Coach Poppy Flower

Coach Poppy Flower is a flanker to Poppy. It’s supposed to put a more floral spin on the original fragrance. Not sure what else they want out of the original Poppy because that one was fairly floral to me. Ah well, we’ll see.

Poppy Flower

Poppy Flower

In Bottle: Fresh, juicy flowers with a lot of water lily representation.

Applied: Sadly I’m smelling predominantly water lily from the starting point. I get a bit of citrus and the other sweet fruity things in this, but I suppose this is how you can go about making an already floral fragrance even more floral. The water lily gives me a bit of a headache as it seems particularly potent in this fragrance. The rest of the florals are giving up a good fight to help overwhelm or tame the water lily but I think that initial whiff blasted whatever chance the rest of the notes in this had for me. I really just get a lot of water lily with a little bit of jasmine and rose layered in there for good measure. As the fragrance ages, the peony comes up a bit more and given my previous association with peony, I don’t think that’s a good thing. Poppy Flower smells watery to me, kind of like a flower water mix and it isn’t very good, but it’s not horrendous. I wouldn’t venture to say this is okay, it’s just not too bad.

Extra: Coach Poppy Flower is marketed as fashionable, chic, and flirty. I have to admit, that despite being bombarded by marketing that claims something is flirty, I have yet to truly understand what that means in a marketing perspective and the word has been thrown about so much that it’s lost all meaning to me. What I do know about flirtiness is that I get nothing of the sort from Poppy Flower.

Design: Similar shape and style to that of Poppy, only it’s interpreted as purple and silver this time. I still don’t like the bottle, but the handwritten affect they used on the packaging is still fitting and aesthetically pleasing in its own way.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Citrus, black currant, raspberry, litchi, apricot, ivy, water lily, rose, jasmine, peony, sandalwood, musk, amber.

Coach Poppy Flower is available in EDP format and also comes in a body lotion if that kind of thing floats your boat. Me, I’m not personally a fan of this fragrance and actually prefer Poppy.

Reviewed in This Post: Poppy Flower,  2011, Eau de Parfum.


Coach Poppy

In some ways Coach’s progression from its beautiful, durable, everlasting classic bags to the monogram chic bags reflects the direction of the perfume industry. Both things were once lovingly crafted objects made with fine materials have been reduced to faster, larger, and cheaper. So I found it rather funny to be reviewing Poppy, the fragrance from Coach and named in similarity to Coach’s youthful line of bags that feature vibrant colors and–of course–the Coach monogram.

Poppy

Poppy

In Bottle: Smells like a dime-a-dozen candy floral fragrance. Not bad, not too exciting. It hits me right away with the mandarin note and wastes no time digging into the marshmallow.

Applied: Mandarin up top followed quickly by the clean, crisp tones of cucumber. Freesia and the other florals are present in the first minute of the opening and the fragrance evolves more into its floral candy-coated personality near the mid-stage with that marshmallow vanilla thing they did. Poppy settles into its floral candy self for the majority of the rest of the fragrance as the wood notes make themselves known near the very end and in a very faint way.

Extra: I used to be something of a Coach fan and was ecstatic to receive a Coach Wilson bag from the 90s. These days, Coach’s bags don’t interest me too much. I don’t see the appeal of the Poppy line at all and I don’t see the appeal of the Poppy fragrance either, unfortunately. It’s probably another one of those instances where my tastes clash with the company’s aim. But Poppy is like a generic perfume for which I can name several alternatives. If you do need an actual recommendation, the perfume community likens this to Britney Spears’ Fantasy. I can see the connection between the two, especially when the fragrance hits its mid-stage. If you want a personal alternative recommendation, try smelling Bath and Body Works’ Be Enchanted that has a similar progression from refreshing to sweet.

Design: I do like the bottle and feel that scribbly the monogramed look of the Poppy line works rather well for this fragrance and what it’s trying to be. It’s cute and functional and simple. It’s clearly marketed towards girliness and people who like that sort of thing. So in terms of looks, Poppy’s got it down.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Mandarin, cucumber, freesia, jasmine, gardenia, water lily, rose, sugar, marshmallow, sandalwood, vanilla, cedar.

A big disappointment in terms of uniqueness but Poppy, like pretty much everything else similar to it works well if you’re into the sweet and flowery fragrances. You can, however, get more affordable fragrances that have a similar aim for the amount that Poppy costs if your chief concern was how it smells.

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