Victoria’s Secret Love Bitten

I was actually attracted to this because of the packaging. Something about lace makes me feel better. One of those odd character quirks I have, I guess.

Love Bitten

Love Bitten

In Bottle: Apples with a clean soft white musk and a load of woods.

Applied: Pretty much what I got in bottle, I got on my skin. It smells of apples and clean musk and wood. It’s like a basket of apples sitting next to a pile of wood. But this isn’t a great apple note as there’s nothing authentic to how these apples smell. These are artificial apples, the flavoring kind you get from a Jolly Rancher candy and not like an actual apple that you pick in an orchard. It’s serviceable though and it works well with the two notes it was paired with. The woods give the apple in this a more grownup feel as plain old fake apple fragrances to tend to project an air of carefree youth and candy. I don’t dislike this, but I also don’t like it. It’s certainly not one of the best apples I’ve smelled, but it’s a pretty good scent if you can work your way around the fake apple.

Extra: Love Bitten is a member of Victoria’s Secret’s Attractions Collection. It was released in 2011 and is no longer available because Victoria’s Secret–like Bath and Body Works–has this terrible habit where they introduce a fragrance, get a bunch of people hooked, then pull the stuff off the market.

Design: The lace was what drew me to the fragrance. I can’t help it. I love lace. The design itself is pretty good. The lace looks a bit out of place on the bottle at times, but it is eye-catching and effective in that sense. The bottle itself is pretty standard size and shape. It’s easy enough to hold and pretty good for a body mist.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Woods

Notes: Apple, woods, white musk.

Love Bitten, while it was still sold by Victoria’s Secret, had an entire line of body care items in addition to the body mist. If you’re still interested in Love Bitten, it’s available on eBay and through resellers on Amazon.

Reviewed in This Post: Love Bitten, 2011, Body Mist.


Victoria’s Secret Vanilla Lace

Vanilla Lace is one of those fragrances that was discontinued for hazy reasons and recently brought back to the glee of its fans. The name for this one was what drew me to it. It reminded me of Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab’s discontinued, Antique Lace.

Vanilla Lace

Vanilla Lace

In Bottle: Soft, yielding and sweet vanilla.

Applied: There isn’t much to say about Vanilla Lace except that it smells like clean vanilla. It’s obviously a more synthetic vanilla that lacks in spices, but the note is a better build than most synthetic vanilla’s used in fragrances, if only slightly. It’s not overpowering, has a gentleness to it and that helps take away from the synthetic edge it has. When I say a vanilla is synthetic, I usually mean that to my nose, I get a bit of plastic scent with the vanilla. The note is very sweet, so it’s helpful to include it with a clean white musk to cut the sugar. In the end, Vanilla Lace is a nice clean and sweet fragrance. Good for everyday wear, but not what you want to look for if you want sophisticated vanilla.

Extra: Vanilla Lace has been discontinued and re-released a lot. It was recently brought back and is now available on the Victoria’s Secret website or in any Victoria’s Secret store that carries fragrances.

Design: Bottled rather simply in a plastic spray bottle. I’ve always been somewhat impressed by Victoria’s Secret’s plastic bottles. They’re thick, a pleasure to hold, and they have a bit of weight to them. But in the end, it’s still plastic and the body mist is obviously meant to be used up rather quickly.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Vanilla, white musk.

Vanilla Lace’s Body Mist also boasts some amount of chamomile and aloe vera for moisturizing and nourishing your skin. The two moisturizing ingredients are too lightly scented to really be picked up to my nose.

Reviewed in This Post: Vanilla Lace, 2012, Body Mist.


Victoria’s Secret Vixen

Vixen was released earlier in 2011. I’m not sure if there was much fanfare over this one because I had no idea it even existed until I happened upon it in the store.

Vixen

Vixen

In Bottle: Really sweet, very syrupy apple fragrance mixed with an equally sweet floral scent and a lot of vanilla. It’s already cloying.

Applied: Extremely sweet apple note on the opening that’s also trying to be a bit sour at the same time. It’s not coming through very well as an apple fragrance because it just smells like that synthetic apple stuff that I usually get in fragrances like this. The sweetness only amps up as the florals and the vanilla roll in to give the fragrance a bit of a flowery gourmand personality that does nothing to make this seem less generic. The fragrance was already cloying from the first get go and it doesn’t get any better when it reaches the base either. All that’s at the base is a sweet vanilla bean fragrance.

Extra: So Vixen’s not very original or unique. She smells like any other apple-based fragrance out there. If you want an apple scent, this is good. You can also try DKNY Be Delicious, CB I Hate Perfume Gathering Apples, and Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab Delirium. Heck, if you want an even simpler apple scent that focuses more on the note, get the double body mist from Victoria’s Secret called Appletini.

Design: Vixen comes with a balloon pump to add a sense of vintage to the fragrance. The one thing I noticed is the familiar shape. Reminds me a lot of a classic Guerlain Shalimar bottle except with a bit of a garish color scheme. The balloon pump does give the bottle a classic sort of look. But I can’t get over how much the shape of the bottle echos classic Shalimar.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Apple blossom, freesia, vanilla.

Not very interested in this. Mostly because it smells like so much that’s already out there. It’s a very sweet apple scent, and that’s about all I can really say about this one. I mean, it does smell good but it’s way too sugary for me.

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


Victoria’s Secret Pear Glace

Pear Glacé is like a strange little nugget from my younger years. It was the thing that convinced me I didn’t much like pear scents way back when this fragrance was still being sold by Victoria’s Secret. Even thenl, I thought this was too sweet. So why not uncap and dust off the old body mist and see if my mind has changed?

Pear Glace

Pear Glace

In Bottle: Sweet pear with a slight herbal quality to it.

Applied: Extremely sweet pear opening that’s reminiscent of cough syrup for children. There’s a hint of violet in this, further sweetening the scent as well as imparting a slight powderiness as well. The pear gets extremely sweet as the fragrance wears on to the point that it reaches cloying levels. This just takes me back to the time when I first tried this and decided it wasn’t for me. Evidently, it still isn’t for me though I am amazed the fragrance seems to have held up well over the years considering it’s a synthetic fruit-based fragrance, and a body mist that’s contained in an unsealed plastic bottle. Granted, I could be remembering the fragrance wrong as well but it seems to me like this was exactly what it did before. Anyway, the pear scent sticks with the fragrance as it ages but the longer I wear this, the more that cassis and violet thing gets stronger and stronger, imparting more sweet herbal scent. At this point I’m thinking the cassis used in this is the leaf as opposed to the berry since I’m getting that herbal quality as opposed to a currant-like scent. Whatever it’s doing and whatever is making this smell herbal, I am not much of a fan. The fragrance ends up with a less sweet finish but with a still present herbal fragrance.

Extra: Granted, perfumes (and body mists) can do some strange things when they go off but I think this was actually how Pear Glacé smelled years ago. I wonder if I’m just imagining that herbal note or if something in this stuff actually went off. The one thing I do remember of this scent was the cloying pear and how much it reminded me of cough syrup. In either case, Pear Glacé has since been discontinued by Victoria’s Secret but is still available for purchase online from fragrance discounters, eBay, and third-party sellers on Amazon.

Design: The bottle for this doesn’t differ much from other Victoria’s Secret body mists–I’m sure the perfume is bottled in a similar fashion as well. The bottle I actually have is considerably older. It’s a plastic bottle with a plastic sprayer nozzle. It works for what it is, there’s nothing really fancy about it.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Pear, cassis, violet.

So I’m apparently still not a fan of Pear Glacé though this fragrance tends to polarize people and I seem to be the only person who thinks it smells a little herbal. Tell me I’m not crazy, or am I?

Reviewed in This Post: Pear Glacé, ~2000, Eau de Parfum.


Victoria’s Secret Bombshell

Bombshell is one of those runaway success stories of fragrance that has all the right components. Relatively affordable, accessible, and easy to love.

Bombshell

Bombshell

In Bottle: Fresh and clean with a little bit of fruity. Smells like fruity shampoo which is pretty much a goldmine when it comes to mass appeal.

Applied: I’m a little frustrated with the notes in this one because while Bombshell does smell generic, it hits that ‘just right’ sweet spot where something can smell generic but be great at the same time. This fragrance can easily go with me on whatever occasion because it just smells clean, fresh and a little bit fruity. It’s the just stepped out of the shower fragrance with it’s opening of fruity cleanness. I’m getting more than just passion fruit in this. There’s a bit of something citrus-like that I want to say is a sweet grapefruit note or a mandarin note and a bunch of other fruits that I can’t even begin to pick out. It’s nicely blended together, at least. If you let it get into the mid-stage the fruity opening turns into a soft, clean floral with a hint of vanilla. Let it dry down and you get less florals and more vanilla. It’s so straightforward and simple and uniform that it’s hard not to like this because it is what it is–your standard shampoo-smelling perfume, but the thing with Bombshell is that it does this shampoo smell so well.

Extra: Bombshell was the 2011 winner in the Consumer’s Choice category at the FiFi awards. I can see why this fragrance is so popular as it’s simply easy to love.

Design: Dressed in pink with a ribbon even. Bombshell has a pleasing enough shape though the look of her isn’t ultra luxurious, her design gets the job done. The stripes on the bottle can be a bit much but she’s a lovely bottle, very easy to hold, and equally easy to use.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Passion fruit, peony, vanilla orchid.

While I do like Bombshell a great deal, I don’t know if it was award worthy. This kind of fragrance is incredibly pedestrian but you can’t argue with the fact that it’s widespread appeal is the direct result of it being so generic.

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


Victoria’s Secret Dream Angels Heavenly

Dream Angels Heavenly is one of the staples of the mass market perfume industry aimed at younger women and teenagers. It’s a painfully easy to love and simple fragrance.

Dream Angels Heavenly

In Bottle: Cleaned up florals with a hint of scrubbed vanilla settling in the background.

Applied: I’ll commend Dream Angels Heavenly for introducing the powdery element that seems to mingle in with the sandalwood. It gives this fragrance a bit of a boost in terms of sophistication. The fragrance itself is a clean floral opener with a sweet streak. The scent heads into powder territory shortly after the top notes as it settles into a clean flowering mid-stage that isn’t complex, unique or special. But it works for how simple it is. There’s wafts of that crazy little vanilla to my nose, an the vanilla becomes more evident when the scent starts to dry down as sandalwood and vanilla take over the show and Dream Angels Heavenly ends up drying down like most fragrances geared toward the young women fragrance lovers of the world.

Extra: Settling itself into the very comfortable demographic that it did, Dream Angels Heavenly carves a nice spot for itself in the market. It’s a mid to low-range fragrance with a 1 oz. bottle running you for $42 USD. Not bad for generic-smelling stuff.

Design: The bottle I’m not a fan of. It’s just a glass bottle with a feminine silhouette. I see the bottle for this stuff and the first thing I think of is shampoo. It’s a well-designed bottle that’s easy to hold and use but I just can’t convince myself that this looks good or interesting.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Peony, sandalwood, vanilla, white musk.

It should be noted that if you don’t like this version of Dream Angels, Victoria’s Secret has several iterations that come out every year with many being discontinued. So if you find a Dream Angels you like, snap it up with the knowledge that it may get discontinued.

Reviewed in This Post: Dream Angels Heavenly, 2010, Eau de Parfum.


Victoria’s Secret Pink

Point your nose anywhere and you’ll probably catch a whiff of this. Anywhere that a Victoria’s Secret store can be found anyway. Pink is one of those extremely lovable, innocent fragrances that’s so easy to like that it seems like you can smell it everywhere.

Victoria's Secret Pink

In Bottle: Bright and fruity floral. Sweet, obviously, and very easy to like. This isn’t too heavy, not too sweet, not to overbearing, just a really jovial blend that casts a little ray of sunshine on your nose.

Applied: So I was a little vague on the opener, that was because there’s nothing much about Pink that  really sets it aside from other fruity florals. The one thing I can say for it is how optimistic this smells. Like if you were to bottle the feeling of optimism, this is probably what it smells like to me. It’s a big flare of sweet citrus, crisp grapefruit layered sweet berries and soft violets and a pretty mix of freesia and peony in the middle. If you’ve smelled a fruity floral, Pink is a good reminder of that. The fragrance dries down to a very familiar sandalwood vanilla with a hint of clean vetiver in there to give the scent a really minor dot of sweet hay.

Extra: Pink has a lot of flankers named after it including Pink Sweet & Flirty, Pink Fresh & Clean, Pink Pretty & Pure, and Pink Soft & Dreamy. If you need it, there’s probably a flanker for it.

Design: Pink’s design reminds me of cheerleaders. Big bold letters, white on pink. Even the smell is something I’d imagine a high school cheerleader would favor. The design is a functional, if somewhat uninspired, shape.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Artemisia, bergamot, green leaves, mandarin, violet leaves, juniper berry, lily of the valley, freesia, peony, neroli, musk, vetiver, sandalwood, vanilla.

I’m not a big fan of Pink myself. The scent is just fine, of course, very nice actually. It’s just so generic. Though I suppose that might be part of its charm.

Reviewed in This Post: Pink, 2009, Eau de Toilette.


Victoria’s Secret Coconut Craze

Coconut Craze is another one of those Beauty Rush 2-in-1 moisturizer and body mist combos from Victoria’s Secret. Its application and concept is in the same ballpark area as Plumdrop and Appletini.

Coconut Craze

In Bottle: That coconut note that I complain tends to smell sour. I smell it in this and aside from a very noisy vanilla note, that’s just about all I can get.

Applied: Goes on very light and sheer. The scent is strongly coconut and sweet vanilla with the coconut possessing that slightly sour quality to it that meshes rather poorly with how sweet this fragrance is trying to be. The fragrance ages on the skin but never really loses its coconut note which clings rather impressively. This is a sweet, girly, very simple body mist. The fragrance smells very similar to Bath and Body Works’ Coconut Vanilla fragrance. Not all that surprising, considering both of these operate on the same coconut and vanilla formula. Overall, not bad, but the sour coconut note drags the fragrance down a few notches. Longevity on me was surprisingly good.

Extra: So another coconut based note strikes out in the books. I wish I knew how they made coconut in some fragrances smell convincing while coconut in others just smells sour and synthetic.

Design: Coconut Craze is bottled in the same way as Plumdrop and Appletini. The only difference seems to be the name on the label and the juice inside being a pleasant white color. Almost looks like milk.

Fragrance Family: Gourmand

Notes: Coconut, vanilla.

I really do love Victoria’s Secret’s double body mists. Getting two things done at once and smelling nice? Aces in my book. As for Coconut Craze, it is decent for what it is. If you don’t have the, “Argh! Sour coconut” curse that I do, this is an affordable, nice-smelling coconut and vanilla fragrance and moisturizer.

Reviewed in This Post: Coconut Craze, 2010, Body Mist.


Victoria’s Secret Amber Romance

Amber Romance is a part of Victoria’s Secret’s Secret Garden Collection of which Love Spell is a member. Most of the fragrances are relatively simple, with some minor complexity but if you want complexity, you’ll likely have to look elsewhere. Of all the Secret Garden scents, Amber Romance is probably my favorite. Amber Romance

In Bottle: Creamy vanilla flowers with a hint of fruity, licorice-like cherry sitting on top. This stuff is sweet, strong and very familiar.

Applied: Blast of something over-sweet and fruity right up front that is quick to fade as the flowers and some smoother, rounder, creamier fruits take up the mid-stage with the florals being dead center. The vanilla is ever present, lending a nice sweetness to the whole scent and into the dry down the vanilla gets a bit more cakey and sugary when the florals recede. This stuff reminds me a lot of Chanel Allure and Fruits and Passion Orchid. Mostly because these three fragrances are sort of built on the same floral vanilla principle. Chanel Allure has a hand above Amber Romance for being a much more complex scent with a better blend. It also tends to last longer with a nicely tempered projection as well, whereas Amber Romance goes on loud, then settles down and disappears much quicker. I prefer Amber Romance to Fruits and Passion Orchid, however, as Amber Romance’s dry down does not involve the slightly strange powdery plastic that I detected in Orchid. The dry down to Amber Romance is a pleasant soft wood and vanilla without a whole lot of fanfare.

Extra: Like most members of the Secret Garden collection, Amber Romance has a number of other products available so you can layer your scent and make it last longer. There’s lotion, body mist, shower gels, body creams, body butters, hand sanitizers, and of course the eau de toilette featured in this post.

Design: Amber Romance is packaged in the same way as Love Spell. An unassuming small glass cylinder bottle with a spray nozzle and a metal cap. The fragrance’s name and other identifying markers are presented on a clear sticker applied to the bottle. The rest of the information is on a sticker applied to the bottom of the bottle. No fancy tricks, no fancy shapes, just simple and easy.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Black cherry, crème anglaise, vanilla and sandalwood.

Amber Romance is a remarkably powerful scent for what it is, and if you plan on getting some of this stuff, keep that in mind. If you’re not a fan of strong scents, definitely opt for the body mist over the eau de toilette or ease up on the trigger finger. It’s powerful stuff.

Reviewed in This Post: Amber Romance, 2009, Eau de Toilette.


Victoria’s Secret Delicate Petals

Victoria’s Secret has a line of fragrances based off of a garden of flowers type of motif. Their first fragrance that I reviewed in this blog was Love Spell, a confusing conundrum of a fragrance that reminded me of sweet herbs and slippery banana. Love Spell, it should be noted, was my least favorite of the Secret Garden scents. Delicate Petals, on the other hand, I love. Delicate Petals

In Bottle: I am a big fan of roses and rose-based perfumes (when done well of course) and Delicate Petals is a cute, sweet, light take on the celebrated rose. In the middle it is a light, mildly citrus rose fragrance. Not a classic rose, but a very nice one all the same.

Applied: Yep, cute, sweet and rosey. This is no where near Guerlain’s Nahema rose with its dense, rich, dark complexity. Delicate Petals is–well, delicate. It opens with a slight citrus to clear the area and sort of impart a clearing of the slate before the rose comes up pretty much immediately. There’s very little complexity to this scent as I mentioned as most of it is heavily relying on the rose to do its job. It’s the kind of rose you would find in a pleasant soap. A modern and cute rose that won’t offend anyone and smells good in a variety of situations. When Delicate Petals dries down, I’m left with very little as the fragrance just seems to drop off entirely with a very sheer (or non-existent) base note.

Extra: Delicate Petals has been likened often to Stella by Stella McCartney, but once again, I have to give the prize to Stella because she’s just a little more complex. As for me, I’d say Delicate Petals resembles Juliette Has a Gyn’s Lady Vengeance a bit more. It’s the same clean, fresh, cute rose concept. Though Lady Vengeance has a smooth, soapy quality to it that I prefer.

Design: Delicate Petals is bottled in the same way as Love Spell and the other eau de toilettes in Victoria’s Secret’s Secret Garden line. That enough secrets for you? It’s a relatively simple glass cylinder with a clear label depicting an appropriate flower and the fragrance’s name as well as Victoria’s Secret on it. You will find the perfume’s identification stamp (and lot serials) on a sticker on the bottom of the bottle. The cap is a metal and is usually gold.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Tangerine, velvet rose, musk.

I do get tired of rose fragrances eventually and as a result can’t keep wearing rose scents day after day. It’s strange, like rose is one of those now and then treats and if I use it too often I get bloated and sick of it for a while. But Delicate Petals helps assuage this a little as it’s so light and clean and plain old peppy!

Reviewed in This Post: Delicate Petals, 2009, Eau de Toilette.