouli, musk.

I admit, I’m probably not the target group for this. It seems like Miss Dior Cherie was made for women around my age or younger but they kind of missed me I suppose. I wanted to love this fragrance. Really, I did. But I think I’d like a more understated fragrance. Nevertheless, Miss Dior Cherie would be a wonderful hit for a teenager or younger woman who absolutely loves sweet scents.

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior Cherie, 2010, Eau de Parfum.