L’Occitane 4 Reines

L’Occitane’s fragrances are surprisingly good for a bath and body company. But L’Occitane’s offerings tend to be a bit more complex than stuff at Bath and Body Works. 4 Reines was one of the first fragrances I tried from L’Occitane and it was a very nice, modern rose composition.

4 Reines

4 Reines

In Bottle: Rose, rose, and more rose. There’s a bit of classic rose in this but 4 Reines mostly represents a very competent modern, clean rose.

Applied: Clean, bright, dewy rose that’s very young and very modern. There’s a big difference between a classic rose scent and a modern one. I suppose a review of 4 Reines is as good a place as any. A classic rose to me (or old fashioned rose) has more depth and more density to it. There’s this sense of complexity to it that tends toward a bit of powderiness. A modern rose–like this fragrance–is usually clean, crisp and fresh. It’s youthful and easier to like and a bit watered down but that helps make it easier to wear. I smell modern rose in almost everything these days and classic rose in increasingly smaller and smaller amounts. Anyway, 4 Reines smells like a full on modern rose. A very well done one too.

Extra: 4 Reines, true to its name as a fragrance that contains four rose scents was composed by Karine Dubreuil who also composed Gucci Envy Me and Just Cavalli Her.

Design: A nicely designed square glass bottle that looks pretty unassuming. It has a pretty 80s-esque label on it. The rest of the bottle looks just as unassuming with very frills or thrills. It’s just functional.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Rose, Turkish rose, Moroccan rose, Bulgarian rose.

It’s light, it’s clean, it’s dewy and if you love rose then you’ll love this. There’s little else in the fragrance for it to progress much. If you love a more classical rose, then 4 Reines might not be for you and I may suggest something a bit older like Guerlain’s Nahema.

Reviewed in This Post: 4 Reines, 2010, Eau de Toilette.


Donna Karan Pure DKNY

So here we go, Pure DKNY was slated to be one of the finalists for the 2011 FiFi Awards. Now, I don’t put too much weight into the FiFi awards as a means to determine “best” and “worst” as fragrance preferences differ a lot from person to person. But the FiFi’s certainly are a spectacle. But when Pure DKNY popped up in the ranks I set the spectacle aside for a bit and had to wonder why. Why Pure DKNY? There were other Luxe fragrances released this year that did things so much better.

Pure DKNY

In Bottle: Waifish is probably the best word I can come up for the in bottle experience. This is a light airy vanilla floral treatment that lacks body and personality.

Applied: Bit of creamy sweetness to open up with the vanilla note that quickly devolves into a floral breeze. There’s not enough words in the English dictionary to describe how light this fragrance is. It’s so light that there’s barely an opening, a mid-stage, and drydown. I got the impression of vanilla opening and there is vanilla there but it’s so fleeting and light that it might as well not be there–just like the rest of this fragrance. The mid-stage has a hint of jasmine, something rosy with that bed of vanilla and the drydown is a single burst of air from someone fanning a branch of sandalwood at you. Everything about Pure DKNY is light and waifish. It’s not just a delicate, quiet, little lily of a fragrance in the bottle but it’s also an invisible force on the skin.

Extra: The interesting part about Pure DKNY is the use of Ugandan vanilla which is sourced by a humanitarian organization called CARE that fights poverty. The CARE organization’s goals and visions are fantastic. This perfume is not quite so fabulous.

Design: Pure is bottled in a clear bottle with a clear liquid and the simple word, “Pure” written on the glass. It resembles a bottle of water and the design of the fragrance is fairly decent for what it is and definitely imparts the concept of “pure”.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Ugandan vanilla, flower petals, lotus, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, freesia, orchid, amber, sandalwood, vanilla.

Now I like light fragrances but Pure DKNY, for what it costs, should at least smell like something more than vague sweet flowers and vanilla. Make no mistake that while I’m not at all partial to Pure DKNY, I appreciate the humanitarian visions that CARE strives to achieve. Check them out, but skip this fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Pure DKNY, 2010, Eau de Parfum.


Jean Desprez Bal a Versailles

People hunt down bottles of Bal à Versailles to see what it smells like. I have to say some of these people probably do it because they’re curious about the perfume Michael Jackson wore. Hard to blame them for being curious, but amongst some of the more popular opinions include, “This doesn’t smell like how I’d imagine Michael Jackson would smell like” and “This smells weird”.

Bal à Versailles

In Bottle: It opens as an aromatic animalic. Love how that rolls off the tongue. Rosemary is prominent at first, followed by a very light dust of florals that are accompanied by a dark animalic undertone.

Applied: Get used to that dark animalic undertone as it will accompany you on your olfactory quest. The rosemary is quick to open up and for me, the rosemary stuck around in the top notes and fled as the mid-stage introduces a very classic smelling floral. Powder and flowers, sultry, dark, sensual. The florals are joined by a smooth series of woods that keep this fragrance somewhat unisex. This is a masquerade party in the form of a perfume. It’s classic, it’s sensual, but it’s not afraid to be elegant either. It’s a deeply complex little journey as the mid-stage slowly gets more and more sultry on entering the final round of its very interesting existence. The end stage is a mix of warm amber, smooth woods, and sensual musk.

Extra: Bal à Versailles was released in 1962 and ever since a certain King of Pop adopted it as one of his favorite perfumes, it has been known to many of his fans as, “That perfume Michael Jackson liked, but I don’t”. For the rest of us, Bal à Versailles is a beautiful piece of complex nose art.

Design: I like the shape of the bottle, very vintage looking. It’s beautifully designed and beautifully presented. I’m even okay with the Rococo-style painting on the bottle which at first glance seems out of place, but grew on me. It’s Rococo, how can I lose? For someone who doesn’t usually get on board with things like this, Bal à Versailles played just the right amount of right to make the design work. Not to mention the look of this bottle is so easy to recognize anywhere.

Fragrance Family: Oriental

Notes: Rosemary, orange blossom, mandarin orange, cassia, jasmine, rose, neroli, bergamot, bulgarian rose, lemon, sandalwood, patchouli, lilac, orris root, vetiver, ylang-ylang, lily-of-the-valley, tolu balsam, amber, musk, benzoin, civet, vanilla, cedar, resins.

Now, bear in mind that Bal à Versailles is not the most accessible fragrance out there in terms of going to a department store, slapping some money on the counter and saying, “I’ll have the usual, Tom”. I wish ordering perfume was like that. Anyway, Bal à Versailles is not as hard to find as one might think. It’s not everywhere like Britney Spears Fantasy, but it’s not squirreled away in an obscure niche like–heh–Bruce Willis Cologne either. You can easily find Bal à Versailles on discounter sites and some department stores. I recommend anyone interesting in fragrance to give it a sniff. And if you were wondering what one of Michael Jackson’s favorite perfumes smells like, well, there you go.

Reviewed in This Post: Bal à Versailles, 2003, Eau de Toilette.


Chanel Coco

Chanel Coco is resting near the top of my favorite Chanel perfumes list. This fragrance couldn’t be any further from its younger incarnation, the pink and bubbly Coco Mademoiselle.

Chanel Coco

In Bottle: Add in spice for warm, a wispy thread of flowers, and a delicately peeled citrus note. Coco smells warm right off the bat with a bit of citrus to clean it up.

Applied: Coco wastes no time just digging into this. It comes off spicy right away, throwing cinnamon and clove at you to warm itself up as the citrus and wispy flowers quickly give way to the midstage where we’re greeted with a delightfully clean, spicy, warm jasmine and rose complex. A lot of perfumes rely on jasmine and rose together but that never seems to make the combination any less beautiful–particularly when it’s used in such a fine tuned balanced such as in Coco. There is the smallest drop of civet in this during the later half of the midstage. The civet in Coco is so well done and well balanced. I don’t normally like it in perfumes but this civet blends really well with the overarching spicy cleanness that the note adds a depth and sensual feel to the fragrance without making it smell too harsh and alienating. The dry down is an equally spicy amber with a hint of sandalwood and a smooth layer of tonka.

Extra: Chanel Coco was released in 1984 and was composed by Chanel’s in house perfumer, Jacques Polge. It is a little sad to see that when you do a search for “Chanel Coco”, most of the results come back for Coco Mademoiselle.

Design: Like most of Chanel’s other widely popular fragrances, Coco comes in various packaging. If you go for the full service parfum concentration deal you get a glass rectangular bottle so often associated with No. 5. Coco’s bottle has a black seal band running around the neck and a black label.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Oriental

Notes: Angelica, mimosa, frangipani, mandarin, cascarilla, orange flower, Bulgarian rose, jasmine, labdanum, ambrette seed, opopanax, benzoin, tonka, vanilla.

Like with most Chanel fragrances, Coco lasts a very long, very impressive time. She’s a sophisticated lady and entirely wearable considering the era it came out in.

Reviewed in This Post: Coco, 2009, Eau de  Parfum.


Katy Perry Purr

Lovely. I get a little splodge of the most anticipated Purr by pin-up girl by day and pop star by night, Katy Perry, but I can’t get my hands on a vintage Chypre de Coty? Slap a sad face on me and let’s review Purr by Katy Perry.  Purr

In Bottle: Sweet peaches and a mix of florals that I’ve smelled pretty much everywhere by now. It’s a celebrity fragrance so I didn’t expect genius.

Applied: Initial flair of fruitiness up top. I get mostly peaches, sweet and ripe and big with a vaguely familiar synthetic apple note tossed in there with a tiny dash of tartness slathered with a thin coating of sweetness and dipped in a hint of creaminess. That creaminess sticks with the fragrance throughout its cycle. Now the peach in Purr isn’t grown up peach like Mitsouko. Actually, I can’t imagine why anyone would think they’d get any sort of Mitsouko out of Purr so I’m not even sure why I bothered to mention this in order to discern that no, you aren’t wearing this to meet the Queen. The peach in Purr is this is fuzzy peaches candy thing. Fun and girly and not at all serious. After a few minutes the fragrance takes its fruity opening and shifts into the midstage where you’re greeted by a banal blend of jasmine and gardenia. The sweetness is still lingering there. It’s a light sweetness though, not heavy and obnoxious but nothing to phone home about either. The mid-stage blandly shuffles along, smelling pleasant enough, and hits a rose note near the end of the mid-stage’s lifespan, falling headfirst into the very predictable sandalwood and vanilla base with traces of the mid-stage florals hanging about.

Extra: I don’t think Purr is anything to jump up for joy about as I didn’t expect much else from Katy Perry. Nothing to her as a person or a singer, this is just your run of the mill fruity floral celebuscent that hasn’t changed its formula since every other recent celebuscent. It’s an average fruity floral at best, with a variety of other fruity florals doing this tired fragrance genre much better justice. And as much as it pains me to say it, you’d probably get a better reaction scent from the Paris Hilton line. Me? I’ll wait and see what Lady Gaga does.

Design: Purr hasn’t been released where I live  yet so I haven’t handled the bottle, but I have seen photos of the bottle and I have to say it’s not my style. It really, really isn’t. The bottle  is in the shape of a purple cat with a heart hanging from its collar and jeweled eyes. You take the cat’s head off to gain access to the spraying mechanism as far as I can tell. I mean, it’s cute, but way beyond my demographic.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Peach, bamboo, apple, gardenia, jasmine, freesia, Bulgarian rose, vanilla orchid, white amber, sandalwood, skin musk, coconut.

Purr smells like so many different generic fragrances that I don’t think anyone should really bother with it if they’re looking for that sweet fruity floral. Unless you love Katy Perry’s work, her perfume is passable but highly uninteresting, and you are better off looking elsewhere for a fruity floral fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Purr, 2010, Eau de Parfum.


Kenzo Flower

Kenzo Flower is the fragrance that spawned many flankers. Though it’s not quite at the excess of Shalimar, it can be a bit difficult to navigate the Flower maze. This review focuses on the original Flower, inspired by the concept of what a poppy would smell like and released in 2000. Flower

In Bottle: Bright and green. Smells fresh with a predominant sweet rose and violet fragrance. This smells a bit dewy and definitely smells clean.

Applied: The bright green of Flower is a fleeting little thing. Upon initial spray, you still detect it. You can even still smell it for a few seconds on the skin but as soon as it starts to dry, Flower loses that brightness and greenness and takes on a more floral and powdery scent. It still smells clean but it’s less of a screaming fresh scent now. It’s more of a classy, powdery, rose affair with a nice sprinkling of sweet violets to further write it into the floral powder category. Flower smells very familiar to me because of the predominant powder and violet. After mulling it over a bit, I realized why it smelled familiar and cracked open my tin of Guerlain’s Meteorites (the makeup not the fragrance). Instant familiarity. These two smell similar due to the powder and violets. They are not the same scent and Flower is obviously much more complex. As it dries down the powder takes the rose with it while the violets hang about and stay sweet until completely disappearing.

Extra: Kenzo is a fragrance, skincare and fashion brand founded by Kenzo Takada. It was bought out by LVMH in 1993.

Design: Flower’s bottle has a modern and rather recognizable look. It’s tall, curved, clear glass with a flower drawn on it. The stem of the flower runs up the middle of the bottle and the flower is drawn onto the cap. There are three different versions for the three sizes. Each of them represent the different life stages of the poppy. Very cute, rather chic, lovely bottle. A bit difficult to hold but I can sacrifice function for something that looks this good.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Bulgarian rose, wild hawthorn, cassie, violets, opopanax, white musk, hedione, cyclosal.

You may have seen hedione mentioned a couple of times. It is a fragrance enhancing component, usually coupled with jasmine but can be used with a wide variety of other notes too.

Reviewed in This Post: Flower, 2009, Eau de Parfum.


Hugo Boss Boss Femme

Boss Femme is like the amalgamation of fresh floral women’s scents. It’s like Love Etc. in that it pretty much smells like a category of scents without too much to discern it from the rest. But in a way, that could also be where its success lies. Boss Femme

In Bottle: Floral with a hint of fruit. I’m smelling a bit of rose but there’s a stronger jasmine note in this that’s vying for attention. This smells flowery, clean and feminine. Very generic but entirely enjoyable.

Applied: Goes on with a light citrus and slightly tart opening as it spreads into the mid-stage with that pleasant, breezy rose and jasmine combination. There’s a faint hint of sweetness in this too to make it more feminine  than it already is. I like this, it’s nice. It’s not great. It’s not groundbreaking. It’s just plain old nice. As Boss Femme heads into the dry down, you get a little bit of smoothness wandering in as it mixes with the lemon and for a brief moment, I thought I smelled plastic but the dry down is a predominantly sharp lemon, layered with a bit of smoothness and soft wood. Boss Femme is just good, clean, nice, and no nonsense. Kind of like soap–except better.

Extra: I think I’ve said it before, that Hugo Boss seems to be really good at keeping their fragrances on the lowdown and less offensive side of things. And it works out okay for them. It’d be quite the day when this house puts out something so awesome it eclipses the sun. But for now we have nice things like Boss Femme and Deep Red.

Design: Boss femme is an interesting little glass bottle that’s slanted at the top part with a cap that slants down to cover that portion up. It’s an interesting little design decision that makes my need for everything to be straight twitch just a little bit. The name of the fragrance is written in cursive font on the glass. The bottle I used had “femme” running along the dip of the curve and the house name etched into the metal sprayer. The bottle is easy to hold though, has a good weightiness to it and the color of the juice is just adorable.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Tangerine, blackcurrant, freesia, jasmine, fleur de lys, Bulgarian rose, apricot, lemon, wood.

There was a woman who worked briefly for a doctor I used to go to who wore this scent. I remember her rather well–not so much for her perfume–but for how the smallest things could make her laugh.

Reviewed in This Post: Boss Femme, 2008, Eau de Parfum.