By Kilian Good Girl Gone Bad

Hello, By Kilian. Long time no see. Still packaging things to make me covet you, I see. Good Girl Gone Bad is a recent release from By Kilian and features a gorgeous white and gold case.

Good Girl Gone Bad

Good Girl Gone Bad

In Bottle: Fruity, light and floral. I smell a bit of soapiness too.

Applied: A fruity opening with a osmanthus and jasmine showing. It smells like and soapy with a hint of jasmine. The jasmine becomes more prominent as the fragrance wears on and a touch of tuberose can be detected in the midstage. Jasmine takes on a green aspect mixing with a rose note. Good Girl Gone Bad isn’t going bad so far, and as I continue to wait her out, I get impressions of cedar and patchouli with a speck here or there of darkness. The fragrance never really gets very dark or daring. It remains a rather tame rose jasmine and cedar composition all the way until its fade.

Extra: I haven’t been following By Kilian in a while, and when I saw this fragrance had come out, I was drawn in by the name. I had this idea that it would start off light and airy and turn into a sinister beast. But it never really reaches beast form, and the florals in the midstage carry its good girl vibe all the way to the end. Good Girl Gone Bad was released in 2012 and can be had for $245 at Luckyscent.

Design: By Kilian usually does very well with its packaging. Good Girl Gone Bad comes in a beautiful bottle decorated to exquisite detail with a white and gold box featuring a golden snake coiling on top. Everything about it screams luxury.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Osmanthus, jasmine, rose, tuberose, narcissus, violet, plum, cedar, amber, patchouli, vetiver, musk.

Okay, so the bad girl never got to the party. Maybe she was too busy rocking out somewhere else? Wherever she went, she just wasn’t in this fragrance. What is here is a rather nice floral scent with decent longevity and a beautiful casing.

Reviewed in This Post: Good Girl Gone Bad, 2012, Eau de Parfum.


Miss Dior

Miss Dior, unlike her younger sister (Miss Dior Cherie), is a smart, sophisticated woman who enjoys the finer things in life but doesn’t let it get to her head. She’s humble and complex with a classical charm that Miss Dior Cherie can never beat.

Miss Dior

Miss Dior

In Bottle: Green with a prominent aldehyde quality to it and a dusting of florals.

Applied: Sharp green aldehydes that are a bit of a sting on the old nostrils. Miss Dior goes on strong and powerful, hits you with a wave of classical perfume and reminds you of what a real chypre ought to smell like. Nothing like the lilting chypres of today that have been toned down and have lost their oak moss. Miss Dior is the full force of chypres upon application. As the fragrance ages, she smooths out a bit taking on a powdery quality to me with a warm sensuality that works in the complexity of the fragrance. It’s hard to describe complex fragrances for me because breaking them down into components and saying, “I smell this and now I smell this” would ruin the experience. Instead let me just say that Miss Dior smells like a vintage with an aldehyde and floral mid-stage prominent in neroli and jasmine and is every bit the chypre that she’s supposed to be. The fragrance dries down into a lovely rich flowers, forest and buttery leather scent that makes me want to stick my nose to my wrists and deeply inhale.

Extra: Miss Dior was released in the late 1940s and was composed by Jean Carles and Paul Vacher. Like most (if not all) classics that have survived till today, Miss Dior has been reformulated. The version I’m reviewing in this post is reportedly from sometime in the 1970s. I have not tried the more readily available, “Miss Dior Originale” yet, but I do have a sample of that so I will be trying it eventually.

Design: Miss Dior seems to do everything better than Miss Dior Cherie. The bottle has a classic look, but one that will never go out of style. While it’s a familiar shape to Miss Dior Cherie, Miss Dior’s more grown-up style and beautiful textured glass sets it a class above its younger counterpart. Miss Dior doesn’t need a bow on its neck to exude femininity, basically.

Fragrance Family: Chypre

Notes: Aldehydes, gardenia, galbanum, clary sage, bergamot, carnation, iris, jasmine, neroli, lily of the valley, rose, narcissus, labdanum, leather, sandalwood, amber, patchouli, oak moss, vetiver.

It probably sounds like I’m ragging on Miss Dior Cherie a lot in this post, and I am. It’s not that Miss Dior Cherie doesn’t accomplish good things as a modern gourmand that appeals to younger women, it’s just that Miss Dior–who sometimes gets confused with her younger counterpart–gets a lot of bad press from people who accidentally picked her up thinking she’ll smell anything like the candy-like Miss Dior Cherie. Then come the proclamations that Miss Dior “smells like old lady”, and that’s just unfortunate.

Reviewed in This Post: Miss Dior, ~1970, Eau de Toilette.


Estee Lauder Beautiful

A pleasant surprise arrived for Christmas 2011–a book of perfume samples. Many of the fragrances were new and I was just thrilled. Estée Lauder’s Beautiful was one of the first I pulled out and giddily peeled back the flap to smell.

Beautiful

Beautiful

In Bottle: Extremely floral and a bit powdery. There’s no floral standing out, it’s just a big homogenous bouquet at the moment.

Applied: Initial hit of citrus then the floral bouquet rolls into town and takes over the whole operation. From then on, it’s all flowers all the time. Now, I love a good floral fragrance. But the key is balance and moderation. It seems like those are the two things missing from this iteration of Estée Lauder’s Beautiful. I heard the original Beautiful is a far different animal. So don’t turn yourself off from the classic based on what I say about this contemporary version. The florals in Beautiful really do smell like a confused mish mash that doesn’t quite know what it wants to do with itself. The scent seems to suffer a bit from over composition where there are too many ingredients vying for space and there just isn’t enough space to go around. The result is a fragrance that people can distinguish as “flowery”, but no one can truly say what kind of flower. I’m not the kind of person who just likes smelling like a bunch of flowers. I wanted more depth to it than this, but Beautiful settles into it’s explosion of florals in the midstage then ends it all with a bit of cedar at the end as my nostrils continue to burn from the florals thrown at me earlier.

Extra: The first iteration of Beautiful was released in 1985. It has since gone through a few cosmetic changes and some formula changes. I do not have any access to classic Beautiful, which is a real shame as I’d love to see how it compares to this.

Design: The bottle is reminiscent of Calvin Klein’s designs. I want to say Obsession for Women comes to mind when I look at this, but Beautiful is a little easier on the eyes. It’s metallic cap really helps pull it together a little more.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Bergamot, lemon, cassia, fruit, blackcurrant, galbanum, mimosa, magnolia, carnation, chamomile, tuberose, orange blossom, freesia, lilac, narcissus, jasmine, neroli, clary sage, violet, iris, lily of the valley, ylang ylang, marigold, geranium, sandalwood, myrrh, vanilla, vetiver, cedar.

As I looked up the notes list for this one, I found every single source listed an enormous amount of stuff. I just ended up picking out what I thought I could get out of this. In the end, I’m sorry, Beautiful, but you really just smell like flower stuff.

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


Annick Goutal Le Chevrefeuille

Le Chevrefeuille, like most of the Annick Goutal’s I’ve tried focus on a light, floral, pretty composition that captures the beauty of light and airy florals as a form of fragrance.

Le Chevrefeuille

Le Chevrefeuille

In Bottle: Soft honeysuckle with a green citrus composition backing it and a layering of deeper florals that remain mostly in the background.

Applied: Green floral and a bit of honeysuckle floating up at the beginning with a really lovely sweet and light floral treatment. This seems like a very nice fragrance to spray on and go about your day confident that your scent will enhance your natural scent as opposed to covering it up or overwhelming it. The honeysuckle and green fades a bit with a jasmine note floating up a bit. The jasmine and honeysuckle work very well together to form this really gorgeous green, sweet, light floral. The dry down is not much different from the midstage with a stronger jasmine note and a fading honeysuckle scent.

Extra: Le Chevrefeuille was released in 2002 and was composed by Isaelle Doyen (Annick Goutal’s Le Mimosa and Songes) and Camille Goutal (Annick Goutal’s Mandragore and Vanille Exquise).

Design: Designed in much the same way as other Annick Goutal fragrances. You’re looking at the feminine bottle above with the ribbed glass design and the gold cap with the cute ribbon and paper label. Cute, classic Annick Goutal design. Also one of the lesser seen perfume bottle designs where you can unscrew the nozzle and either refill the fragrance or use the bottle for something else.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Lemon, petit grain, honeysuckle, narcissus, green notes, jasmine.

I love Le Chevrefueille, it’s just the right amount of light, sweet, and floral that can work very well for all manner of situations and can even be an every day scent.

Reviewed in This Post: Le Chevrefeuille, 2005, Eau de Toilette.


Calvin Klein Eternity

Eternity is one of those classic smelling Calvin Klein fragrances with a ton of ingredients that kind of sends em off into ‘meh’ territory for some reason.

Eternity

Eternity

In Bottle: Spicy carnation with rose and lily notes there’s a hint of citrus up top with a bit of earthiness too.

Applied: Citrus opener that follows with a sharp green and clean note that fades away rather quickly to reveal very spicy carnation with a bit of sage and a lily and rose flowery midstage. This stuff smells like a spicy flower bouquet and if you let it keep aging on your skin, you’ll be treated to a woodsier interpretation near the end that falls into a warm spicy and earth fragrance that finishes itself off with a faded carnation note.

Extra: Eternity was composed by Sophia Grojsman who also did fragrance such as White Linen for Estee Lauder and Lancome’s Tresor.

Design: Eternity is bottled rather simply in a tasteful shape and with subdued design elements. It’s a rectangular glass bottle with a metal topper. Very nicely done, Calvin Klein. But then again, CK has always been pretty good about its bottle designs. Kudos.

Fragrance Family: Spicy Floral

Notes: Citrus, mandarin, green notes, freesia, sage, lily, carnation, violet, rose, jasmine, lily of the valley, marigold, narcissus, heliotrope, sandalwood, musk, amber, patchouli.

I’m not wild about this fragrance for some reason. Maybe it’s because I used to smell this a lot when I was around this one woman who swore by her Eternity and wouldn’t wear anything else. It’s been almost a decade since I was around her but maybe that’s why I feel like Eternity just isn’t exciting to me. You smell a perfume for a certain amount of time and it just ceases to be amazing, I suppose.

Reviewed in This Post: Eternity, 2002, Eau de Parfum.


Chanel No. 19

One look at Chanel No. 19’s notes list and you just know this stuff is worth a sniff. Aside from its very impressive ingredients, No. 19 is a classic with more than a few interesting factoids.

No. 19

No. 19

In Bottle: Very green and slightly bitter. I get a lot of the jasmine and orris.

Applied: Lots of green in the opening with a slight bitterness to it. I get a bit of bergamot in the opening but as No. 19 ages, the green gradually gives way to a powdery green floral where ylang-ylang, jasmine and orris are the stars of the show. Lily of the valley comes and goes in this as well and if you keep giving No. 19 time, the fragrance digs itself into a really pleasant sandalwood and dry cedar scent with the fading powdery florals. I am smelling a bit of leather in the dry down but it’s no where near as strong as I thought it would be as the scent fades with a perfumed sandalwood and cedar note. Overall, No. 19 has that expensive smell to it. If you want something sophisticated to wear, this is a good choice.

Extra: It’s said that No. 19 is named for Coco Chanel’s birthday which fell on August 19. No. 19 was composed by Henri Robert who also created Cristalle and Pour Monsieur.

Design: No. 19’s shape is reminiscent of Chanel No. 5 Eau Premier though it’s a distinctly different design. Still, like with most Chanel bottles, No. 19 has an understated elegance that works really well for the fragrance. There are no frills or cheap thrills with the design of this bottle. It just has a nice and timeless form that’s easy to use..

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Bergamot, galbanum, hyacinth, neroli, orris, jasmine, ylang-ylang, lily of the valley, rose, narcissus, leather, sandalwood, oak moss, musk, vetiver, cedar.

A lot of people interested in buying their first Chanel perfume are probably tempted to one of three fragrances from the house. Coco Mademoiselle, Chance, or No. 5. All good choices but they’re all distinctly different fragrances and for those who think Coco Mademoiselle is too young, Chance to generic, and No. 5 too classical then try No. 19 and see if you can get a long with it.

Reviewed in This Post: No. 19, 2005, Eau de Parfum.


Hermes Kelly Caleche

It’s been a while since I last had a whiff of an Hermès fragrance and it’s almost always a delight. Today, it’s Kelly Calèche one of the few fragrances marketed toward young girls and women that has a sense of respectable sophistication to her.

Kelly Caleche

Kelly Caleche

In Bottle: Leather and florals with a clean hint of grapefruit.

Applied: Grapefruit on the opening with lilies and unmistakable narcissus up top. The leather note in this fragrance stays in the background throughout the entire progression and even down into the base. But let’s get back to the opening stages first. Narcissus is the first to go, I barely even noticed it when the lily of the valley disappeared. What’s next is a pretty tuberose that works together with a rose and green and powdery note to give the leather this kind of sophisticated, creamy, scent. On the fade we’ve got powder, cream and leather. The fragrance is remarkably well put together and does a great job bringing leather into a younger fragrance audience with more refined taste.

Extra: I really admire Hermès for stepping into the young women’s market with Kelly Calèche. Whether or not she’ll be a hit amongst the Flowerbomb demographic is yet to be seen. But hey, if it doesn’t hit it off with the 20-somethings then I wouldn’t feel too bad. Kelly Calèche would be beautiful on anyone of any age.

Design: Rather simple bottle but it’s got that look and feel of quality to it that another bottle in this shape and style wouldn’t be able to pull off with inferior materials. I like the simplicity coupled with luxury feel and the sprayer nozzle works like a charm.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: Grapefruit, lily of the valley, narcissus, tuberose, rose, iris, leather.

There’s not a bad thing I can say about Kelly Calèche. She’s just a pretty fragrance that I wished I had heard about and smelled sooner.

Reviewed in This Post: Kelly Calèche, 2010, Eau de Toilette.


Chanel 31 Rue Cambon

31 Rue Cambon is like a modern miracle. It’s a chypre. A modern one though, and being a modern chypre it is still missing the ever beloved and tragically lost, oakmoss. Yet 31 Rue Cambon still manages to pull the modern chypre off with elegance and classic flair.  31 Rue Cambon

In Bottle: A beautifully done iris note is a predominant player in this fragrance with a nice woodsiness to it that takes its sophistication up a few more notches still. There’s a sweetness lingering up front in 31 Rue Cambon that adds the “modern” section of this fragrance. Finally, there is a soft powdery note to this as well which is what gives it that classical scent to me.

Applied: Slightly aldehydic with a generous layering of florals and a splash of bergamot with a note of sweetness added in. 31 Rue Cambon goes on from the opening with a powdery introduction of the iris, and very decadent-smelling rose and jasmine, with some wood notes that blend well with the opener to create a complex blend of warm, leathery, powdery fragrance. This  makes me think of Coco by Chanel wrapped up in an ivy and rose dress. 31 Rue Cambon is a short-lived beauty as it approached its dry down within a matter of hours. A strange thing given the fact that most Chanels last forever on me. Its end game is no stranger to zip as it dries down with a warm, complex, leatheriness.

Extra: 31 Rue Cambon is one of the more popular fragrances from Chanel’s Les Exclusifs collection of fragrances. I can’t say I’m a major fan of many of Chanel’s mainstream releases as of late, but their Les Exclusifs line stick well to the older script that bears creative beautiful little masterpieces like this one.

Design: The Les Exclusifs line is designed to look fairly similar with a tall rectangular bottle, white label, bold and clean black letter. True Chanel minimalist style. The bottles also feature that fantastic magnetic click cap that I couldn’t seem to get enough of on Bleu de Chanel.

Fragrance Family: Modern Chypre

Notes: Pepper, bergamot, orris, narcissus, jasmine, patchouli, ambrette, vetiver, labdanum.

I’ll be blunt in noting that I hold no love for most modern chypres because they tend to smell nothing like a chypre should. But 31 Rue Cambon is as close as it’s going to get, and while the chypre in this is still masked behind a big modern personality, it manages to smell classic, elegant and truly Chanel.

Reviewed in This Post: 31 Rue Cambon, 2009, Eau de Toilette.


Caron Fleurs de Rocaille

I was wearing Fleurs de Rocaille around today to see how she’d do with a little bit of aging and stood a bit too close to a rather unimpressed young woman who upon catching a whiff of it proclaimed, “Someone’s wearing grandma’s perfume!” Ah, complete strangers making loud comments about my perfume. What a life. Fleurs de Rocaille

In Bottle: To be fair to the aforementioned young lady, Fleurs de Rocaille is old and she smells like she came from a different era for sure. She’s a classic from 1934 when she was composed by Ernest Daltroff.

Applied: Fleurs de Rocaille’s opener is a bit sweet for me thanks to the violet she also has a bit of headiness but she does smooth out.  She opens with a fantastic flair of aldehydes and florals, a very pretty rose note up top that stays throughout the scent. Then she settles down a bit. Not quite to the stage of modern perfumes with their clean, floral mid-stages or inoffensive fruity blasts. She’s a powdery, soapy, floral thanks to those famous aldehydes that everyone with a modern nose seems to equate to either grandmas or cat pee. I hope their grandmothers are cheap with their presents this year. Honestly, people, lay off the old ladies, would you? There’s a lot of florals to be had in this scent with the jasmine, rose, and narcissus playing the loudest among a group of green, softer flowers. Fleurs de Rocaille blends the florals so well with a very classic aldehyde rose build that settles into the base and end stage along with a very woody and warm amber scent.

Extra: Seems like the perfume industry loves to confuse its customers. There are two “Fleurs de Rocaille” scents. The one tested and reviewed in this post was Fleurs de Rocaille. There is another, more modern version, called Fleur de Rocaille. Note the missing plural. The more modern version was released in 1993.

Design: Fleurs de Rocaille’s bottle reminds me a bit of Annick Goutal’s ribbed bottles. The shape is similar and the cap’s ribbed shape is very reminiscent of Annick Goutal. I like it though. It’s a nice feminine shape with a pleasant weightiness and a good, simple, clean design. Nothing fancy about this!

Fragrance Family: Aldeyhyde Floral

Notes: Bergamot, palisander, gardenia, violet, oriss root, jasmine, narcissus, rose, carnation, lily-of-the-valley, ylang-ylang, lilac, mimosa, iris, amber, sandalwood, cedar, musk.

This little tester vial of Fleurs de Rocaille has actually been bouncing around my “to test” pile for a while. For some reason, I had convinced myself that I had Fleur de Rocaille instead of the older version.

Reviewed in This Post: Fleurs de Rocaille, ~1980, Eau de Toilette.


Givenchy L’Interdit 1957

L’Interdit, the original, was discontinued then reformulated and re-released in 2002. Then slightly reformulated back to the classic version and released again in 2007. What it became in 2002 was a generic scent. Reformulated 2002 L’Interdit smells nothing like the classic, the 2007 version is closer but I still thought it lacked a certain daring feel that the original possessed. I had the chance to smell L’Interdit 1957 and the bar has been raised. L'Interdit

In Bottle: Aldehydes, very strong. Sharp and sparkling, and astringent. It’s approaching that point where it smells like urine as the aldehydes are just so strong in this. I think this may have something to do with the perfume’s age making the aldehydes stronger than they should be.

Applied: More aldehydes! The sharpness and sparkle are fleeting on the skin though as they start to evaporate but never quite leave, lending L’Interdit a constant status of glitz and high perfumery. The fragrance calms down a bit into a soft floral with touches of fruit here and there giving it a sweetness. It’s gentle like a like touch, and easy to wear. It doesn’t smell clean or fresh, just warm and gentle. The mid-stage is dominated with floral notes as sheer and light as the non-aldehyde notes in the opener. L’Interdit is  so easy to love as it approaches the dry down with a splash of incense over a bed of flowers and powder. It ushers out with a final flare of woodsy incense.

Extra: L’Interdit was composed in the 1950s for Audrey Hepburn. They released it for the public on 1957 with Hepburn  endorsing it. L’Interdit was composed by Francis Fabron. The man who created Nina Ricci’s L’Air du Temps. You may find it difficult to find the original L’Interdit in stores today but a recent reissue in 2007 of L’Interdit smells as close as you’re going to get.

Design: Simple glass bottle with a red label and a metal cap to protect the sprayer. L’Interdit knows it doesn’t need to impress you with a flashy bottle and it really doesn’t even try. I can appreciate the bottle for its simplicity though and its high contrast design.

Fragrance Family: Floral

Notes: : Aldehydes, galbanum, peach, bergamot, jasmine, rose, narcissus, lily of the valley, incense, sandalwood, benzoin, tonka, amber, musk, vetiver.

I didn’t get an exact date on how old this bottle of L’Interdit was so we compromised with a reasonable year.

Reviewed in This Post: L’Interdit, circa 1970, Eau de Toilette.