Guerlain Cruel Gardenia

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More hits from Guerlain’s exclusive and prestigious l’Art et la Matière line. Cruel Gardenia is one of those gardenia scents that reminds me of Annick Goutal’s Gardenia Passion in that if there is any gardenia in this, I am not smelling it.  Cruel Gardenia

In Bottle: Pretty enough, lightly floral and creamy with slightly powdered underbelly. It smells girly and pretty and delicate like a single flower. That flower isn’t gardenia though.

Applied: After the first application Cruel Gardenia starts to sink into my skin and proceed to disappear without fanfare. Odd experience for me as the first waves of understated fruity florally goodness give way to an airy violets and sweetness floral heart rotating around a lilting vaporous muskiness. Oh, hi, tuberose. I see you’re in on this too. How are you doing? See, Cruel Gardenia is not so much a fragrance about Gardenia as it is dedicated to breezy, clean and girly florals that focus around being pretty to sort of steer me away from the fact that if there’s gardenia in this then there’s very little of it. The fragrance dries down to a pleasant enough lightly floral, creamy but unsweetened dry vanilla.

Extra: The crowd’s still out on the best blended gardenia fragrance but I’m going to have to pass on Cruel Gardenia. There’s not enough in there to really justify this. Certainly not for the price anyway.

Design: Bottled much the same way as Tonka Imperiale, Cruel Gardenia is encased in a lovely rectangular glass bottle and comes with a regular sprayer and a pump atomizer. And like Tonka Imperiale and Spiritueuse Double Vanille, once you install the sprayers onto these bottles you can’t refit them into their original boxes. I am still peeved about that, yes.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Peach, damask rose, neroli, violet, ylang-ylang, white musk, tonka, vanilla,  sandalwood.

Maybe I’m being a bit harsh on these non-gardenia gardenia fragrances but I feel like I’ve been led on a wild goose chase. On the other hand, if you want to buy some fantastic, pure gardenia essential oil, Enfleurage’s looks mighty tempting.

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

Montale Soleil de Capri

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It’s a testament to how lovely Soleil de Capri is when I applied this and found it smelled so nice I had to stick my nose so close to the application site that I got some on my lips–then in my mouth. And before I knew it, I was swallowing the stuff and found it didn’t taste bad at all. Yeah, I’m a goof. But when a perfume tastes not bad and smells wonderful, you know it’s a keeper. Soleil de Capri

In Bottle: Light, sweetly floral and soapy scent with a very pleasant clean and clearness that I’m thinking might be white musk.

Applied: Lovely, clean and fresh and clear juicy, crisp citrus and clean white florals backed by a beautiful faintly sweet white musk. The scent sticks close to my skin. That’s how the little accident with me tasting this happened, you see. And you know what? It tastes like soap. Not at all unpleasant, though I wouldn’t recommend eating this all the same. The citrus stays around a bit but dissolves into the florals and white musk giving this a faintly soap scent. It dries down into a nice sheer musk. Soleil de Capri is lovely for sure, versatile for every day wear situations, not adventurous but manages to be beautiful just the same.

Extra: Sadly this isn’t the first time I’ve accidentally eaten or tasted my perfume. And funny enough, Soleil de Capri was the least offensive of the ones I’ve accidentally tasted.

Design: Bottled in much the same way as other Montale fragrances. Soleil de Capri’s container is a light brushed metal.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: : Grapefruit, kumquat, white flowers, white musk, spices.

I couldn’t smell much of the spices but the rest was certainly pleasant. Out of all of Montale’s fresh and clean fragrances, I really have to hand it to Soleil de Capri. It took light, airy, fresh and beautiful and made paradise for my nose.

Reviewed in This Post: Soleil de Capri, 2009, Sample Vial.

Guerlain Idylle

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Idylle was the first mainstream released fragrance by Guerlain’s new in house perfumer, Thierry Wasser. The lack of the Guerlinade is noticeable in this one and in its absence is a fairly plain, fairly boring, modern mainstream scent. Good for wearing, great for the office, but missing the heart of what Guerlain used to be. Idylle

In Bottle: Idylle is a pretty surface floral with a bouquet of pretty young flowers. This scent starts off smelling young and dewy and fresh. It’s reminiscent of pretty much every other modern floral fragrance that’s been released in the last decade.

Applied: I smell Idylle in a lot of places. It’s wearability is outstanding if you’re looking for a modern Guerlain that works well with the modern staple. Don’t look for anything classic smelling in this–it’s not there. I am a little disappointed with the fragrance to be honest because it’s so benign that it’s rather boring. Idylle’s opener smells of rose and lily off the bat. It’s a well blended thing that slips into its mid-stage with so much elegance that you’ll have barely noticed it until you catch the floral heart and realize your fragrance has changed for the better. The rose note is the predominant player in this but it’s a cleaned up, fresh rose. Not at all like Nahema’s deep red rose. Idylle stays beautiful and remains on the skin until the dry down where you’ll get a cleaned up patchouli that smells like scrubbed earth and polished darkness.

Extra: Maybe I’m being harsh on Idylle. It is at it’s core a very pretty and competent fragrance that will please a wide audience. After all, how I can dismiss Idylle when I loved the much loathed Champs Elysees? Or My Insolence? I by no means hate Idylle. I just don’t think it’s particularly interesting. It’s fantastic as a mainstream release. It’s like a more competent Gucci Flora. A more grown up Gucci Flora, if you will. I guess I just miss the classics and was hoping Idylle was a bit more classical and less modern. More niche and less commercial.

Design: Idylle’s marketing surrounded the concept of golden raindrops. The bottle is shaped like a golden raindrop. Despite the interesting shape, it is easy to hold and easy to spray. It looks interesting on display and is a great looking piece to add to a bottle collector’s array.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Lily of the valley, lilac, peony, freesia, jasmine, patchouli, white musk.

Idylle is what the industry refers to as a modern chypre. A formulation that so far has been fuzzy to my understanding.

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

Guerlain AA: Flora Nymphea

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In and around the time Guerlain decided the status quo was not filling their coffers, they decided to output the Aqua Allegoria (abbreviated AA above) line of fragrances. These were simple, non-complex compositions of scents meant to draw in tentative consumers new to the Guerlain line and be evocative of nature. The philosophy behind Aqua Allegoria was to pump these things out and if a fragrance didn’t sell well, it would disappear. Flora Nymphea

In Bottle: Flora Nymphea is a light floral expression of a fragrance that reminds me quite a bit of my laundry detergent (Tide). It’s the light, inoffensive blend of generic florals that shouts clean and fresh! A pleasant deviation from Guerlains past.

Applied: Flora Nymphea is the embodiment of light, inoffensive floral. If you wanted a floral fragrance but you hate it when florals are heady then shack yourself up with some of this. It starts off with a bright citrus then mellows out into a sweet golden, floral scent with a slight green edge. The dry down is a soft, airy woodsy musk with a sheer layer of flowers.

Extra: Flora Nymphea is the newest member of the surviving Aqua Allegorias. Over the years, Guerlain’s made quite a few of these and only five are in rotation in 2010. The rest you will have to buy secondhand or from old stock because they have been cycled out of production. The surviving members are Pamplelune, Herba Fresca, Flora Nymphea, Mandarine Basilic, and Tiare Mimosa.

Design: I love the Aqua Allegoria line because they are bottled in Guerlain’s signature bee style. While it’s not exactly a close replica of vintage Guerlain bee bottles, the Aqua Allegorias do a very nice throw back to their roots. Glass with a metal honeycomb mesh over the top. The top of the metal cap has a bee embossed onto it. Lining these things up in a row is delightful because they are quite beautifully designed.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Syringa flower, orange blossom, beneficial honey.

Of all the Aqua Allegorias, Pamplelune holds a special place. I could do with or without Flora Nymphea as it is a pretty generic, inoffensive floral fragrance.

Reviewed in This Post: Flora Nymphea, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Vera Wang Rock Princess

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Let’s close off this princess trifecta for now with Vera Wang’s Rock Princess, the grown-up version of Princess and Flower Princess. Add some black to the bottle, amp up the dark notes and get ready to smell. Rock Princess

In Bottle: Rock Princess comes off as a fruity floral with a very weird dense foody note backing it up in the bottle. It’s like a mix between sweet, floral, and a really gigantic pile of sweet musk.

Applied: Starts off as a heavy fruity scent with a twist of sugar to sweeten it up. The alcohol that’s lingering on the surface of this is a little distracting too, smells a bit like whiskey. The fruits are also watery and while sweet, they’ve been in the bath a little too long. I’m not quite sure this dark, dense deal is really working out in Rock Princess’ favor as the fruits start melting into the florals turning this into a spoiled fruit-like scent. I’m smelling something slightly bitter at this point which is very awkward and kind of unappealing given how sweet the rest of the fragrance is. Rock Princess is a loud fragrance. Appropriate given its name. It’s so loud that one spritz would probably do it for most people as I had thought the original Princess had a decent enough projection. The dry down to Rock Princess is really the best part. Woodsy, with a hint of coconut and that same clean musk. The sugar is dialed down so I’m assuming Rock Princess thinks you’ve had enough after the cake bombardment.

Extra: Vera Wang is a very famous fashion designer based in The United States. Most people know her for her elegant and contemporary wedding dress collections.

Design: Rock Princess is the same shape and concept as the original Princess. The glass has been painted black though and the topper is now a dark grey. The bottle still pretty much works the same way. I wasn’t feeling Princess or Flower Princess’ bottles for their cutesy heart shape and I’m still not feeling the the design.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: White peach, raspberry, bergamot, heliotrope, rose, night-blooming jasmine, lily, cashmere woods, musk, iris and creamy coconut

I think out of all the three Princess fragrances I’ve tried and smelled, Flower Princess is up front in first place, then Princess followed by this Rock Princess deal here. I didn’t find the scent appealing and it seemed like a mish-mash of stuff that didn’t go together very well. There’s a Glam Princess flanker out now too, I think. I’ll be trying that one at some point I’m sure.

Reviewed in This Post: Rock Princess, 2009, Eau de Toilette.

Vera Wang Princess

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Vera Wang Princess is a wildly popular girly fragrance released in 2006 and marketed toward women in my age bracket, the late teens to mid-twenties girl. It seems those of us in this bracket are wild about fruity, floral, candy scents because Princess is all of those things lumped into one big, purple package. Princess

In Bottle: Fruity top notes blended with clean girly florals. Very sweet, very feminine, and extremely young and lighthearted scent. There’s something a bit musky about it too.

Applied: Princess is a weird mix of foody floral peppiness and clean musk. It’s trying to go two ways and I’m not really sure that’s working out for it. However, what Princess does get right is a pleasant, sweet light floral swirling in pretty chocolate cake batter being mixed in the shower. The musk in this prevents Princess from being an all out gourmand. Dark chocolate mixes very well, I have to admit and this is coming from someone who thinks most chocolate notes smell terrible. The dark chocolate present in Princess is a rich, cakey note that is often one of the first notes to fade on me. Eventually, all I’m left with is sweet and clean musk. This is pretty much what a Disney Princess would smell like.

Extra: Seems like I’m on a sweet and floral binge lately with my fragrances. Princess is one of those scents that, for some reason, goes straight up my nose and blinds my sense of smell after a while. I smell this on everyone though, as its popularity means every young woman in and around my age is rocking the purple heart.

Design: Bottled in a big glass heart, Vera Wang Princess is an appealing look for–well, anyone younger than me who likes that kind of thing. I find the bottle to be  garish and a bit tacky. Cute, yeah, but it’s a big purple heart. You can also pop the cap off and wear it as a ring. The design is just a little too young for me, I think. Or maybe they just completely missed me when they designed this bottle because everyone else seems to love it.

Fragrance Family: Sweet Floral

Notes: Water lily, lady apple, mandarin meringue, golden apricot skin, ripe pink guava, Tahitian flower, wild tuberose, dark chocolate, pink frosting accord, precious amber, forbidden woods, royal musk captive, chiffon vanilla.

Jeez, look at that notes list. It’s pretty much like a recipe for some of the craziest cupcakes ever.

Reviewed in This Post: Princess, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Jean Paul Gaultier Ma Dame

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Ma Dame has one of the most addictive and fun commercials I’ve seen as of date. It features international It Girl, Agyness Deyn, with a snappy song and a great dynamic series of cuts showing the rejection of order and embrace of rebel and style. But like all fragrances, I advocate smelling the actual juice. The fragrance itself doesn’t really follow its marketing image. Ma Dame

In Bottle: Fruity, sweet and candy-like. This is floral too and has a strangely clean cotton candy scent to it. Now that’s just a bit odd as when I think cotton candy, the last thing I think is clean but hey, Ma Dame.

Applied: Flowers, sugar and citrus, big chunks of sugar and a ripe orange thrown in for good measure. At the heart of this fragrance is a lovely floral mixed in with the sweetness, like candied flowers covered in citrus clean. There something lemony to this because I can smell a very strong, sharp citrus trying to overcome the other notes. Ma Dame is a strong scent with lots of sillage. It’s projection will reach an impressive distance so use it sparingly if you’re going to be in an enclosed space with others. She’s a nice fragrance though with a bright and spicy little kick to her. The dry down is a sweet woodsy affair.

Extra: Ma Dame is by Jean Paul Gaultier, a French fashion designer well known for his haute couture and conceptual fashion items. You may recognize some of his work adorning the likes of Marilyn Manson.

Design: Ma Dame is bottled in glass with a female figure recessed into it. The figure is a throwback to Gaultier’s usual bottle style in the shape of a woman. The glass has a nice orange pink sheen to it. This one is pleasant to look at but I’ve always found the body shape bottles to be a bit too much.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Orange zest, rose, musk, cedar wood.

I wouldn’t refer to Ma Dame as an order rejecting fragrance. It’s a nice tweak from the usual fruity floral fare but it has a long way to go before it rejects anything. The sweet floral is pleasant though it can be a bit much–especially if someone mistakes this fragrance for a wilting lily and bathes themselves in it, thus causing a 100 mile radius cloud of pink scent to perpetually swirl about them like a sugary tornado.

Reviewed in This Post: Ma Dame, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Marc Jacobs Daisy (in the Air)

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Daisy is one of the most popular modern fragrances that is widely available through many different stores. You can find this thing sitting in department stores, drugstores, boutiques, you name it. And it’s not hard to see why. Daisy is a light, playful, fresh and clean scent that was made to appeal. Like the Acqua di Gio of the 2000s. Daisy

In Bottle: Green and grassy with a light violet leaf giving it that green grassiness. The fruits in this are detectable but they’re watery–not sweet and honestly, they don’t need to be.

Applied: Fruit is the first thing I smell, diluted and tamed fruit. Most of you time you would think of fruit notes as being sweet and loud but the ones at play in Daisy are much more subdued. The mid-stage is characterized with a blend of fresh and clean smelling flowers and the persistent edge of green grass. I smell the gardenia most of all in the mid-stage which is a really addition. The dry down is a pretty and sheer musky vanilla. Daisy is the representation of a beautiful green meadow, a light breeze, and a happy frolic. It’s care-free, girly, clean and fresh. It’s also very, very light as I find myself having to use more Daisy than I would any other fragrance to catch my scent in the morning. The fact still remains though that this is a great modern fragrance that truly earns its badge as one of the most popular available fragrances.

Extra: Daisies do not actually have a scent. Marc Jacobs’ Daisy invokes the concept of what a daisy would smell like instead. It should be noted that you may find Daisy and Daisy in the Air available in stores. Daisy in the Air is the exact same fragrance in a limited edition bottle with blue flowers. Unless you are in the market for a new bottle of Daisy, do not drop the cash on Daisy in the Air because it is not a flanker, just a redesign for the bottle.

Design: Cute little curved glass bottle with an equally adorable topper covered in white (or blue in the case of Daisy in the Air) flowers. I had originally thought the design for this fragrance was a little hokey but those flowers get to you so that even the most minimalist of us are swayed by those infectious little flowers. I gotta admit now, I like the bottle design. It’s cute and playful and effective. The rubber flowers are what cinched the deal.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Strawberry, violet leaves, ruby red grapefruit, gardenia, violet petals, jasmine petals, musk, vanilla, white woods.

Another thing to note of Daisy in the Air, aside from the blue flowers, it also comes with a garland that you can spritz with scent and hang in the room so that it disperses fragrance throughout the place. I think it’s a cute gimmick but again, this isn’t a flanker, it is just the exact same smell as the regular Daisy packaged differently.

Reviewed in This Post: Daisy & Daisy in the Air, 2010, Eau de Toilette.

Clinique Happy

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You have to throw props at a fragrance that doesn’t even try to pretend that it has any ounce of natural to it. Clinique Happy is the big red balloon of the fragrance world. It smells fake, it smells perky, and it doesn’t even bother to hide it. Happy

In Bottle: I don’t know where the notes listing got the idea that this was supposed to be fruity and floral. The only thing this smells like is powdered makeup. Ever hovered near the Clinique counter at the department store? Ever bought any of their cosmetics? That scent you get is what Clinique Happy smells like in the bottle.

Applied: Juicy green citrus followed by a powdery green floral and dry citrus rind mid-stage that has this synthetic heart to it. That synthetic heart smells like a child’s red balloon. It smells like Clinique cosmetics. I swear this scent is what they imbue in their products because, to me as someone who knows and hangs out with several people who wear Clinique cosmetics, this fragrance is  extremely familiar. It’s not unpleasant by any means, it’s just familiar and frustrating because I cannot dissect it and cannot separate it from the products I know it smells like. I can only go so far as to suggest it smells like citrus at first, then green florals, ivy, and dry citrus notes and when it dries down it has a dusky green powder tail that drifts off leaving a hint of freshness. Fresh, clean and synthetic.

Extra: Clinique is well known for their line of hypo-allergenic cosmetics. So I’m guessing that all the people who say this fragrance makes them happy are either smelling the red balloon and remembering the circus or just really, really like Clinique products. Maybe I’m just not understanding the floral this is supposed to be. I didn’t find myself any happier having smelled this or put it on. I didn’t find myself any sadder either so there’s that.

Design: Very simple bottle design. Clinique does simple packaging very well with their signature light green color on their cosmetics. I was surprised Happy didn’t feature the light green in some way but I’m not complaining about what it currently is. Easy to hold, not unpleasant to look at. Just a bit too plain though.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: Bergamot, boysenberry, honeysuckle, bushflower, grapefruit, moss, freesia, lemon, Hawaiian wedding flower.

Nothing really sweet in this either. It was just a light, powdery, fresh scent. Not at all offensive, quite amusing in that it smelled like Clinique cosmetics too. This is nice if you need an office fragrance or a scent for everyday wear.

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

Sarah Jessica Parker Covet

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Covet is a fragrance with Sarah Jessica Parker’s name on it. She has other fragrances too, ones that I actually like more. Lovely is a pretty one. That new fragrance she has coming out seems worthwhile too. Covet never really drew me in as I heard its mid-stage can be somewhat intense. And now that I know why, I can safely say this isn’t for me. Covet

In Bottle: Soft, citrus, lavender floral with a touch of sweetness–almost licorice-like. Nice green, clean and kind of average smelling. I lower the bar for celebuscents as I really don’t expect these to break any new ground. I just expect them to smell pretty, agreeable and nice. And in the bottle, Covet smells pleasant.

Applied: Light, green aromatic floral. A little reminiscent of Spider Lily by India Hicks. Pleasant on application with a slight citrus note that layers and plays well with the greenness of the fragrance. The pleasant top notes last for a few minutes before Covet takes a turn for the sharp and chemical and powerful. After the initial pleasantries are through, Covet turns into a powerful bright green and lemon fragrance that’s more reminiscent of Versace Versense’s crazy powerful citrus than it is of Spider Lily now. Spider Lily had a boundary but Covet does not. It crashes through the boundaries and gives off wave after wave of too-strong lemon and sharpness. I don’t know what’s wrong with me but the citrus in this is really strong and entirely too overpowering. It’s trying to be sweet and sophisticated and pretty but that citrus is just so strong. Finally when Covet enters the dry down stage it mellows out just a little as that chemical green finally lets up and I can smell some sweetness.

Extra: I don’t know if this is just my experience or if a small swathe of people out there who also experienced this overpowering green lemon monster mid-stage just have really awkward skin chemistry but we do exist and Covet should be tested prior to purchase. Or you might experience what I did and just be thoroughly perplexed.

Design: It’s a cute bottle, little cap is a plastic flower petal ring type thing. It’s easy enough to hold and the design is not over the top. I have to agree with Tania Sanchez and what she said about this bottle in, Perfumes, The A-Z Guide, “The bottle looks like a Super Mario power-up”. It really does.

Fragrance Family: Citrus Floral

Notes: Geranium leaves, lemon, honeysuckle, lavender, lemon, amber.

I suspect one of those lemons–maybe both of them–are causing this sharp over-green explosion every time I try to enjoy a citrus-based fragrance. One of these days I’ll figure it out.

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