Ineke Scarlet Larkspur

Having done very little to seemingly whittle down the remaining selection of samples I have, I really said to myself that I ought to stop ignoring my passion for smellies under the pretense that I’m “busy”. Busy doesn’t excuse the fact that I need to do something I enjoy or go crazy from nothing but work. So I went back to my notes, re-sniffed the things I meant to re-sniff and here I am, Scarlet Larkspur, months too late but better than never!

Scarlet Larkspur

Scarlet Larkspur

In Bottle: Light and pretty, cherry with a bubbling start and finish and a spicy support.

Applied:  Cherry, like red cherry cola upon application. I feel like I sprayed the essence of a classic soda I once tried. Scarlet Larkspur tickles the nose then fades into a pretty spicy floral in the mid-stage with a woodsy backing. There’s a nice clean depth to Scarlet Larkspur that I’m starting to recognize in the entire line. It’s easy to approach, gentle and not overwhelming or loud. This smells like a fragrance I wear when I want to relax.

Extra: Scarlet Larkspur is a member of Ineke’s Floral Curiosities collection.

Design: I really love the design of the entire Floral Curiosities line. Simple bottle shapes, but with beautiful literary imagery with swooping typography and a vintage motif.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Wine, cherry, currant, saffron, florals, amyris wood, tonka bean, vanilla.

No vanilla in this, but I don’t think it really needs it. At least, I got no vanilla. I was perfectly happy with the cute soda-like opening and the mellow, relaxing florals in the middle. The woods note in this is fantastic too.

Reviewed in This Post: Scarlet Larkspur, 2013, Eau de Parfum.


Demeter Greenhouse

Demeter’s Greenhouse caught my eye because, well, as of late I’ve had this strange urge to build a greenhouse, grow some tropical flowers and spend some quiet time among plants. Then one of my neighbor’s children will fling a baseball into our yard and probably smash the whole thing up. That is when I realize we need a fence before a greenhouse. So, in lieu of the real thing, I reach for Demeter’s Greenhouse.

Greenhouse

Greenhouse

In Bottle: As tangental as I was in that introductory paragraph, Greenhouse gets to the point a bit faster. Unfortunately that point seems to be, “I smell fake!”.

Applied: I’ve been in a few greenhouses growing up. One of my cousins has one in his backyard where he grows vegetables, fruits, flowers and other things that make me jealous because the best I’ve done is a couple of spindly trees and a sick looking fern. Some of my favorite smells is the scent of humidity, moist earth, green leaves with a faint aroma of flowers. That’s not what I get from Demeter’s Greenhouse. I get a synthetic green herbal shock with a dollar store level floral note in the background. It’s not unpleasant, but it’s not greenhouse either. There’s a bit of moistness to the fragrance, but it’s really quite off from the greenhouses I’ve been in. I suppose it’s hard to capture the essence of something that could have such widely varying characteristics, and really, I’m not taking away points because bottled Greenhouse doesn’t smell like my cousin’s greenhouse. I’m taking away points because something in this smells really synthetic. While not unpleasant, I can’t agree that this is a greenhouse.

Extra: It wasn’t until my recent move and discovery that not every living plant I touch immediately turns brown did I discover that I actually like gardening. Or at least, I would love to garden. Fence first. Garden after. Real greenhouse someday. In the mean time, Demeter’s Greenhouse isn’t going to cut it for me.

Design: Designed simply just like every other Demeter fragrance. Nice simple bottle, not high end or luxe in anyway. For the price point this is pretty much all I expected and if nothing else, the bottles are reusable.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Florals, green notes.

I might be ragging on Greenhouse a little too much. Really, it’s okay. Pleasant if I were to push it a little. But to me, it’s by no means a greenhouse smell.

Reviewed in This Post: Greenhouse, 2012, Cologne Spray.


Parfums de Coeur Strawberries and Champagne

Having found myself the recipient of a set of these Parfum de Coeur fragrances, I decided to give these a try. The fact that Parfum de Coeur’s last scent experience didn’t go over well with me doesn’t mean none of their other fragrances won’t.

Strawberries and Champagne

Strawberries and Champagne

In Bottle: Smells like really sweet strawberry hard candy with a weird floral blanket.

Applied: When I was a kid I had a doll that came with a tiny bottle of perfume. The doll was great, the perfume smelled exactly like this. It was overly sweet, it was some sort of berry and it had florals thrown into it in an attempt to make it smell a little more interesting than just extremely potent strawberry candy. But what the florals just end up doing is give me a headache and make the fragrance smell especially synthetic. There is not much of a progression to this. It starts sweet and strawberry, and it ends sweet and strawberry.

Extra: Apparently there’s a large number of fragrances that also belong to this line of Sexiest Fantasies. I have to admit this Strawberries and Champagne doesn’t remind me of sexy fantasies.

Design: Rather uninspiring design that reminds me a bit of the 90s in a retro nostalgia way. This isn’t a full on perfume–it is just a body spray so I don’t expect too much of its design. The design is functional. It works. It just looks very dated and a bit cheesy.

Fragrance Family: Fruity

Notes: Florals, champagne, strawberry.

I had actually been looking forward to seeing if I would get their Skin Musk fragrance in my grab bag as it seemed to be pretty well received, but it was not to be.

Reviewed in This Post: Strawberries and Champagne,  2010, Body Spray.

P.S. And with this rather underwhelming fragrance, I hope you all have a great New Year!


Al Taif Rasasi

Not sure how I ended up with a little sampler vial of this. Not that I’m complaining. It just looks out of place sitting with the likes of Acqua di Gio and Creed’s later releases. Al Taif by Rasasi is an exotic creature that gives the Amouage house a run for its money.

Al Taif

Al Taif

In Bottle: Beautifully blended rose with a bit of oud and sandalwood. It’s sensual, complex and very warm.

Applied: The rose is what I smell the most upon application. It warms up very quickly as the fragrance takes on this dense and dark oud and a light curtain of sandalwood that seems to stick around for hours on end. It’s hard to describe what Al Taif is exactly beyond a nicely done rose and oud blend. This is something you might have to grow into if you’re not used to complex scents (and definitely if you aren’t used to strong ouds) because the perfume is so well blended but it is also very rich in its oriental personality. The longevity is excellent and the projection, on me, is moderate. This being a perfume oil, you wouldn’t expect any less anyway.

Extra: Rasasi is a United Arab Emerites based company that was founded in the late 1970s. It seems their full bottle fragrances are a bit of an adventure to track down if you live in North America. When people talk about a taif rose, they’re referring to a type of Arabian damask rose. In terms of product accessibility, I’ve found a bottle on eBay but you will have far more luck contacting Rasasi to see where you might be able to score yourself some perfume.

Design: I’ve never held or seen a Rasasi perfume bottle. All I have is a little sampler vial. But based on some images, their bottles are distinctly middle eastern with its intricate designs. They all look luxurious and quite beautiful.

Fragrance Family: Floral Oriental

Notes: Rose, florals, oud, sandalwood, resin.

Aside from the rose and the oud, I cannot give you a more solid estimation of what else is the notes for this fragrance. It’s listing on Fragrantica says ‘rose, florals, resin’, but there’s more in Al Taif than just those three notes. So treat my list of notes as an estimation of what I got out of it as it is not an official list by any means.

Reviewed in This Post: Al Taif, 2010, Perfume Oil.


Kenzo Power

Kenzo Power was described as a spicy woodsy scent–a rather banal genre for men’s fragrances which wouldn’t turn very many heads. That is, if only Power kept to that spicy woodsy description. Instead, Power is less so a spicy wood fragrance and more like a spicy floral.

Power

Power

In Bottle: Powereded florals and spice, I get cardamom but I definitely get some florals in this with some woods as well.

Applied: Starts off with a citrus opening that fades in with the spices almost immediately. Power starts off strong with an opening befitting of a classic men’s fragrance. The scent heads into its midstage with an increasingly floral presence as it settles in with a powdered flowers, a bit of creaminess and residual spiciness from the opening. The dry down is a fairly generic woods fragrance with a hint of amber and lingering spices.

Extra: Power isn’t your average men’s fragrance–at least not the average that I’ve been smelling. It’s got the male progression in the strong citrus blast up top and the woody dry down but the mid-stage has a nice femininity to it that doesn’t overpower the masculine aspects of the scent. Sure, there’s florals in this but it is still a men’s fragrance at heart. It’s soft and sophisticated and definitely different from your average aquatic or spicy wood. Kenzo Power was composed by Olivier Polge (Burberry The Beat and Balenciaga Paris).

Design: Rather interesting design, reminiscent of Montale’s fragrance bottles except done much better. Shiny metal with a fantastic heft to it. Feels good to hold, has a masculinity to the aesthetic but is not over the top and still manages to look modern and a little different. At the very least, the metal helps balance out the flower logo that should hint that this ‘Power’ has a little bit of floral in it.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Woodsy Floral

Notes: Bergamot, coriander, cardamom, florals, amber, woods.

Kudos to Kenzo for making Power smell the way it does. It’s a new and interesting contender in the rather repetitive abstract that is the men’s fragrance industry. Check this one out if you want a more creative men’s fragrance and you aren’t too afraid of flowers in your cologne.

Reviewed in This Post: Power, 2011, Eau de Toilette.


Playboy Play It Sexy

What classy digs I’ve found myself in today with one of the (surprisingly) many Playboy fragrances. It’s Play It Sexy, a fragrance for women that I guess women can use to seduce men. I’m not sure this will work the way it claims it’ll work but let’s give it a sniff and go from there.

Play It Sexy

Play It Sexy

In Bottle: Sweet citrus that doesn’t hit the right notes and ends up smelling a little synthetic right off the bat. I kind of get some of the licorice note up front too which doesn’t help the synthetic smell of this at all.

Applied: Citrus on opening with a sweetness to it that’s a little bothersome. That synthetic feel of the fragrance isn’t any better on the skin. The fragrance is rather quick to evolve as well as the citrus moshes itself into the florals where I get jasmine and what’s clearly a rose note. The sweetness mingling with the rose is a tad disturbing and is reminding me a bit of how Danielle by Danielle Steel smelled and I did not like that one bit. The licorice note–hilariously enough–is also present throughout this entire fragrance taking this to the next level of unappealing because it’s mingling with everything and in a really poor way. It’s kind of like you’re not really enjoying a discordant juice blend that you decided to make yourself one day and tried to add some random element to it in the hopes of improving upon your wayward culinary attempts. Only said random element only made things worse. The fragrance dries down into a pretty generic vanilla sandalwood which I actually liked seeing as the rest of the fragrance didn’t hit it off with me. I will give Play It Sexy one thing, it doesn’t reach cloying sweetness and it isn’t crazy strong. So while I didn’t like the fragrance, I didn’t feel like I had to run to the bathroom and scrub it off.

Extra: So I don’t think Playboy will be joining the hallowed halls of mainstream designer perfumes any time soon. But if you’re looking for some cheap thrills in perfumery, these Playboy scents are very affordable. They’ll run you a few bucks over an Axe bodyspray but they do smell better.

Design: I really can’t speak for the bottle design for this stuff. It’s like an amalgamation of things I don’t like. Weird animal motif, random gem, pink, bowtie. It’s cute, I suppose. The only thing it’s missing is Comic Sans font and a fairy. The aesthetic just isn’t sitting well with me.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Grapefruit, mandarin, pink pepper, jasmine, florals, licorice, vanilla, patchouli, sandalwood, tonka.

So these fragrances come in a three pack, which is a pretty good deal, but supposedly they are supposed to represent the stages of a woman’s seduction game. The other two fragrances I’ve got are called “Play It Spicy” and “Play It Lovely”.

Reviewed in This Post: Play It Sexy, 2010, Eau de Parfum.


Ajne Fleur Blanche

Gardenia is hard to get right and if you’ve been following this blog, you’ll know I’ve been on the search for a really competent gardenia scent. My search is over!

In Bottle: Lush, white, creamy and sweet gardenia! This is actually gardenia and not tuberose trying on a mask. I am elated that I’ve finally found this.

Applied: A just mildly sweet, green floral gardenia scent. Has a slightly wilted quality to it, something I found just a bit strange but Fleur Blanche is quick to evolve into a heady, full-bodied giant white gardenia flower with a milky, woody backdrop. It’s smooth woods and soft creaminess, with just a bit of honeyed sweetness. This fragrance is not too sweet or silly or stilted or trying to pass off tuberose as gardenia. I can’t imagine a gardenia fragrance I’ve tried yet to surpass Fleur Blanche. It is simply a beautifully done soliflore and cannot recommend it enough if you want a glorious gardenia scent.

Extra: Ajne is an independent fragrance house headed by perfumer, Jane Hendler. They focus on 100% natural fragrances and avoid the usage of synthetics in their scents.

Design: Ajne‘s bottle design is beautiful. It reminds me of ornate temple designs in India and on expensive silk cloths. The filigree bottles are fantastic, they look luxurious, are easy to hold and use, and that’s not to mention the juice inside. I usually aim for the philosophy that simpler is better. But ornate, when done well, is absolutely precious.

Fragrance Family: Soliflore

Notes: Fruits, florals, woods.

Sorry about the notes but there wasn’t a whole lot to work with. Regardless, this fragrance is beautiful and well worth the effort to get. It is expensive, but keep in mind that these are 100% naturals we’re working with here which are expensive in and of themselves. Fleur Blanche has fantastic longevity, a great level of projection, and a beautifully complex character.

Reviewed in This Post: Fleur Blanche, 2009, Oil.


Boadicea the Victorious Pure

Boadicea the Victorious is one of the luxury niche brands. I know, I know, just what does luxury mean in an industry defined as luxury? The price points for this house tends to be higher than the others, thus defining it as the luxury of the luxuries? Who cares, bottom line, it’s expensive. Pure

In Bottle: Fresh, crisp citrus and pink and white flowers. Pure smells like laundry,  just barley, but with a citrus topper and an even cleaner lead.

Applied: Beautiful citrus opens up the fragrance. Green and fresh, a lot of lime and a bit of lemon then the white florals come in and add a slight powdery sweetness to this while the citrus notes hang on into the mid-stage where that clean laundry scent gives way to a beautiful, airy beach-like floral and green tea. The dry down comes too soon as I was appreciating that lovely white sides, blue ocean, green palms feel of Pure. Upon dry down I finally get word of the sandalwood in this as Pure becomes a dusty, pretty citrus. This fragrance triggers a vague memory from my childhood. Green fields, dusty country road and laundry hanging from the lines.

Extra: Boadicea the Victorious is a relatively new British niche house headed by Michael Boadi. The house features some exclusive scents, and a ready to wear line referred to as The Victorious, which Pure is a part of.

Design: Presented in a rectangular glass bottle with lovely metal trimmings. You will receive the bottle nested in its own box and you shouldn’t settle for less, especially given how much this goes for on Luckyscent at $265.00 per 100ml. Yikes.

Fragrance Family: Fresh

Notes: : Bergamot, Sicilian lemon, green tangerine, Mediterranean cypress, basil leaves, Egyptian cumin, juniper berry, ylang ylang, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, vanilla.

Given how much this is, I wouldn’t settle for less than a fragrance that completely knocks my socks off. Pure is a lovely scent, for sure, a few degrees above a mainstream house’s general fair when it comes to clarity of the fragrance. I do love that juicy, pure citrus opening.

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


Guerlain Samsara

Samsara is a lovely Guerlain from 1989. I often think it’s one of the last of the old Guerlain style before the fragrance house underwent their “modernification” and subsequent sale to LVMH. There’s a familiar Guerlainess to Samsara that’s been very toned down for the mass marketed recent fragrances. Samsara

In Bottle: Clear, dense, and woodsy. I can smell a hint of Guerlainess (if it wasn’t before, it is now a word) in this that reminds me of Mitsouko. Strange how so many things Guerlain makes either reminds me of Mitsouko or L’Heure Bleue. They were doing something right, I guess.

Applied: Initial scent reminds me of–and don’t laugh–pickled kumquat. Yes, salty, tart, citrusy pickled kumquat. Strange connection but there you have it. It was made and cannot be taken back now. Anyway, after my awkward experience with the opener, which honestly lasts a couple of seconds, Samsara turns into a smooth, spicy, sandalwood fragrance with a clove underneath. Samsara continues on its woodsy clovey journey picking up faint notes of jasmine here and there and discarding them just as quickly. The iris does make a brief and masked appearance lending the fragrance a sharpness too. The final dry down is a powdery, dry vanilla woodsy fragrance with the clove lingering until everything else is gone.

Extra: The one really great thing about Samsara is its projection. Put some of this on and you will project like crazy. Not quite as far as Shalimar but a pretty respectable distance for sure.

Design: I know some people hate the way this bottle looks. I think it’s okay. Not my favorite, but certainly not my least favorite. It’s got a nice deep redness to it that really reflects well on what kind of fragrance it holds. I like the shape too, easy to hold and easy to spray. flimsy plastic cap though. I really wish Guerlain wouldn’t use those so often these days.

Fragrance Family: Woodsy Oriental

Notes: Jasmine, ylang-ylang, jasmine, sandalwood, narcissus, tonka, iris, vanilla.

Apparently, once upon a time, Samsara used to include real Mysore Sandalwood. Sandalwood being a lovely smelling tree that’s been harvested so much that it’s now endangered. The sandalwood you encounter in perfumes? Most likely a synthetic from one of two very popular sandalwood synthetics.

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


Guerlain Mitsouko

I don’t think highly enough of myself to kick off this blog with a review of a Guerlain classic because I feel I’m particularly versed in olfactory luxuries. I just wanted start with a relatively agreed upon fragrance. A classic, in other words, where so many others have said what needed to be said and I’m just filling in an already overflowing gap.

Mitsouko is Guerlain’s 1919 debut girl. Formulated by Jacques Guerlain with a following that describes her with such words as deep, sensual, sophisticated, and mysterious.Mitsouko

In Bottle: The fragrance is so well blended that I have a hard time picking out any specific notes. This is not a bad thing as it means Mitsouko has that unique quality. She smells like something never smelled before. I immediately associate her with with the word ‘classic’ and ‘old world’. Old world being a very endearing term to me, of course.  It’s spicy, it’s woodsy, just a little floral and very lightly fruity, but it’s all of those things at once too. To separate the notes and describe them feels wrong.

Applied: Mitsouko’s initial application is a burst of complex florals and soft woodsy notes. In a manner of seconds, as if she shed her flower coat as she drifted from the air onto skin, Mitsouko begins to deepen. The woods and spices come up creating this miasma of scent that makes me think darkness, headiness, and shadows drifting in and out of a sunless forest. As she dries the woods and moss come up more, blending with the spices as the components practically meld together. It is easy to forget that this is a fragrance composed of different notes and the fruitiness that people love in this fragrance is the softening agent used to tame rather than dominate. It’s hard to separate the notes and what’s left is just Mitsouko as a whole.

Extra: So it is said that Guerlain’s Mitsouko is a homage to many things, the name, the novel, the woman herself. Most people seem to subscribe to the theory that Guerlain based Mitsouko on the novel, La Bataille by Claude Farrčre. Where the novel is now difficult to find, at least for an English speaker with no foothold in French, the fragrance lives on in those who continue to love her.

Design: Mitsouko’s bottle design, I suspect, is supposed to reflect its scent and the artistry of the time. It looks and feels like a piece of design history. It’s a piece that, to me, reflects the orientalism of the fragrance and while art and design has since evolved into abstract shapes, clean and sharp lines, with flowing bulbous nodes of color bold against white, Mitsouko’s bottle design is an echo from an era gone but never forgotten. The one thing about my bottle I dislike is the plastic cap which seems to be on par for most recent Guerlains. I would have liked for them to invest in some nicer caps but you can’t have it all.

Fragrance Family: Oriental Chypre

Notes: Citrus, rose, peach, clove, pepper, spices, oakmoss and woods.

I believe a modern fragrance lover, and I wholly admit myself as a rotten, no-good, fruity-floral loving modernist, would find it difficult to like Mitsouko. But liking and respecting are two different things to me. I own a bottle of Mitsouko, a small one, for the simple fact that it is a piece of fragrance history. Once in a while I’ll bring her out and try to analyze  the complexities of her nature and to assuage my guilt of not warming up to Shalimar yet (I’m getting there). I find her too deep for normal wear as the people I’m around most often tend to react poorly to her. It’s not their fault, and it’s not Mitsouko’s fault either. Mitsouko is to be appreciated for sure as one of those classics you’ve just got to try at least once because reviews just don’t do her justice. As for wearing her? That depends on what you like.

Reviewed in This Post: Mitsouko, circa 2008, Eau de Toilette.