Annick Goutal Ninfeo Mio

Been a while since I’ve done an Annick Goutal fragrance. I actually really miss the often soft, feminine fragrances available in this line.

Ninfeo Mio

Ninfeo Mio

In Bottle: Citrus and herbal. A very fresh interpretation and very green and leafy smelling. Quite nice and really natural. Doesn’t smell like a perfume, but rather like the concept of a dewy citrus leaf.

Applied: Initial flare of tart citrus the orange and lemon in particular are noticeable. They give the opening a bit of a bite–in a good way. After the opening the fragrance takes on a pleasant fresh herb and green leafy scent with a nice woodsy undercurrent. As the scent ages, the greenness dominates and the woods come up a bit more. To me, this is a very refreshing scent. Almost like droplets of water pooling in a forest after a light shower. It’s quite agreeable and very beautiful.

Extra: Ninfeo Mio was released in 201o, was inspired by the gardens in Rome, and is still widely available.

Design: Bottle like most other Annick Goutal fragrances in a ribbed bottle and tied with a ribbon. Annick Goutal bottles are easily reusable in that you can unscrew the sprayer and refill the bottle. The design is nice and elegant, a little vintage and quite lovely.

Fragrance Family: Aromatic Woodsy

Notes: Citron, lemon, petitgrain, bitter orange, galbanum, lavender, lentisque, fig, wood, musk.

This is one of the herbal fragrances that I really like. I’m not a big fan of herbal scents usually but Ninfeo Mio is a lovely scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Ninfeo Mio, 2011, Eau de Parfum.


Annick Goutal Le Chevrefeuille

Le Chevrefeuille, like most of the Annick Goutal’s I’ve tried focus on a light, floral, pretty composition that captures the beauty of light and airy florals as a form of fragrance.

Le Chevrefeuille

Le Chevrefeuille

In Bottle: Soft honeysuckle with a green citrus composition backing it and a layering of deeper florals that remain mostly in the background.

Applied: Green floral and a bit of honeysuckle floating up at the beginning with a really lovely sweet and light floral treatment. This seems like a very nice fragrance to spray on and go about your day confident that your scent will enhance your natural scent as opposed to covering it up or overwhelming it. The honeysuckle and green fades a bit with a jasmine note floating up a bit. The jasmine and honeysuckle work very well together to form this really gorgeous green, sweet, light floral. The dry down is not much different from the midstage with a stronger jasmine note and a fading honeysuckle scent.

Extra: Le Chevrefeuille was released in 2002 and was composed by Isaelle Doyen (Annick Goutal’s Le Mimosa and Songes) and Camille Goutal (Annick Goutal’s Mandragore and Vanille Exquise).

Design: Designed in much the same way as other Annick Goutal fragrances. You’re looking at the feminine bottle above with the ribbed glass design and the gold cap with the cute ribbon and paper label. Cute, classic Annick Goutal design. Also one of the lesser seen perfume bottle designs where you can unscrew the nozzle and either refill the fragrance or use the bottle for something else.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Lemon, petit grain, honeysuckle, narcissus, green notes, jasmine.

I love Le Chevrefueille, it’s just the right amount of light, sweet, and floral that can work very well for all manner of situations and can even be an every day scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Le Chevrefeuille, 2005, Eau de Toilette.


Annick Goutal Songes

Songes is one of Annick Goutal’s widely popular and beloved fragrances. Every time I visit a particular perfume store where I live, and spot the Songes factice there I think to myself, “I really have to smell that sometime”. Then inexplicably, I put it off. But I’ve wrangled myself, got my act together, and finally tried her out.

Songes

Songes

In Bottle: Sweet fragipani with an undercurrent of jasmine powdery ylang ylang and a vanilla base. A rather interesting mix and quite sweet to boot.

Applied: Very sweet opening consisting mostly of fragipani and tiare. Both of these flowers having an inherent sweetness attributed to them. They make Songes come off as a bit too girly and sweet but if you wait her out a little the sweetness gets tamer though it never really goes away. But you get a mild powdery note that comes out in the mid-stage along with a gorgeous jasmine mingled with a vanilla base. Wait a while longer and Songes evolves into its end stage with a soft powdered vanilla scent. There’s something very pretty about Songes’ midstage and base, I can probably do without its very sweet opening but the opening gives way to a much better fragrance so in this case, I can deal with the opening because it’s honestly not that bad, so long as I can get to the middle and base.

Extra: Songes was created in 2005 by Isabelle Doyen. Doyen was behind other fragrances such as Annick Goutal’s Mandragore, Un Matin d’Orage, and Le Mimosa.

Design: Songes, like many Annick Goutal fragrances come bottled in a variety of ways. The most popular you’d see is the feminine ribbed glass flacon with the paper identifier and the ribbon tied around the bottle’s neck. If you wanted to pay a bit more for a premium design, you can get the beautiful round flacon with the adorable crescent moon cap.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Frangipani, tiare flower, jasmine, ylang-ylang, vanilla.

If nothing else, Songes is a competent fragrance that would be good for someone who enjoys sweet vanilla florals. And if you happen to be a lover of perfume bottles, the full-on round flacon would make a beautiful piece.

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


Annick Goutal Eau de Sud

Eau de Sud is a true, well done, citrus centered fragrance with a beautiful and interesting dry down. It was released in 1995 and is–unjustly–underrated. But if you do happen to be looking for a competent fresh citrus, look past the Light Blues and Versences and get yourself a bit of this stuff.  Eau de Sud

In Bottle: Herbal and grapefruity with fresh green notes. It’s a (refreshing and much needed) far cry from the citrus explosion of other perfumes based in this category.

Applied: Opens with a beautiful bouquet of herbal grapefruit greenness. The grapefruit used in this fragrance is a tart one, similar to Guerlain’s Aqua Allegoria Pamplelune. The mid-stage is punctuated with an odd but entirely pleasant saltiness as the grapefruit lingers back behind a pleasant mix of spicy peppermint, basil, thyme and lemon verbena. Eau de Sud’s relatively masculine composition might turn away a few more scent gender conscious ladies but it is a lovely fragrance that I think anyone can use because before it is masculine, it is fresh and classic smelling. You get the classic scent of this on the dry down where the fragrance takes a woodsy and herbal turn before falling off completely.

Extra: Eau de Sud’s more popular older sister, Eau d’Hadrien is a lighter more citrus-based fragrance.

Design: Eau de Sud is bottled in Annick Goutal’s iconic ribbed glass bottle with the lovely gold metal cap and an adorable gold ribbon that carries the fragrance’s name tag. It should be noted, if you happen to be interested in this kind of thing, that all of Annick Goutal’s ribbed glass bottles have removable sprayers. Though I would advise that you keep the sprayer on so long as there’s juice in the bottle as Annick Goutals are known to fade a bit quicker than other fragrances.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Aromatic

Notes: Bergamot, tangerine, grapefruit, key lime, verbena, peppermint, basil, patchouli, oakmoss, jasmine, vetiver.

You can get Annick Goutal fragrances in three different types of bottles. Not all of them are available in all bottle types but there is the square variety, the ribbed variety (shown above), and the butterfly bottle variety.

Reviewed in This Post: Eau de Sud, 2000, Eau de Toilette.


Annick Goutal Un Matin d’Orage

I don’t know why I keep chasing fragrances with that dreaded lemon note that goes all sharp and dominates fragrances all the time. It’s like I’ll hope that one day, my views will shift and all of a sudden the note will work on me or smell good to me. For now, Un Matin d’Orage is a lost cause thanks to the lemon that hates me. Un Matin d'Orage

In Bottle: Very nice, light and airy citrus-based fragrance with a pretty white floral bed and a touch of dry spiciness added in. Beautiful in the bottle, very easy to wear and quite nice on the nose. Especially given my recent brush with Sécrétions Magnifiques.

Applied: A fantastic dewy floral immediately rushes up. For a few seconds, this is one of the nicest and most pleasant florals I’ve ever smelled. So clean and clear and crisp and beautiful. The florals are accompanied by a series of green leafy notes. Then the lemon has to come in and ruin my day. It amps up like it usually does, flooding the entire fragrance field with its too sharp citrus that it destroys all other smells and I end up with something reminiscent of lemon cleaning solution once again. It’s very sad as the beautiful floral opener would have made a fantastic every day scent. The dry down sees the typical mellowing out of the lemon but it clings on until the bitter end when that gorgeous floral opening has gone to parts unknown and all that remains is this irritating lemon and a faint ozone note.

Extra: Un Matin d’Orage means Stormy Morning in French. It’s a fragrance made to invoke the crisp and fresh feel of a garden after the rain. Unfortunately for me and my arch nemisis, that stupid lemon note, this is less a garden after a rainstorm and more like a sharp crack of lightning.

Design: Un Matin d’Orage is packaged much the same way as other Annick Goutal fragrances. it is available in a ribbed bottle with gold lace that bears a paper sign with the fragrance’s name on it.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Magnolia, jasmine sambac, Sicilian lemon, champac, perilla leaves, ginger.

While Un Matin d’Orage’s opener is one of the most pleasant florals I’ve encountered yet, this fragrance doesn’t separate itself much from Annick Goutal’s other offerings. It’s nice, to be sure, but it’s not so unique as I would mourn the lemon ruining this fragrance on me.

Reviewed in This Post: Un Matin d’Orage, 2005, Eau de Toilette.


Annick Goutal Mandragore

The best thing about Annick Goutal fragrances for me is the fact that they all tend to have this lovely light, garden flowers type of smell. The kind of fragrances that take something mainstream and improve on it. Like Guerlain often did. Mandragore

In Bottle: Fresh bright citrus, cooling mint and a lovely sweet anise note. Very fresh, nice amount of citrus and thankfully, no presence of lemon as fresh scents do tend to use that note as a crutch. Mandragore gets its freshness from mints and other citrus instead which I am very grateful for.

Applied: Citrus, mint, herb and a lot of anise. I’m really impressed with the mint and other herbal notes in this. They’re crisp and green and extremely refreshing. The anise sweetens and spices up Mandragore quite a bit. The fragrance remains fresh and bright with gentle wafts of spiciness coming in and out as the fragrance ages on my skin. The citrus leaves the fragrance some time during the mid-stage but the freshness doesn’t suffer from it. Mandragore uses those herbal aromatic notes to freshen things up instead of citrus. I’m really impressed. The dry down is a great fresh herb and woodsy ending. Unfortunately, Mandragore doesn’t last a very long time and needs to be reapplied more often than other eau de parfums. But the scent is absolutely lovely.

Extra: Mandragore is one of Annick Goutal’s more popular fragrances and with good reason. It’s got enough freshness to be a fantastic office scent, is excellent for places where you might need your scent to go on light and it’s quite a good unisex scent too. That is, if you don’t mind or like the feminine bottle design.

Design: Bottled in the same way as other Annick Goutal fragrances, in a ribbed glass bottle with a gold ribbon tying the fragrances name to the bottle. Mandragore also comes in a butterfly bottle. These things are round glass bottle with a butterfly topper. Finally, Mandragore can be purchased in a square bottle. Which is just that, a square-shaped bottle with a metal cap. Standard look if you would prefer something a little simpler in design.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Aromatic

Notes: : Bergamot, star anise, peppermint, sage, ginger, black pepper, boxwood, mandrake powder, ciste roots, labdanum.

I really love the bottles Annick Goutal presents their fragrances in. Not simple but very elegant and classic in style. Lining these things up is a great past time if you’re insane like I am.

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


Annick Goutal Petite Cherie

Petite Cherie is one of the most popular offerings from Annick Goutal. It’s sweetness, it’s pink, it’s girly and feminine and young. And at the end of the day you’ll want to smell Petite Cherie to remind yourself that there’s still plenty of time and plenty of joy left in this world. Petite Cherie

In Bottle: Lovely sweet and clean. Petite Cherie is the classiest of the sugary scents. It’s a beautiful light pink sugar scent that’s reminiscent of other sweet fragrances such as Envy Me and Touch of Pink. What sets Petite Cherie apart from the other sweet scents is its clarity and quality.

Applied: Initial burst of pear and other sweet fruits followed quickly by a sugar sweet mid-stage that is very fast to usher in. Petite Cherie lays down the law in sugar clean territory. A territory I really wish makers of sugary sweet fragrances would explore more often. What if you want to smell like a candy and a bar of soap? Usually with sweet fragrances that are billed as clean, I get sweet, sticky and sharp. Petite Cherie is sweet, airy and freshly clean in a green and pink sort of way. It’s like a fruit juice, or a sparkling water with fruity flavors. The dry down is a pleasant pink rose with its lingering sweetness.

Extra: Annick Goutal fragrances tend to have a relatively shorter shelf life than other fragrance lines. Some might attribute this to the higher percentage of natural oils used in the fragrances. Others might venture to suggest that it’s sprayer mechanism not doing a good enough job at sealing the perfume in. Whatever the reason, if you’re going to get an Annick Goutal, be aware that it may not keep as well as other perfumes. This does not mean that it’s inferior, however, just composed a different way.

Design: Bottled in that same lovely iconic Annick Goutal ribbed glass bottle, Petite Cherie shares the same gold ribbon label look as other fragrances in this line. Petite Cherie is also available in an adorable butterfly-style bottle.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Fruit

Notes: Pear, peach, rose musk, cut grass, vanilla.

I find this fragrance to be a very nice sweet clean scent. But I am still looking out for perfumes that aren’t at all sweet. I think my sweet tooth has finally had enough and wants something sweet with more complexity. This is just a beautifully done but rather simple scent that I would pick over any mainstream sweet fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Petite Cherie, 2008, Eau de Parfum.


Annick Goutal Gardenia Passion

I suppose spring is coming to my nose, that means breaking out the florals and readying the fresh for summer. Gardenia has a sweet fragrance with that similar greenness to it that I notice in a lot of flowers. To me, it’s a crisp, young reminder of warming temperatures and budding leaves. Then you have Annick Goutal’s Gardenia Passion, the fragrance with the deceptive name. Gardenia Passion

In Bottle: Gardenia Passion is tuberose. Predominantly tuberose. So tuberose, in fact, that in the bottle I smell nothing but tuberose. Tuberose, tuberose, tuberose. This is so tuberose in the bottle that it beats out By Kilian’s Beyond Love. Though it lacks the finesse and gentle greenness of Beyond Love.

Applied: Strange sour, almost vinegar-like, note upon spray that lingers for a few minutes after application. That sour note is mixing with the sweetness in this fragrance and the powerful hit of tuberose. This makes for a pretty wickedly strange blend of sweet and sour florals. The sourness does go away eventually, letting tuberose shine through. I’m searching the murky waters of Gardenia Passion for its namesake but aside from that sweetness–which could be from the tuberose too–there’s not a whole lot of it to be had. I feel a little cheesed, honestly, because a fragrance named for gardenia should either have gardenia in it or at least have notes that illustrate the concept of gardenia. With the way this is going, it should have been called Tuberose Passion. Or Tuberose to Eternity. Nothing wrong with tuberose, just, where’s the gardenia? I get no mention of that elusive gardenia on dry down either. It’s just lighter tuberose with a vegetal background.

Extra: Now, I like tuberose. I think it’s an interesting blend of screech and whisper. Tuberose is a sweet, almost tropical scent. Sometimes, people mispronounce its name saying, “toober-rose“. It is actually, “toob-rose“. As for Annick Goutal, the company was started in 1980 by Annick Goutal and had a skin cream line prior to branching off into fragrances.

Design: Placed in a beautifully textured bottle with a ribbon tied to the neck. From that ribbon dangles a paper label with the name of the fragrance and house on it. The cap is colored gold, very lightweight, but comes off the sprayer nozzle very smoothly. The sprayer works just fine.

Fragrance Family: Soliflore

Notes: Orange blossom, tuberose, jasmine, gardenia, herbs.

It’s almost funny that this should be a soliflore, given the fact that its focus is on the wrong flower. But maybe that was the point. Maybe I’m just smell blind to whatever gardenia was used in this fragrance. Maybe I’m just nuts about tuberose and it is the only flower I will ever smell again.

Reviewed in This Post: Gardenia Passion, 2010, Eau de Parfum.