Taylor Swift Wonderstruck

So Taylor Swift’s name enters the world of celebrity fragrances. Did she do any better than the multitudes of celebrity fragrances that came before hers? Nope.

Wonderstruck

Wonderstruck

In Bottle: Sweet berries with a heavy sweet note that’s reminiscent of vanilla layered over a thin and sparse coating of flowers.

Applied: Smells like berry hard candy mixed with vanilla. Not particularly interesting and not particularly new or fascinating. I think I’ve officially burnt myself out on fruity florals now because Wonderstruck is actually striking me the wrong way. Again, it doesn’t smell bad. It’s just boring. Anyway the vanilla berry fragrance takes on a bit of juiciness from the peach or the apple or whatever the heck fruit smoothie concoction rolls in after the opening. This makes the thing smell like Hidden Fantasy by Britney Spears tripped and fell into a vat of Viva la Juicy. The midstage is marked with a hint of florals rising up like a horrible ocean of sweetness and girliness. The fragrance reminds me of any number of female celebrity perfumes and its identity really blends in with the rest of its competition. The dry down isn’t any more remarkable either, a dose of vanilla, a hint of warm amber, a bit of sandalwood and white musk to give the fragrance that clean, sweet, girly ending.

Extra: Wonderstruck was released this year to a happy audience of Taylor Swift fans who will be equally  happy to note that the perfume smells good if you’re into fruity floral fragrances. Heck, if you liked the Britney Spears Fantasy line then you’ll probably enjoy this. Or even if you just like Taylor Swift and want to collect things with her name on it. As a fragrance though, it’s not accomplished or unique. So serious fragrance lovers would get better wear out of a more competent fruity floral.

Design: It’s a bit cheesy but I have to admit that it isn’t poorly designed. There’s something Renaissance about it. Maybe it’s the carvings on the cap that remind me of the intricate stonework that would be present in a lovingly built church. Aside from the cap, I find the charms kind of garish and random and the bottle functional and unobtrusive at best. It’s not a bad design overall.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Blackberry, raspberry, peach, apple blossom, freesia, tea, hibiscus, honeysuckle, vanilla, musk, amber, sandalwood.

Saw a “teaser” on YouTube for this perfume where Taylor was wearing one of her trademark fancy dresses and looking ethereal as she wandered around while title text faded in to introduce the fragrance. I’m not sure how to feel about the whole thing except mildly perplexed. Why does a perfume need a teaser? Is Taylor doing something else that I’m missing? I don’t know anything about music and suspect that I’m tone deaf so why am I musing about any of this? I may never know the answers to these barely valid questions, but I do know that I loved Taylor’s dress.

Reviewed in This Post: Wonderstruck, 2011, Eau de Parfum.


L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme

L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme Extreme (the Eau de Parfum) version was not an easy animal to track down for me. Everywhere I saw the EDT but no EDP. Regardless, L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme is widely loved and wildly popular. So, not being able to get a hold of the EDP, I settled for a little vial of the EDT.

L'Instant de Guerlain

L'Instant de Guerlain

In Bottle: Complex medley that’s both classic but modern and easy to wear. It’s hard to separate any distinct notes but it has a great mix of anise, citrus and woods.

Applied: Initial licorice quality of the anise that’s been tempered with a peppery blend of citrus notes that give the impression of a clean opening before L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme delves into deeper territory with a brilliantly blended mixture of florals, woods and herbal notes. There’s nothing too distinct about this, but I do notice a cedar note bashing around the blend. The fragrance as a whole just blends together in a powder and floral mix that smells fantastic. L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme is a sophisticated fragrance has a classic quality to it while remaining a modern pleaser. If you want to smell awesome for the office or a special event L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme won’t let you down. I think what I’m trying to say is, the fragrance is blended well enough to be worn as an every day office scent if you go easy on the trigger and it can also double as a going out fragrance for when you want to leave a good impression. The dry down is marked with a dry woods and powder.

Extra: Now I know why L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme is so well-loved by the fragrance community. I just wish the EDP was easier to find. It’s a great scent for men. If you’re worried about the floral notes, go out and test out this fragrance to see if you’ll like it. It’s classical personality has turned off some people, but if you can get past the classic scent you’ll definitely smell great.

Design: Reminiscent of L’Instant de Guerlain for women. The bottle has a nice heft to it which is always good. The EDT version has a black cap with some grooves and the EDP version has a black cap that’s colored black  at the bottom. The design itself is great, it feels good to hold, is simple and elegant as well as easy to spray.

Fragrance Family: Floral Woods

Notes: Bergamot, lemon, grapefruit, anise, jasmine, tea, patchouli, lavender, cedar, cocoa, sandalwood, hibiscus, musk.

Now L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme comes in a few additions. The two major ones you want to pay attention to is the L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme EDT which was reviewed in this post and the L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme Extreme edition which is the EDP. The EDP is difficult to track down and has a lot of devoted fans.

Reviewed in This Post: L’Instant de Guerlain pour Homme, 2008, Eau de Toilette.


Moschino Glamour

The bottle for this fragrance reminded me of Nina by Nina Ricci so as I was drawn to the bottle, I also had to see what this stuff smelled like on me. Having little to no luck with Moschino’s I Love Love, I discovered Glamour was actually quite nice.

Glamour

Glamour

In Bottle: Very light but rather nice. It’s a clean, sweet floral fragrance. like fresh laundry or hand soap and something just a tad salty.

Applied: Okay, I’ve got it. This is what washing your hands smells like. At least it’s what Glamour will smell like on the top performance. The saltiness does stick around but as it mingles with the rest of the fragrance it becomes less pronounced. The scent goes into its mid-stage in a soft, gentle, clean floral with a woody cedar note trying to break through and ruin my day. But thankfully the cedar never gets very far as this fragrance can pretty much be defined in one word; weak. Not weak in a bad way but Glamour’s not very interesting, unique, or new. It’s a staid and safe clean floral that’s very soft and very fleeting. The dry down is a pretty dull affair of warmed amber and vanilla with the lingering floral notes from the mid-stage. I can’t quite pick out the florals but they blend together to smell like soap instead of the very dreaded “perfumey” smell where the florals are mixed so haphazardly that the fragrance just smells cheap and bad. Glamour doesn’t smell cheap and bad, it’s just incredibly light and rather boring.

Extra: Glamour’s longevity kind of sucks as she faded on me after about two hours and there was almost no projection. At times it was like I had actually washed my hands instead of sprayed a fragrance on.

Design: I like the bottle and the shape. Like I said, I was drawn to this initially because it looked so similar to my believed Nina by Nina Ricci. There’s a slight hint of burlesque to the design which could be entirely me speaking as there’s nothing remotely burlesque about the fragrance itself.

Fragrance Family: Fresh Floral

Notes: Salt, artemesia, tangerine blossom, pear, rose, lotus, petit grain, hibiscus, orchid, vanilla, amber, cedar, musk.

Me being the clean floral lover, I could see myself rocking out with Glamour. Though rocking out is probably a bad term to refer to this. Glamour’s more of a stay in and have a tea party kind of girl.

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


Escada Island Kiss

Escada’s fragrances have never struck much of a chord with me. The ones that are popular are pretty generic, the more obscure ones are just not my thing. So here comes another generic!

Island Kiss

Island Kiss

In Bottle: Island Kiss starts off predictably enough with a fruity blast up my nose of clean tropical mango and other girly sweet fruits.

Applied: There’s a slight layer of sweet white florals in the opening that I’m detecting on me along with the fruits. I smell the fruits the most though with mango making the biggest splash followed by a sweet peachy note. Most Escada fragrances tend to go like this, big fruity openings evolving into bland floral mid-stages and going on some sheer note like white musk or sandalwood. And from the looks of things, Island Kiss will continue the tradition. The mango and sweet fruity opening of the fragrance leads way to an equally sweet floral mid-stage that’s a bit better than Marine Groove in terms of strength but it’s still quite benign, quite easy to wear, and when Island Kiss reaches its dry down the same sheer ending is waiting for me in a cleaned up sandalwood and sharp white musk. Aside from Island Kiss having some more fruits up in the opening with a hint of floral layering, there’s not a whole lot to set this fragrance apart from Marine Groove or any of the other fruity florals that Escada’s released. If you want to smell like girly, fruity, fun shampoo, Island Kiss is a good start. It’s clean, it’s modern, it’s easy to wear and it smells like fun.

Extra: Island Kiss was released in 2004 and was supposedly inspired by the Greek islands. Frankly, it is interchangeable with most of Escada’s summer line.

Design: Same bottle shape as the other summer line Escada fragrances. That stretched heart thing with the gradiating color on the glass. In Island Kiss’ case, the gradient goes from blue to a pink base.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: White florals, magnolia, mango, passion flower, orange, passion fruit, raspberry, white peach, hibiscus, musk, sandalwood.

Island Kiss is one of the better ones from the summer line. That’s not really saying much since choosing between the Escadas in their summer line can pretty much boil down to which top note you want to smell first. You want mango? Island Kiss. You feel like pineapple? Marine Groove. Big on pears? Get Tropical Punch.

Reviewed in This Post: Island Kiss, 2004, Eau de Toilette.


Escada Tropical Punch

Escada’s mostly known for their very nicely done line of fruity floral fragrances. I was never that interested in Escada’s stuff because there’s a wealth of fruity florals in the market. But if you wanted a good fruity floral, that’s reminiscent of the tropics then Escada’s got you covered.  Tropical Punch

In Bottle: Wet and sweet fruit juice. Like a blended tropical smoothie consisting of pears and pomegranates and peaches. It smells delicious.

Applied: Burst of that fruit smoothie scent with the pears overtaking the pomegranate until both of them fade into the background and let the florals up. Of the flowers in this scent, I smell the lily of the valley the most followed by the combined powers of hibiscus and freesia making the mid-stage of Tropical Punch a lush bed of florals. The peach note in this lends a bit of fruitiness to it but by and large Tropical Punch’s mid-stage is very reminiscent of an Herbal Essences shampoo. And I like how Herbal Essence shampoos smell so if you’re into that kind of thing, this stuff delivers. The dry down is rather unremarkable but so is the rest of this fragrance as it warms up a bit but fades with a clean fruity floral sweet amber scent.

Extra: Escada is a women’s luxury clothing group founded in 1976. They have a ton of other similarly built fruity floral fragrances in addition to Tropical Punch. Of which one of the most popular is Marine Groove.

Design: I don’t much like Escada’s fragrance bottles. They’re nice and colorful and fun looking but I’m not a big fan of the shape which is reminiscent of a stretched out heart. Actually, I think the design of these bottles is lacking and makes them look more like body mists instead of perfumes. Tropical Punch is a mostly pink glass affair with a gradient that fades into a pinkish orange. It’s easy to hold though, and the sprayer works great.

Fragrance Family: Fruity Floral

Notes: Papaya, pomegranate, pear, hibiscus, freesia, lily of the valley, white peach, white musk, amber.

I’m not interested enough in Tropical Punch to really get a bottle. The top notes on this stuff are fantastic. But as soon as it dries down, it heads into all too familiar territory. Then there’s the price and for the amount of an Escada fragrance, I would much rather get a mainstream Guerlain or a mainstream Chanel–even.

Reviewed in This Post:Tropical Punch, 2009, Eau de Toilette.


Creed Virgin Island Water

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.