Bath and Body Works Twilight Woods

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Despite all these things I have with the word Twilight or related to the hour of twilight, I really do not have any affection for the popular book/movie phenomenon. Really. Though I can’t help but think that this fragrance, in particular was a well-timed release by Bath and Body Works to capitalize on the Twilight craze at the time. Twilight Woods

In Bottle: Warmth is what Twilight Woods is. It’s warmth first, vanilla second, and woodsy last. And that’s just from the bottle. This smells clean, sweet, comforting and quite competent.

Applied: Opens as a fruity vanilla woodsy scent and starts moving into creamy vanilla woods scent with the frangipani. Twilight Woods lingers in that area for a bit before the fruitiness comes back for an encore and bows out with a nice watery, sweet woodsy vanilla scent that’s very pleasant. This smells like a really good fragrance to cozy up next to fire to. It’s nice, pleasant, very smooth and creamy and has excellent longevity and moderately good projection.

Extra: This is probably my favorite fragrance from Bath and Body Works. They talked about this and P.S. I Love You being two of their ventures into more abstract fragrance. Before, Bath and Body Works had fairly simple to decipher fragrances that were fairly linear. I was partial to their Pink Grapefruit body mist.

Design: Cute bottle with a nicely detailed image of a tree laid over the glass so when you’re looking at the bottle on the right side, you get a very pretty looking design. The cap is also quite nice. The entire design is slick and functional and most of Bath and Body Works’ eau de toilettes now come in bottles shaped like this one. The sprayer is functional and works just fine.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Gourmand

Notes: Juicy berry, sparkling mandarin, coconut, creamy frangipani, soft mimosa, wet honeysuckle, wild freesia, apricot nectar, oud wood, skin musk captive, vanilla milk, and warm woods.

How do you like that notes list telling you what each  note is supposed to smell like? Frankly, I kind of like it but acknowledge its unnecessariness (it’s a word now).

Reviewed in This Post: Twilight Woods, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Avril Lavigne Black Star

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Black Star is Avril Lavigne’s first fragrance (well, one that’s named after her anyway) and it’s just about as unremarkable as I thought it would be. Though my initial hope for it, upon seeing the bottle was that it would be something more interesting. Black Star

In Bottle: Smelling citrus and juicy fruity notes. Blackcurrant, I’m thinking, with plum and something smooth, sweet and flowery. Maybe honeysuckle.

Applied: Plum and citrus up front with the citrus receding very quickly. Something in this smells of apple for about ten seconds. It’s a very recognizable and familiar apple note that I swear I’ve smelled before. But it was a very fleeting note. The rest of Black Star evolves into a nice, full fruity vanilla fragrance. Highly agreeable but very reminiscent of Love Etc. by The Body Shop. The difference between Black Star and Love Etc. is the underlying notes. Love Etc. was more tart. Black Star has this very sweet, smooth vanilla-like note warming up the fragrance and cutting the tartness. Black Star dries down to a nice, soft fruity scent.

Extra: One of the things you start to realize as you get more and more into fragrances is that the press releases are often full of flowery language that doesn’t mean anything. Black Star for instance is supposed to be unique and individual much like Avril Lavigne tries to be (on the outside anyway). But there’s nothing really new going on with this fragrance at all.

Design: The bottle is a bit silly looking to me, but I’m not the target audience for it. It’s contained in an interestingly shaped glass bottle with a plastic top that has spikes running the rim of the cap. You can take the spikes off and wear it was a ring. An uncomfortable ring. The sprayer I tried was fantastic. One of the nicest, most even distribution I’ve ever seen. I know the sprayers on every bottle tends to differ a little and I probably sound like a lunatic for raving over a sprayer nozzle but that’s just how I roll.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Plum, apple, lemon, hibiscus, honeysuckle, dark chocolate, vanilla.

The PR for this fragrance was pretty sparse with the notes, only disclosing three things. Hibiscus, plum, and dark chocolate. There’s obviously more at work in this than they’re letting on so I slapped some of what I think I’m smelling up there. By no means go with my list and honestly, who cares, form your own notes list. Be a rebel. Anyway, despite the advertising campaign insisting this is an edgy fragrance, it’s really not. It’s about as tame as it can get. You say edgy and I think of the nasal assault that is Secretions Magnifique, not Black Star. Black Star is just a very pretty, girly, young, fruity fragrance that bears a pretty striking resemblance to Love Etc.

Reviewed in This Post: Black Star, 2010, Eau de Parfum.

The Body Shop Love Etc.

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If I had to pick one fragrance that would be the very best example of fruity floral, it would have to be Love Etc. Typical smelling, yet it gets everything right about what a fruity floral is.  Love Etc. is a perfect, generic fragrance. But one that I believe is the “standard” for its genre. Love Etc

In Bottle: Bergamot with a layer of jasmine and a fine vanilla background to sweeten up the fragrance. There is some other note in there too. I’m going to hazard a guess and say it’s berries that I think I’m smelling over a nice tangy, citrusy scent.

Applied: Bergamot with a mix of jasmine and that perpetual very nice and just-sweet-enough vanilla. The fruits in this are a mixture of tart and sweet as they mix well with the florals to create a gentle fruity fragrance that’s not too sweet or too floral. Love Etc. is a fruit salad with a dollop of cream that cuts the tartness of the fruits. I’m no good at picking out fruit notes but the pear is in there with what I’m swearing is a vibrant berry-like scent. This fragrance is like an edible platter of fruits and flowers that develops into a soft, plush, vanilla and cream dry down. It’s highly wearable, very young, but also tasteful.

Extra: The Body Shop is a bath and body company. One of its most famous fragrances, still being made today, is White Musk. When I smell White Musk, I’m reminded of the 90s because it seemed like everyone was wearing it at the time.

Design: Love Etc. is bottled in a small, squarish glass container with a metal cap on top. I love the design, mostly for its function rather than its form. As a perfume bottle, it’s kind of plain but the price point agrees with the appearance. Love Etc.’s bottle is also small and compact enough to throw into a purse and go.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Bergamot, neroli, pear, berries, jasmine, heliotrope, muguet, vanilla, cream, sandalwood, musk.

Love Etc. is probably in the running to be The Body Shop’s popular everyday fragrance. It was released some time in 2009 and just reminds me of every other fruity floral I’ve smelled. The fact that it’s generic shouldn’t be taken as a bad thing. If anything, Love Etc. is the catch-all, “if you’re unsure then try this”, fruity floral.

Reviewed in This Post: Love Etc., 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Creed Virgin Island Water

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Creed’s one of those fragrance houses that always lands in the, “Meh, I don’t know” category when it comes to a full on purchase. They’re billed as a niche fragrance house. I like most of what they have to offer but I’m also turned away by the price and the fact that a percentage of the fragrances I’ve smelled from them tend to smell very similar to more affordable fragrances. Virgin Island Water suffers from this, “Oh, this is nice but it also smells like . . .” Virgin Island Water

In Bottle: Rummy coconut and crisp lime. The rum note is getting a lot of help from the alcohol base of Virgin Island Water, and making the scent a tad more authentic. Virgin Island Water is a clear, crisp, clean fragrance with a slightly floral, gingery treatment.

Applied: The rum is up front and center then steps aside for the coconut and lime. Many people have noted the similarity between Virgin Island Water and Bath and Body Works’ Coconut Lime Verbena. I don’t blame them, it was the first thing I thought when I smelled this too. But there’s subtle differences between the two. The most prominent one being that Coconut Lime Verbena is a much simpler fragrance with less boozy personality than Virgin Island Water. The latter has a crisper, greener lime note, a less aggressive coconut note and then there’s that rum which Coconut Lime Verbena lacks. In addition to the rum and the purity of the lime and coconut, Virgin Island Water also has an interesting evolution where its Bath and Body Works counterpart tends to stay one-dimensional. As the scent ages, the ginger comes up, spicing up the fragrance and giving it a more exotic feel. Hibiscus and jasmine also help separate Virgin Island Water and add sophistication to the scent as the dry down starts showing off a bit of flower power. The only thing I can’t say for Virgin Island Water is its lackluster staying power as I approached dry down within a few hours. At least dry down was beautiful as a crystal clear, rich coconut rum fragrance.

Extra: Creed is a fragrance house that began sometime in 1760 in London by James Henry Creed and is still run by the family today by Oliver Creed. There is some speculation as to some of their former clientele, but I’m not much of a Creed history buff nor does it affect the fact that I like the fragrances they put out so they’re doing something right because they have a lot of fans.

Design: Most Creed fragrances come in similar bottles. I have a sample vial straight from Creed itself that’s just a generic glass vial filled with the good stuff. There are glass flacons and spray bottles available that tend to look the same depending upon the fragrance gender. I’ve never held nor seen a Creed bottle in person so I cannot attest to the quality of the packaging. I can say that I’m not much of a fan of the pretty plain looking spray bottles but the splash flacons look elegant and functional.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Bergamot, lime, mandarin, coconut, copra, jasmine, hibiscus, ylang-ylang, ginger, tonkin, rum, sugar cane.

So it comes down to one question. Is it worth it to shell out the hundred-something bucks for a bottle of Virgin Island Water when most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the hundred dollar juice and the ten dollar juice from Bath and Body Works? Try them both out first. Perfume is a personal experience and not everyone’s nose can detect every note in a fragrance. If you can tell the difference between the two and like Virgin Island Water more, then buy it if you feel it’s worth it. If you can’t tell the difference and like them both just fine, it’s probably better to get Coconut Lime Verbena and save yourself quite a bit of money.

Reviewed in This Post: Virgin Island Water, 2010, Sample vial.